It’s that time of year again. My annual Five Questions article is up at Hardball Times. One of my questions focuses on the new ownership group and what it is doing to regain fan trust: Jeff Moorad and President and COO Tom Garfinkel have come in and expressed a commitment to the organization, the fans, [...]
Tag Archive for ‘chase headley’ 
Junior’s Revamped Swing and Other Tales of Derring-Do
In which the author recounts the events of Sunday afternoon’s baseball game between the Cleveland Indians and the San Diego Padres using only his bare hands and a plethora of bullet points… Chris Young looked like Chris Young. Fastball in the high-80s, everything up, lots of pitches. He needed 29 to make it through the [...]
Friday Links (5 Mar 10)
Friday. Links. Friday Links. Get it? Three thoughts (Inside the Padres). Quoth Grady Fuson, as related by Tom Krasovic: “I told Will Venable: ‘You’re going to end up being a better big leaguer than you were a minor leaguer. I hardly every say that (about a player), but I believe it. I do.” Yeah, I’ve [...]
Mailbag: Spring Training Questions
Ryan from The Padres, Chargers, Illini Blog writes: Geoff, As it stands now, it seems like the roster is more or less set to start the season, or at least more set at this stage of the offseason than in years past. Given that (apparent) certainty, what are a few things you’ll be looking for [...]
Positive Negative Man
In my experience, things usually are neither as bad nor as good as they seem to be. When the Padres lost 99 games in 2008, many people abandoned hope. I wasn’t one of them and predicted 75 wins in 2009, which is precisely what we got. (In the interest of full disclosure, I’d predicted 87 [...]
Friday Links (29 Jan 10)
Don’t waste your links or links will waste you… The nickname game: all nicknames all the time (Hardball Times). I don’t recall ever hearing Mike Cameron referred to as “The Black Cat” in his two years with the Padres. I still have a soft spot for two other ex-Padres, Milton “Jenga” Bradley and Kevin “Mashin’ [...]
Where in the Cycle Are We?
Ray from Sacrifice Bunt recently asked in the comments: Does anyone think that [GM Jed] Hoyer is trying to build a team that will make the 2010 playoffs? It seems clear to me that Hoyer is treating this season as a way to get an idea for what he has and what he needs. Not [...]
Chase Headley and the Art of the Comp
Reader TexPadre recently posed the following question: When will Chase Headley show a decent amount of power? Or will he ever? Headley, you may recall, was the subject of much hype in spring training 2008. He had just come off a monster season (.330/.437/.580) at Double-A San Antonio and people got a little silly, mistaking [...]
Hey, I Can See the Off-Season from Here
I’ve been busy. Part of the reason is that I’ll be contributing to two forthcoming books: The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2010 (due out in November) and John Burnson’s Graphical Player 2010 (due out in December). I can’t go into a lot of detail just yet because — well, I’m not done writing — but [...]
Youngsters and Salary Dumps
We’ve been tracking a few key young players since the All-Star break using Modified Box Scores (explanation). Let’s see how these kids are doing as measured by more conventional metrics. Bear in mind that we’re talking about 31 games, a tiny sample. First, the Padres as a team: Padres Offense, First and Second Half [...]
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