Marlins Shop Clement, Selig Remains Clueless

by Geoff Young on Dec 06, 2001 (Comments Off) Comments

Another interesting site: http://longgandhi.com/

Things are getting really weird in Miami and Montreal. Kind of ironic that the Marlins are shopping Matt Clement and Eric Owens. Think they’ll get a player of Mark Kotsay’s caliber in return? I doubt it.

And, as if we needed further evidence, Bud Selig is an idiot. Just amazing. There’s a lot of good information over at Baseball Primer regarding the Congressional Hearing on Baseball’s Anti-trust Exemption. It’s disgusting to watch Selig and his owners (pun intended) at work. Anyway, if you give a damn about the game of baseball, I highly recommend visiting this site and the links therefrom.

Lankford for Bordick Rumors

by Geoff Young on Dec 05, 2001 (Comments Off) Comments

I can’t believe I never stumbled across this site till now: SanDiegoBaseball.com

Red Sox signed lefty Jeff Wallace. Nice pickup. With Kevin Walker still recovering from surgery, he might’ve been a useful addition to the Padres’ staff.

Rumors of a Ray Lankford for Mike Bordick deal are heating up. There’s always a cost for saving $3 million, and in this case it would be acquring a 36-year-old shortstop whose only real purpose will be to keep the younger, more talented D’Angelo Jimenez out of the lineup. I have no problem with moving Lankford, as his presence is likely to cut into the playing time of Bubba Trammell, who earned a chance to start based on what he did last season. But not if the price is picking up a guy like Bordick.

Blengino’s Thoughts on the Padres Organization

by Geoff Young on Dec 04, 2001 (Comments Off) Comments

Picked up Tony Blengino’s Future Stars book the other day. Good stuff, as always. I’m preparing my own Top 30 Padres prospects, and in looking at what Blengino has to say about the organization, I was surprised to see him rank Ben Johnson as the second best prospect behind Sean Burroughs. No doubt he’s very talented but he’s still pretty raw. I’ve got him somewhere in the bottom half of the top 10. I also can’t make up my mind between Jake Peavy and Dennis Tankersley but right now I’m leaning toward Peavy because he’s got an easier delivery and he’s younger. I’ll probably change my mind a few more times before I make my list public.

Not All Power Hitters Showed Power in the Minors

by Geoff Young on Dec 03, 2001 (Comments Off) Comments

Over at Scoresheet-Talk the interesting question was raised of what makes anyone think Sean Burroughs is going to hit home runs in the big leagues when he has displayed relatively little power in the minors. Which inevitably led me to do some research. I’m not finished yet but here is a little of what I’ve found so far:

                   Age 20           MLB peak
               -------------       ---------
Player          AB  HR   Lvl        AB    HR
-------------------------------   ----------
Anderson, Ga   438   3   A, AA     647    35
Aurilia, Ri    202   3   R         636    37
Bell, Ja       494   7   AA        589    38
Bonds, Ba      254  13   A         476    73
Cameron, Mi    411   0   A         540    25
Gonzalez, Lu   272   7   A         609    57
Green, Sh      366   4   AA, A     619    49
Klesko, Ry     419  14   AA        528    34
Lankford, Ra   253   3   R         465    31

In 3109 at-bats, these guys combined to hit 54 homers at age 20. That’s just under 9 per 500 at-bats. In 5109 at-bats, they hit 379, or about 37 per 500 at-bats. Yes, this is only 9 hitters, but I’ve only looked at 45 so far. A full 20% of the players I’ve looked at have hit a lot more homers than could have been expected given only their age 20 performance.

Some of the hitters I’ve looked at, including Jason Giambi, Troy Glaus, and Todd Helton, were still in college at age 20. In 366 career at-bats in Triple-A, Giambi hit a total of 7 homers. In the PCL, a hitters’ league.

There are some guys who absolutely mashed at age 20 (Eric Chavez, Gape Kapler, Rickey Ledee, to name a few) but so far, they are the exception rather than the norm.

I’m also noticing another interesting pattern. Among the group I’ve looked at so far, of the guys who exhibited better power in the minors than in the majors, the vast majority are players who have not yet reached age 27. In other words, they may not have peaked.

I’ve got a bit more work to do with this, but I will say that as someone who believed it was possible for guys to hit for more power in the bigs than in the minors, I didn’t expect it to occur as often as I’m finding. Of course, we’ll eventually want to look for patterns to see if there are other characteristics that hitters who develop their power at the big-league level share. But that’s another story…

Padres in Winter Ball

by Geoff Young on Nov 28, 2001 (0) Comments

  • More wackiness: Tattoos earn free admission to Daytona Cubs games (Baseball America).
  • How long before the campaign to get Mike Henneman into the Hall of Fame kicks in?
  • Finally, here are how some Padres are doing in winter ball:
    Player League AB BA OBP SLG BB SO
    Jimenez, D Dom 94 .287 .356 .330 10 21
    Young, E Mex 136 .272 .331 .566 12 34
    Crespo, C PR 55 .218 .338 .309 11 18
    Leyritz, J PR 33 .242 .375 .424 6 9
    Matos, J PR 80 .338 .372 .488 3 8
    Nieves, W PR 35 .229 .270 .257 2 5
    Gonzalez, W Ven 73 .342 .407 .534 5 9
    Player League IP H BB SO ERA
    Nunez, J Dom 13.0 14 4 20 0.69
    Leyritz, J PR 1.1 0 1 1 0.00
    Rojas, C PR 7.1 14 8 5 11.05

    If you know of any I’ve missed, let me know.

Japanese Baseball, Richie Phillips, and Bonds’ 73rd Homer

by Geoff Young on Nov 28, 2001 (0) Comments

  • Here’s a cool site on Japanese baseball.
  • Richie Phillips and his band of merry men take another stab at regaining the jobs they lost when they resigned. If it weren’t for contraction talk, this would probably be the most bizarre story of the off-season. Isn’t losing one’s job an inevitable conclusion of resigning?
  • Actually, the trial over ownership of Bonds’ 73rd homer is pretty bizarre, too.
  • Texas Rangers signed former Padres shortstop Santiago Perez. He should give A-Rod a real battle this spring. This on the heels of giving $7.5 million to Todd Van Poppel for 3 years. I’m still not sure what to make of that move. On the one hand, Van Poppel has a career 5.50 ERA. On the other, he was a tremendous amateur player many moons ago, he’s only 29 years old, he has electric stuff, and he’s pitched pretty well the past couple of years.
  • And in Tampa Bay, the D-Rays released outfielder Jose Guillen and lefthander Jeff Wallace. Sure wouldn’t mind seeing the Padres take a flier on Wallace.

Prospects’ Chances, Scout School, and Retrosheet

by Geoff Young on Nov 26, 2001 (0) Comments

Balsley Promoted to Double-A Mobile

by Geoff Young on Nov 23, 2001 (0) Comments

Hope you all had an enjoyable Thanksgiving. We sure did. The food was great, and Ryan Leaf didn’t disappoint. You could see both of those fumbles coming from a mile away. What fun!

Been doing a little cleanup around the site. Finally finished converting all the 1999 articles to the new design. It was kinda fun going back and rereading some of that stuff, although it was also a bit humbling. Yamil Haad as a future 15-20 HR guy in the bigs? What the heck was I thinking?

Thinking out loud here. Coming up next on the article front, toward the end of this month, the second part of the series on Kevin Towers’ trade record. After that I’d like to revisit something I’ve been sitting on for a long time and which I think may be of interest: research into the success rate of prospects. I’ve presented bits and pieces of it in various forums but I’d really like to synthesize everything I’ve got and assemble it into a more cohesive package. I hope to do that sometime in December.

In other news, Lake Elsinore’s pitching coach from last year, Darren Balsley, has been promoted to the same position at Double-A Mobile. Balsley is given a great deal of credit for his work with Eric Cyr, Ben Howard, Jake Peavy, and Dennis Tankersley, among others. Mike Harkey has been named the new pitching coach for the Storm, with Rob Deer signing on as hitting coach. Ponder that last one for a moment. Then again, he did understand the value of a walk as a player, so maybe it’s not all bad.

Ballpark Update, Mike Colangelo, and Rob Ramsay

by Geoff Young on Nov 21, 2001 (0) Comments

  • Ballpark news. Council approves ballpark financing in 8-1 vote (U-T). I actually caught about an hour of the proceedings on local access television last night after my Perl class. I haven’t read up enough on the history of publicly financed ballparks to know what’s best, but I’m sure glad this finally appears to be headed toward resolution one way or another. Watching the whole project sit in limbo for 3 years hasn’t been much fun. Now we just need to take care of a couple more pending lawsuits and hope Bruce Henderson somehow magically disappears.
  • Elsewhere, the Oakland A’s signed former Padre outfielder Mike Colangelo. I didn’t realize Colangelo was a free agent. Sorry to see him go. He could make a real nice fourth outfielder.
  • The Padres claimed pitcher Rob Ramsay off waivers from Seattle. Originally in the Boston organization, Ramsay is a power lefthander who came up as a starter but has pitched mostly out of the bullpen in the big leagues. Nice acquisition. I could see him actually competing for a rotation spot come spring.
  • Still trying to figure out how Tino Martinez garnered more MVP votes than Mark Mulder. Bizarre…

If I don’t post tomorrow, Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Ichiro Wins MVP, Padres Recall Several Prospects, and Joyner Joins Front Office

by Geoff Young on Nov 20, 2001 (0) Comments

  • Ichiro won the AL MVP. Good for him. I personally don’t think he was one of the 10 best players in the AL this year but it’s not his fault the voters picked him.
  • Padres on Monday purchased the contracts of pitchers Dennis Tankersley, Ben Howard, Eric Cyr, Mike Bynum, Cliff Bartosh and Todd Donovan, and added them to the 40-man roster.
  • Tankersley, Howard, Cyr, and Bynum are probably familiar to most people. Any or all of them could see some time in the San Diego rotation in 2002, with Cyr or Bynum possibly also contributing out of the bullpen. Bartosh is a lefty reliever with a good arm, and Donovan is a speedy center fielder. Depending on what they decide to do with Jose Nunez, Bartosh could be a factor at some point next year, too. Donovan is probably a little farther away.
  • Wally Joyner has returned to the Pads as special assistant to GM Kevin Towers. Joyner and Towers were college teammates at BYU so this comes as no surprise. It’s good to see the organization hiring guys like Joyner and Dave Magadan in key instructional and talent evaluation roles. These are men who understand the value of plate discipline, and their philosophy will help foster a better approach to hitting throughout the system. Not that their presence is a panacea for the Padres but it certainly should help.
  • And, in the general weirdness department, two fans are suing MasterCard over their commercials showing two men driving all over the country to different ballparks on the grounds that the company violated copyright by stealing ideas from a documentary they created back in 1998.