Archive for Padres

On October 27, 2008, I lay sprawled on the carpet in front of the television, watching as Cole Hamels twirled yet another postseason masterpiece. My new puppy sat calmly by my side, having finally learned the rally towel was my toy, not his. Hamels pitched six innings that night; he could have gone deeper were it not for a 48-hour rain delay, but his efforts proved to be enough. Two days later, I was jumping with joy into my father’s arms as Hamels clutched the World Series trophy in his.

Fifteen years later, the living room carpet is long gone. The TV remains, although it’s wildly out of date. That new puppy is now officially geriatric, with greying fur and two bad hips. My father would prefer I no longer jump into his arms; he gets enough of a workout carrying our 50-pound dog up and down the stairs.

Forty different players took the field for the Phillies in 2008. Thirty-nine have since retired. Hamels, however, isn’t quite ready to submit to the passage of time. On Thursday afternoon, the veteran left-hander signed a minor league deal with the Padres and will head to Peoria as a non-roster invitee, hoping to make his way back to the big leagues at 39 years old. Read the rest of this entry »

The Padres aren’t going anywhere this season but that doesn’t automatically qualify the 41-56 club as deadline sellers. While Carlos Quentin, Chase Headley and Huston Street have attracted plenty of attention on the trade market, general manager Josh Byrnes has approached the deadline in a rather conservative manner. With a new ownership group set to take over, it remained unclear if the team would look to trade most of its valuable assets to help expedite the rebuilding process.

Their plan started to take shape this weekend, when the Padres signed Quentin to a three-year, $27 million contract extension that keeps him in his hometown until at least 2015. The team has also reportedly shifted its focus towards retaining Street, and rumors surrounding Headley have quieted. It may seem strange for a team like the Padres to keep these types of players around instead of acquiring prospects, but especially in Quentin’s case, this new deal has the potential to help the Padres get more competitive without really breaking the bank.

The Padres undoubtedly could have brought something back for Quentin, his .392 wOBA and 1.7 WAR, but signing him now could have more significant implications for the team’s future. This signing could signal that the Padres will increase payroll next year and look to bring in more talented players via trade or free agency. In isolation, the deal looks like it should basically break-even, without truly benefiting one party more than the other. But under the context of what it could mean for the team moving forward, it’s far more important of a move.

Read the rest of this entry »

Heath Bell and Carlos Pena were each claimed on waivers earlier this week, though it appears that neither player will be moving.

The Giants claimed Bell, most likely to bolster their bullpen given the injuries to Brian Wilson and Sergio Romo. The waiver claim could have also been submitted to block the Diamondbacks from acquiring Bell. The Yankees claimed Pena, even though Mark Teixeira plays virtually every inning at first base and Jorge Posada has performed well against righties this season with a .359 wOBA.

But given the Yankees place in the standings and the lack of need for the Red Sox, the claim on Pena probably wasn’t used as a blocking mechanism.

Both players should have been dealt back at the trade deadline, when teams could unilaterally work with one another. Both Bell and Pena might not represent massive improvements to anyone with only a month remaining in the season, but they could have impacted the playoff picture if traded in mid-July, when more teams were seemingly in the race. Let’s take a look at both situations.

Read the rest of this entry »

Let’s face it: Khalil Greene stunk this year. He entered 2008 as a .253/.306/.446 true talent hitter, projected to hit 35 doubles and launch 20 home runs. These numbers may not be remarkable, but they look Ruthian compared to his .213/.260/.339 line in 105 games this season. You won’t find him on the leaderboards here but if you adjust the qualifier to those with 400+ plate appearances, Greene can be found second from the bottom—to just Michael Bourn—with his .599 OPS, and fifth from the bottom amongst senior circuit hitters in WPA/LI, with a -1.56. In about two-thirds of the season, Greene was one and a half win worse than an average hitter.

His strikeout rate, which was projected to be around 21% this year was actually 25.7%. His BABIP, which had ranged from .277 to .287 over the last three years, dropped to .262, which is not monumental given that he seemed like 15-25 points below .300 was his true talent level, but still a cause for his poor production. Khalil’s Marcel projection for Isolated Power was .192 and he finished sixty-six points below, at .126.

His fielding also took a hit. After recording a +13 in 2006 and a +7 last year, Greene lost range to his right, at which he had been quite good the last few years, and his ability to range left worsened as well, ultimately resulting in a -4. His frustration at poor production came to its boiling point on July 30, against the Diamondbacks.

After recording his one-hundredth strikeout of the season, Greene punched a storage cabinet at Petco Park, breaking a bone in his left hand. He missed the rest of the season, meaning there would be no opportunity to regress or improve. For reference, via WPA/LI, in the national league, only Jeff Franceour, Michael Bourn, Jeff Keppinger, and Cesar Izturis had worse seasons. As the title of this post suggests, however, there is more to this story. Because Greene’s injury was self-inflicted and not the byproduct of an on field incident, Sandy Alderson and the Padres are looking to get their hands on about 1.47 of the 4.5 million dollars Greene was set to make this year.

I’m curious to hear your thoughts on this. I understand baseball is a business and yadda yadda, but the team was not going anywhere this year, at least by July 30, and so Greene’s frustration-induced-injury didn’t necessarily prevent them from making the playoffs. If you’re in Alderson’s shoes, do you look to recollect some of the money too?

Let’s play a little game. Below are seasonal lines for four of the top pitchers in the National League, and I would like you to try and identify the owners while simultaneously deciding which holds the best numbers:

a) 3.04 ERA, 2.96 FIP, 1.13 WHIP, 7.60 K/9, 3.33 K/BB, .294 BABIP
b) 2.59 ERA, 3.27 FIP, 1.12 WHIP, 9.02 K/9, 3.70 K/BB, .292 BABIP
c) 3.14 ERA, 3.25 FIP, 1.19 WHIP, 7.56 K/9, 3.51 K/BB, .303 BABIP
d) 3.28 ERA, 3.13 FIP, 1.16 WHIP, 8.77 K/9, 3.69 K/BB, .304 BABIP

All four have earthbound BABIPs so it isn’t to say one has been more or less lucky than another in that area, and each has very solid numbers. While any team should feel safe with any one of these pitchers, I would tend to think that Pitcher B has the best numbers of the group. His WHIP is the lowest, K/9 the highest, K/BB the highest, ERA the lowest, with a higher-but-still-great FIP.

With that in mind, here are the identities:

a) Brandon Webb
b) Jake Peavy
c) Ben Sheets
d) CC Sabathia

Of the four pitching lines above, Jake Peavy arguably has the best numbers, and yet this baseball fan/writer simply has not heard anything about his performance to date. With so many surprise-pitchers like Cliff Lee, Joe Saunders, Ervin Santana, Ryan Dempster, et al, hogging the headlines and the Padres spending most of the season as cellar-dwellars, the Jakester has seemingly been lost in the shuffle. His 8-7 W-L record does not help him much either; while many of us understand how W-L records are terrible barometers there are many more fans who treat that stat as gospel.

One aspect of Peavy’s performance line due to regress is his strand rate. To date he has allowed very few baserunners and 84.5% of them have been left on base. The league average is around 72% and an absolutely tremendous season may result in a 77-79% rate; sustaining an 84.5% rate just is not very likely. When this does regress, it means more runners will score, which should lessen the gap between his ERA and FIP; however, his numbers will likely still be very, very good.

Plugging him into the in-season Marcel, Peavy is expected to finish off the season with 56 innings over nine starts, walking 17 and fanning 55 batters. His WHIP over the remainder would be an almost-identical 1.14, while his FIP would drop to 3.07. Should this come to fruition, his season would finish like this:

28 GS, 178 IP, 150 H, 50 BB, 177 K, 1.12 WHIP, 2.74 ERA, 3.21 FIP

There are very few pitchers in the league likely to finish with numbers better than that yet nobody seems to be discussing him. Maybe he has the Pujols-syndrome in which everyone expects tremendous numbers and because of that would rather discuss the surprises. That doesn’t seem very fair though. In closing, here are Peavy’s ranks in the NL:

1st, 2.59 ERA
2nd, 3.70 K/BB
2nd, 27.66 BRAA
3rd, 2.75 REW
3rd, 1.12 WHIP
5th, 9.02 K/9
6th, 3.27 FIP
6th, 1.99 WPA/LI

To me, that’s someone who should be getting some recognition, regardless of whether or not his performance level is expected.

In the third inning of the Padres-Braves game yesterday, while trailing 1-0 to his former employer, Greg Maddux tried to make something happen. With one out, he singled off of Charlie Morton, and proceeded to steal second base following the next retired batter. The inning would ultimately fail to produce a run for the Friars but the stolen base added yet another accomplishment to Greg’s long hall of fame resume. At 42 years and 89 days old, Maddux became the oldest pitcher to steal a base, a mark previously held by Jim Kaat.

According to Greg they weren’t holding him on and it wasn’t a big deal because, even if he was thrown out, the lineup had already been turned over. Plus, the Padres were struggling to score runs and, pitcher or no pitcher, he was a baserunner.

Greg has stolen eleven bases in his career while thrice being caught. He has not, however, failed in an attempt since the 2000 season, going a perfect 7-7 since. Stealing one base in each of the 2002, 2004, 2005, 2007, and 2008 seasons, Maddux actually stole two in the 2006 season; one while on the Cubs and one while in Dodger blue. Here are the pitcher/catcher batteries unsuccessful in preventing the speedy professor:

2002: Tomo Ohka/Michael Barrett
2004: Jason Marquis/Mike Matheny
2005: Jae Seo/Ramon Castro
2006: Matt Cain/Eliezer Alfonzo AND Chris Young/Mike Piazza
2007: Jeff Francis/Yorvit Torrealba
2008: Charlie Morton/Brian McCann

He has pitched fairly well this year—3.90 ERA/3.92 FIP—and his in-season Marcel projects him to get even better over his next 12-15 starts. Still, this may be his final season and I would not be surprised in the least if he finds himself in a new uniform prior to the trading deadline. A contending team likely would not need to part with a top-tier prospect for his services and teams could do far worse than plug him in as a #3 or #4 starter. The Padres have been a severe disappointment this year after coming within one game of the playoffs in 2007; it would do them well to work towards assembling an offense capable enough of preventing pitchers from feeling that if they do not steal bases, they will not be batted in.

I can remember May 22, 2002 like it was six years ago yesterday as I did not even need to look up gamelogs to remember the very first major league start of Mark Prior. A high school sophomore at the time, I would often use my lunch period to watch day games on either Gameday or MLB TV; on that day I was lucky enough to watch Prior make his Mark. Get it?

Breezing through the Pirates hitters with the greatest of ease, this would begin a five-game stretch in which the Cubs rookie struck out 43 hitters in 28.2 innings. Calm, cool, and collected, his fluid windup provided such an intimidating presence on the mound. On the whole, his rookie season consisted of 147 strikeouts in 116.2 innings; just 38 walks; a 3.32 ERA, 3.16 FIP, and a 1.17 WHIP; and a .230 BAA. He finished seventh in Rookie of the Year voting but, in just 19 starts, had risen almost entirely to the top of the Cubs rotation.

If there were any doubts his 2003 not only erased them but helped make people forget said doubts ever crept into their minds. Finishing 3rd (to Eric Gagne and Jason Schmidt) in Cy Young Award voting, Prior went 18-6 with a 2.43 ERA. His WHIP went down to 1.10 and he struck out 245 hitters in 211.1 innings. His FIP of 2.47 suggests his ERA was right on the money and he allowed just 15 home runs.

Prior pitched game six of the NLCS where some guy in the crowd prevented a ball caught in foul territory that Moises Alou forgave six years later (Question: Why isn’t Alex Gonzalez criticized more? His play was worse!).

The next season, an injury-riddled one, looked a lot like a slightly poorer version of his rookie year. Check it out:

2002:19 GS, 116.2 IP, 98 H, 14 HR, 38 BB, 147 K, 3.32 ERA, 1.17 WHIP
2004:21 GS, 118.2 IP, 108 H, 14 HR, 48 BB, 139 K, 4.02 ERA, 1.35 WHIP

In 2005 he missed more time, albeit not as much as the year prior (get it?), and pitched pretty well; though not as well as someone determined to be the next 300-game winner would be expected to pitch. That year he struck out 188 batters in 166.2 innings, posting a 3.67 ERA, 3.85 FIP, and 1.21 WHIP.

Missing most of the next season his actual playing time in 2006 proved disastrous. In nine starts he posted a 7.21 ERA and a 1.69 WHIP. His FIP of 6.60, which suggests his ERA may have been a bit high, was still high in its own right. 2006 would also be the first season in which Prior struck out less batters than innings pitched and posted a BB/9 above 3.64. After stranding runners to the tune of 76.7%-79.4% he posted an LOB of just 62.0%.

He missed last season with more injuries and the Cubs decided to let him go. Signing a low-risk deal with the Padres this offseason, hope still existed that Prior could shake the injury-plagued status that accompanies him everywhere these days and be, at the very least, a league average pitcher. This weekend’s news changed everything.

News surfaced this weekend that Prior, still just 27 years of age, would have surgery and miss the entire 2008 season. Often the player associated most with regards to Dusty Baker’s poor handling of pitchers, Prior will again miss significant pitching time due to a faulty shoulder. As Sam Panayotovich points out, it’s a shame because Prior had the abilities to dominate the league at the age of 23; now he’ll be lucky to make 20+ starts in a future season.

When Prior returned from the DL in 2004, Cubs announcers remarked that fans now felt their season had begun with their ace making his return. As my friend Evan Brunell remarked yesterday, “Now you know the season has really begun when ‘Mark Prior out for the season’ hits the newswire.”

Oh, how the tides have turned, and oh how sad of a downfall it has been.