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Padres Farm Report: Spotlight on Portland

Thursday, August 28, 2008
by Geoff Young

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 ...

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Posted in Minors | 1 Comment »

Hairston Never Got the Memo

Monday, July 28, 2008
by Geoff Young

I spend the weekend at Comic-Con, and the Padres go out and win three straight games. Are they even allowed to do that? Scott Hairston hit another home run on Sunday. Dude is batting .364/.417/.909 in July. He also has eight homers this month and 11 RBI. That's pretty hard to do. Hairston has some unusual splits in 2008. First off, he's destroying left-handers: .297/.313/.658, with 10 homers in just 115 plate appearances. Sure, the OBP is low, but why would you ever let a pitch go by when you're knocking the snot out of the ball like that? Hairston also ...

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Posted in Baseball | 105 Comments »

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Series Preview: Joe Aiello Talks Cubs

Monday, May 12, 2008
by Geoff Young

With the Padres headed to Chicago for a four-game series, I decided to check in with Joe Aiello of View from the Bleachers for the latest info on the Cubs. We now turn the blog over to Joe... Ducksnorts: The Cubs have gotten off to a terrific start and have a very balanced attack. Can they sustain this level of play and, in the suddenly revitalized NL Central, will it be enough for a return trip to the post-season? Aiello: I think they can. I'm not just saying that as a fan of the team. If you look around the NL, everyone is beatable. When the Mets traded for [Johan] Santana, everyone ...

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Posted in Interviews | 29 Comments »

The Year Jake Peavy Turned Hitters into Matt Walbeck

Tuesday, March 25, 2008
by Geoff Young

I recently picked up the Bill James Gold Mine 2008. There's tons of great stuff in here, as you'd expect, but two items in particular have captured my imagination (so far): the "record of opposing batters" James presents for certain pitchers, and the "comps" he offers of team batting records to individual career batting records (e.g., the Padres hit like Bobby Bonilla in wins last season and like Norm Sherry in losses). Hey, why not mash 'em up and see what happens? Well, that's just what I've done. I examined Jake Peavy's year-by-year "record of ...

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Posted in Baseball | 42 Comments »

Hey Buddy, Can You Play the Outfield?

Wednesday, January 16, 2008
by Geoff Young

Dan Hayes at the North County Times reports that Chase Headley, Matt Antonelli, Scott Hairston, and Chad Huffman will be working out at Petco Park this week to improve (or learn) their outfield skills. The switch-hitting Headley, a third baseman by trade, is blocked by Kevin Kouzmanoff and may get a look in left field this spring. Antonelli, who already has moved from third to second base in his brief professional career, will get some reps in center field, as will Hairston. Quoth GM Kevin Towers: It's probably the biggest challenge for Headley, with him having never really played outfield at all. But if he's able to do it he'll be ...

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Posted in Minors, Spring Training | 28 Comments »

Jake the Efficient

Thursday, September 27, 2007
by Geoff Young

What to say about Wednesday night's win (box score)... Huge? Yeah, a little. Fun? You bet. Jake Peavy struck out just one batter over seven solid innings en route to his 19th win. First time since August 2003 he's registered fewer than two strikeouts in a game. Matt and Mud speculated that maybe Peavy had purposely changed his approach to save some bullets for Sunday in Milwaukee if needed. In the post-game interview, Peavy confirmed as much. Bob Scanlan in the wrap-up show wondered why Peavy worked the seventh with ...

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Posted in Game Recaps | 246 Comments »

Hacking on a 2-1 Count

Thursday, October 20, 2005
by Geoff Young

Yesterday we talked about the Padres' inability to hit on a 2-1 count. We speculated on reasons why this might be so. Reader Anthony suggested that some hard hit balls may have died on the warning track at Petco or that some players might be thinking walk first when they get ahead in the count. Dex suspects there might be an organizational philosophy that leads to an overly aggressive approach in certain situations. The Padres numbers seemed pretty anemic to me, but it's difficult to know for sure without any context. I thought it might prove instructive to run numbers on all 30 MLB teams and see how the Padres stack up against ...

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Posted in Baseball | 10 Comments »