Tag Archive for ‘padres’ rss

Links for 22 Oct 08

Notes to self: Always add Sriracha to spaghetti sauce, stop leering at Yvonne Strahovski, listen to more Fishbone… Why not us? Comparing Royals’ moves to Rays’ decisions (Kansas City Star). Reader Didi sends this article by Joe Posnanski. There’s plenty of good stuff in here, but looking beyond the article, what gets me is the [...]

Links for 17 Oct 08

The topic du jour seems to be Jake Peavy, so let’s get busy… Paul DePodesta weighs in on the situation [h/t LynchMob]: “If you have something you value at one million dollars, it would be foolish to refuse to consider selling it for twenty million dollars. On the flip side, it would also be foolish [...]

Links for 14 Oct 08

I’m trying out a tool that pulls links from my Delicious bookmarks and publishes them here on a semi-regular basis… How much should Ben Sheets get? (Hardball Times). Victor Wang uses projected performance and risk analysis to predict that free-agent right-hander Ben Sheets will get $55-65 million for 4 or 5 years. The methodology seems [...]

Writing the Book (13 Oct 08)

I’m still making good progress on the Ducksnorts 2009 Baseball Annual. This week I worked on player profiles and dashboards. My goal was to complete eight of ‘em, but I ended up doing 13. Next up: a few more full profiles to write, plus several shorter pieces on guys who didn’t contribute as much; I [...]

OBG08 Revisited: Pitchers

We’re looking back at our pre-season community projections. On Wednesday we covered the hitters; today we turn to the pitchers. Left-Handers Justin Hampson, 2008   IP ERA Projected 48 4.21 Actual 30.2 2.93 Our most optimistic projection had Hampson at a 3.50 ERA. Joe Thatcher, 2008   IP ERA Projected 58 2.86 Actual 25.2 8.42 [...]

OBG08 Revisited: Hitters

Back in February we did some community projections for the 2008 Padres. In the interest of accountability, here’s how we measured up to reality. Catchers Josh Bard, 2008   PA BA OBP SLG Projected 425 .278 .357 .410 Actual 198 .202 .279 .270 Yuck. Our most pessimistic projection had Bard at a 725 OPS. Michael [...]

We’ll See You When We See You

The season is over. Thank goodness for that. The Padres played brutal baseball for most of 2008, and fans were in a pretty sour mood all year. Unfortunately I let the negativity get to me more than I should have. I suppose it’s safe to admit this now, because I no longer feel it’s likely [...]

It Could Be Worse; Just Ask the Mariners

Bullet points this morning: I’ve got a new piece up at Baseball Digest Daily that talks about the challenges facing the Seattle Mariners this off-season. Here in San Diego, the Padres have their work cut out for them as they attempt to rebuild, but there’s something to be said for not owing Jarrod Washburn, Miguel [...]

Fun with Run Support

My latest article at Hardball Times focuses on a technique Bill James employed in his 1988 Baseball Abstract to evaluate the degree to which a pitcher might be aided (or not) by his offense. James used it to compare Danny Jackson and Walt Terrell from 1985 to 1987; I use it to compare Jarrod Washburn [...]

Partly Focused, with a Ten Percent Chance of Useful

Like that new Metallica song, I’m scattered and unfocused today, with hopefully a touch of good stuff in there somewhere… Folks have been singing the praises of Cha Seung Baek because his fastball actually creeps into the mid-90s. I look at his track record and apparent disinterest in attacking hitters, and have concerns, but Monday [...]