With Bud Black busy eating burritos and drooling over Eckstein’s intangibles, I thought I’d give him some help with the state of the lineup and what he could to do make it better.

Last month, Black was pressed to name his batting order for this season, and we’ll forgive it because he was pressed. To further help bail Black out, I have come up with a proper batting order for the skip.

1. Everth Cabrera, SS

Don’t worry Bud, I’m not going to get all weird on you. The baseball constitution dictates that every team must utilize a fast player to leadoff (I think) and I will gladly go along with it. Everth is the fastest player on the team, but he can also get on-base, if only relatively so. Last year, he had an OBP of .342 with a walk rate of 10.5%, and most major projections see him keeping up his pace if not exceeding it. I can see questions arising regarding Cabrera’s age and lack of experience, but what could it hurt to challenge him?

2. Tony Gwynn, Jr./Scott Hairston, CF

AJ and Hairston, Sr. should see time in a platoon this year and they bring differing skill sets. Against right-handed pitching last year, AJ posted an OBP of .379. While his slugging was only .385, he still had a wRC+ of 118 in the split. At .378, Hairston has a similar OBP in his left-handed split, but his slugging was .543. During his previous stay, he was Adrian’s M&M buddy in the middle of the order, but another of my concessions to Bud is that one spot in the order is equal to one position on the field – the center fielders are hitting second. And with Hairston, the heart of the order could frequently find themselves at-bat with runners in scoring position, if not already in.

3. Chase Headley, 3B

If I didn’t put Headley in this spot, I would’ve put him at second. Not only do I value his OBP higher in the order, I don’t trust him hitting behind Adrian. Now that he’s back at third, Headley should hypothetically see an improvement in his offense: he’ll be able to concentrate more on his hitting as a result of concentrating less on his foreign position and he’ll be able to put back on the weight he lost to better run around the outfield. Add to that Headley’s hot-ish second half (.798 OPS) and there’s reason to have confidence in Headley.

4. Adrian Gonzalez, 1B

Right?

5. Kyle Blanks, LF

Stay with me.

On one hand, I feel like there’s no explanation necessary. Last year, in 148 at-bats, Blanks hit 10 home runs with a wOBA of .372. Stretch that out over a full season and Blanks could hit more than 30 home runs. That would make Blanks only the second player to accomplish such a feat in Petco Park. This guy has prodigal power. But then those are the only 148 at-bats of Blanks’ career. He could still be a bust, or we could be lucky and he could just suffer through a sophomore slump but if it doesn’t work out, the team could still try Headley or Venable, or move Hairston to a more permanent position.

6. Will Venable, RF

I’ll let you know right now, the batting order gets pretty predictable from here on out. While I’m not a big believer in Venable, he has 20 homer potential and he’s left-handed, which only makes sense coming after the right-handed Blanks.

7. Nick Hundley, C

I’m not going to try to sell you on Hundley. It comes down to not being:

8. David Eckstein, 2B

I feel that it’d be better if I didn’t say anything at all.

Via Tim Sullivan, skip to the middle of the article for the good stuff:

Boggs said his preliminary discussion with Padres General Manager Jed Hoyer was so superficial that “you couldn’t characterize it as a negotiation.” Boggs said Hoyer inquired as to Gonzalez’s expectations; that Boggs cited the eight-year, $180 million deal of New York Yankees’ first baseman Mark Teixeira, and that that comment effectively ended Hoyer’s exploration.

Case closed right? Maybe not. Agent John Boggs goes on with an important follow up, buried at the bottom for some reason:

“You always shoot high and adjust to the marketplace,” John Boggs said. “Who knows what might happen? When Jeff (Moorad) was in Arizona, everyone thought the Diamondbacks had no money, and they signed (Troy) Glaus and Russ Ortiz.

Is Boggs taking a page out of the Scott Boras book by throwing out a crazy figure via the media to gain an upper hand in expectations? Or does Adrian Gonzalez actually expect 8 years and $180 million? Either way, it’s obvious what that means  for the Padres’ chances of keeping Adrian, and it should have been obvious before.

If I were in charge, I’d accept an offer as soon as I think it is the best the team will get, whenever that may be. They need to plan on contending around 2012, and any hesitation playing to win now means sacrificing talent during that run, when the stakes are so much higher. That would be a mistake.

It’s been awhile since we’ve done a poll. Lets have some fun.

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With talk of the Twins and Joe Mauer close to coming together on an extension, it would seem that Adrian has jumped to the top of the waiting list. Whether he’s waiting to be extended or traded is yet to be seen.

At last week’s Town Hall meeting, the Padres told the crowd that they were committed to the name on the front of the jersey and not the ones on the back, and Jeff Moorad was later quoted in the Union-Tribune saying “I think the fairest description of our point of view is that we continue to be committed to doing what’s best for the long-term interest of the organization. As a result, no player is untouchable. And while we’re mindful of players’ individual popularity, we won’t put one player ahead of the long-term interests of the club.” Jed Hoyer gives a more diplomatic response, saying that it is still early in the process, but it would appear that the writing is on the wall.

The details have yet to come out on the Mauer extension, but let’s assume he’ll exceed $25 million a year (and that’s being generous to the Twins). With their new stadium, the team should see a boost in payroll, but Mauer will still eat up a large portion of their moneys. For their sake, I hope the payroll gets bumped to the $150 million range, just in case Peter Gammons was on to something when he pointed out that no team has won the World Series in 25 years with one player making 16% of the payroll*.

*Hilariously, A-Rod made 15.88% of the 09 Yankees payroll

I quoted Gammons two years ago, just before Peavy signed his extension with our San Diego Padres. At the time, I referred to it as an “Eric Owens extension,” meaning it was more populist than strategic. For you younger readers, replace Owens’ name with David Eckstein and you’ll get the idea. A well-rounded team with dreams of a World Series ring cannot afford to sink so much into one player. But then, who’s to say we want a well-rounded team?

This is not a Twins blog, and I don’t presume to know anything about their team or the way it operates, but a quick glance across the baseball landscape shows me that a Mauer extension will be a tremendous success for everyone: the Twins will have won a victory for small-market teams everywhere, Mauer is a hero for ignoring the bright lights of the big markets, and baseball writers get a new Cal Ripken, Jr. and Tony Gwynn, Sr. (combined!) to gush about. At this point, a World Series win would be the icing on the cake.

As a fellow Padres fan, I don’t have to tell you that we don’t even have a cake. Our enjoyment of our star player has been hijacked by seemingly non-stop trade rumors and our young core doesn’t really add up to much more than a Hostess snack cake. The 2010 PECOTA Projections put us at 74 wins and last place in the NL West. Las Vegas, for its part, gives us 80/1 odds of winning in October, putting us ahead of only the real train wrecks of the league. What we do have, despite everything I just said, is hope. With Blanks and Latos and Cabrera, the future looks brighter, and we still have a perennial All-Star and Gold Glove-winning first baseman, even if just for now.

With all that said, I pose this question to you, the loyal readers:

What would you rather the Padres do?

Would you rather see the team trade Adrian Gonzalez and maximize their resources in hope of building a small market contender like Colorado or Tampa Bay? Or would you rather see the team commit to Adrian and take their chances with one superstar making up to a third of the team’s payroll, crowning a new Mr. Padres in the process, even if it lowers our already low odds? Let us know in the comments.

Fangraphs has now added the 2010 Marcel Projections, to go along with the other ones we’ve already covered:

Kouzmanoff’s name is long enough to throw off my graph (and force me to shorten it) but not long enough to have a comical uniform. What’s that about?

Happy 2010 everyone.

As they do every year before the season, Fangraphs has added projections for the 2010 season. Now, on every player’s page, they are listing the Bill James and CHONE projections, and while they haven’t gotten around to everyone yet, they have also started listing projections made by the fans.

(Also, projections projections projections)
Here’s how the starting 10 for the 2010 Padres might look:

Adrian Gonzalez

David Eckstein

Everth Cabrera

Kevin Kouzmanoff

Chase Headley

Tony Gwynn, Jr.

Will Venable

Kyle Blanks

Nick Hundley

I’ll go ahead and say what we’re all thinking: AJ is popular enough to get voted on by the fans? I like it (but I like AJ).

Overall, there’s not a lot of surprise here. The experts have Adrian coming down from his monster 09 campaign, putting him more in line with his very good 2007 and 08 seasons, while the fans put him somewhere in-between. Headley and Blanks are also looking good, and that’s about it.

Personally, I’m glad to see that Cabrera projects to stay average. I’ll take that from a toolsy shortstop who should only be in Triple-A.

*wRC+ is essentially wOBA on the OPS+ scale

This decade has come and just-about gone and as is natural, we’re driven to look back at what we have all witnessed over the past 10 years. It was a big decade for the Padres, probably the biggest in the team’s history, even though it lacked a World Series appearance. The team moved into Petco Park, and that signaled a new era of Padres baseball. So before we follow Jeff Moorad and Jed Hoyer into the 10s, I present to you my team of the 00s:

C Ramon Hernandez
1B Adrian Gonzalez
2B Mark Loretta
SS Khalil Greene
3B Kevin Kouzmanoff
LF Milton Bradley
CF Mark Kotsay
RF Brian Giles

While some of these positions picked themselves, some took a bit more deliberation. Please allow me to explain.

Catcher was, surprisingly, one of the harder positions to choose. Mike Piazza, in his one year here, was the cleanup hitter we’ve yet to replace, and Josh Bard hit out of his mind his first year over from Boston. But my final vote went to Ramon Hernandez, who was worth over 6 wins* in his two years here. It also doesn’t hurt that he was my favorite player for the little time he called San Diego home. His hair was just so stylish.

Third base came down to preference: offense or defense. Phil Nevin’s bat needs no introduction. In 2000-01, Nevin hit 72 home runs in Qualcomm–while not quite Petco Park in size, the Q was still a pitcher’s park (.819 park factor in 01). Unfortunately, the less said about Nevin’s defense at third, the better. Just like the more said about Kouzmanoff’s defense at third, the better. While Kouzmanoff hasn’t been a great fielder, as Myron explains, he’s been good. Good enough at least to carry his flailing bat to a couple of wins a year.

Left field was the hardest position to chose. Rickey Henderson, Ryan Klesko, Dave Roberts, and Chase Headley all deserve a mention. Klesko, in particular, may be one of the most underrated Padres for everything he did for the team. But none of these players had enough to overcome Milton Bradley’s zazz! This may be a bit of revisionist history, but Bradley was the single-most exciting Padre I have ever had the pleasure of seeing for myself. As soon as he came over from Oakland, he lit the team up. Undeterred by Petco Park, he posted a home OPS of .977. As we all remember, his season ended a week early when Bud Black was forced to blow Bradley’s knee out, but it was a great run while it lasted.

And while center field was another hard pick, it wasn’t from a dearth of options. You, our loyal reader, surely know Mr. Mike Cameron and The Sacrifice Bunt had something serious together, so it was especially difficult to leave him off the team. While Cameron came and mashed, his worn leather glove found kryptonite somewhere on 19 Tony Gwynn Way. A career 5.7 UZR/150 centefielder, Cameron actually cost the team 10.3 defensive runs while here. Ultimately, Cameron was worth 6.6 wins in San Diego, plus the wonderfulness that is our love. Mark Kotsay on the otherhand, was worth 8.2 wins in 2002 and 2003 alone. In those two years, he brought 8.2 defensive runs to the team, as well as his strong bat.

Also, surprise! This is a cliffhanger. I’ll be back with the pitching half of my team of the decade. Until then, tell us where I went wrong in the comments section.

* Any reference to “wins” is based on WAR, or Wins Above Replacement. Tom Tango has a great explanation of the stat here.

It’s been a busy couple of days in Padresland.

Enberg on board as Padres TV voice (MLB.com)

(Dick) Enberg, who for the last 26 years has made his home just north of San Diego in La Jolla, will bring his trademark “Oh my” call to the Padres and will be back inside a broadcast booth calling baseball full-time for the first time since the 1970s, when he called Angels games.

“I still think I have my fastball. I might not locate it as well as I used to,” Enberg said, laughing. “I think the experiences I’ve had as a broadcaster will more than compensate for that. While there’s been a lot of change … 6-4-3 [double play] hasn’t. And I still remember that.”

McLeod tapped as Padres executive (MLB.com)

In Boston, (Jason) McLeod was hired the Red Sox director of scouting administration in 2003. His first draft with the Red Sox was in 2004, a draft that produced future Rookie of the Year and American League MVP Dustin Pedroia.

Under McLeod’s watch, Baseball America has ranked the Red Sox Draft among the top five Drafts in three of his first four years as director of amateur scouting.

Padres’ Tate injured in ATV crash (SignOnSanDiego)

Donavan Tate, the high school center fielder selected third overall in the June draft, suffered facial lacerations and a broken jaw that required surgery last weekend in an ATV accident near his Georgia home.

Tate, 18, who got a $3.5 million bonus from the Padres when he signed on Aug. 17, had been rehabbing following surgery on Oct. 7 to repair a sports hernia.

San Diego Padres Top 10 Prospects (Baseball America)

Led by third baseman Edinson Rincon, righthander Adys Portillo and outfielder Rymer Liriano, the Padres had a number of international prospects step up in 2009, balancing two less positive developments. In June, San Diego learned that Dominican third baseman Yefri Pena, who signed for $300,000, had falsified his age and identity (he’s really Ramon Mercedes) and would be suspended for a year. Dominican shortstop Alvaro Aristy, who signed for $1 million in 2008, received a 50-game suspension a month later for failing a test for performance-enhancing drugs.

Gonzalez, Bell claim Padres team awards (Padres.com)

The offseason award hardware continues to pile up for San Diego first baseman Adrian Gonzalez, who on Wednesday was named the Most Valuable Player for the team during the Padres’ annual awards celebration.
…
Last month, Gonzalez won his second successive Gold Glove. Other award winners on Wednesday included closer Heath Bell (Clyde McCullough Pitcher of the Year), second baseman David Eckstein (Madres Favorite New Padre), Chairman’s Award (Black) and the Fireman’s Award (Bell).

Good night, and good luck.

Just as they did earlier this year, the MLB Network is going team-by-team, breaking down what each club has and needs. Today, they talked about the Padres.

After giving a rundown of the 09 team, they listed off what they see as the team’s “Shopping List”:

• protection for Gonzalez
• innings eater
• leadoff guy

But despite this list, and the idea of protecting him, the focus of the discussion was Adrian and what should be done with him.

On the panel was Joe Magrane, Harold Reynolds, and Ken Rosenthal. Magrane spoke first, stating that Petco is a park that needs nice defense and young pitching, and that Adrian could go a long way to filling those needs. Rosenthal went next, countering, saying that Adrian is signed to an affordable contract and that he wonders what message the team would be sending to the fans if they move him.

Reynolds spoke third, and he said that Rosenthal gave a strong sell. But he also notes that Adrian is an incredibly valuable chip, and that the Padres are in a win-win situation (of sorts).

Rosenthal then claimed Adrian was our Joe Mauer, noting that he’s a homegrown San Diegan, as well as a Mexican-American. Reynolds refuted, stating that the team can not (or will not) sign Adrian to a long-term deal.

Greg Amsinger, acting as moderator for the discussion, ended things by asking the panel if they thought Adrian would be a Padre on Opening Day. Magrane and Reynolds said no, Rosenthal said yes.

And that’s what two former players and a reporter think about the San Diego Padres.

As you just read right here, Kevin Towers’ attempts to trade Adrian Gonzalez may have clashed with new boss Jeff Moorad’s wishes, and now Towers is gone. But if you’ve also been reading the more mainstream sports media, you’ve gotten the impression that Adrian is still definitely going to Boston. Or not. It’s confusing, but that’s why we’re here: for you!

Gonzalez might put Padres in a bind (San Diego Union-Tribune)

Bill Center surmises that Adrian is both the new face of the franchise and a player whose combination of ability and personality will lead him to a big payday. Which means that the team will likely trade him, and soon, making him the new Peavy. He knows this, in part, because Adrian is not featured anywhere on a brochure sent to season ticket holders, because brand new general manager Jed Hoyer has yet to contact Adrian’s agent, and because Moorad has said that he doesn’t want to move the fences back.

But that’s San Diego’s take. What does Boston think?

Why the Sox should be going, going . . . going after Gonzalez (Boston Globe)

Boston thinks that Adrian wants to be where the action is: Boston. Doug Mirabelli gets it. Because the Yankees just won the World Series, thanks in part to one-time-almost-Red Sox Mark Teixeira, Boston doesn’t have the luxury of losing in the Division Series anymore, and Adrian would give them the big bat to wear out the Green Monster they need. Support for Boston’s argument includes the Adrian-less brochure, again, and the good time he had while playing in Portland in the minors.

But that’s Boston’s take. What does the national media think?

Padres only open to dealing stars for right price (Ken Rosenthal)

That the Padres are only open to dealing Adrian Gonzalez for the right place. Rosenthal points out that Adrian will still be extremely affordable over the next two years, and not simply relatively. He also points out that, since Boston made a big trade with Cleveland for Victor Martinez, the well may be too dry to pull anything off.

But that’s Ken Rosenthal’s take. What’s a fourth opinion I should listen to?

Why Adrian Gonzalez May Remain Off Limits to Sox (WEEI)

Because Jed Hoyer knows Theo Epstein’s tricks, and vice versa. To support this, the author points out that Epstein has worked out nothing but extremely minor deals with his other former protege, Diamondbacks general manager Josh Byrnes. He also points out, as did Rosenthal, that the Padres can afford Adrian if they believe winning is possible in the next two seasons, and that an extension that eats up his option could appeal to Adrian as it appealed to David Ortiz in 2007.

But these are only a handful of the voices out there, voicing their opinions on trading Adrian Gonzalez. As the offseason goes on, and more, hopefully differing, opinions are given, The Sac Bunt will be here to fill you in.

Now that the World Series is finally over, the good part of the season can begin. Some teams have already started, like the Angels, who just signed Bobby Abreu to a new two-year contract, and the Pirates, who traded for Akirnori Iwamura. And while the Padres have already cut ties with Edgar Gonzalez, new general manager Jed Hoyer has yet to show us what he can do.

So, Jed, before you start shopping, would you mind taking a look at my wish list? Thanks.

• Rocco Baldelli
• Kelvim Escobar
• Eric Hinske
• Dan Uggla
• Juan Uribe
• Jason Varitek

I’ll start with the outfielders, Baldelli and Hinske. Both are capable players, Baldelli so much so he could platoon with Will Venable in right. Hinske can  be the strong left-handed bat to come off the bench. Uribe joins them as the backup infielder who can actually play on the left-side of the infield.

Escobar is a great low-risk project for this team. He’s a good pitcher and he’ll be coming off an injury, which means that he’ll come cheap. If he works out, he could be a solid veteran arm for the front of the rotation. And if he doesn’t, the team can part ways with him without losing too much, as the team has depth at young starting pitching.

Then there’s Dan Uggla. I’ll admit that this is a bit of dreaming on my parts, but Hoyer’s pretty dreamy, so excuse me for soing so. I know that Florida is looking to move Uggla, but I don’t know what they’d want in return, I hope they would want Heath Bell. Uggla would fill many holes for us. He’d knock David Eckstein out of the lineup, and he’d be the real-live slugger to hit behind Adrian Gonzalez. This takes the heat off of the youngsters, especially Kyle Blanks. He’d likely become the highest paid Padre, unless Adrian signs an extension, but it wouldn’t be obscene. Plus it would make the reader’s comments section of Union-Tribune articles just a little bit easier to read.

Finally, I threw in Jason Varitek as a welcoming gift for Jed. He’s the Captain, or a captain, he’d be Hundley’s shoulder to lean on, and he’d be someone for Hoyer to hang out with if the other guys are mean to him.

Happy shopping, Jed.