Life’s Sweetest Reward

Thursday, April 17, 2008
by Geoff Young
The season is extremely young, and we shouldn't place too much faith into three weeks of stats, but have you noticed that the Padres are beating their Pythagorean? Yeah, they've scored 49 runs and allowed 57, which is more indicative of a 6-9 record than the Pads' actual 8-7 mark. Again, it's early and we don't want to read much (if anything) into this just yet. Something worth watching, though. * * * In retrospect, maybe leaving Cla Meredith out for a second inning of work wasn't such a great idea. Wouldn't that have been a good time for Heath Bell? On the other hand, once the floodgates had opened, might as well get the obligatory Glendon Rusch appearance out of the way. Too bad he ...
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Posted in Game Recaps | 67 Comments »

OBG08 Projections for Padres Pitchers

Sunday, February 17, 2008
by Geoff Young
Yesterday we ran the hitters, today it's time for the moundsmen: OBG08 Projections for Select Padres Pitchers PlayerNo.IPERARange Key: No., number of people who submitted guesses; IP, innings pitched, ERA, duh; range, lower and upper guesses for ERA. Left-Handers Hampson, Justin11484.213.50 - 5.05 Thatcher, Joe11582.861.96 - 3.42 Wolf, Randy151244.183.71 - 4.91 Right-Handers Bell, Heath12812.762.25 - 3.53 Cameron, Kevin11533.783.10 - 4.85 Germano, Justin14814.623.74 - 5.50 Hensley, Clay13804.433.80 - 5.20 Hoffman, Trevor15513.212.60 - 5.00 Maddux, Greg171914.093.80 - 4.29 Meredith, Cla14722.972.40 - 3.41 Peavy, Jake212122.812.12 - 3.20 Prior, Mark14684.163.21 - 5.15 Young, Chris171793.232.40 - 4.15 I don't know if people got tired of the project toward the end or just had less confidence in projecting pitchers (especially relievers), but there was less participation here. I'm not being critical, ...
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Posted in Projections | 8 Comments »

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OBG08: Cla Meredith

Monday, February 11, 2008
by Geoff Young
I'm a sucker for freak stats, so I love the fact that Cla Meredith recorded more groundball outs in 2007 than did Chris Young despite pitching less than half as many innings. Meredith gave up a lot more hits last year than he did in his rookie campaign, but despite the high batting average, the overall line against him was .296/.334/.387 -- that's sort of like Willie McGee, Luis Polonia, Lance Johnson, or any number of other "slap-and-go" hitters from the '80s and '90s; Mickey Rivers if you want to go old-school, Mark Grudzielanek if you want to update it. In other words, ...
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Posted in Projections | 37 Comments »

First Projections for 2008

Tuesday, October 16, 2007
by Geoff Young
Dan has posted 2008 ZiPS projections for the Padres (hat tip to Ben B. in the comments). Some key names: Hitters PlayerBAOBPSLG Josh Bard.281.366.401 Adrian Gonzalez.284.351.511 Matt Antonelli.254.337.376 Kevin Kouzmanoff.289.345.492 Khalil Greene.249.300.442 Scott Hairston.243.317.405 Brian Giles.268.375.398 The projection for Hairston is low -- possibly by a lot, but the rest of these look reasonable to me. Center fielder remains a problem that I'm still studying. Pitchers PlayerERA Jake Peavy2.99 Chris Young3.32 Greg Maddux3.91 Trevor Hoffman2.53 Heath Bell2.89 Cla Meredith3.26 If Young is healthy, he'll beat this. Hoffman? Well, his ERA stood at 2.53 after 162 games this year. Winter Leagues Saguaros 3, Phoenix 2 (box score). ...
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Posted in Projections | 32 Comments »

Review the Preview: Pitchers

Monday, October 8, 2007
by Geoff Young
We're looking back at my preseason predictions for the Padres. Last week we examined the hitters; today we turn our attention to the moundsmen... Rotation Jake Peavy, RHP What I said: "If he's going to maintain his place among the elite pitchers in baseball, Peavy really needs to become more efficient." What happened: From a visual standpoint, it seemed like Peavy had less trouble putting hitters away once he got ahead of them in the count. Unfortunately I cannot find anything in the statistical record to support this. What I did notice is that the GB% (percentage of balls in play that resulted in ground balls) against Peavy jumped from 38% in ...
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Posted in Baseball | 30 Comments »

Elias Player Rankings

Thursday, November 2, 2006
by Geoff Young
Following the lead of Jim McLennan at AZ Snakepit, here are the Padres 2005-06 Elias player rankings: Hitters Brian Giles 83.333 A Mike Piazza 76.923 A Mike Cameron 71.333 A Todd Walker 70.996 A Dave Roberts 66.000 A Khalil Greene 62.434 B Josh Bard 54.762 B Ryan Klesko 53.778 B Josh Barfield 49.134 C Adrian Gonzalez 48.261 C Rob Bowen 35.897 Russell Branyan 26.708 Geoff Blum 22.360 Terrmel Sledge 12.222 Pitchers Scott Linebrink 84.231 A Trevor Hoffman 83.298 A Jake Peavy 78.023 A Chris Young 75.490 A Woody Williams 68.137 A ...
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Posted in Baseball | 24 Comments »