Deadline Trade Analysis

by Geoff Young on Aug 01, 2001 (0) Comments

Trades, trades, trades! All the analysis you could possibly want:

I’m sure there’s more coverage out there but this should keep you busy for a while. Enjoy!

Padres Trade Hitchcock to Yankees for Brett Jodie

by Geoff Young on Jul 31, 2001 (0) Comments

About the Hitchcock trade, it was virtually assured that he wouldn’t re-sign with the Padres, so the question became whether it was better to eat his salary and take the compensation draft picks, or go out and get some bodies now. It’s a tough call. The two kids Kevin Towers picked up have promise but neither is a top prospect. Darren Blakely is a terrific athlete who gets mixed reviews as a baseball player. Brett Jodie falls into the Brian Tollberg/Brian Lawrence/Junior Herndon mold of finesse righthander. The good news is, Jodie is at Triple-A and pretty close to the bigs. The bad news is, he’s probably a #4 or #5 starter at best, and the Padres have tons of those already.

Brian Lawrence will assume Hitchcock’s spot in the rotation. Fireballer Dave Lundquist will be recalled today to take the injured David Lee’s spot in the bullpen. And if Woody Williams is traded today (most likely to the Cardinals in a deal involving Ray Lankford, yet another player the Padres don’t really need), Brian Tollberg will rejoin the rotation.

Finally, I’ve posted my Top 25 Padres Prospects so go have a look. Enjoy!

Baxter Killed in Car Crash

by Geoff Young on Jul 30, 2001 (0) Comments

A terrible day for the Padres and their fans.

My condolences to the Baxter family.

Ripken Visits Anaheim, Doesn’t Play

by Geoff Young on Jul 30, 2001 (0) Comments

Before I get started on Saturday night’s Orioles-Angels game, I need to make two things clear:

  1. We dropped $25 per ticket and drove 90 minutes each way specifically to see Cal Ripken play.
  2. Cal Ripken did not play.

Tony Batista started at third base and drew loud boos each time he came up to bat. But at least he had a sense of humor about it, even acknowledging the fans his final time up, when he was greeted with chants of “We Want Cal!”

Orioles’ skipper Mike Hargrove was less understanding and took a stance that must have driven his club’s marketing folks crazy back home, calling the fans’ behavior “absolutely uncalled for” and being quoted as saying “…if people want to be sure they see Cal, they’re going to have to buy tickets to every game.”

Unfortunately, Hargrove did not take me up on my request for four tickets to Sunday’s game, gas money, and a written explanation to all affected of why I had to abandon my previous plans to watch a ballgame.

As for the game itself, Scott Spiezio hit two homers to right-center for the Angels. Larry Bigbie hit his first big-league homer for the Orioles. He and fellow rookie Brian Roberts looked solid, and like they could be contributors in the future. Overall it was a good game but definitely tainted by Cal’s absence.

Also, as threatened, I finally have pictures. They’re not great but they’ll have to do:

Enjoy!

Padres Rumors Heating Up

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

Very busy around here lately. Just finishing up what will now be the Padres’ Top 25 prospects. Good compromise, I think. Should be posted early next week.

  • Hitchcock to Yankees rumors are heating up. Kevin Towers has his eye on minor-league outfielder Marcus Thames, who is hitting .305/.393/.579 at Double-A Norwich. Bad news is, he’s 24 years old. Not a bad prospect but probably more of a fourth outfielder type. Honestly, if Dennis Cook and Turk Wendell can fetch Bruce Chen and change, you’d think the Pads could get something more than Thames for Hitchcock. The Giants also were looking at him but balked at moving Armando Rios.
  • No takers for Woody Williams. Meantime, Tom Davey and David Lee are hurting. The U-T reports Davey will be placed on the DL and Wascar Serrano promoted.
  • When Hitchcock and Williams go, Brian Lawrence, Jason Middlebrook, and Dennis Tankersley are next in line for promotions. It’s doubtful Tankersley will be recalled due to fears of a lockout in 2002, but Towers is finding it increasingly difficult to keep the young righthander in the minors.
  • Reliever Dave Lundquist, who throws 97-MPH heat, is also mentioned as a possibility, though his chances are hurt by the fact that he’s not on the 40-man roster.
  • I’ll be at the Orioles-Angels game tonight. More on that later…

Hitchcock, the Royals, Guerrero, and Pujols

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

  • Sterling Hitchcock didn’t have a real good outing last night: 5 IP, 8 H, 4 ER, 3 BB, 3 SO. Fastball clocked around 83-85 MPH, wavering command. Kept falling behind hitters. Although he did catch a bad break when Phil Nevin booted what should have been an inning-ending double play in the third.
  • The Royals are starting Neifi Perez at second base? I don’t mean to sound overly negative but over the past three years his numbers away from Coors Field are .250/.289/.347. This is an improvement over Carlos Febles how? The one thing Perez does extremely well, play shortstop, he doesn’t even get to do thanks to Rey Sanchez. What a bizarre organization.
  • Not to fixate on Kansas City but what’s up with Dan Reichert? He’s the AL’s answer to Matt Clement. Great stuff, poor command. Lots of walks, lots of hits, high ERA. I haven’t seen him pitch as much as I saw Clement when he was here, but it seems like these are a couple of guys who are either a pitching coach away from becoming studs at the top of the rotation or better off in the bullpen. I know Reichert’s worked out of the ‘pen before but to my knowledge there’s never been talk of moving Clement. Might not be a bad idea, though.
  • Vlad Guerrero is having a down season in Montreal. Yeah, that’s what I thought, too. Then I looked it up. He’s batting .337/.405/.655. Since June he’s hitting .399/.453/.803. He’s also committed only five errors this season. Absolutely sick. But you knew that already.
  • Albert Pujols has slowed down, batting just .213/.333/.377 in July. Not surprising since he made the jump from Class A ball. His YTD numbers are still pretty impressive, at .321/.397/.587. Pujols is maintaining his solid strike zone judgment. He’ll make counteradjustments and finish the year strong. It was premature to proclaim him a future HOFer earlier in the season, and I’m still not sure which of him or Adrian Beltre I’d rather have at third, but he’s gonna be a good one. It’s just so hard to judge a guy like Pujols because there isn’t a historical precedent for his level of success after such a huge leap. But even if he slumps and ends up with "only" a 900 OPS, well, there aren’t a lot of 21-year-olds who can do that in the bigs.

Padres vs Diamondbacks, Oakland’s Big Three

by Geoff Young on Jul 24, 2001 (0) Comments

General comments on last night’s Padres-Diamondbacks game

  • Rickey drew three walks last night, to extend his big-league record to 2111. That’s 35.98 miles to geeks like me. There’s a lot he used to be able to do that he can’t anymore, at age 42, but the guy has a .363 OBP. Amazing.
  • I’m destined to be frustrated by Padre second basemen. Or probably I never got over losing Robbie Alomar. Damian Jackson is basically Quilvio Veras with better range. A little guy who swings for the fences. He’s fun to watch on defense, though.
  • For a guy hitting .238/.344/.333 against lefties, Ryan Klesko sure has a lot of good at-bats against them. He still pulls off the ball too much, but last night he absolutely hammered a Nick Bierbrodt offering to dead center. Steve Finley made a nice running catch at the 413-foot sign against the wall.
  • If there’s a more underrated right-handed hitter in the game than Phil Nevin, I’d like to meet him. A third baseman who hits .316/.406/.622? And he’s only 30 years old. I’ve often compared Nevin to Ken Caminiti, but I take that back. Cammy didn’t blossom till he was 32, and he only had one year, 1996, when he put up numbers like what Nevin’s doing now.
  • D’Angelo Jimenez is struggling at the plate right now but he’s still having good at-bats. He’s also shown dramatic improvement in the field, although I still get a little nervous when he has time to think about his throws. He’ll occasionally short-arm one over to first. There are people around here who believe the Padres shouldn’t have given up Jay Witasick for him. Those people are wrong.
  • Tony Gwynn received a standing ovation when he pinch-hit for Rudy Seanez in the eighth. Given the recent animosity between the two clubs, this surprised me a bit. But it was nice to see. Kudos to the D’Backs fans. They deserve a classier ballclub.
  • Woody Williams is an incredible competitor. He was fooling nobody last night, and yet he managed to hold Arizona to one run in five innings. I guess a potential suitor could look at that one of two ways: (a) His stuff isn’t that great or (b) despite his poor stuff, he still managed to get hitters out. Woody is seriously miscast as a #1 starter but he could help a team in need of a workhorse at the back end of a rotation.
  • The bullpen was outstanding. Chuck McElroy, signed yesterday to take the place of Brian Tollberg, who was shipped back to Portland because the Padres won’t need a fifth starter till early August, did a credible job. Seanez worked out of a jam in the seventh, striking out David Dellucci on a nasty sinker and inducing Matt Williams to hit a weak grounder to second after an Alex Arias error cut the Padres lead to 3-2. Jose Nunez, in his uniquely terrifying way, pitched a scoreless eighth before turning things over to Trevor Hoffman, who sealed the deal with strikeouts of Erubiel Durazo and Craig Counsell. Trevor has been struggling this year, particularly with his normally impeccable command, but he made Durazo and Counsell look absolutely foolish.
  • There were no “incidents” of any kind. That’s pretty newsworthy when these two teams meet. I’ll be surprised if nothing happens tonight, though, when Randy Johnson and Kevin Jarvis go head-to-head. Last time they faced each other, Johnson planted a fastball on Jarvis’ pitching elbow, then was lifted for a pinch-hitter next time he was due to bat. Hey Randy, here’s a tip: Don’t stand too close to the plate. Like, maybe clear out of the batter’s box or, even better, behind the umpire. I’m not saying anything will happen but that ball sure can get slippery in the dry Arizona heat.

General comments on other stuff

The other thing I wanted to mention today was how scary good the Oakland rotation is becoming. A while back, ESPN.com ran a poll asking users which three starters they’d most like to have. There were five or six choices, including the trio of Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder, and Barry Zito. I voted for them, and of course they finished last, having the misfortune of not playing for the Yankees.

But check this out:

  Age IP H HR BB SO ERA OppBA GB/FB
Hudson 25 151.0 121 12 47 124 2.98 .221 2.22
Mulder 23 140.1 138 13 29 91 3.59 .257 1.80
Zito 23 123.2 125 12 42 119 4.66 .261 0.85

I’ve been slow to jump on the Hudson bandwagon but he’s making it very difficult for me to maintain my position. I was at his big-league debut, and while he struck out 10 Padres that night, I attributed it to the fact that he was facing a pretty bad lineup and nobody knew who he was. I’ve been waiting for hitters to stop biting on that splitter and it just hasn’t happened. Hudson has become a much better pitcher than I’d expected. There are no chinks in his armor. He prevents hits, keeps the ball in the park, has great command, and sports a ridiculous groundball/flyball ratio. He’s a young, healthy Kevin Brown. Throw out April, during which he allowed half of his 12 homers, and his ERA is an even 2.00.

As for Mulder and Zito, who wouldn’t want two 23-year-old southpaws with those numbers in their rotation? Mulder, coming off a terrible season, has displayed excellent control and, except for June, good hit prevention. In fact, throw out June, and Mulder’s ERA drops to 2.89. Zito, who played (along with RHP Mark Prior) high school ball across the street from where I went to college, gained a lot of attention for his success late last season and in the playoffs. While his numbers have fallen off from last year, he’s pitched very well of late and still has outstanding peripherals. He doesn’t have quite the upside of Hudson or Mulder but who cares?

Bottom line is, these guys are already pretty darned good and they’re only going to get better…

Oliver Perez, Xavier Nady, and Ben Johnson

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

I’m back, if a bit tired. Quick rundown of the Con before we get back to baseball. <noBaseball>Saw Brent Spiner (Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation), lots of Kung-Fu movies, and the guys behind Cartoon Network’s Space Ghost: Coast to Coast and its various spinoffs. Bought a bunch of goofy little board and card games, a book on Kung-Fu movies, and some Avengers memorabilia. All in all, a great time as always.</noBaseball>

In the baseball world, I did manage to sneak in a Storm game Saturday night. You won’t find a box score for this one, because it was suspended, canceled, or postponed after the sixth inning thanks to an alleged bomb threat…

Okay, a quick call to the Storm office confirms that it was, in fact, a bomb threat. Here’s the deal. The game was suspended and will be resumed as part of a doubleheader over the weekend of August 3-5, when the Storm will be at Mudville, but only if deemed necessary by the league. Otherwise, the game and all the stats accrued during it will be wiped out forever.

Not to belittle the significance of a bomb threat (by the way, I commend the Storm staff for getting everyone evacuated from the stadium in an orderly and efficient manner; my only complaint is in not being informed of the reason for the evacuation, but I suppose I can understand why they withheld that information) because it is a very serious matter, but I’d rather focus on the game that was played to that point.

Teenage southpaw Oliver Perez made his Cal League debut and looked pretty darned good. His fastball topped out at 92 MPH, according to the scoreboard reading, but generally fell into the 88-90 range. He also worked in a sharp-breaking slider that came in around 82-84 MPH, and what was either a slow curve or a straight change that came in around 77-80 MPH. Whatever that pitch was, he didn’t throw it a whole lot, but it was effective when he did.

Perez has a nice, fluid delivery, though occasionally he falls off the mound trying to sell his breaking pitch, a la Carlos Perez a few years ago. He works both sides of the plate and shows a surprising willingness to pitch inside, particularly to right-handed hitters. Perez spent much of last season in the Mexican League, facing more experienced players, and it shows. One aspect of his game that impressed me was his pickoff move. Actually, it wasn’t so much the move as the thought process behind it. The first time he threw over there, I thought, There’s something he needs to work on. And his first several tosses were like that, nothing special, fooling no-one. Then, later in the game, when he actually needed to pick someone off, he did one of those Dave Righetti left-foot-off-the-rubber moves and darned near got his man. Very quick. I still don’t know how the guy got back in time.

Perez has a live arm, and his command was way better than what I’d expect from a 19-year-old. I didn’t keep score on Saturday but I believe his final line was something like 5+ IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 7 SO. Again, this may not show up in any official records but the kid made a heckuva nice Cal League debut. Although Perez is not as highly touted as some of the other young arms in the Padres organization, he’s definitely someone to watch.

Elsewhere in the game, Xavier Nady had hits in both of his at-bats. Both were essentially well-placed grounders to shortstop, the first deep enough in the hole that he barely beat the throw to first. The second squeeked through the hole and dribbled into left field. Nady should be in Double-A on the merit of his numbers, but I sure wouldn’t mind seeing him hit a ball hard a couple times before he moves up the ladder.

Ben Johnson made a terrific throw from right field to keep a runner from scoring. This is not the first time I’ve been impressed by his arm. He’s also got a very quick bat but he needs to work the count better to take advantage of it. He swings a lot early in the count and then ends up either striking out or hitting a pitcher’s pitch. Johnson’s numbers are nice in and of themselves; taking into consideration his youth and relatively crude approach, they’re even more impressive. If he learns how to wait for his pitch, he could be a scary, scary hitter.

On the Mudville side, I saw former Pepperdine backstop Dane Sardinha for the first time as a pro. The only time I’d seen him previously was in an Alaskan Summer League game, and he didn’t impress me then. Sardinha is extremely aggressive at the plate, swinging early and often, often getting himself out. He did that his first couple times up on Saturday, too. Then, in his third at bat, after falling behind in the count, he hammered a pitch that wasn’t far enough down or in over the right-centerfield fence for a homer. He put a serious charge into that one, and it got out in a hurry. I didn’t get to see him throw but he moved well behind the plate in terms of blocking pitches in the dirt. Sardinha is often compared to Charles Johnson but I’m not sure he’ll hit enough to warrant that. Dan Wilson seems more likely to me, and even that is looking doubtful right now. Sardinha is batting .227/.258/.316 in 304 AB in a good hitters’ league. He’s piled up 79 strikeouts against just 11 walks (two of which were intentional). He’s young, and he was highly touted as an amateur, but I’m not real optimistic about Sardinha’s chances to become much more than a catch-and-throw guy. Nothing wrong with that. I happen to like guys like Wilson and John Flaherty. They’re just not the kind of players to build around, which the Reds appear to think Sardinha will be.

Padres Beat Sheets, Lucchino to Step Down as Club President

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

Brief reports this weekend because Comic-Con is upon us, and I’m hangin’ with the freaks.

Good news, bad news. Good news: Padres crushed Ben Sheets and the Brewers yesterday, 11-2. Sterling Hitchcock pitched brilliantly again. His command is better than it was before the surgery. Amazing. Bad news: Larry Lucchino is stepping down as club president at the end of the season. Rumor is, he and owner John Moores haven’t been getting along. Lucchino will be replaced by Bob Vizas, Padres senior vice president and general counsel. The other bad news is that lefty Kevin Walker, who came out of nowhere last year to play an important part in the bullpen, will undergo “Tommy John” surgery and miss the rest of this season and most of next season.

Okay, off to the vet, then the Con. Game at Elsinore tonight, report tomorrow. Meantime, if you’re looking to be amused (assuming you find this sort of thing amusing), here are some more Star Trek action figure pix: [1] [2]

I hope to put the digital camera to better use at the game this evening. Wish me luck…

Promotions, Trades, and the Annoying Diamondbacks

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

Movers and shakers:

Righthander Ben Howard and lefty reliever Cliff Bartosh promoted from Lake Elsinore to Mobile. Southpaw Oliver Perez promoted from Ft. Wayne to Lake Elsinore. Fellow lefty Steve Watkins reassigned from Mobile to Lake Elsinore to take Jake Peavy‘s spot in the rotation while the latter recovers from a minor elbow injury. Outfielder Kory DeHaan assigned to Mobile from Portland. Infielder Auntwan Riggins assigned to Portland from Mobile.

More movers and shakers:

Todd Walker and Robin Jennings to Cincy for Alex Ochoa. Interesting. Evidently Walker pushes Pokey Reese back to shortstop while Barry Larkin recovers from his latest ailment. I’m curious to know what Ochoa’s contract status is. If he’s lucky, he could pull a Jeffrey Hammonds — put some serious numbers on the board at Coors, then get serious cash to put up inferior numbers in a less hitter-friendly environment.

In other news:

Interesting that the Diamondbacks sent Randy Johnson to finish Curt Schilling’s start of yesterday’s suspended game this afternoon. Bob Brenly decided to bring in the Big Unit because the Padres had four lefties in the lineup. I guess he figured it was better to dominate one game possibly at the expense of another rather than try to win both.

And dominate Johnson did, striking out a record 16 in relief. Only backup catcher Wiki Gonzalez’ single to right with two outs in the eighth kept Johnson from teaming up with Schilling for the second no-hitter against the Padres this year. Gonzalez hit the first –

Hang on a sec, there’s someone at the door… Okay, I’m back. That was Brenly. Couldn’t understand most of what he said but he sounded pretty upset. I only caught bits and pieces, phrases like “just take the damn pitch, don’t swing”; “we let the opposition crap all over us in my day”; and the strikingly ironic “stupid $#*^%*^ catcher.”

Honestly, if there’s one team I might want to see win the World Series even less than the Yankees, it’d have to be the Diamondbacks. Don’t get me wrong, they’re a good ballclub. But they have no poise. Yesterday, in the regularly scheduled game, reliever Troy Brohawn got tossed from the contest after plunking Ryan Klesko and igniting a near brawl. Hello? Anybody home?

They nail the opposition but cry when the tables are turned. They pull their star pitcher when he’s due to bat after taking his counterpart out of the game with a fastball to the piching elbow. They cry when someone tries to beat them with a bunt. Memo to the Diamondbacks: You’re a better club than that. Just shut up and play some ball. Please.

I shouldn’t be too hard on Brenly, though. He was, after all, gracious enough to use Schilling and Johnson in the same game, allowing the Pads to take their chances with and, in fact, defeat the somewhat less intimidating Robert Ellis on three days rest. Thanks, Bob; we appreciate it.