In a recent Lyle Spencer MLB.com column, Greg Maddux is asked the kind of question that says all one needs to know about the person doing the asking.  Would the Braves be better off had John Smoltz closed games his entire career? After shaking his head with “an expression of exasperation”, Maddux’s response:

“I don’t remember [the Braves] winning a World Series when Smoltzie was a closer,” he said.

…

“A good, solid starting pitcher is going to give you 210, 220 innings or more,” he said. “You have three of them, that adds up to a pretty good percentage of your total innings for the year. Usually, a good starter will pitch three times more innings than a closer.

To sum up:  One of the best starting pitchers of our generation playing in ~2,700 fewer innings is not the best of ideas.  And Lyle Spencer of MLB.com needed The Professor Greg Maddux to tell him this.  Though the Braves not winning a series isn’t a great example of causation, I’ll give that one to Greg due to his “exasperated” state of mind.

The rest of the article has quotes from Jake and Trevor, including a bit on why Jake wants to be a closer himself.

In other Maddux tidbits, watching him warm up with long toss Friday night gave me an opportunity to see one of those fantastic rarities that really sets the man aprt.  His long, lazy, warm up tosses were dancing in the air.  I easily made out sinkers and sliders careening across the sky out of his hand.  Check it out next time you’re at Petco for a Maddux start.

Athletics Nation recently concluded a content packed interview with Oakland GM Billy Beane.  Here are parts 1, 2, and 3.

Every other sentence out of the man’s mouth (in monitor form) I find myself shaking my head  with two thoughts: (1) Why did I not think about that before; and (2) Holy crap he’s right.

Beane decided to rebuild this year because he didn’t expect his club as was constructed to perform much better than mediocre.  He didn’t think they were bad, just that they wouldn’t quite dominate.  He would rather be bad now with potential greatness than simply above average.  Reminds me of the Marlins.

This philosophy has Padres applications.

Sandy Alderson has stated that there are things he would have done differently if fans would be willing to tolerate a bit of change.  I have a feeling we would have seen a similar blueprint to Beane’s when Alderson came aboard.  Unfortunately the media led fanbase tends to be a temperamental bunch and expects success right away.

Other things I learned reading the interview:

• Beane will drop the name of a player offhand he says has performed well.  I think to myself, “who is that guy?”, then proceed to check his numbers and learn he’s tore it up, yet I had no idea.  This is coming from someone who claims to “follow” the team.  Perhaps the significance of those quotation marks around “follow” need re-evaluation.  Or maybe it’s the media’s coverage that needs some work.
• New inefficiency discovery: Depth is valuable because it curtails the injury bug.  Injured players don’t need to be rushed when you have guys capable of taking their spots.  Beane gave the example of Greg Smith’s success in place of the hurt Dan Haren.
• An old market inefficiency is being corrected: Teams are beginning to value prospects properly, making them difficult to obtain.  This wasn’t explicitly covered in the interview (or ever stated by Beane, to my knowledge) but it has been milling about in my mind since the Swisher and Haren deals.  If Beane was rebuilding, why trade a pair of good, young players who are still relatively cost controlled?  The only “star for prospect package” deals that brought major young talent involved stars with at least two years of arbitration eligibility.  Even Johan Santana didn’t fetch the Mets’ top prospect.
• Speed was the aspect of Rajai Davis’ game that made him worth the roster spot on the waiver claim from San Francisco.  Speed.  This coming from the team that stole 61 bases, that isn’t a typo, yet won 93 games in 2006.  Just when you think you have Beane figured out, he says something like that.
• Does Beane believe in clutch hitting?  Nothing earth shattering in his response:

I think ultimately most guys are going to, given if they have enough at bats, will probably hit close to what they hit for their career.

Check it out, it’s a fascinating read.

The outfield poll on the right will close in a week.  Most seem to agree on Chase Headley and Brian Giles in the outfield, I have a hard time disagreeing.  Jody Gerut is making a pretty strong pull for the center field spot, which I’m fine with.  Normally I’d make a quip about his career .332 OPB in the leadoff spot, but I guess these are the times we live in.  Somewhere Jim Edmonds is crying.  Outs all around!

Be sure to make your voice heard before the poll goes away.

Read more >> Options >>

Totally switching up the verb tense on us.  The Kept Faith.

After skimming past the NBA discussion, I found that this post has one of the longest funny tupe fake conversations.  They exceed even Fire Joe Morgan standards, very impressive.  There can never be too many fat Gwynn jokes, right?  Each one liner grows more clever than the one preceding it.

Looks like a group of five guys, one of whom apparently is affiliated with San Diego faux rap group Bad Credit.

So that’s me being nice.

Stone cold sober as a matter of fact.

Not back, back.  But back for long enough to show us what they’re capable of, scoring 7 runs on 14 hits against the Marlins Saturday night.  And demonstrate the crazy unpredictable nature of baseball coming from the team that seemed so far out of sync at the plate thus far in the year.

On the ongoing slow players needlessly giving themselves up on the bases watch, Paul McAnulty tried tagging from second on a pop fly to Jorge Cantu.  You may be concerned to learn that Cantu was playing third base at the time, yes, that third base.  He caught a foul ball near the infield wall and flipped to Hanley Ramirez covering.  The tag was closer than you’d think, but with two outs you have to know value of going from second to third is minimal.  Someone should be told that running just isn’t McAnulty’s game, though I never imagined it would need to be said.

How to Score a Souvenir Baseball at Petco (The Baseball Collector)

This dude’s hobby is going to ballparks and taking as many souvenir baseballs from kids as he can.  At least something like that.  He carries more than 3,000 balls in his collection, employs a glove rigged with a string and pen to snag otherwise unattainable balls out of reach, brings a hat from each team to games and switches between them, and prepares a cheat sheet with names of players so he can call them by name, pictures, and other notes.

The story linked above (the guy’s name is Zack Hample) details his 2006 visit to Petco Park, plus his catch off a home run by none other than Barrold Rutherford Bonds (I made up the middle name).  There’s a Bruce Bochy autographed lineup card and a solid group of Petco Park photographias.  One note from the lineup card: Boch needs to work on his calligraphy.

Padres Playoff Odds (Baseball Prospectus)

Not pretty.  The worst of the worst, in fact:

2.1%: San Diego
2.9%: Pittsburgh
4.7%: Kansas City
5.4%: Washington
5.5%: San Francisco

I refuse to believe ours is that bad of a team.  The problem is, like what Myron at Friar Forecast has been saying: Even if they get back to their expected performance, at this point they’re starting behind the curve.  We’ll need an equally big run above what we expected, just to catch up.  If I’m Kevin Towers, I’d keep an ear out from here until the deadline for interest in Wolf or Giles in exchange for a building block.  It’s about that time.

PECOTA on Padres (and other) Prospects (Baseball Prospectus)

Back to more fun topics of discussion, Nate Silver applies his PECOTA projection system to determine the “upside” score of minor league prospects.  Upside is defined by Silver as “the degree and probability of above-average performance while the player is under the control of his parent club“.  In other words, the score rewards good expectations without considering the bad ones, and only during a player’s cheap years (usually until age 28).

Silver’s most recent article on second basemen prospects highlights Padre property Matt Antonelli.  He scores an upside of 70.1.  This beats the next closest on the list of of Damon Sublett from the Yanks at 69.4.  The highest prospect, for comparison, is the White Sox’ Alexei Ramirez with a score of 111.2, three rankings above our boy Matt.

Silver brings up what he calls “empty walks” when mentioning Antonelli.  He suggests Antonelli’s walks may not be sustainable by his bat when pitchers decimate the zone with strikes.  Craig Stansberry also gets a mention as a “very good prospect” with a score of 60.  Craig’s age of 26 limits his potential as a prospect.

In an older writeup of the PECOTA upside for first basemen, Padre prospect Kyle Blanks gets his due as the third best in the majors at 53.9.  Silver warns of PECOTA’s propensity to penalize weight in its calculation, a fault the system no doubt shares with its real life scouting counterparts.

That’s it for now.  Ask yourself if you’re either depressed or glad to read a Padres blog with Elton John references.  It has to be one or the other.

Here’s a fun little breakdown of the Baseball Prospectus’ 2008 PECOTA projections for two outfielders, chosen completely at random.

While we do have a couple months to make this decision, Headley’s gonna be ready to roll and he deserves a spot. Hairston hasn’t seen a full opportunity since 2004, and I think he will beat the alternative.

LeBlanc’s Changeup(s) In Fine Form (Baseball America)

Baseball America has an nice little writeup on Wade LeBlanc’s strategy on the mound. Sacramento Rivercats manager Todd Steverson entertains us:

“It was a little tough solving (LeBlanc’s) riddle. He seemed he had three or four different changeups he was throwing up there.”

Apparently, LeBlanc has two changeups but uses variations to change the speed and break. This creates the appearance of having an arsenal of changeups at his disposal. To go with his four seamer, curve, and change, the lefty is also working on a sinker to throw in the mix.

Freddy Guzman clears wavers (Mlive.com)

Former Padres 2004 season “savior” Fredford Guzman sent to AA Erie.

Kind of old news I know, there’s no need to rub it in.

Picking The Under - Josh Bard (Baseball Prospectus)

Nate Silver is “moderately skeptical” about Bard, citing his low power numbers as a threat to his OBP. Bard’s 28.6% line drive percentage so far this year should put a stop to that kind of attitude.

Does Trevor Hoffman struggle in non-save situations? (Hardball Times via Geoff Young)

Geoff Young is in your head, dispelling your myths. Nomaam over at the SOSD Padres forum thinks Trevor’s performance in tie games is worth a look, though the sample size issue here is even more extreme. In any case, he doesn’t see a difference in performance, though ERA and WHIP would make better indicators than wins and losses.

Friar Follies (Baseball Prospectus)

Alliteration aside (will we ever run out of these headlines?) Joe Sheehan tries his hand again at Padres analysis and talks a bit less crazy this time. He says Hollywood Jim is kaput in center, while Baldelli or Crisp make the most sense in trade scenarios. (non-subscribers get partial text)

The Padres aren’t likely to close the gap on the Diamondbacks and Dodgers under any circumstances. They’re not a good offensive team, and they need time to integrate their young position players. The team’s strength the last few years, though, has been the way it fits into the park, with fly-ball pitchers, deep fences and Mike Cameron. Now, in a post-Cameron world, they’re about to find out just how much of what they thought was pitching was actually defense.

Tom Krasovic doesn’t see the Padres trading for Crisp.

For one, Crisp is out of the lineup because of an injury. Two, Epstein hasn’t put him on the trade block. Three, the Padres believe Epstein would ask for advanced prospects such as Matt Antonelli or Chase Headley. “We’re not going to move those guys,” Towers said.

Prior, Giles, and Hensley Recoveries On-Time (Union Tribune)

Tom Krasovic shares updates on our favorite sickly players, and things look good. Don’t they always during spring training? I’d be a bit worried if they were “in the best shape of their lives”.

The surgeon’s work is enabling Prior to throw with proper form, to repeat the same release point that he had before injuries led to compensation issues and degraded his silky delivery.

He said he is able to get the extension and angle needed to hit the low-outside portion of the strike zone, or just wide of it. Last spring training, Prior said, he wasn’t able to smoothly get that done. “I’d come around the ball,” he said, tilting his right hand inward.

Chase Headley’s Approach to Hitting (Baseball America)

“I think the strikeout is one of the most overrated stats in baseball,” Headley said. “It’s an out just like anything else. You can pretty much tell how I’m hitting by the counts. If somebody is on base, I’m trying to do some damage. But if there’s nobody on base, I like to see some pitches.”

Chase you’re preaching to the choir re: strikeouts. Power hitters will strikeout, it comes with the territory. They make up for it by hitting the crap out of the ball when they do connect, and they make fewer outs of other varieties by walking more.

Not sure I’m happy to hear he’s changing his approach with runners on though. Hey Chase, you can still score if you’re on base! Takes what theys gives ya!

Young Guns: The NL West (Baseball Analysts)

It never hurts to soak up another informed opinion on future prospects. Mark Hulet expresses his take on our future stars, plus those we’ll see around the division. One aspect of Chase Headley’s game I haven’t seen mentioned before is his considerable BABIP (Batting Average on Balls In Play). This can indicate a reliance on luck in a players’ batting average.

One huge caution about Headley’s high average in 2007 is that his BABIP was an astronomical .400. The power increase is probably for real – the high average is not.

Definitely an aspect of Chase’s game to keep in mind.

Statheads in the Front Office (Friar Forecast)

Myron takes a look at franchise executives dedicated to statistical analysis, similar to Chris Long’s position with the Padres.

That’s it for this issue of Sacrificial Links, fancy graphic edition. 13 short days until the big game. Keep your pants on! Or not, either way really. Just put them back on by March 31st.

Ok ok I’m sorry ahead of time for yet another cop-out links post. “Links are nice, but where’s the next 5 more reasons to keep Mike Cameron? post”, you ask?

I don’t know either. But I’m busy. I probably will be busy for the next two months, and as of five minutes ago this site has earned all of $2.03 from the ads. All time. I think you can feel for me.

I still have my day job. But to be honest, I’ve thought about quitting it.

Photo © Mailingering

Clark, Padres Agree On Contract (Union Tribune)

Could he come any cheaper? $900,000 plus $100,000 incentives? Iguchi and now Tony Clark have essentially signed for whatever the Padres ask plus a stick of Dentine gum.

Clark hit just above average last year for Arizona. He’s also only a couple years removed from an underrated 154 OPS+ in 2005. OBPs of .279 and .310 the past two years aren’t the kind of upside you want from a guy like Clark, however.

What you do get is “veteran leadership” if that term still has any meaning, and a high ceiling slugging option to spell Adrian. Speaking of underrated numbers, Adrian Gonzalez played in all but one game last year for the Padres. I don’t know if that means we’ll need Clark more or less in 2008.

Team Offense, Lineup Analysis (Baseball Musings)

I’m not yet convinced on how PETCO park effects Greene specifically. But there’s some elementary offensive analysis for ya, and a fun little lineup optimizer to boot.

Edmonds Rejected Trade to White Sox (STLtoday)

…The Southern California native rejected a deal with the Chicago White Sox before accepting another with the San Diego Padres.

Holla. People love us. See above.

Officials Realize HGH Isn’t What They Thought it Was (Sabernomics)

Blogger and Author J.C. Bradbury has been on a sort of personal vendetta to show the truth about HGH. Most peer reviewed evidence shows HGH to be of little to no use for professional athletes. This is reflected even in The Mitchell Report itself. Looks like people are coming around.

Huntington: Other GMs Being Smart Makes It Suckier For Us Padres Fans (Timesonlline.com)

One potential offseason scenario bantered about in our heads involves trading Khalil Greene with prospect for Jason Bay. This would improve our defense at shortstop, and fill out the outfield with a good hitter humanly capable of laying off an outside slider. Trade the overvalued, and sign / trade for the undervalued, right?

Quite frankly, we would be selling low in just about any trade we could possibly make and we’re not going to sell low,” Huntington said. “We need to build depth in this organization and the only way you can build that depth is to trade players when their value is high.

Damn. Have I mentioned that as a Padre fan, Neil Huntington scares the crap out of me? Guess we won’t be getting Snell to top the deal off.

Nobody broke the news to Jason Bay and others that doing things to look good isn’t the answer. This just in: other teams don’t give out talent for nothing. I mean, uh, Meredith for Bay!

2008 Padres: A Call To Arms (MLB Fleece Factor)

Nice little rundown of the state of the Padres. Tip of the old noodle to GaslampBall.

Padres Near $11 million dollar two year deal with Greene (Yahoo / Associated Press)

The Padres don’t like going to arbitration, so this avoids the process for Greene’s remaining eligible years. I enjoy this gem from writer Bernie Wilson:

Retaining Greene is important since he’s one of the Padres’ few homegrown talents.

Ok. Guess we missed the boat releasing Jack Cassel, he was homegrown too.

Baseball Prospectus, ESPN, and MiLB.com release top prospects list (Kevin Goldstein, Keith Law, and Nobody, respectively)

Baseball Prospectus lists Headley (23), Antonelli (39), and Latos (61). You’ll need a subscription to read it.

ESPN says Headley (43), Blanks (68), and Antonelli (93) are the team’s top farm hands. You’ll need an insider membership to read it. Don’t get one.

MiLB.com puts Antonelli (27) and Headley (29) as the best in our farm, out of only 50. It’s free since no writer will take credit.

We’ve seen other lists tell similar tales. Headley and Antonelli are studs and likely to become productive major leaguers, but probably not superstars. First baseman Kyle Blanks and pitcher Mat Latos are younger and riskier, but have higher ceilings.

We’re playing around with polls. Enjoy!

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Doctoring The Numbers (Baseball Prospectus)

Rany Jazayerli points out Khalil Greene’s all time record setting 74 extra base hits coupled with a .291 on base percentage.

Blue Jays, Royals, Indians Bring It Back (MLB.com)

(old-ish news) I’ve long held the belief that the longer a team wears a uniform, the better it gets. These franchises join the Milwaukee Brewers returning to a classic look for a weekly retro home game. The Chargers half-assed it in their recent jersey revamp (though in my opinion, if they were to create a new design altogether I like what they did) .

The Padres’ brown color scheme is classic, fits the mascot, and most importantly, popular among fans. I think the Padres would do well to follow suit. I’ll take 1974-1977 or 1980-1984, thanks.

Padres Uniform Archive (Dressed To The Nines / Baseball Hall Of Fame)

Speaking of uniforms, if you haven’t seen the archives for perusal at the Baseball Hall Of Fame website, check that ish. Here’s a bit more of our sport’s glorious past to get the browsing started.

Interview With Kevin Towers (MLB.com)

These chat transcripts are so much nicer than those articles with 90% fluff we knew about and two or three sound bites, aren’t they? Plus Towers is always so candid, interviews like these are a real pleasure.

The big news is that Towers is still interested in a left fielder to be acquired through a trade.

Towers: The one position that we still may be looking at would be a corner outfielder. This would most likely come via a trade, rather than a free agent signing. As of right now, Jeff DaVanon, Scott Hairston, Paul McAnulty, and Headley are all of our in-house candidates at the present time. That’s not to say that we might still add a corner outfielder before Spring Training starts, more than likely via trade.

The team has talent that could hove above replacement level as it is. Therefore, I think if a move is made we’d see a player capable of more than that, meaning a big time deal is a possibility.

This may happen if Headley has poor showing in left, or Kouzmanoff is part of a deal leaving space for Headley. My hope is that if we do give up a young gun or two, we receive an equal share of young, salary controlled talent in return.

Other topics of the chat transcript include an Estes update, Towers’ thoughts the front running NL contenders, and a provocative tidbit on his trading partners.

Melvin Update: Eff yes:

“We would rather have a younger, controllable player via a trade,” Towers said.

I’m not sure if it’s obvious or not, but damn I love the way this team is run.

Baseball Prospectus Drops ‘Kouzy’ On Us (Baseball Prospectus)

Creative, at best, nickname for Kouzmanoff. Not a lot else new in the article for Padre fans, short of recognition for the 15th best VORP for major league third basemen. “Kouzy” landed just short of Mark Reynolds and Troy Glaus.

Best Outfield Arms Of 2007 (Hardball times)

I found this link and tucked it away for a future Sacrificial Links session, thinking it was a great find and people would appreciate the information. Then Ducksnorts and Friarforecast picked it up, probably some others too, and I look like the lame follower instead of the cool indie trend setter I deserve to be. Good read either way.

How To Evaluate Hitters (Hardball Times)

Intuitive, simple evaluation method in case VORP or RC27 aren’t your thing. Dave Studeman compares Tony Gwynn, Andre Dawson, and Tim Raines with some eye opening results. Studeman does admit that era, ballpark, and the different values of outs are important considerations his analysis did not account for.

Planning Ahead Will Save You Money (Union Tribune)

Prices are going up, but if you buy before the end of March the 2007 ticket prices will apply. Otherwise they’re going up, with day of game prices up even more. The team also announced a pre-game buffet for $39 dollar top of western metal tickets, and $20 of “concessions and/or merchandise” included with $45 right field pavilion seats. When Ray and I started this blog, I never envisioned needing to think up jokes to go along with news like this. Oh well.

The Concept of Clutch (Baseball Prospectus)

Here is your Sacrificial Link “classic”, a 2004 article from Joe Sheehan of Baseball Prospectus. No numbers, just a theoretical discussion on the merits of the concept of clutch.

Of course, these statistical arguments assume both numeracy and a quest for the truth. Too often, neither of these things is in play. The notion of clutch persists because it allows for a storyline with a hero and a goat, and that’s both an easy tale to write and an easy one to read.