Blogging the San Diego Padres… established 1997

The Padres claimed catcher Tom Wilson off waivers from the Toronto Blue Jays and DFA’d Brandon Villafuerte to make room for him. Wilson isn’t highly regarded defensively, but he can hit a little, especially against southpaws (.299/.387/.421 last year). Wilson draws some walks and hits some doubles. He’s from Fullerton. He played with the A’s before going to Toronto, so he’s sabermetrically approved. And by all accounts, he’s a darned good guy.

At any rate, Wilson’s presence probably means Humberto Quintero gets to start the season at Portland. And what will happen to Miguel Ojeda, who appears to be a very similar hitter to Wilson, is anybody’s guess.

A couple of takes on the move:

• Batter’s Box
• Baseball Primer: Transaction Oracle

It’s been a busy week at work and I’m fried, so that’s all for today. Later…

Before we get started, I’d just like to clarify something I said yesterday. I made a flippant comment about anti-depressants. Just for the record, I’m not actually on any medication. However, if I were, I wouldn’t deny that fact for 14 years before coming clean.

Speaking of which, can we all just agree to ignore baseball’s version of Voldemort until he goes away? I realize I’m not helping the cause here, but I’ll be brief.

• Now that PR has admitted to betting on baseball, he is a known cheater and a known liar. This helps his case for reinstatement how? This helps his credibility how?
• Some folks don’t think PR belongs in the Hall of Fame even after his admission. That doesn’t sit well with me. I say, if he pays his admission, you have to let him in. To do otherwise would be discrimination, plain and simple.
• Does it bother anyone else that the initials of the key players in this mess are PR and BS? Has anything good ever come out of the union of PR and BS?

I could get worked up about this a lot more than I already am, but what’s the use. It’s a pathetic story that won’t have a happy ending no matter how it plays out. The weeds in my backyard have more integrity than PR. And frankly, at this point, they are more deserving of my attention.

More Cirillo Thoughts

It’s not mailbag day, but this showed up in my in-box, from Steve Nelson of Mariners Wheelhouse:

Just cruised on over to see the Padres bloggers’ uptake on Cirillo. Most of us here in the Seattle blogging community think San Diego is the clear winner on this deal.

Honestly, in my own selfish way, I neglected even to think of the deal from the Seattle’s standpoint. Now that I do, I have to ask: What’s in it for the M’s? Seriously. I could understand looking to shed Cirillo’s contract, but they didn’t even manage to do that. And for whatever else anyone may think of Cirillo, at least the guy used to be good. Kevin Jarvis and Wiki Gonzalez used to be, um, Padres.

I caught a snippet of Kevin Towers on the local news last night, and he reiterated that Cirillo will not be starting here. Towers also mentioned that Cirillo’s potential trade value during the season was a factor in acquiring him. Shades of Ed Sprague?

As for the Seattle blogging community, can you feel the love:

• Mariners Wheelhouse — [Mariners' GM Bill] Bavasi is going to need to get more minutes on his cell phone this week. Every GM in baseball with crap they want to get rid of is going to start calling Bavasi, anxious to do deals and see what other useful players they can pry out of Seattle.
• Sports and Bremertonians — Thanks a lot Al Harris. If it weren’t for your sorry dreadlocked ass, I wouldn’t even care too much about Kevin friggin Jarvis being a Mariner this week. But NOOOOOOOOO, you just had to intercept that pass from Matt Hasselbeck, making Seattle sports fans sad one more time.
• At Least The Red Sox Have 1918 — Cirillo was due to make $6.7 million. Jarvis, Hansen, and Gonzalez are due about $5.5 million next year and are, combined, approximately three times as useless as Jeff Cirillo.
• The Safest Blog on the Web — The main problems seem to be that [1] we are not filling holes but rather acquiring players for positions we don’t need, as if Bavasi fears that a disease will plague the earth that will ravage first basemen and catchers only, and [2] this team is rapidly ageing.
• U.S.S. Mariner — Dave [blogger David Cameron] has discussed Gonzalez and Jarvis at length… basically, they’re both crap. Hansen is sort of a Dave Magadan-type left-handed bat off the bench, except not quite as good. At age 35, his best skill is getting on base by drawing a pinch-hit walk.

I don’t know what to say. I didn’t think the trade looked that great from the Pads’ perspective, but looking at it from the other side, I’m a little horrified by this. I would like to offer M’s fans some words of comfort here, but I really can’t. So I’ll be graceful and say a quiet thanks.

More links:

• Six-player trade with M’s expected (NC Times)
• Padres complete deal for Cirillo (U-T). The minor-leaguer headed to Seattle is reported to be former #1 pick Vince Faison
• Baseball Primer — Give your two cents over at Primer

And for those of you keeping score at home, here are the changes from Opening Day last year to today:

And of course a healthy Trevor Hoffman. The lineup features Hernandez, Nevin, Greene, and Giles in the place of Gonzalez, White, Vazquez, and Kotsay. The rotation offers Wells and Hitchcock/Valdes instead of Perez and Jarivs. The bullpen, obviously, is much improved.

Actually, when you step back and take a good look at the big picture, there’s a renewed sense of optimism. Such is baseball in January. Savor it now, for Opening Day will be here before we know it.

Continuing the Padres’ Offseason of Bewilderment™, third baseman Jeff Cirillo is coming to San Diego (U-T) from the Mariners in exchange for Kevin Jarvis, Wiki Gonzalez, and Dave Hansen. Minor leaguers also are a part of the deal, although names have not been announced (speculation has centered on Mariners’ farmhand Brian Sweeney). A boatload of cash is also coming to the Pads. No word on how, or if, that cash will be spent.

Cirillo is expensive: He’s due to make $7M each of the next two years. On the other hand, he only takes up one roster spot and he was a pretty good ballplayer with Milwaukee in the late ’90s. Hard to say exactly how the Pads will use Cirillo. Almost all of his big-league experience is at the hot corner, although former and now current teammate Mark Loretta thinks he can play anywhere on the infield. One thing’s for sure: Unless Khalil Greene completely implodes this spring, there are no vacancies on the Padre infield. And having two guys (Cirillo and Ramon Vazquez) who have had experience as starters backing up the regulars isn’t a bad thing.

The trading of Gonzalez opens up the backup catcher position. Miguel Ojeda and Humberto Quintero are the only other backstops on the 40-man roster. Ojeda can hit a little, Quintero is the superior defender. Might I suggest free agent Bobby Estalella?

Jarvis’ departure streamlines the battle for #5 to Sterling Hitchcock, Ismael Valdes, and Ben Howard, in that order. If Howard doesn’t make the team, he’ll start at Portland and be first in line for a call-up. This is speculation on my part, but I’m thinking the trade of Jarvis increases Jay Witasick’s chances of sticking with the club. Jarvis conceivably could have made the staff as a reliever. Seems to me those last couple of spots in the bullpen will come down to Mike Bynum, Scott Linebrink, Brandon Villafuerte, and Witasick. Right now Witasick and Linebrink have to be considered the favorites.

Hansen’s spot could be taken by Todd Sears or Henri Stanley, I suppose.

I guess when all is said and done, I’m pretty neutral on this deal. There’s something to be said for consolidating your bad contracts. Gonzalez wasn’t helping the club at all. I’m not sure how much Cirillo will help, but he’s new blood. Change of scenery and all that.

Trying to get worked up one way or the other about the trade. Finding it difficult to do so. Aren’t anti-depressants wonderful? You don’t feel good, you don’t feel bad. You don’t feel anything. Have a nice day.

Apologies to J.D. Salinger for the headline, but I couldn’t resist. Neither, apparently, could the Padres, who have inked soon-to-be 41-year-old left-hander David Wells to be–wait for it–the #1 starter in the rotation this year. According to reports, he’s guaranteed $1.5M, with incentives possibly pushing it as high as $7M.

Here is his ZiPS projection for 2004:

 IP  H  HR BB  SO  ERA
193 220 22 32  99 4.48
193 204 18 35 107 3.87

The top row is Wells’ projection before the trade, the bottom his new numbers. I’m a little surprised to see such a large difference in projected hits allowed and ERA as a result of his moving from Yankee Stadium to Petco (penthouse to doghouse?). The good news, I suppose, is that Wells’ ERA has been above league-average every season since 1997 (ERA+ ranging from 102 to 128 in that period).

The bad news is just about everything else. Wells turns 41 years old in May. He’s coming off back surgery. He’s a Type A free agent, so the Pads lose a second-round draft pick in signing him (ironically, Wells himself was a second-round pick back in the day). He’s not a #1 starter, in any sense of the term.

This is the savior? This is the man to lead the Padres’ young rotation? This is a 41-year-old guy with a good appetite and a bad back. I don’t get it. This was the off-season things were supposed to happen. There were a few nice moves made. The deal with the A’s wasn’t great but it filled a gaping hole. Kevin Towers built a potentially very solid bullpen on the cheap. But right now it looks like the Pads are planning to go into the season without a true center fielder and without a true #1 starter. One or the other I could stomach. But I thought one of the points of assembling such an inexpensive bullpen was that it would help free up money for a Mike Cameron or a Greg Maddux. No offense, but Eugene Kingsale and David Wells isn’t an acceptable substitute.

I’m actually not against the signing of Wells in vacuo. He led the AL in pitches per batter last year at 3.39 (Maddux led the NL at 3.26), and if the young Padre hurlers could stand to learn anything, it’s how to be more efficient. Wells also is fifth among active pitchers with 750 or more innings in walks per nine innings at 1.99 (Maddux is fourth at 1.90). And he did walk an astonishing 20 batters in 213 innings last year. So if that aspect of his game can rub off on the kids, maybe that’s not a bad thing.

But the surrounding circumstances make this one a little difficult to swallow. The fans and media have been primed for a #1 starter this off-season, particularly Maddux, who now is deemed too expensive. Instead, we get Valdes and Sterling Hitchcock to fill the back of the rotation, and Wells is supposed to be the final piece in the puzzle? Sorry, I don’t buy it. If the Pads had made this move last month, before they’d started signing low-risk, low-reward pitchers for the back end of the rotation, I’d have loved it. Wells would have been a terrific #3 or #4 guy on this ballclub. His signing then would have shown that the Padres were serious and that maybe this was a prelude to bigger things to come. But to ink him now, as an alternative to the #1 starter we were all led to believe would land here, is a curious move for a variety of reasons.

First, the Padres have money. They’re not spending it, but they have it. Why else advertise the fact that you intend to be players in the off-season before moving into Petco? Why else all the talk about Cameron, Maddux, and a slew of other free agents? Wells has the name, but in my mind, the biggest signing so far is Akinori Otsuka. With all due respect to Otsuka, about whom I have a very good feeling, if he’s your big free agent signing, you aren’t a player.

Second, the Padres don’t have a bevy of talented young pitchers coming up through the system like they did a few years ago. When Wells hangs ‘em up after the season (assuming his back and other body parts hold up that long), who is going to step in to replace him? Sign Maddux to a 2- or 3-year pact, and you don’t need to ask that question. The only thing I can figure is that Towers doesn’t think this is the year for the Padres and he’s punting again, saving his money for the #1 pick in the June draft and/or members of the 2004-05 free agent class. But how much longer is this cycle going to persist? We were told that this winter would be different, that the Padres would make some moves. And we watched as player after player signed elsewhere, and the pool of available talent slowly dried up. Jay Payton is still available and by most accounts can play a passable center field. Not that he’s great, but even just as a gesture?

The other problem I have, beyond the dubious message Wells’ signing sends to Padre fans, is what this says to their players. This team and organization, which despite outward appearances have been making a lot of good progress over the past few years, are in serious danger of losing credibility. Funny how nobody pays attention to the Pads until they pick up an ex-Yankee. Now we’ve got opinions galore. Check these out:

From Baseball Musings:

The Padres expect Wells to lead their rotation, which says to me they don’t think much of their starters. Still, local man makes good, and he’ll be a draw at the new stadium.

And from Mike’s Baseball Rants:

The deal makes no sense for the floundering Padres, who cannot hope to finish any higher than third in 2004, except for the fact that they are moving into a new stadium and perhaps think they can draw a few extra fans with Wells’ name.

Both of these guys, without knowing much about the Pads, reached the same conclusion: that the signing doesn’t make much sense for the club beyond the additional seats he may fill. It’s a valid conclusion, although if Padre brass truly believes that signing a 41-year-old pitcher with a bad back is going to help the bottom line, I think they’re in for a rude surprise. We’ve waited a long time, some of us more patiently than others. And now, when it is supposed to be our turn, we get shortchanged again. This is supposed to be a draw at Petco? I don’t think so. There are many establishments in town that are likely to benefit from Wells’ arrival here, but I don’t believe Petco Park will be one of them.

The real shame of it is, this latest bout of inactivity is undermining and overshadowing a lot of positive work that has been done in laying down the foundation over the past few years. And its reinforcing a lot of the negative feelings fans have toward the organization’s commitment to winning. If Wells is the final piece in the puzzle, there are going to be a lot of folks who ignore the Brian Giles acquisition, the development of Sean Burroughs, and the good young arms. Instead they’ll just stand there staring at the puzzle, wondering whether it really is finished and if so, what the heck it is supposed to be.

Here is more coverage of the Wells signing. It’s more than we’re used to around these parts because he was a Yankee and folks outside of So Cal know who he is:

• Padres go to the Wells for new hurler (NC Times). And while starring for the Pointers [Pt. Loma High School], Wells dueled with Padres pitching coach Darren Balsley, a Mt. Carmel High alumnus. Balsley was the winner of a 1-0 classic in the CIF Class 3A championship game in 1981. Hey, what the heck, why not throw Balsley into the rotation while we’re at it.
• Padres place bet on Wells for 2004 (U-T). “Am I worried about David backing out?” Towers asked rhetorically. “No.” So much for that idea.
• Padres shell out bucks prudently (U-T). This is Nick Canepa’s apology. I guess if he talked to John Moores, then he must be the bearer of truth. Sigh.
• Everything Warren Buffett Knows He Learned From The Padres (Management by Baseball). Fascinating take on the signing from a blog I’ve just discovered. Obtain a player who the market values as over the hill at a low price and see if you can squeeze value out of the resource for a few years or more. He also refers to San Diego as a "hedonist sun-worshipping burg," which leads me to think that maybe I’m living in the wrong part of town.
• Transaction Oracle — Dan offers a much more concise version of what I’ve attempted to say. There’s no fastball to lose and no athletic figure to thicken, so as long as his control remains, I expect Wells to be effective. That being said, I don’t like this at all from the Padres’ perspective – they’re just not at the point in the competitive cycle that they should be giving up 2 (sic) draft picks for a decent +40 starter.
• Baseball: David Wells signs one-year contract with Padres (channelnewsasia.com). This made the headlines in Singapore, where they probably think he’s been demoted to the minor leagues and maybe they’re right.
• Baseball Primer discussion. Maybe, like me, after absorbing this news, you need a good laugh. If you like juvenile fat jokes, this thread could serve as a nice respite from reality, if only for a few moments. It is recommended not to eat or drink while reading these comments.

That’s all I’m going to say for now. I’m trying to stay positive. I can’t find a way to put a good spin on this move. It’s not even that one player will make that much of a difference, but the apparent lack of commitment is disheartening, to say the least. Nobody wants the Padres to spend irresponsibly, but there’s a difference between being smart and being cheap. And right now, it’s looking like the Pads are cheaper than they are smart. And that, from this fan’s perspective, is very disappointing.

Happy New Year. Peace. Hope for a brighter future, whenever that may be…

Before I resume with my frantic end-of-year desk-clearing activities, I’d like to take a quick moment to congratulate LaDainian Tomlinson on his record-setting season. What he accomplished on the football field (1600+ rushing yards, 100 receptions) is nothing short of miraculous given the general lack of talent around him. There isn’t much worth watching on the Chargers these days, but Tomlinson truly is a spectacular talent. I hope he one day gets the recognition (and good football team) he deserves.

I grew up with Air Coryell, and it pains me to see the Chargers organization in such a mess. I could rant about that for days, but I’ve largely lost interest and at this point I wouldn’t mind seeing Alex Spanos and company leave town. Besides, we talk about baseball here. With that in mind…

Shortly after the season I jotted some notes about Peavy’s 2003 campaign and my thoughts on what might lie ahead for the Pads’ most promising young pitcher to come around in a long time. I think I may have shared some of these in slightly different form elsewhere but I’m not sure. If it seems overly familiar, I apologize.

Positives

• Held opponents to .238 average in his first full season, at age 22
• Decent strikeout rate (7.21/9 IP)
• No huge lefty/righty splits (.246/.324/.445 vs LHB; .230/.307/.400 vs RHB)
• Got stronger as the season progressed (appreciably lower ERA, OppBA, HR/9; higher SO/9 after All-Star break)
• Good velocity and movement
• Fluid, repeatable delivery
• Solid understanding of how to work hitters for a guy his age
• Bulldog mentality (cliche, but also true; think Kevin Brown)
• Will have a full year working with Darren Balsley, his pitching coach at Elsinore and Mobile in 2001-2002

Negatives

• Too many innings (194.2); I’d have liked to seen him shut down about three or four starts earlier
• Thirty-two homers allowed; this should improve with experience
• Too many walks (80); he’s always had good command, so this should also improve
• A bit emotional at times (which could be a positive if he learns to
  channel his energy)
• Sometimes has trouble putting hitters away after getting ahead of them
• Won’t have Gary Bennett in 2004

Here are some splits for Peavy:

                 IP   H HR BB SO  ERA
Pre All-Star  116.2 112 21 49 88 4.55
Post All-Star  78.0  61 12 33 68 3.46

  H/9 HR/9 BB/9 SO/9 SO/BB
 8.64 1.62 3.78 6.79  1.80
 7.04 1.38 3.81 7.85  2.06

This progression is real encouraging. Peavy dropped his ERA a full run and improved all of his peripheral numbers by quite a bit in the second half of the season. Here are some monthly breakdowns:

      IP  ERA   BA
Apr 29.1 3.99 .220
May 39.0 4.15 .260
Jun 39.1 3.43 .233
Jul 21.1 8.86 .322
Aug 36.1 2.73 .188
Sep 29.1 3.38 .224

Peavy tried to pitch through an injury in July. Take out those four starts, and here’s what you get:

   IP   H HR BB  SO  ERA
173.1 145 26 68 140 3.53

  H/9 HR/9 BB/9 SO/9 SO/BB
 7.53 1.35 3.53 7.27  2.06

I hear Peavy compared to Greg Maddux a lot, but I don’t think that’s right. They’re similar in stature, athleticism, and competitiveness. But Peavy throws harder and doesn’t have that kind of command (who does?).

I’m thinking more along the lines of Andy Benes or a better Andy Ashby (in their primes). Contemporary guys? I dunno. Kevin Millwood, Javier Vazquez, and Kip Wells are a few names that come to mind. Brett Myers is the most similar pitcher to Peavy at the same age.

My biggest concerns with Peavy at this point are his workload and gopheritis, in that order. I’m hoping that his conditioning and mechanics will be enough to offset the innings and keep him away from major injury, but at his age, you never know. As for the homers, I think time and experience will take care of that problem.

What do I expect from Peavy in 2004? I think he’ll improve on last year’s numbers, but probably not be as good as his second half of 2003. Bearing in mind the unknown effects of Petco Park, the loss of Gary Bennett, the heavy workload last year, and the general unpredictability of young pitchers, I’ll temper my enthusiasm and put the over/under on his ERA at 3.90. That may be conservative.

Regardless of what happens this year, if Peavy stays healthy, the sky is the limit. With his combination of stuff and savvy, he’ll be one of the top 30-40 starting pitchers in baseball by 2006 at the latest. I don’t mean to put undue pressure on the guy (doubtful that it’s any more than he puts on himself), but I’m really, really looking forward to watching Peavy work his magic at Petco for years to come.

Hope you all had an excellent Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanzaa/Festivus. Now that the year is almost at end, it’s time to reflect… Aw, to heck with that. I’m just going to talk about a bunch of different stuff that I’ve been meaning to get to for a while but for one reason or another haven’t. So if you notice that today’s entry is more disjointed than usual, rest assured, it’s all in your head.

More Rotation Stuff

I thought I’d take a closer look at the contestants for the #5 spot in the 2004 Padres rotation. These are the combined numbers from 2000 to 2003 for each of the three pitchers, prorated to 200 innings for easier comparison.

           IP   H HR BB  SO  ERA
Hitchcock 200 233 27 71 154 5.13
Jarvis    200 219 38 57 122 5.29
Valdes    200 221 31 57 111 4.90

   H/9 HR/9 BB/9 SO/9 SO/BB
 10.47 1.23 3.22 6.95  2.16
  9.84 1.72 2.56 5.50  2.15
  9.95 1.41 2.57 5.00  1.95

A few things stand out for me. First, Hitchcock gives up a ton of hits. The other two give up plenty, but Hitchcock really has gotten hit hard over the past four years. Second, all three of these guys are prone to the long ball, but Jarvis’ home run rate is astronomical. Good thing he’s got the best control of the bunch. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, note that Hitchock is the leader in strikeouts per nine by a wide margin. This seems a little weird when taken together with his high hit rate, but the fact that he’s still able to miss bats on occasion gives me cause for (possibly misguided) hope. More accurately, the fact that both Jarvis and Valdes fall well short of six punchouts per nine over the past four seasons gives me great cause for concern. I just don’t see either of them improving a whole lot, whereas a healthy Hitchcock just might give some quality innings at the back end of the rotation.

At any rate, I’ve probably dwelt on this aspect of the upcoming season too long already. Unless someone presents me with a compelling reason to continue the discussion, I’ll drop it until spring training, when we’ll have more information.

Mailbag: Speaking of Dead Horses

I hesitate to go where I’m about to, but the letters I received on this were pretty interesting to me and may also be to you. That’s right, it’s time to get our Gary Bennett freak on, one last time.

The first letter comes from Chris Garber, who writes:

Just read the mailbag discussion of Gary Bennett’s alleged worth, as measured by “catcher’s ERA.”

The problem with this stat, as I understand it, is that there’s no real year-to-year correlation – which is what we’d expect if it was measuring a player’s actual skill, and not just luck (or the relative crappiness of his catching partner).

I took a quick look at Bennett. Surprisingly, 2003 was his first full season where his CERA was actually better than his teammates.

If anything, Bennett proves the value of CERA – but that his 2003 (-1.03) season was a total anomaly.

YR   Team  ERA (GB CERA) Diff
2002 COL  5.33 (5.20)   +0.13
2001 COL  5.64 (5.29)   +0.35*
2001 PHI  4.41 (4.15)   +0.26*
2000 PHI  5.12 (4.77)   +0.35
1999 PHI  4.00 (4.93)   -0.93**

*2001 splits are Bennett’s; team ERAs are full-season.
**25 games.

Point? Bennett’s a prodigious out-machine, and Bochy’s fetish for limp-hitting catchers notwithstanding, GB’s not worth having – for any reason. Still better than Ausmus, though.

Dude, that is a seriously harsh indictment of Ausmus. Can’t say that I disagree with it, though. At least Bennett is relatively cheap, eh?

Less flippantly, I’d like to key in on this phrase from Chris’ letter: "If anything, Bennett proves the value of CERA – but that his 03 (-1.03) season was a total anomaly" (emphasis mine).

The reason for my emphasis is our next letter, written by Soto Rey Smith:

In response to Bennett’s CERA/Team ERA differential, that kinda intrigued me as well, so I was doing some research but to little avail. I turned to SABR to see if anyone had ever posted a 1.00+ differential; here’s an excerpt from the response I got:

To be considered a full-time catcher, a guy has to have caught 50% or more of his team’s games. This would make a full-time catcher season about 700 innings caught. If this alone is the criteria then Gary Bennett is UNIQUE (for the years 1990-2003). The next closest guy to him is Dave Nilsson in 1999 (MIL) with a differential of -.509 (CERA of 4.571 and TERA of 5.080). It must be noted that during the data period there are only 271 catcher seasons that qualify (out of the 3700+).

CERA has been found to be all but completely meaningless, but to post a differential almost double that of the highest in the last 13 years is at least interesting.

Interesting? That’s an understatement. This is downright freakish in my book. As Chris noted earlier, it’s still not a compelling reason to give Bennett material playing time. It will be interesting to see how the Brewers’ staff responds to Bennett’s presence and also how the Pads respond to Ramon Hernandez.

Speaking of which, one of my minor projects this off-season was to look at each of the big three starting pitchers and see how they did working with Bennett versus other catchers. Can you guess what’s coming next? Note that IP corresponds to the number of innings the pitcher worked in games started by a particular catcher. If, for example, Bennett came out of a game in the fifth inning and Eaton came out in the seventh, Bennett still gets credit for Eaton’s final two innings. Hey, how much time do you think I have here? Seriously, I doubt there is enough of a discrepancy to drastically alter our findings. With that disclaimer out of the way, here we go:

Adam Eaton

            IP   H HR BB SO  ERA
Bennett  145.0 135 18 50 99 3.91
others    38.0  38  2 18 47 4.74

 H/9 HR/9 BB/9  SO/9 SO/BB GB/FB  P/G AGS*
8.38 1.12 3.10  6.14  1.98  1.16 96.6 52.0
9.00 0.47 4.26 11.13  2.61  1.89 97.5 50.7

*Average game score

This is fascinating. It’s an extremely limited sample, but check this out. Although Eaton’s ERA was almost a full run higher when catchers other than Bennett were behind the dish, his peripherals are completely different. Look at the strikeout numbers. His 12-punchout effort at Wrigley April 23 came with Michael Rivera catching. The other two times Rivera caught Eaton, he got shelled, surrendering five runs each to the Pirates and Brewers.

One other bit of encouraging news, although it must be tempered by the sample size, is that some of Eaton’s best work came with Wiki Gonzalez behind the plate. That only happened twice last year, but the results were solid (2.45 ERA in 11 innings, 2.83 GB/FB ratio). I also like the fact that Eaton induced more ground balls with other catchers. With the Pads’ current outfield alignment, he’ll need to continue that trend.

Bottom line: The ERA differential looks like a fluke. Eaton’s overall numbers were not better with Bennett behind the plate.

Brian Lawrence

            IP   H HR BB SO  ERA
Bennett  154.2 137 18 38 82 3.20
others    50.0  66  9 19 27 7.02

  H/9 HR/9 BB/9 SO/9 SO/BB GB/FB  P/G AGS*
 7.97 1.05 2.21 4.77  2.16  1.72 94.8 55.7
11.88 1.62 3.42 4.86  1.42  1.31 93.0 37.3

*Average game score

Uh-oh, that’s not good. Almost four more hits and runs per game, a roughly 50% increase in homers and walks, and a weaker groundball/flyball ratio without Bennett. Check out this stretch from April 27 to May 18, when Bennett was on the DL:

G IP  H HR BB SO  ERA
5 26 37  4 12 10 8.31

Three of those five starts, including the 10-run debacle at Montreal May 8, came with Rivera catching. Bennett returns for Lawrence’s May 24 start at Arizona: complete game 2-hitter.

Lawrence allowed six or more runs in a start five times in 2004: twice with Ojeda behind the dish (May 18, vs Atl; Jul 30, at Pit), once with Gonzalez (Apr 27, at Cin), once with Rivera (May 8, at Mon), and once–which can be partially excused by Coors Field–with Bennett (Jun 19, at Col).

Bennett also caught each of Lawrence’s final 10 starts (64.1 IP, 2.66 ERA), when the latter reduced his season ERA from 4.86 to 4.19.

Bottom line: Here’s to hoping that (a) this is a small-sample fluke or (b) Lawrence is able to establish a similar rapport with Hernandez that he seemed to have with Bennett. I haven’t seen many studies on a catcher’s impact on a pitcher, but I’d be lying if I said this didn’t concern me in the least.

Jake Peavy

            IP   H HR BB  SO  ERA
Bennett  146.0 124 22 56 113 3.58
others    48.2  49 11 26  43 5.73

 H/9 HR/9 BB/9 SO/9 SO/BB GB/FB   P/G AGS*
7.64 1.36 3.45 6.97  2.02  0.94 100.8 54.4
9.06 2.03 4.81 7.95  1.65  1.07  98.2 45.9

*Average game score

Bennett caught all of Peavy’s final 20 starts. The last catcher other than Bennett to hook up with Peavy was Ojeda on June 1. Peavy allowed seven runs to Arizona in a 10-4 loss that day.

Without Bennett, Peavy allowed over two runs more per game. He was harder hit (look at the hits per nine and particularly the homers per nine) and had weaker command. Guess letting the kid work with Bennett from June on wasn’t such a bad idea.

Bottom line: Peavy is the one I would’ve expected be affected most, but the numbers don’t bear that out. Clearly he performed a lot better when Bennett was behind the dish, but I wonder what kind of impact any other veteran backstop would have had. For some reason, I’m not as concerned about Peavy as I am about Lawrence. I think it has something to do with the fact that I’d expect this out of an inexperienced young pitcher who is still learning his craft and can benefit from the calming influence of an established game caller. I don’t anticipate Peavy suffering nearly as much from the loss of Bennett as last year’s numbers might lead one to believe he would.

That’s all for now. We started out today looking at the least exciting part of the rotation and worked our way up to the most dynamic. Next time, we’ll break down Peavy’s 2003 season even further. Until then, keep warm and think baseball thoughts…