I just wish the team would stop putting him in center.

While not quite the second coming of Brady Clark, Denorfia’s highlight reel is a little shorter than the average centerfielder. According to UZR, he’s been below average this year, posting a -3.1. Dewan’s +/- is harder on Norf, placing him at -5 DRS (defensive runs saved). But with Anthony Junior out the rest of the regular season, it looks like Denorfia has little to worry about with his job security.

There are other options, though NL Manager of the Year-to be Bud Black has shown little interest in them. Over the course of his Padres career, Hairston has made 98 starts in center and has a +5.3 UZR*** in center. But with his regular scheduled second half slump (.490 OPS), S dot has found his playing time severely limited. Then there’s Luis Durango and the recently reacquired Jody Gerut, but neither of them are good enough to muscle their way into the starting lineup. That leaves us with one obvious option.

Will Venable is no stranger to centerfield, having made 42 starts at the position since 2008. But I’m not going to bother drawing any conclusions from those 300+ innings. Really, there’s very little evidence to draw any conclusions about Venable’s defense, but in sixteen hundred total innings, he’s saved 13.7 runs out there. He’s been tasked with Petco’s right field and he’s come out on top. At least, so far.

One troubling trend I’ve noticed as this season has gone on is the slow phasing out of the youngsters from the lineup. Of the Baby Pads who started the off this year, only Chase Headley sees regular playing time. Venable is next but a couple of hundred at-bats behind. In 2011 and beyond, this team is going to needs these youngsters to pick up where Adrian and co. leave off. Finding out if Venable is capable of delivering 20 home runs out of center is a good start.

Denorfia’s a great story, and he’ll remain one in left field. Let’s see if Venable’s ready to play.

*Denorfia 208 major league at-bats coming into 2010, compared to 2630 of the minor league variety.
**This means that only a little luck has been on his side.
***In 921 innings.

After waiting in line and paying $14 as it was the cheapest ticket available, I came to learn beer fest mainly consists of the opportunity to wait 30 minutes to pay $6 for 14 oz of beer. Note, this only applies if one is lucky enough to ween one’s way to the front of the line without the keg tapping out.

Now Woe Doctor (is his name woe doctor?) and I are waiting onother 15 minutes to get in the HOF bar and grill. People are abandoning ship for Toronado.

Garfinkel just half-apologized to the crowd, to audible boos. I guess something like “we’ll do it better next year” counts as an apology.

Update: Added photo

During their game on Friday night, this happened:

(NOTE: While this isn’t a graphic video, it’s not entirely pleasing to watch)

I’m less interested in getting into a “Was it clean?” debate then I am with some of the comments after the game:

Joe Girardi, former catcher: “I’ve been run over a lot of times. Hard slides. It’s part of the trade. Your job as a catcher is to block the plate. You’ve got to keep the runner from scoring. Sometimes you get run over. I’ve gotten my nose broken, my shoulder separated. It’s all part of the game.”

Bobby Wilson, current catcher: “He was playing baseball. He was playing hard. There’s no hard feelings towards Tex. I know he wasn’t trying to hurt me. Just playing baseball. People can say whatever they want. Whether they think it was a clean play or they think it was a dirty play – that’s baseball. I know next time around, I’m telling you, I won’t back down. That’s part of the game.”

You get the idea.

If you’ve watched enough MLB Network, or any channel that gives a platform for old time baseball guys to wax nostalgic, you’ve probably heard the story of Pete Rose and Ray Fosse at the 1970 All-Star Game. It goes that in the 12th inning of the exhibition game, Charlie Hustle ran over Fosse as he blocked the plate, as old time catchers tended to do, to score the winning run. The story usually ends with a eulogy for Fosse’s career, which was never the same after the hit.

Luckily, for those involved, the part about Rose ending Fosse’s career with that hit isn’t actually true, but when you win a gunfight with Lee Marvin, facts aren’t necessarily necessary. The legend is enough, and the legend tends to glorify a hard-nosed style of baseball that scrambles brains, as the newly concussed Bobby Wilson can attest to.

My question is: Why is this type of play still legal? A concussion is a traumatic brain injury and while it’s possible for non-catchers to get concussions (just ask Corey Koskie or Edgar Gonzalez), it’s more of an inherent part of the game for them than getting run over like a tackling dummy. At no other bag would it be allowed or accepted or excused for one player to run over another simply because he was in the way, but catchers are an exception because, why? The pads they wear? Are they really built to protect from the impact of being bulldozed by a 220 pound man?

I know baseball is a game that idolizes its past, but that doesn’t mean we have to continue living in it. With everything we know about head injuries, what’s the point of keeping plays like this legal?

Baseball has lost some of its charm

When we were kids, baseball players played baseball, so that’s what we did…

Regardless of the outrage you’re haplessly manufacturing, baseball is still played. It’s not like a game of quidditch broke out on the field. There is a pitcher and batter, the batter hits a pitched ball with a bat. Fathers watch with daughters. Kids play in the park. I managed to drink a beer yesterday without dropping my calculator. None of the stuff you hate takes away from the things you claim to like. Even this response to your argument is cliche by now.

The Grand New Game — if that’s what you want to call it (I prefer the old one) — is being overanalyzed into embalmment. Baseball history always has been driven by stats, which is why the steroid era has smacked it in the mouth and it’s still bleeding. But we never knew what an OPS or UZR or any of these other geek formulas were. And, if we didn’t know, the real ballplayers didn’t know. They didn’t need to. They just went out and played.

Go into Padres manager Bud Black’s office and you’ll find him sitting at his desk, laptop open. Used to be, when you went to see a skipper after a game, his fly might be open — or he might be naked. How I long to see Dick Williams in there, two legs propped up, stripped down to his sanitaries and a few other things, sipping Chivas Regal out of an 18-ounce beer cup, speaking in a tongue salted by a lengthy stay in baseball’s inn.

Man, how I miss that.

Yikes. You did see the primer printed in your very own newspaper on UZR? I don’t think I need to point out the name calling implications toward your own readers.

Joe Banks, eighty-two years young, has come to this pond every day for the past seventeen years, to feed the ducks. But last month, Joe made a discovery. The ducks…were gone. Some say the ducks went to Canada. Others say, Toronto. And some people think, that Joe used to sit down there, near those ducks. But it could be, that there’s just no room in this modern world, for an old man…and his ducks.

Oops, that quote isn’t from your article.

Sorry Nick. This piece is 10 years late. It is cliche by now. You are cliche. These sappy, emotionally manipulative, empty space where content is supposed to be pieces are what strangled your beloved newspapers. Strangled past tense. You don’t deserve to earn a living writing about baseball. Readers have already voted with their feet.

It’s your own fault. It’s not numbers, players, “society”, or any other imagined entity you think is to blame because people don’t listen to you anymore. Silly words of yours on a computer screen in a pitiful attempt to convince yourself and your readers you are not at fault will not change that.

It has been laundered by too many statistics, too many Ph.Ds, and too much money has nearly washed it clean of characters.

“The players are bigger, stronger, faster than we were,” Coleman says. “You can’t knock today’s players. I don’t think they play the same game we did. They don’t use their brains the way we did, but they’re better players than we were.

Honestly, I don’t even know what this article is supposed to be about. UZR is ruining little league? There are too many “Ph.Ds” in the game, but Jerry Coleman is complaining that “They don’t use their brains the way we did”? Stats were fine and dandy until OPS came around, but that was the breaking point? Did you read this? Do you ever read your stuff?

You don’t like baseball anymore? Then stop writing about the subject and quit embarrassing yourself with this shit. I’m sure you can still find Dick Williams’ open fly around somewhere. Have at it.

All’s well that ends well, right? Right. But I still have a concern.

Lifting Blanks was the logical decision. While Headley was due up ninth, backup third baseman Jerry Hairston, Jr. was already in the game at second, making a double switch to remove Headley a little less neat. And Headley’s an honest-to-goodness third baseman so it’s not like he’s a defensive liability, not like first baseman-cum-left fielder Blanks. Removing Blanks for a defensive substitution, double switch or no, might not be the worst idea in the world, especially for a team beginning to pride itself on small ball. That Blanks is the second best hitter* on the team however, might be a detail.

Can the Padres really afford to give Blanks the Ryan Klesko treatment**? More to the point, should they? Had the best laid plans not worked out and Arizona came back to tie the game, what happens to the team’s odds of coming back themselves with Blanks on the bench?

(This is where I acknowledge that I’m making assumptions. What happened last night may have been last night specific, with the team having no further plans to Klesko-ize Blanks, if that’s even what it was. Or it might be exactly the team’s plans moving forward, in which case continue reading.)

As I mentioned earlier, the team is priding themselves on playing small ball and stealing a lot of bases in Spring Training. How does Blanks and his outside linebacker’s body fit into this? That’s right, at first base.

Adrian wouldn’t be the first All-Star first baseman let go in part because of a youngster breathing down his neck. Just last year, the Angels were able to live with Mark Teixeira signing with the Yankees because Kendry Morales was ready to jump in and hit 34 home runs. Of course, they could’ve resigned Teixeira and forced the less-than-agile Morales to play out of position, but Kevin Towers wasn’t running the team at the time.

I know Hoyer inherited a mess, but something is wrong when a weak hitting team such as the Padres sees removing a 30 home threat from a game as a viable option. And while I trust Hoyer to clean things up, I hope last night’s move at least made him go hmm.

*According to most projections (Bill James, CHONE, etc.), Blanks will be a 120 wRC+ hitter this year, putting him behind only Adrian on the team.

**Quick history lesson: Ryan Klesko was the team’s starting left fielder in 2004 and 05 and was horrible defensively, which is why he frequently watched the end of games on the bench while someone more capable did his job in left.

So… Posey wasn’t in the original call-ups. Then he was called up. Then Bochy said he might start him. Then Bochy said ideally he’d play Posey in a blowout. Then there’s a blowout, six games into it, and Bochy STILL WON’T PLAY POSEY.

Grant at McCovey Chronicles:

At first, I thought Bochy really was concerned that Posey would come in, allow six passed balls, throw 15 balls into center field, nail his pitcher in the head with a return throw when the pitcher wasn’t looking, and punch an umpire in the throat.

Grant adds some of his own thoughts as to what exactly is going on behind the scenes in the San Francisco front office. Check it out.

We may have our issues with our Bud-bot, but at least he gets this: the Padres will be built through the draft.

PadreHomer informs me it was Antoine Predock who designed the exterior of Petco Park.

But check it out: HOK Sport (now Populus) is attached to both the Minnesota and San Diego ballpark projects, as well as being involved in just about every new park design the past two decades.

And HOK is also known for re-using the same ideas. Don’t get me wrong–red brick and green accents looked great. But that was just the first time or three.

Luckily there aren’t too many new ballparks left that need building, so we may only have one Petco clone.

Thanks to dwallick and resedabear for the photos.

Melvin Update 7/20: Twins fans, don’t take this post so seriously. I don’t know anything about Target Field except that one part of the facade looks just like one part of the PETCO facade. I’m sure the rest of the park is different. In fact, us Padre fans think it’s pretty cool that you’ll actually be able to tell what team plays home games at Target Field, while you’d never know who plays in PETCO because there are no signs whatsoever.

And no, I don’t care that one material is “limestone” from 100 miles north of Minnesota, while the other is “sandstone”. That’s all marketing. They look exactly alike. Don’t tell me this doesn’t look just like this. But really, I’m faulting HOK here more than anyone, they have a history of building ballparks that look just like each other.

Over the past week, Adrian’s had an OPS of .494 (which is good for a tOPS+ of 9). And his defense hasn’t been much better. During today’s game, the daily implosion followed a bungled routine ground ball by the Gold Glover.

To the quotes!:

“Right now, things aren’t clicking for me,” Gonzalez said. “I thought I was all over that ball, but it hit off the edge of my glove. It’s a reaction play, one shot.”

Padres hit bottom after being swept in Arizona

Promising. Let’s continue:

Might Gonzalez need a day off now?

“In my eyes, there are two options,” Gonzalez said. “Either don’t play the entire series in San Francisco or let me grind it out.

“I’ve never believed one day off is going to change anything. So those are the only two options I see worth anything. Two days, no.”

Is Gonzalez tired?

“Physically, no,” he said. “Mentally, yes.

One game note that you won’t find in the UT article is that much of Adrian’s problem was indeed mental. After the ball bounced off of his glove, he ran to grab it and picked it up in enough time to maybe toss it to the waiting pitcher at the bag. But he didn’t. Instead, Adrian “The Big Cat” Gonzalez scrambled to first base in an attempt to get the one out. He didn’t make it. You can imagine how the rest of the story goes.

Let’s take Adrian’s threat seriously: It’s either the entire San Fran series or nothing. Should we sit him anyway? WIthout giving you my opinion, I’ll just say that Kyle Blanks has started two games since Interleague play ended, and that the team jumped past the Diamondbacks to the 3rd pick in the draft this afternoon, thanks in large part to Adrian. They had been at 4th.

Once more, take it to the comments.

Why?

Let’s take a step back. On May 22nd, in another base-running mishap, Jake Peavy hurt his ankle. Five days later, on May 27th, Peavy was back out there anyway, giving up four earned in six plus against the Diamondbacks while only striking out five. He would start two more games, the flu-ridden debacle against the Phillies and a strong start against those same Diamondbacks, before being shut down for months, maybe even the entire season, with a longitudinal tearing in the posterior tibialis tendon. The severity of the injury caught both Peavy and the team off guard, which explains how a star pitcher can be handled so nonchalantly. One would hope that if the Padres had to do it all over again, they’d give Peavy’s ankle more time to build back its strength.

Cue Adrian.

Following the recent days off for Ryan Howard and Justin Morneau, Adrian became the active consecutive games leader. As of the writing of this article, Adrian has played in 284 consecutive games, which leads him 21 games behind Steve Garvey’s Padre record. Garvey, one of the four San Diego Padres worthy of having his number retired. From where I’m sitting, which is in my mother’s basement, something doesn’t seem right. Is risking Adrian’s long-term health worth this streak, if that’s what this is about? And if it’s not, what is it about?

As we’ve been over, this is not the season to be calling out all the stops. I would imagine that Adrian doesn’t want to come out of the lineup, but he’s not supposed to want to come out. That’s when Bud Black is supposed to take a step back, realize that he has the team’s number one prospect who also so happens to be a first baseman just sitting around, and make the best big picture decision.

Of course, to be fair, my mother’s basement doesn’t have all the answers. There’s many nuances that go into running a baseball team that I don’t know. I just have a bad feeling about this.

Xavier Nady was drafted by the Padres in the second round of the 2000 draft and was named the Padres number one best prospect by Baseball America in 2003. yet in his three years with the big league club, Nady never received consistent playing time, and was shipped out to New York in 2005 for Mike Cameron. Since then, Nady has jumped to Pittsburgh and then to the Yankees (the other New York team), breaking out last year with a .374 wOBA in 148 games, a career high.

On that fateful June day, Nady sat on the bench and watched Ojeda run out in right and go 0-for-3. And then five months later, he was gone.

Get to the point, Ray

Right.

The Padres have had a tremendous lack of success in developing homegrown talent. Outside of Jake Peavy, the second best player the Padres made for themselves this decade was Khalil Greene, and we all know how that turned out. Most of them busted, but at least Sean Burroughs got a chance. Nady never really got that chance in San Diego, and I’m beginning to worry about how big of a shot Chase Headley’s going to get.

Kevin Towers went on XX Radio last night for his weekly call-in. The topic of Headley, and why he’s been sitting so much, came up. Among other things, Towers said that he thinks Headley’s confidence level is down, that the strike outs are a concern, and that the team is out there trying to win games. He also said that it’s up to a player to make adjustments in game, and that maybe Headley should go back and look at video from the minors to see what’s changed.

Let’s start at the beginning: the team is out there trying to win games. Towers brought this up to explain why Headley’s sitting for Scott Hairston, but it begs the question: What are Kevin Kouzmanoff and Brian Giles doing in the lineup night-in and night-out?

Now, Giles has run into a hot streak, posting an .899 OPS in the past two weeks, which has raised his season mark up to .568. That’s an OPS+ of 52. He’s also played in 50 of the team’s 53 games. Kouzmanoff, meanwhile, has an OPS of .503 over the past two weeks, with a season OPS of .612, or an OPS+ of 63. He’s played in 51 games.

Giles’ recent hot streak and Kouzmanoff’s hot defense are two valid reasons for why these guys are still in the lineup, but I wonder why it comes at the expense of Chase Headley.

Like Nady, Headley is a former number one prospect, taking the title in 2008. And he’s also only 148 games into his major league career, but confidence in him already seems to be dwindling. In yesterday’s Union-Tribune, Headley was quoted as saying:

I’ve never had so few at-bats over a month. Since I hurt my shoulder, I haven’t played every day. I haven’t been given a chance to battle through this.

For a good number of my at-bats in May, I was fighting to get through the weakness in my shoulder. It was really weak. I had to change my stance because I couldn’t hold my hands in the same position.

Headley returns after Hairston hurt

Headley is referring to a shoulder injury he sustained in early May when he ran into the wall in L.A. This knocked him out for a couple of games, but based on Headley’s use of the past-tense, it doesn’t seem to still be bothering him. Surely not as much the position he’s found himself in.

He goes on to say:

It’s frustrating, the circumstance I’m in right now. I didn’t forget how to hit. I feel I have the capability. I think that in any capacity, I can help this team out. But this wouldn’t be the capacity I would choose.

That doesn’t sound to me like a player whose confidence is down.

Why is the team sitting on Chase Headley?

Headley’s supposed to be one of the young cornerstones of this franchise, but he’s sitting in favor of a 38-year-old in the last year of his contract. I hear Towers say that Headley’s strike outs are of concern, but more so than Kouzmanoff’s inability to draw a walk? Headley may be striking out 30% of the time, but his BB/K is still well above Kouzmanoff’s. Headley’s been the superior player of the three all year, but I don’t expect to hear the front office say so.

Finally, with Hairston on the DL, a spot in the outfield opened up. But last night, the newly recalled Will Venable got the start in left field over Headley, going 0-for-4 with an error.

One can only assume that Henry Blanco forgot his outfield glove at home.