Blogging the San Diego Padres… established 1997

Is it just me, or is the Padres’ strategy of building through trade rather than via free agency this winter starting to make a lot of sense? Omar Vizquel at 3 years for $12.25M? Cristian Guzman at 4 years for $16.8M? (And aren’t you glad we have Khalil Greene!) The Phillies re-signed Cory Lidle yesterday at 2 years for $6.3M. Lidle was one of the guys I thought would have been nice at the back end of the Padres rotation. Had I guessed he’d sign for that much, I wouldn’t have put him on my wish list.

Anyway, where were we? Ah yes, we’d just finished looking at several key position players and were about to turn our attention to the pitchers…

Andy Ashby: Turned a big corner last season, and I expect him to get even better. The strike probably helped him by not putting undue strain on his arm. When he’s on, he will throw very few pitches in a game; has learned to throw strikes early in the count… (Another part of Randy Smith’s heist of the Rockies, Ashby did improve on his breakthrough 1994 performance (164.1 IP, 3.40 ERA) by spinning a 2.94 ERA in 192 2/3 innings. This turned out to be his best season in the big leagues, although he did pitch very well en route to 17 victories for the Friars in 1998.)

Andy Benes: Not clear at this point where he’ll end up. Cardinals are wooing him with the added inducement of brother Alan, who is a hot prospect in his own right…. I tend to think he’s a bit overrated, but he’s shown some flashes of brilliance that may yet come together. (Coming off a 3.86 ERA over 172 1/3 innings, Benes made 19 starts for San Diego in 1995 before being shipped to the Mariners for Ron Villone and Marc Newfield (both of whom later were part of the deal that brought Greg Vaughn to the Padres). After the season, Benes signed with St. Louis, where he turned in two of his better campaigns. Arguably peaked at age 23. Won 155 big-league games and is viewed by many as a disappointment. Such is the nature of baseball.)

Mark Davis: What a long, strange trip it’s been–right, Marky Mark? But as the Stones and several other wannabes put it, “…I used to love her, but it’s all over now. You may supply your own rock ‘n’ roll lyrics to eulogize this mondo bizarro career. (To say nothing of this mondo bizarro comment. At any rate, Davis didn’t pitch for the Pads in 1995. After spinning an 8.82 ERA over 16 1/3 innings in his second tour with the club (the first, you will recall, netted him a Cy Young Award), Davis didn’t pitch for anyone until 1997, when he worked 16 1/3 innings of equally forgettable baseball for the Brewers before calling it a career and becoming one of the least deserving candidates among the entrants on the 2003 HOF ballot.)

Donnie Elliott: Will still need to be nursed along in the big leagues for at least another year, until he can learn to get lefties out. Pitched extremely well at Jack Murphy. Needs to cut down on the bases on balls if he’s going to become more than muddle relief. (Elliott came over with Mel Nieves in the Fred McGriff trade. After posting a 3.27 ERA in 33 innings as a rookie, worked two more scoreless innings in 1995 but never pitched again in the big leagues after age 26. Sometimes you turn Gary Sheffield into Trevor Hoffman. Other times you turn McGriff into Elliott and Nieves.)

Bryce Florie: Was wild as hell in the minors, but looked good in his nine innings with the big club last year. Probably needs at least a year starting at AAA, but stranger things have happened, let me tell ya. (Florie was the Padres’ most consistent reliever in 1995, working 68 1/3 innings and finishing with a 3.01 ERA. Dealt to Milwaukee the following year in the Greg Vaughn trade. Bounced around a bit before having his career ended by a line drive to the face while with the Boston Red Sox.)

Joey Hamilton: All of the indicators point to Hamilton being a first-rate starter. Intelligent and poised, he rises to the occasion (hitters managed only a .177 BA with men in scoring position) and does all the little things that help pitchers win games. Draft him. (Hamilton is the guy people should think of when they start talking about Benes as a disappointment. In his first full season, Hamilton fashioned a 3.08 ERA over 204 1/3 innings. That marked the only time he finished with an ERA better than league average over a full season.)

Sterling Hitchcock: …I think that we have a 50% chance of seeing a real star pitcher emerge. It is only his command that is keeping him from becoming a dominant starter; the other elements of his game have fallen into place. Highly recommended as a sleeper pick. (Hitch posted a 4.70 ERA in 168 1/3 for the Yankees in 1995, then was traded to Seattle, where he notched a 5.35 ERA over 196 2/3 innings before coming to the Padres. Had an otherworldly post-season in 1998. Career high of 13 wins came with the Mariners. Like Hamilton, made 20 or more starts five times in his career. Like Hamilton, finished with an ERA better than league average in just one of those five seasons (4.11 over 205 2/3 innings in 1999 for the Pads). Like Hamilton, retired with 74 career victories.)

Trevor Hoffman: …a bonafide monster, allowning opponents a .193 BA, and doing something I’ve never seen in the splits: holding hitters to under a .250 BA when behind in the count. If he improves any more, they might have to invent a new game for him. (Hoffy did improve. He improved a lot. After a solid 1994, Hoffman slipped a bit in 1995 (3.88 ERA over 53 1/3 innings) before morphing into one of the most dominant closers in the game over the next five seasons. All time record for most saves by a pitcher for a single team (391 and counting). A future HOFer and one of the reasons Randy Smith isn’t held in as low regard in these parts as he is elsewhere..)

Scott Sanders: I like this guy’s arm, but he’s simply got to make better pitches when men are in scoring position and when he’s behind in the count. If he can improve these areas, he’s got a shot to be a #2-level starter. (Sanders was always a favorite of mine, and I hated it when he was traded to Seattle for Hitchcock. Sanders showed steady improvement with the Padres (4.78 ERA in 1994, 4.30 in 1995, 3.38 in 1996) before heading to the Mariners, where his career effectively ended. Last pitched in the big leagues with the Cubs in 1999. Still kicking around, though, compiling a 7.90 ERA over 98 innings at Albuquerque last year.)

Fernando Valenzuela: Fernando is taking a tour of the worst of major league manglers. Tommy Lasorda, Johnny Oates, and now Jim Fregosi? What’s next? Is Roger Craig going to come out of retirement?… Now a Padre, which is geographically apt, at least. What will rookie skipper Bruce Bochy do to him? (Bochy had Fernando split time in the rotation and out of the ‘pen. Finished with a 4.98 ERA in 90 1/3 innings, compiling an 8-3 record in the process. Valenzuela won 13 more games for the Pads in 1996 before falling apart the following season and calling it a career. Final numbers aren’t that far from those of Benes.)

Woody Williams: Pitched pretty darn well last season, and probably has got the right-handed setup job locked up for awhile. Has to watch out for the gopher ball, as he’s a pronounced flyball pitcher (0.59 G/F). (Williams is a large part of the reason I’m withholding judgment on the acquisition of Darrell May this off-season. When Kevin Towers acquired Williams following the 1998 season for Joey Hamilton, I thought Towers was out of his mind. Hamilton had enormous promise, while Williams looked like a generic #4 starter at best. Williams is 75-50 since the trade and hasn’t had a losing season in six. He’s still going strong at age 37. Hamilton is 19-29 and looks to have thrown his last pitch in the big leagues at age 32.)

Tim Worrell: Todd’s younger brother, built along similar lines…. Was off to a promising start with the Padres last year when he went out after just three starts with an elbow injury that cost him the rest of the year. Has the stuff to be a solid starter if–if–he can get healthy. (Worrell never could get healthy as a starter. He worked just 13 1/3 innings in 1995, before enjoying success as a swingman the following year (121 IP, 3.05 ERA). Eventually became very effective as a full-time reliever, most notably for the Giants during 2001-2003.)

There are a couple other items of interest in the 1995 Big Bad Baseball Annual. We’ll check those out tomorrow.

Before we get started, there is an excellent article on baseball blogging and bloggers called The Disposable Baseball Blogger over at Dodger Thoughts. I tend to get a bit uneasy when the folks reporting the news become the news, but Jon has done a nice job of addressing the subject. If you’re at all interested in baseball blogs (and I can only assume that if you’re reading this, you are), head over and give it a read.

That said, we now turn our focus to the 1995 Big Bad Baseball Annual. If you missed it, this was an excellent baseball annual published under various names from 1989-2000. Essentially it was the successor to the great Baseball Abstract books Bill James had produced from 1977-1988. Some of the folks behind BBBA have since made a significant contribution to baseball on the Web: You should certainly know of Jim Furtado’s Baseball Think Factory and Sean Forman’s Baseball Reference.

There is a great deal of information contained in this volume’s 493 pages. Along with team essays and player comments, there is a look at players who were born in 1895 (hint: Babe Ruth leads this group with 17 shutouts and is second with 94 wins as a pitcher), as well as studies on pitcher workload and lineup optimization. It also, as a sign of the times, reprinted David Grabiner’s Frequently Asked Questions About the 1994 Strike. When the book went to press, there was a very real fear that there would be no 1995 season.

Of course, there was, and so we can go back and re-examine some of the things they said in the book. We’ll stick to stuff that is near and dear to the hearts of Padre fans. First, some player comments (with my own comments in italics following the original):

Brad Ausmus: Sophomore Slump stripped him of his power. There are worse catchers, but not many who start all year. (Ausmus, who had come to San Diego with Andy Ashby and Doug Bochtler for Greg Harris and Bruce Hurst in one of Randy Smith’s best trades from the 1993 Fire Sale, followed up his poor .251/.314/.358 showing in 1994 with a solid .293/.353/.412 line. He also stole 16 bases for the Friars in 1995 before being shipped to Detroit for the considerably slower John Flaherty midway through the following season.)

Ken Caminiti: His weaknesses as a cleanup man had a lot to do with the inefficiency of the Astro offense the last couple of years. Now with San Diego, where it doesn’t matter where he hits. In the middle of the pack as a starting third baseman. (Caminiti hit .302/.380/.513 in his first year with the Padres; he won the NL MVP the following season.)

Andujar Cedeno: …He’s frustrating to watch, because he makes big, flashy errors, and because he looks so awful when he swings at some pitch two feet out of the strike zone. But he has power, and he’s fast, and he has range, and he has an arm, and there aren’t that many people who have that many plusses at shortstop. (Cedeno, also acquired in the Caminiti deal, hit .210/.271/.308; by the end of 1996 he was out of baseball at age 26.)

Steve Finley: As the rankings show, Steve is neither a great center fielder nor a great leadoff man. The Astros needed to get him off the roster and get someone on who was better. They did that. (Finley hit .297/.366/.420 in his first season as a Padre. In the 10 years since the Astros got him off their roster, he has hit 248 home runs. He’s also won five gold gloves in center field. The man who took over for Finley in center? Brian Hunter, whom Padre fans may (or may not) remember as the guy traded for Kerry Robinson.)

Tony Gwynn: People know that Jack Murphy Stadium is a hitters’ park, and that’s true. But the reason that it is true is that the park inflates home runs. Tony Gwynn does not make his living hitting home runs, and our sophisticated adjustments take that into account. Tony’s Sabermetric Batting Line is actually better than his actual line. And therefore, this #1 ranking. (Gwynn hit .368/.404/.484 in 1995; what’s most remarkable about that is that it represented a significant drop from his .394/.454/.568 of a season earlier. But he’s no Ichiro!)

Ryan Klesko: Braves used Ryan the only way they could, as a left-handed platoon left fielder. Klesko had a good rookie season in the majors and should continue to improve, but the Braves need to get him out of the outfield…. It has been rumored that the Braves are interested in the Giants’ Rod Beck, I hope the Giants are smart enough to get Ryan in the deal if they are dumb enough to get rid of Beck. (Klesko still can’t play the outfield. Beck, of course, also had his own place in Padre lore.)

Ray McDavid: …I’d say Ray needs another year at Las Vegas to see if he can hone his skills a bit more. (Sadly, McDavid notched all of 17 big-league at-bats after this comment was written. One of the Padres’ brighter prospects of the early ’90s, he’d played his last game at age 23 and finished up with a .222/.271/.244 line in 45 at-bats.)

Melvin Nieves: Memo to Bruce Bochy: Put this guy in left, leave him there all year, win more ball games, keep your job. Resist temptation to play Bip Roberts in left and Luis Lopez at second on an everyday basis. Nieves is ready and you need the HR pop in your lineup. (Bochy did stick with Nieves for much of the year and was rewarded with a .205/.276/.419 line. Bochy kept his job, Nieves did not. He was shipped off to the Tigers and, like Cedeno, out of baseball at age 26. Nieves was the player the Padres settled on in the Fred McGriff deal when the Braves refused to part with Klesko.)

Cory Snyder: Still has power. Still won’t take a walk. Now is over 30. (Coming off a .235/.300/.392 season in LA, Snyder never played a single game for the Padres. Never played another big-league game for anyone else, either.)

Eddie Williams: A tremendous comeback story, Williams has battled back from illness and injury to become a solid major leaguer and a 25+ homer threat for the next several seasons. One of the things that makes baseball great (despite everything it does to us) is that good guys like Williams finally break through, get a chance, and succeed after they’ve long been given up for dead. I can feel my eyes starting to tear up as I write this, so I’m going to shut up now… (Williams had been a top prospect of the Cleveland Indians back in the mid-’80s and was coming off a spectacular .331/.392/.594 line in 175 at-bats; despite a respectable .260/.320/.426 showing with the Pads in 1995, he was very near the end of a career that saw him finish with 288 hits and 39 homers in just under 400 games.)

Enough for one day. We’ll take a look at the pitchers tomorrow…

Too sexy? Too lame is more like it. Anyway, here is what a couple of Royals blogs are saying about Monday’s trade:

• Royals Nightly doesn’t like it
• Royals Baseball does

Everything really hinges on how well Dennis Tankersley does. If he blossoms, this could be a terrific deal for the Royals. Oh, and for any KC fans looking for info on Tank, here’s what I’ve written about him over the years.

To recap, the Padres current pitching staff looks more or less like this:

Rotation '05 sal          '04 stats
                     IP   H BB  SO HR  ERA
Eaton     $3.2M   199.1 204 52 153 28 4.61
Lawrence  $2.25M  203.0 226 55 121 26 4.12
Peavy     $2.5M*  166.1 146 53 173 13 2.27
May       $3.2M   186.0 234 55 120 38 5.61

Sweeney   $0.3M?  153.0 150 44 120 17 4.00

Bullpen   '05 sal        '04 stats
                     IP   H BB  SO HR  ERA
Hoffman   $5.0M    54.2  42  8  53  5 2.30
Otsuka    $0.8M    77.1  56 26  87  6 1.75
Linebrink $1.2M*   84.0  61 26  83  8 2.14
Neal      $0.3M?   42.0  49 11  36  6 4.07
Bukvich   $0.3M?   54.2  37 37  67  4 4.28

Baker     $0.3M?   66.0  42 28  85  2 1.50

Note. Sweeney and Bukvich split time between Triple-A and the big leagues; Baker split time between Double- and Triple-A.
*Estimated 2005 salary based on comparisons with similar players.
?Not sure of salary, but I think it’s league minimum.

The Dodgers supposedly are interested in David Wells. If they get into the bidding along with the Yanks, it definitely would not be in the Pads’ best interest to even think about him. They simply cannot afford to throw a bunch of guaranteed money at a guy his age.

I don’t think the Padres are done here. Sweeney in the #5 spot isn’t horrible, although I still think signing a guy like Cory Lidle would make sense. Whoever they end up putting there likely is just keeping the spot warm for Tim Stauffer anyway. And if Sweeney doesn’t stick in the rotation, he’d probably make a good swingman.

At this point I’m thinking Kevin Towers is more likely to pursue some bullpen arms. Neal showed signs last year, and Baker had a tremendous season but has no big-league experience. Bukvich’s numbers aren’t too encouraging, unless you’re one of those folks who haven’t yet gotten over the loss of Luther Hackman.

While we all anxiously await the signing of Dave Burba, Dan Miceli, or some other similarly generic reliever, let’s see what else is going on:

• Mike has a look at attendance patterns in new ballparks over at Mike’s Baseball Rants. Using history as his guide, Mike estimates that the Padres will generate roughly $2.7M less in ticket revenue next year than in 2004. He also refers to us as “Pod People”, which may be complimentary but probably isn’t.
• NL ERA Champ Jake Peavy may not have gotten a single Cy Young Award vote, but he did beat a team of Japanese All-Stars.
• Storm add two years to deal with Padres (NC Times). Everyone seems happy with the arrangement.
• Arizona Fall League Notebook: Chris Oxspring (Baseball America). Notes on the Aussie Olympic hero who could end up on the big-league pitching staff sooner rather than later.

That’s all for now. More as it happens…

The votes are in, and former Padre Jason Bay has won the NL ROY Award. I think the writers got bailed out to a certain degree by the fact that there were two very worthy candidates this year. The fact that Bay won it so convincingly over Khalil Greene suggests that the writers still don’t quite get it. This should have been an extremely close race.

No matter. It’s still pretty cool that the Pads had two of the top three vote getters (Aki Otsuka finished third), while the third netted them Brian Giles. With those three guys and the likes of Sean Burroughs, Adam Eaton, Brian Lawrence, and Jake Peavy (and Ollie Perez), this has been a very productive farm system over the past 4-5 years.

Anyway, congrats to Bay. Good to see him (and Perez) get a chance to shine in Pittsburgh. Greene, not surprisingly, took the news in stride.

And in the other big news of the day, the Padres found a taker for Terrence Long. He and former top prospect Dennis Tankersley have been shipped to Kansas City for LHP Darrell May and RHP Ryan Bukvich.

I’m a little torn on this one. On the one hand, the Padres got rid of a $4.7M backup corner outfielder. Long actually had a halfway decent season in 2004, but with similar (or better) players available for a fraction of the cost, he won’t be missed one bit. Long’s spot can easily be replaced from without (Jack Cust?) or from within (Jon Knott?).

On the other hand, May has a 4.98 ERA in nearly 600 career innings. He’s coming off a 5.61 ERA season. Opponents hit him to the tune of .306/.351/.555 last year. In looking for positives I see that he had a 3.50 ERA in five July starts. Decent SO/BB ratio (120/55). Didn’t lose 20 games.

Bukvich? Who knows. Has a 6.54 ERA in 42 2/3 big-league innings. Averages 7.38 walks per 9 innings in his career. Presumably he’ll compete for a spot at the back end of the bullpen. Hey, somebody has to fill Ricky Stone’s shoes.

I think the one intriguing guy in all this is Tankersley. It became pretty evident when the Padres sent him back to Triple-A after he’d pitched well in Ismael Valdez’ spot in June that Tank didn’t have much of a future in San Diego. He’s still young enough and talented enough that he could make an impact, although it may be in a Jay Witasick kind of way.

Fiscal impact? Long was slated to make $4.7M, May gets $3.2M. I’m assuming the other two are making close to MLB minimum and are a wash. According to ESPN the Pads also sent about $1M to the Royals. Basically San Diego traded a mediocre outfielder for a mediocre pitcher, swapped a couple of relatively unknown arms, and cleared $500k. Pretty exciting, huh? The Transaction Oracle sure thinks so. He also thinks the two pitchers coming to San Diego will post sub-5.00 ERAs next year.

Oh, and the other thing this deal does is totally screw up my speculation about what moves the Pads might make this off-season. But I like the fact that my thought process wasn’t too far off. I was thinking of another mediocre 32-year-old southpaw in John Halama. Basically May is the same pitcher only not quite as good and not quite as cheap. Then again, signing Halama wouldn’t have gotten rid of Long.

Isn’t it fascinating the way these things work?

Trying very, very hard to keep politics out of this site. A few quick notes, then we’ll get on with life:

• Geologically speaking, 4 years isn’t a long time. The Earth was here well before we arrived, and it will be here well after we’re gone. God bless the Earth.
• Not that any other state would want me, but I can’t see moving out of California anytime soon.
• Cleaning up one’s own mess is good for the soul.
• Depressed? Try the Serenity Prayer. Not working? How about a drink, instead. Or maybe the Serenity Prayer Drinking Game^TM. One person recites the prayer, pausing at the end of each line, at which time the other person takes a shot. Repeat till you reach the end of the prayer, then switch roles. Alone? Not a problem, just do the whole thing twice.
• If you want to see a guitarist play with a great deal of anger, come see my band this weekend. “Machinehead” by the British band Bush promises to be interesting. There is a part in the middle of that song where I repeatedly hit my guitar above the pickups and let it ring through the amp. I hope I don’t break my hand.

Okay, enough of that. We did what we could, now we hope for the best for our nation. The same, he cleverly transited, can be said of the Padres bullpen.

Trevor Hoffman ($5.0M) and Aki Otsuka ($800K) are under contract. Scott Linebrink is arbitration eligible, and I can’t find any figures for Blaine Neal. The club also will pay Rod Beck and Jay Witasick $350K not to pitch.

The Padres employed a 12-man pitching staff for much of 2004, so it’s conceivable that they could add three more arms to the mix. Hopefully none will be of the “lefty for the sake of lefty” or “hey, look what I found in the Rule V” variety this year.

We’ve already looked at some of the in-house candidates, including right-handers Brian Sweeney, Dennis Tankersley, and Chris Oxspring. Right-hander Brad Baker, and left-handers Mike Bynum and Edgar Huerta could also get looks. And the Pads could always bring back Antonio Osuna, who pitched very well when healthy (especially down the stretch).

What about guys on the free agent market? First off, throw out the former closers (Antonio Alfonseca, Matt Mantei, Troy Percival, Bob Wickman). They’ll all command too much due to their save totals. Actually, Alfonseca hasn’t had a save since 2002 so he might be okay. Mantei might not be that expensive either due to his injury history, but why take the chance?

Then there are the generic middle relievers (Terry Adams, Ricky Bottalico, Doug Brocail, Dave Burba, Cal Eldred, Alan Levine, Ramiro Mendoza, Dan Miceli, Jay Powell, David Weathers). My feeling on these guys is, if you can get one of ‘em cheap enough, go for it. They’re veterans, they know what they’re doing, they can help take the pressure off the higher-leverage pitchers on a staff. From where I sit, these guys are pretty interchangeable and I’d go with whichever one fits in the budget. If that turns out to be none of the above, I wouldn’t sweat it too much.

Next up, the obligatory southpaws (Rheal Cormier, Chris Hammond, Kent Mercker, Steve Kline). All four of these guys pitched very well in 2004. Only Kline will be under 37 years old next season. Unfortunately he also is coming off a 1.79 ERA for a World Series team. Can you say pinstripes?

There is one other left-hander who merits watching, and that is John Halama. He filed for free agency after our look at the available starting pitchers, but Halama has big-league experience as a starter and a reliever. Durable, versatile, consistent. Pretty useful dude. Sort of a left-handed version of Dustin Hermanson (who also wouldn’t be a horrible pickup at the right price).

Of course, I’ve saved the “intriguing” arms for last. One of ‘em is former Padre Rudy Seanez. Still throws hard, still effective when healthy. But he’s basically an older version of Osuna, so why not just re-sign the latter instead? The others I would want to at least take a look at include Chad Fox, Scott Williamson, Esteban Yan, and Jeff Zimmerman. Yan has electric stuff but hasn’t figured out how to use it. The other three have consistently posted great numbers when healthy, which hasn’t been very often.

Who would I target? In alphabetical order, Halama, Hermanson, and Yan. Maybe Fox or Williamson. Whichever of the generic middle relievers is cheapest. I think Halama right now is one of the most useful pitchers available to the Padres. He’s reasonably young, he’s left-handed, he has a good idea how to pitch, he can take the ball in just about any situation. Yan fascinates me because he hits high-90s with regularity. Seems like the kind of kid a good pitching coach could turn into something. Sounds like a project potentially worth Darren Balsley’s time and effort.

So what’s our theoretical pitching staff now? Jake Peavy, Brian Lawrence, Adam Eaton, Hoffman, Otsuka, Linebrink for sure. Then whichever five stick out of Baker, Halama, Lidle, Neal, Osuna, Reyes, Bud Smith, Sweeney, Tankersley, and Yan. Not a lot of world-beaters there, but remember that at the beginning of last year the Pads had Eddie Oropesa, Jason Szuminski, and Ismael Valdez on their staff.

I’m just sayin’…