It’s Funny Because It’s Truthy

by Geoff Young on Sep 08, 2008 (18) Comments

Reader Malcolm forwards an inspired piece penned by Los Angeles Times columnist T.J. Simers that sings the praises of Dodgers GM Ned Colletti. Ken Tremendous at Fire Joe Morgan picks the article apart nicely (F-bomb warning) and is left wondering whether it is parody or straight reporting.

This, of course, is the best kind of humor. If it’s easy to understand, the joke just isn’t that funny. But when you’re left kind of scratching your head and maybe a little unsettled, the person telling the tale has done a masterful job.

I love this passage:

…Colletti looked like a goner before [Casey] Blake and [Manny] Ramirez arrived.

“I didn’t feel it,” Colletti said, and as a general rule — dead men don’t feel anything.

Not that you need me to explain humor, but the use of “as a general rule” in that sentence just kills. Still, my favorite part comes later, on the second page:

THE PADRES are an embarrassment to professional baseball, Colletti a Hall of Famer by way of comparison to San Diego’s duo of dolts, Kevin Towers and Sandy Alderson.

Any dolt can see this. Colletti had the foresight to sign the likes of Jason Schmidt, Juan Pierre, and Andruw Jones to big contracts, and now he is reaping the rewards. His team is playing .500 baseball and giving another .500 team, the Arizona Diamondbacks, a serious run in the battle for supremacy of the Division That Relevance Forgot (TM).

Awesome.

No, man, I mean AWESOME!!! AWESOME!!! AWESOME!!!

But Towers and Alderson have four World Series appearances between them.

Dude, that is so ’90s. You’re living in the past. Next you’re going to start talking about the time you saw Jewel at Inner Change or Uncle Joe’s Big Ol’ Driver at the Casbah (not the new one, mind you, but the tiny old one that became Velvet). Or God help us, you’ll be dropping Anchorman references.

I feel like such a dolt. Anyone want to join me, so we can be a duo of dolts?

The Perils of Projecting

by Geoff Young on Sep 05, 2008 (24) Comments

Five years ago today I was extolling the virtues of one Sean Burroughs, noting the similarities between his second big-league season and that of Derek Jeter. It sounds ridiculous now, but the comparison seemed valid at the time:

Sean Burroughs vs Derek Jeter, Sophomore Season
  Age PA BA OBP SLG OPS+
Statistics are courtesy of Baseball-Reference.
Burroughs 22 578 .286 .352 .402 105
Jeter 23 748 .291 .370 .405 103

The key word here is “seemed.” It’s important to remember (and something I have to remind myself of constantly) that no two snowflakes are alike, even though they may look the same. It’s also important to remember that there are no “sure things” when it comes to prospects.

How does this apply to the current rebuilding project? Well, a lot of times — and I’m not pointing fingers because I’m guilty of it myself — we’ll start doing stuff like this:

Padres lineup 2013

C: Mitch Canham
1B: Kyle Blanks
2B: Matt Antonelli
3B: Chase Headley
SS: Drew Cumberland
LF: Jaff Decker
CF: Cedric Hunter
RF: Kellen Kulbacki

This is all well and good, except that only two of these guys (Headley, Antonelli) have big-league experience and only one other (Blanks) has spent material time above A-ball. A more realistic approach might include the likelihood that each of these players will reach their target:

Padres lineup 2013

C: Mitch Canham (15%)
1B: Kyle Blanks (40%)
2B: Matt Antonelli (30%)
3B: Chase Headley (70%)
SS: Drew Cumberland (15%)
LF: Jaff Decker (20%)
CF: Cedric Hunter (30%)
RF: Kellen Kulbacki (30%)

I’m making these numbers up off the top of my head, but the important point is this: It’s not reasonable to think that all these guys will make it to the big leagues and contribute. That just isn’t how the minor leagues work. There is attrition at every level, plain and simple.

Headley’s got a good chance because he’s already here and holding his own so far (of course, the same could be said of Burroughs at one point as well). But what do you do with guys like Cumberland and Decker, who are three or four levels away?

Without getting hung up on the particulars, what we’re trying to do here isn’t so much to figure out which guys will make it as to discern how strong the talent base is. For instance, if you add up all the percentages in the above (which are totally made up, so why would you do that, but humor me), it comes to 250%. So if you figure that 100% means the guy made it as a regular, then that means we get two regulars and maybe a bench guy out of those eight players.

Again, don’t worry about the specific numbers. We’re talking concept here. The main point is that you don’t want to look at those eight players and think that five years from now, all eight are going to be contributing in some meaningful way. More realistically, it’ll be two or three, but we don’t necessarily know which ones. And if you think you do, you’re wrong.

The secondary point is that this crop is much stronger than, say, the one we saw five years ago. Back then it was Khalil Greene, Josh Barfield, and… Freddy Guzman? Jon Knott? There was nobody who dominated Double-A at age 21, like Blanks did this year; there were no guys in the system with the hitting skills of Decker and Kulbacki.

No, they won’t all pan out, but that’s the point of having a broad talent base. When Burroughs failed, it really messed things up because so much was riding on him. Now? Between Blanks, Decker, and Kulbacki, chances are something good is going to come out of that bunch. If any one of them fails, then at least there are two other guys who have a shot.

Eugene Emeralds Finale

Now that I’ve finished talking down our prospects, here’s reader LynchMob with some videos you might enjoy:

LynchMob also provides commentary:

Latos looked very good at times with a fastball that sure seemed to have plenty of extra mustard on it … resulting in 9 Ks in 5 IP … but he did give up a few hits … and threw a few wild pitches (only 2 of which showed up in the box score) … so he’s got some work to do … but he’s still the man …

No, sir — you are the man. Thanks for sharing.

Recent Articles

Finally, here is a recap of recent articles. If you have something to add to the discussion, by all means head on over and feel free to do so.

That’s all for now. Happy, happy!

Here, There, and Everywhere

by Geoff Young on Sep 04, 2008 (5) Comments

My latest article at Hardball Times looks back at a 1989 game in which the Cleveland Indians collected six hits, all home runs. Joe Carter knocked three of them.

Carter, you may recall, came to San Diego the following year and gave a convincing demonstration of how utterly useless the RBI statistic is. Ten men in MLB history have driven in 100 or more runs with a sub-90 OPS+. Carter is the only one to do it twice. Way to go, Joe.

Turning to the present, the good folks at Right Field Bleachers have taken the time to chat with me about the Padres as they prepare to take on the Brewers.

Life Is Just a Fantasy

Meanwhile, Mike Podhorzer at the Fantasy Baseball Generals discusses the top five fantasy stories for the Padres in 2008. There’s some good stuff here, although I disagree with his comments on Trevor Hoffman and Chris Young.

Anyone who has watched Hoffman this year realizes that he’s not “as good as ever” (in fairness, the mid-’90s were a long time ago and people forget just how good “good as ever” means in Hoffman’s case). For his part, Hoffman seems to think he’s still got something left in the proverbial tank.

As for Young, I have two problems with the analysis presented:

  1. It fails to mention Young’s 2007 oblique injury as a possible contributing factor in his decline this year. Since returning from the disabled list last August, his numbers are brutal: 24 GS, 5.32 IP/GS, 5.36 ERA, 5.36 BB/9, 8.60 K/9, 1.20 HR/9.
  2. When talking about Young’s success at Petco Park, people always seem to forget that a) he had no appreciable home/road splits in his one full season with the Rangers (whose home park shouldn’t provide any advantages to an extreme fly ball pitcher) and b) his ERA was more than 2 full runs lower on the road than at Petco in his first season with the Padres.

I’m not saying that these pieces of information automatically trump what Mike presents, just that the picture isn’t complete without giving them due consideration. Simple is good, but sometimes you need to dig a little deeper.

Built for the Future

If you can’t deal with the here and now, how about the future? Reader Didi points us to Marc Hulet’s analysis of NL West prospects, which isn’t very kind to the Padres. That’s fine; under the radar is good.

Speaking of prospects, did you catch Wade LeBlanc’s big-league debut on Wednesday? Most of it was forgettable — back-to-back homers to Blake DeWitt and Angel Berroa, yuck — but LeBlanc’s first hit will remain with me for some time. He singled to left-center in the fourth and stood at the plate for a few seconds, thinking he’d fouled the ball into the stands. I’m sure nobody on the bench gave him grief about that.

Continuing in future mode, the Padres have extended their player-development agreement with San Antonio through 2010. On the field, reader LynchMob passes along photos from the recent Storm game (h/t MadFriars) at Petco Park.

He also shares an article by Larry Stone at the Seattle Times concerning the “race” for the #1 pick in the 2009 draft. SDSU right-hander Stephen Strasburg is considered the cream of the crop by a wide margin. Quoth Baseball America‘s John Manuel:

I love Strasburg, but that’s hardly original. He compares favorably to Mark Prior at a similar stage of his career. … He’s an elite, elite guy and could move very quickly.

Friend of Ducksnorts Keith Law reaches a similar conclusion:

I’d say he’s less than two years away [from the majors]. He’s the one guy out there that’s a No. 1 starter.

For those interested, here’s what the race for #1 looks like:

Padres: 53-86
Nationals: 54-86
Mariners: 54-85

Here are the remaining schedules of those three teams:

Padres: Mil (4), LA (6), SF (4), Col (3), Was (3), Pit (3)
Nationals: Atl (4), NYN (6), Fla (6), SD (3), Phi (3)
Mariners: NYA (3), Tex (2), Ana (8), KC (4), Oak (6)

Here are the number of games against teams with winning records:

Padres: 4
Nationals: 15
Mariners: 11

And although I don’t believe for a minute that the Padres are trying to “win” the Strasburg Sweepstakes, I do have to wonder why in Eric Nolte’s name Shawn Estes is back in the rotation. Sorry, did I just use Eric Nolte’s name in vain?

Unfinished Notes on a Bullpen

by Geoff Young on Sep 03, 2008 (3) Comments

Warning: This post is a mess; proceed at your own risk…

I was thinking about the bullpen a while back and got to wondering a few things:

  1. How have Padres relievers performed this year as compared to the starters?
  2. How does this compare with league average?
  3. How does this compare with recent Padres teams?
  4. How does this compare with all Padres teams?
  5. What were some shared characteristics of the good bullpens? Of the bad ones?
  6. How was workload distributed (i.e., was it spread fairly evenly or did two or three guys carry most of the burden)?
  7. How often were relievers used?
  8. How hard were they worked?

As is often the case, I got distracted. I ended up tackling (well, maybe not tackling, more like tapping on the shoulder) #3 and #4, and ignoring the rest. Basically I created a spreadsheet that contains select starter/reliever splits for every Padres team from 1969 to 2008.

I found some interesting things, most of which had nothing to do with my initial inquiry. For example, in 1991, there was a dramatic shift in the way the Padres utilized their bullpen. In 1998, there was another:

Padres Individual Relief Pitcher Usage: 1969-2008
  IP/G PA/G
Years Avg Min Max Avg Min Max
Statistics are courtesy of Baseball-Reference and are through games of September 2, 2008.
1969-1990 1.56 1.45 1.68 6.69 6.11 7.13
1991-1997 1.26 1.21 1.32 5.43 5.21 5.56
1998-2008 1.10 1.04 1.14 4.73 4.32 4.86

This table shows us the number of innings per reliever per game for each of these three eras. Note that not only have the averages declined, but also there is no overlap between the minimum of one era and the maximum of the next. In other words, these aren’t just small dropoffs, these are indicative of a fundamental change in how things are done.

Naturally, this leads to further questions:

  1. Were there similar leaguewide shifts at each of these points, or is this phenomenon confined to the Padres?
  2. Was there anything specifically going on with the Padres (e.g., managerial change) that might have served as a catalyst for change?
  3. Why might these shifts in usage be occurring?

I haven’t attempted to answer the first question because it seems too much like actual work. Someone should study this.

As for catalysts within the organization, well… Greg Riddoch took over for Jack McKeon midway through the 1990 season and continued in 1991. It’s possible that he may not have felt comfortable asserting his ideas on proper bullpen usage with a team that he inherited. Then again, Riddoch never managed before or since at the big-league level, so it’s hard to gauge what those ideas might have been.

The second shift came smack in the middle of Bruce Bochy’s tenure as manager. Bochy was many things (most of them positive), but I’ve never heard him accused of being a catalyst for change.

As for the final question, my first guess is that there has been increased specialization over the years. But before we assert that with anything resembling certainty, we need to approach the problem from a slightly different angle.

To this point we’ve been looking at individual reliever usage, e.g., noting that the average Padres reliever from 1969 to 1990 worked 1.56 innings per game, while the average Padres reliever from 1998 to 2008 works 1.10 innings per game. But how about aggregate usage? If this shift is primarily driven by greater specialization, we wouldn’t expect the overall innings pitched totals for relievers to change. In other words, it would be a matter of more pitchers using up the same amount of innings. To the numbers:

Padres Aggregate Starting and Relief Pitcher Usage: 1969-2008
Years IP(R)/IP(S) PA(R)/PA(S)
IP(R), innings pitched by relievers; IP(S), innings pitched by starters; PA(R), plate appearances against relievers; PA(S), plate appearances against starters.
Statistics are courtesy of Baseball-Reference and are through games of September 2, 2008.
1969-1990 0.46 0.46
1991-1997 0.50 0.50
1998-2008 0.51 0.51

The way to read this is like so: From 1991 to 1997, Padres relievers worked half as many innings (and faced half as many batters) as did their starters. There are two important points worth noting here:

  1. There was an increase in this number at both shifts.
  2. The increase was pretty small and of no great consequence.

In other words, our hypothesis about specialization seems to hold, i.e., more pitchers are being used to do the same job.

At this point, it might be fun — if a little time-consuming — to dig deeper and look at individual usage. Maybe we could make a list of everyone who worked, say, 5% or more of a team’s bullpen innings and see how the workload is distributed among them, and whether the distribution has shifted over time. For example, grabbing one team from each era (making sure that the reliever/starter ratios are similar so as not to introduce another bias), we get this:

1987

Lance McCullers: 24.4% of relief innings
Greg Booker: 13.5
Mark Davis: 12.3
Rich Gossage: 10.3
Craig Lefferts: 10.2
Keith Comstock: 7.1
Other: 22.1

1993

Gene Harris: 11.9% of relief innings
Trevor Hoffman: 10.9
Roger Mason: 10.0
Kerry Taylor: 8.0
Mark Davis: 7.7
Tim Scott: 7.6
Tim Mauser: 7.6
Pedro Martinez: 7.4
Jeremy Hernandez: 6.9
Rich Rodriguez: 6.0
Pat Gomez: 5.7
Other: 10.3

A few points:

  • Who the heck is Pat Gomez? This is right around the time I started following the Padres, and I have no recollection of such a person.
  • The ’87 closer (McCullers) worked twice as hard as the ’93 closer (Harris).
  • In ’87, only six relievers broke our arbitrary 5% threshold; in ’93, that number jumps to 11.
  • Each of the top five relievers in ’87 worked harder than his counterpart in ’93, but after that, the ’93 guys bore more of the brunt; in other words, there was a more even distribution of work.

2002

Jeremy Fikac: 14.0% of relief innings
Trevor Hoffman: 12.0
Steve Reed: 8.3
Brandon Villafuerte: 6.5
Alan Embree: 5.8
Jason Boyd: 5.7
Jason Middlebrook: 5.4
Other: 42.3

Yuck, what an awful bullpen.

Anyway, we’re kind of cherry picking here. I don’t know if these particular teams are representative of a particular era. The proper way to do this would be to repeat this exercise for all the Padres teams and look for patterns. If this article were more study and less mess, then I might even try it myself. Regardless, you get the idea.

Oh, and speaking of the awful 2002 ‘pen, I remember now what inspired this line of inquiry: the awful 2008 ‘pen. Actually, it’s not quite as bad as we might think. Don’t get me wrong, it’s certainly not good, but it’s not historically bad. Here’s historically bad:

1997: 4.99 ERA, 775 OPS against
2003: 4.72, 775
1974: 4.66, 790
1995: 4.61, 731
1970: 4.42, 746

None of this is adjusted for era or park, but it gives you some idea. Part of why we think this year’s ‘pen is so awful (and let’s not be too forgiving; it does check in with the ninth highest ERA and 14th highest OPS against in franchise history) is that last year’s bullpen was one of the best:

1982: 2.78 ERA, 635 OPS against
1988: 2.78, 651
1992: 3.05, 645
2007: 3.06, 648
1983: 3.12, 657

This also marks the first time the bullpen’s ERA hasn’t improved from one season to the next since 2002-2003:

2003: 4.72 ERA, 775 OPS against
2004: 3.75, 738
2005: 3.49, 687
2006: 3.45, 692
2007: 3.06, 648
2008: 4.24, 729

The ‘pen kept improving — to the point of historically good levels — and then fell apart one year. Bummer.

I don’t really know how to end this. I guess there are two points I would make:

  1. Kevin Towers has demonstrated an ability in recent seasons to assemble a strong corps of relievers; for whatever reason (and this may be worth analyzing as well), he had an off year.
  2. Be thankful that we don’t have to watch the ’74 bullpen, which was worst in the National League by a lot.

So yeah, at least we’ve got that going for us…

One Actionable Item

by Geoff Young on Sep 02, 2008 (16) Comments

It’s easy, in a season where almost everything imaginable has gone wrong, to forget that the Padres won 89 games a year ago with comparable talent. The lazy and somewhat impractical suggestion is to say we should blow everything up and start over from scratch.

Nice Debut

Speaking of the future, we’ve already seen four members of the 2005 draft class surface in San Diego this year. Monday night marked the debut of second baseman Matt Antonelli, the first member of the 2006 class to arrive. Antonelli started his big-league career in fine fashion, lacing a sharp single to center off 354-game winner (and ex-Padre) Greg Maddux in his first at-bat.

A more challenging and instructive approach entails identifying specific, actionable items and weighing the pros and cons of each. The idea is that if we focus on individual areas that can be improved, the larger issue will seem less daunting.

(Breaking large, amorphous entities into smaller, more digestible pieces is a neat trick I learned during my project management days. It’s also a good way to get a book written and published with a minimum of freakouts.)

Define goals, establish targets. Do something — It feels a lot less helpless than sitting around watching your team suck and whining about it. Even if nothing comes of the actual ideas, at least we’ll have a clearer grasp of the situation.

With that out of the way, here are my questions to you:

  1. What one thing would you do this off-season to improve the club?
  2. Why would you do this? How will it help?
  3. What are arguments in favor of your proposal?
  4. What are arguments against it?
  5. Is it realistic to think that the Padres might actually do something like this?
  6. If not, are there alternatives that could achieve similar effect?

This could be anything — player procurement, draft budget, concession delivery, parking, whatever. The only constraint is that it has to be focused, and you must offer solutions. Here’s an example:

  1. Trade Kevin Kouzmanoff or Chase Headley (whichever fetches more) for a front-line starting pitcher.
  2. Beyond Jake Peavy and Chris Young (assuming he’s healthy), the Padres are severely lacking in reliable starting pitching.
  3. The Padres have a surplus of big-league caliber third basemen, one of whom is miscast in left field, where there are other options.
  4. Both Kouzmanoff and Headley are young and cheap, and should provide excellent return on investment for the foreseeable future; why give them up when you’re trying to rebuild?
  5. Possibly, if the deal is right.
  6. They might try moving Khalil Greene for the same, although his poor season and injury may limit his trade value at the moment.

Keep it somewhat high-level. If we get some good responses, we can revisit them later and maybe dig a little deeper (e.g., talk about the pitchers we might target for Headley or Kouz).

Those are the ground rules; now dazzle me with your acumen. Have fun!

Observations from the Weekend

by Geoff Young on Sep 01, 2008 (21) Comments

First off, if your #2 hitter lays down a sacrifice bunt in the first inning — as Luis Rodriguez did on Friday night — then you probably need to find another #2 hitter. Second, for as indifferent as I generally am to the stolen base, it disturbs me that Willy Taveras has more than twice as many by himself this year than does the entire Padres roster. (It also astounds me that Taveras has so many steals despite being a useless hitter — and people scoff at the notion of there being a continued need for Tony Womack’s skill set.)

Anyway, it was fun to watch the kids play. Fun in the sense that our team is going nowhere and there are still games left on the schedule so we might as well enjoy them, but fun nonetheless. To the observations…

Will Venable

Venable made his big-league debut on Friday, getting the start in center field, and pounded a triple off the right-field wall in his first at-bat. It’s only one at-bat, but he gave a nice demonstration of why some folks are more excited about him than I am:

  • He drove a ball hard against Aaron Cook. For all of his faults (how can you throw 95 mph and not strike anyone out?), Cook doesn’t give up many well struck balls like that. Granted, it was an 86 mph breaking pitch, thigh-high on the inner half, but still… As Matt Vasgersian noted, that ball is a homer in about 28 other ballparks.
  • He’s a tremendously athletic kid — like Chris Young, a former Princeton hoopster — and it shows. Midway between first and second, when he saw the ball carom away from Brad Hawpe, Venable kicked into another gear. He took a beautiful turn at second and generally made running the bases look effortless — in stark contrast to pretty much everyone else on this team.

On Saturday, I got to see him in person and again, he impressed. The box score shows that Venable went 1-for-4 with 2 RBI, but it doesn’t show probably the single most important thing he did in the game.

In the third inning, after he’d driven in the Padres’ first run, Venable took out Colorado second baseman Clint Barmes on what would have been an inning-ending double play off the bat of Edgar Gonzalez. A run scored, and then Ubaldo Jimenez self-destructed (in a manner eerily similar to his April 15 start at Petco Park), surrendering four more before being lifted.

I’m beginning to wonder if maybe I’ve underestimated Venable. Again, we’re talking about an extremely small sample, but he looks like a better player than his numbers indicate — what that portends, we cannot say.

Still, it’s worth noting that guys like Mike Devereaux and ex-Padre Gary Matthews Jr. didn’t reach the big leagues until their mid-20s; both were pretty athletic and ended up having decent careers. At age 25, Venable may not have much untapped potential, but it’s hardly a stretch to think that he could have a career similar to those of Devereaux and Matthews.

Dirk Hayhurst

Hayhurst’s final line (4 IP, 5 H, 4 R, 1 HR, 4 BB, 4 SO) was awful, but I saw some things I liked. First, the bad news:

  • His command was terrible. Nobody should ever need 101 pitches to get through four innings.
  • He left a curve out over the plate to Garrett Atkins in the third, and Atkins just crushed it.

As he demonstrated in rather convincing fashion in his second big-league start, Hayhurst has zero margin for error. That said, he’s got some game:

  • Channel 4SD had his fastball at 89-91 mph (with good sinking action according to my eye — a little like Clay Hensley in that regard), his curve at 74-78.
  • He did a good job working both sides of the plate. Sometimes kids just up from the minors are reluctant to pitch inside to guys they’ve seen on television; this absolutely was not a problem for Hayhurst.
  • When he’s not hanging it to good hitters, the curve looks like a legitimate out pitch; I’m guessing this is what gave guys at Triple-A fits.
  • The two hits he allowed ahead of Atkins’ homer were complete flukes. The first came on a 3-2 fastball up and in that shattered Barmes’ bat and resulted in a weak grounder to third; Kevin Kouzmanoff made a terrific barehanded pickup, but his throw bounced, skipping off Adrian Gonzalez’s glove and into the third row. The second came on a 1-2 breaking ball to Taveras. The pitch crossed the plate at shin level, outer half, and somehow Taveras managed to nine-iron it down the right-field line. The video is inconclusive, but I think his back foot may have been off the ground when he made contact. Whatever the case, it was ugly and certainly shouldn’t have resulted in any outcome that rewards the batter.

Josh Geer

Like Hayhurst, Geer was inefficient, needing 105 pitches to get through five innings. The stadium scoreboard had his fastball at 86-88 mph, and it didn’t appear to have a lot of movement. Geer also had trouble commanding his secondary pitches.

In the past I’ve compared Geer, based on his statistical record in the minors, to Justin Germano. After seeing him in person, I’ll throw out another name that will be familiar to those who have followed the club in recent years: Ismael Valdez.

Geer looks to me like a potential #5 starter. His stuff is underwhelming, which means his command has to be perfect. Unlike with Hayhurst, I didn’t see an out pitch from Geer. Maybe he has one, but I didn’t see it.

On another note, have you noticed how inefficient the Padres starters have been lately? I have, and it bugs me:

Hayhurst, Aug 23 @ SF: 4 IP, 76 pitches
Josh Banks, Aug 24 @ SF: 3 IP, 53 pitches
Jake Peavy, Aug 25 vs Ari: 6 IP, 121 pitches
Chad Reineke, Aug 26 vs Ari: 5 IP, 93 pitches
Cha Seung Baek, Aug 27 vs Ari: 5.2 IP, 104 pitches
Hayhurst, Aug 29 vs Col: 4 IP, 101 pitches
Geer, Aug 30 vs Col: 5 IP, 105 pitches

That’s about 20 pitches per inning over seven starts, which is unacceptable. Actually, so is a rotation of Hayhurst, Banks/Geer, Reineke, and Baek, but what can you do?

Well, first you can have Peavy fan 13 Rockies over eight innings. Then you can release Brett Tomko and call up Wade LeBlanc (he’s scheduled to start on Wednesday in Los Angeles; and oh yeah, Matt Antonelli is joining the big club as well — congrats to him!). Then you can welcome Young back to the rotation and watch him square off against former teammate Greg Maddux on Monday.

It’s all very confusing…

Comments Returning… Sort Of

by Geoff Young on Aug 29, 2008 (0) Comments

Part of a host’s responsibility is to lay out and enforce ground rules that enable all guests to enjoy themselves. I’m afraid that as Ducksnorts has grown, I’ve neglected this duty and allowed us to stray too far from our mission, which is to discuss baseball in an intelligent and thoughtful manner. For that, I am sorry.

Over the past week I’ve had a chance to reflect, and I’ve come to realize that we really do need reader comments here. At their best, they significantly enhance the value of Ducksnorts for all of us. With that in mind, I’ll be reinstating comment functionality on Monday, September 1… with a twist.

Stay Focused

To help ensure that everyone follows the Community Guidelines and Moderation Policy (read this, understand it, live it), all reader submissions will be held in a moderation queue until I’ve had a chance to review them. Yes, this creates a little extra work for me, but I’m good with that if it elevates the level of conversation, which I think it will.

Basically I’m adopting a strategy that is more proactive than reactive, that emphasizes quality over quantity. An ounce of prevention, and all that…

The downside, of course, is that we’ll lose some immediacy. It’s a small price to pay for my sanity, though, and besides, there are message boards for that sort of thing — if you’re looking for one, you might try these:

I don’t really do message boards much these days, so let me know if I’m missing any. I want to help you find what you need.

Say Goodbye to the IGDs

The IGDs have been retired. They were fun for a while, then they weren’t, and now they’re gone. If you wish to chat with fans during the game, I have two recommendations:

  • Go to Gaslamp Ball. They do a great job, and I’m sure they’d be happy to have you join them.
  • Roll your own. If some enterprising soul finds or develops a chat room/message board/blog for the purpose of talking about games in real-time, let me know and I’ll be happy to send folks your way.

Thanks to all who participated in the IGDs over the years. We had some good times in there, and I’ll not soon forget those.

Additional Reading

If you run an online community and you’d like to learn more about what informed my choices in terms of direction, or if you’d just like to make yourself a better citizen of the interwebs, here are some resources I found invaluable during my research:

Start a Blog

I can hear a few people at the back of room yelling something about free speech. I’m glad they are because I’m a strong proponent of the concept.

For those of you who may feel the need to speek your mind about whatever, whenever, I’d encourage you to start a blog. My platform of choice is WordPress, although Blogger is also good and requires less technical expertise. Both are free.

If you do start one, and it’s about the Padres, let me know so I can add it to the blogroll here as well as to PadreBlogs.com.

Add Value, Not Noise

I mentioned a moderation queue. Here’s how it works: Periodically (I’m shooting for once every 24 hours, although it may be more or less often depending on what else is going on in my life at any given moment) I’ll read through whatever has come in since the previous round of reviews.

Comments that add value to the discussion and to the blog will be published; comments that don’t will be deleted. I am the sole editor at this time, although eventually the role could be extended to other trusted individuals as well. If you’re wondering what types of comments stand a good chance of being published, read the Community Guidelines and Moderation Policy.

My hope is that this more rational approach to commenting will not only encourage folks who have contributed in the past to continue doing so, but also maybe get some people who have had reservations about jumping into a free-for-all to join us. I know there are a lot of you out there who have great ideas and who aren’t sharing them with us because I haven’t done a good job of providing a safe harbor for said ideas. If you’ve got something to say, and it smacks of intelligent thought, I welcome and look forward to your participation.

Contribute in Other Ways

Ducksnorts has been around nearly 11 years, but even when it’s old and grey, it’ll still be my baby. Although I plan to provide the vast majority of original content for now, I’d also like to mix things up every so often.

One of the things I’ve learned from reading comments over the years is that many of you have excellent ideas. I’ve also learned that sometimes those ideas get overlooked in the frenzy of commentary, which is a shame for all of us.

With that in mind, I may be tapping some of you to contribute original content. The intent of our new process is to reduce the amount of crap, not the proliferation of good ideas.

If you’ve got a concept for an article and it doesn’t suck, drop me a line. If I like the idea, I’ll tell you to run with it; if I don’t, I’ll let you know that, too. ;-)

Move Forward

I have a few other thoughts on how to improve our process (Slashdot style rating of comments, for example), but I’m not sure when I’ll be able to evaluate and implement those. We’ll try this out for a while and see how it goes.

Thanks again for being a part of the Ducksnorts community and for bearing with me as I try to figure out ways to keep it strong even as we grow. The challenge may seem daunting at times, but I’m confident that we’re up to the task.

Padres Farm Report: Spotlight on Portland

by Geoff Young on Aug 28, 2008 (1) Comments

Portland Beavers in a Box:
Record: 69-70
Runs Scored: 695
Runs Allowed: 764
BA/OBP/SLG: .265/.350/.431 (Pacific Coast League: .277/.347/.443)
ERA: 5.04 (PCL: 4.84)
DER: .632 (PCL: .637)
Source: Baseball-Reference.

This may be the weakest minor-league team in the Padres organization. In a league that emphasizes scoring, the Beavers’ offense is a little below average, while their pitching and defense are considerably worse.

The roster features a mix of legitimate prospects, suspects, guys who could have a career on the fringe if everything breaks right, and veterans who aren’t going anywhere soon. The best of the lot are second baseman Matt Antonelli (whom I ranked as the Padres #2 prospect entering the season), center fielder Will Venable, and left-hander Wade LeBlanc (#7). Others potentially in the mix include outfielder/third baseman Peter Ciofrone, first baseman Brian Myrow, infielder Craig Stansberry, right-hander Josh Geer, and left-hander Cesar Ramos.

Matt Antonelli: .213/.335/.314; .872 BB/K, .142 BB/PA, .101 ISO, .309 XB/H

Matt AntonelliAntonelli’s game fell apart this year, and I don’t know why. When he’s right, the 23-year-old out of Wake Forest possesses a broad base of skills that should translate into a top-of-the-order hitter at the big-league level. Unfortunately this season he hasn’t been right. He’s still showing a good batting eye, which is nice, but every other aspect of his game has fallen apart for no obvious reason. I’ve heard that he’s become too tentative at the plate, although I haven’t seen him in person this year, so I can neither confirm nor deny those reports. On the bright side, Antonelli seems to have reaffirmed his status as a legitimate second baseman and his numbers since the All-Star break are a respectable .264/.378/.408, which seems like a decent baseline for him going forward. Unless, of course, I’m being overly optimistic. ;-) Anyway, my inclination is to give the kid a mulligan and hope for better things (yes, possibly even a starting gig with the big club) in 2009.

Will Venable: .292/.361/.464; .427 BB/K, .089 BB/PA, .135 ISO, .341 XB/H

Will VenableI still have concerns about Venable — he’s old for a prospect (25), he’s inexperienced in center field — but he’s making it more difficult to maintain my stance, which pleases me. At worst, he’s solidifying his status as a future reserve outfielder in the big leagues; at best, he’s transforming himself into a destitute-man’s Jody Gerut, although that may be a stretch. Venable is hitting, hitting for power, and drawing a few walks. Venable has always played in pitching-friendly leagues, and now that he’s finally in an environment that favors offense, he’s not dominating in the way you’d like to see a guy his age dominate. His second-half fade (.250/.322/.390) isn’t real encouraging either. I like Venable’s chances a little better now than I did at the same time last year, but he still looks like a fourth outfielder to me.

Peter Ciofrone: .313/.388/.510; .581 BB/K, .090 BB/PA, .197 ISO, .309 XB/H

In the Ducksnorts 2008 Baseball Annual, I compared Ciofrone to ex-Padre Rob Mackowiak. The 24-year-old Ciofrone has decent on-base skills and some pop (although probably not as much as he’s showing this year), and can play multiple positions. The latter skill may eventually get him to the big leagues. Ciofrone exhibits no appreciable platoon splits and has improved his numbers as the season has progressed, which is always a good sign. He’s not a future star, or even a future regular, but he could have a career.

Brian Myrow: .315/.454/.497; 1.129 BB/K, .197 BB/PA, .182 ISO, .343 XB/H

Myrow is a 31-year-old first baseman who crushes baseballs. He made a brief cameo with the big club this summer and even hit his first career homer. He’s too old, he’s too limited defensively, he’s not the right build, but he just rakes. Once upon a time Myrow played a little third base. If he could’ve stuck there, he might have been Corey Koskie.

Craig Stansberry: .249/.356/.396; .818 BB/K, .140 BB/PA, .147 ISO, .338 XB/H

The first Saudi-born player to reach the big leagues, Stansberry can play anywhere on the infield. Offensively, he features a nice blend of on-base skills and gaps power. He was strictly a second baseman while in the Pirates system from 2004 to 2006, but has played a lot of shortstop and third base since joining the Padres last season. In fact, this year — thanks in part to the departure of Oscar Robles, and injuries to Luis Rodriguez and Khalil Greene (which forced Rodriguez to the big club) — most of his playing time has come at shortstop. At age 26, Stansberry isn’t a future regular, but he could have a career as a utility player. His best case is maybe a poor-man’s Mike Lansing.

Wade LeBlanc: 5.54 ERA, 2.87 BB/9, 8.95 K/9

There was some talk during spring training that the 23-year-old LeBlanc might break camp in the big-league rotation. I don’t know how serious that talk was, but what actually happened is he went to Triple-A, where he has struggled. There is no way to put a positive spin on his overall performance — the ERA is atrocious, and he’s coughed up too many home runs — but we can find a few bright spots if we dig a little deeper:

  • LeBlanc’s strikeout-to-walk ratio is better than 3-to-1. This isn’t a guarantee of future success, but it’s a fairly strong indicator. I like the fact that he is controlling the strike zone.
  • He’s allowing about a hit an inning. That’s not great, but it’s not like guys are constantly making contact against him. Again, most of his problems stem from the long ball.
  • After a miserable start to the season (7.88 ERA through May), he’s come on strong, posting a 4.29 ERA since — remember, the league ERA here is 4.84. LeBlanc has pitched particularly well since the All-Star break (3.16 ERA, 5 BB, 38 SO, .197 BAA).

I expect LeBlanc to vie for a spot in the 2009 rotation. Long-term he could be a Sterling Hitchcock type who slots in nicely toward the back end.

Josh Geer: 4.54 ERA, 2.43 BB/9, 5.78 K/9

I don’t get the fascination with Geer. He is hittable, his strikeout rate is terrible (5.60 in 567 1/3 career innings), and he is a bit long in the tooth (25) for a guy touted as a prospect. Sure, he won a lot of games last year at San Antonio and posted a nice ERA, but Geer looks to me like another Justin Germano, although Germano’s minor-league track record is stronger. I’m trying to think of things to say about Geer’s skill set, and all I can come up with is that it appears to be unexceptional in almost every way. As always, I hope the player proves me wrong, but I’m not seeing a lot to get excited about here.

Cesar Ramos: 5.26 ERA, 3.51 BB/9, 6.33 K/9

Cesar RamosHe’s 24 years old and a lefty. Otherwise, most of the comments in the section on Geer apply to Ramos as well (career K/9 of 5.43 in 507 2/3 innings — no thanks). His ERA looks pretty bad, but it could be worse: he’s also allowed 20 unearned runs this year.

* * *
Elsewhere in the minors, the Padres have extended their player development contract with Lake Elsinore through 2012. I’m hoping to make the trip up there this weekend to get a look at Allan Dykstra, who collected his first professional hit — a double — at Petco Park on Wednesday.

* * *
On another note, you’ll be happy to learn that I’m finalizing plans to reinstate commenting functionality early next week. We’re going with a different approach that represents a philosophical shift from the way we’ve done things in the past; I’ll have full details on Friday so everyone has a chance to let the new model sink in over the weekend before we get back to the business of talking about baseball.

Congratulations, It’s a Center Fielder

by Geoff Young on Aug 27, 2008 (1) Comments

Jody GerutOne of the few pleasant surprises in a miserable season has been the resurrection of Jody Gerut’s career. Gerut, who hadn’t played in the big leagues since 2005, signed a minor-league contract with the Padres back in January. Talk about under the radar. As Mick Jagger once sang, “I’ve got no expectations.”

It’s not like he was never any good, though. During his rookie campaign of 2003, Gerut had enjoyed a fair amount of success with the Cleveland Indians, hitting .279/.336/.494. After tailing off a bit the following year, he fell off even further in 2005 before missing the next two seasons altogether. At that point, what’s to expect?

How about a potential medium- to long-term replacement for Mike Cameron in center field. Yeah, right. Hey, wait a second…

Jody Gerut vs Mike Cameron, 2008
  Age $M PA BA OBP SLG OPS+ RF
Statistics are courtesy of Baseball-Reference and Cot’s Baseball Contracts, and are through games of August 26, 2008.
Gerut 30 0.7 351 .291 .348 .486 126 2.41
Cameron 35 7 393 .257 .346 .525 125 2.41

So, let’s see, that’s essentially the same production for one-tenth the price? Works for me… (Plus, that walkoff homer he hit off Jon Rauch on Monday night to break a seven-game losing streak was pretty sweet.)

Of course, it’s only one (partial) season’s worth of data, and as Gerut himself doubtless will agree, a lot can happen between “here” and “there.” Still, this qualifies as a pleasant surprise in my book. He just might buy the Padres enough time until Cedric Hunter is ready to take over in center.

* * *
Speaking of Hunter, the Padres and Storm play a doubleheader Wednesday at Petco Park. More accurately, the Padres and Diamondbacks play a game at 12:35 p.m. PT, and then the Storm and Inland Empire 66ers square off after that.

If you haven’t been up to Elsinore to see the Storm, do yourself a favor and catch them here in San Diego. As we noted a few weeks ago, the team is loaded with talent (and they’ve since added 2008 first-round pick Allan Dykstra).

Oh, and friend of Ducksnorts Steve Poltz (we did that really long interview with him this past winter) will be singing the national anthem prior to the first game, along with fellow local musician Gregory Page. Go get ‘em, boys. :-)

Please, Don’t Beat the Worms

by Geoff Young on Aug 26, 2008 (0) Comments

In the Ducksnorts 2008 Baseball Annual I noted that Adrian Gonzalez didn’t ground into many double plays in 2007. Given how slow he is and how many he’d hit into the year before, this surprised me. Well, now he’s back to his old tricks:

Adrian Gonzalez, Grounders and Double Plays
Year PA GIDP GB%
Statistics are courtesy of Baseball-Reference and Hardball Times, and are through games of August 25, 2008.
2006 631 24 43.8
2007 720 6 36.9
2008 567 20 43.6

This is a little troubling: In the book, I observed that his GB% actually declined from 2006 to 2007, which didn’t make any sense to me at the time. I don’t remember which source I used and I’m too lazy to go digging through my notes, but this time I’ve checked Hardball Times and Fangraphs, and both say the same thing: Gonzalez didn’t hit as many grounders in 2007.

On the one hand, I’m glad to see this because it fits better with my understanding of the way baseball works; on the other, how did I get the wrong data in the first place? I will need to retrace my steps and figure out what happened there.

On an unrelated note, it shouldn’t shock anyone to learn that Gonzalez leads the club in intentional walks — by a substantial margin — but do you know who is second? Two players are tied: Kevin Kouzmanoff and Paul McAnulty.

Yeah, that Paul McAnulty. As in, the guy who has been at Triple-A Portland since the beginning of July…