Fans put off by former CEO Sandy Alderson’s frank, earnest, and no holds barred oratory style got what was coming to them today as new Padres CEO Jeff Moorad responded to fans’ questions. Rather vaguely, for the most part.

I’ll admit I can understand the need to be cuddled. Protected. Lovey dovied. Especially someone of the casual fan variety. In fact, even as a guy who would prefer a direct response from management, even if that means a risk of situations and answers changing down the road, but that’s exactly it. Details are unpredictable.That type open of communication is great for those who understand and pay attention to realities, but in the broad scheme of an entire fan base it can hurt the organization as a whole.

In this interview Jeff Moorad brings the boring, the bland. Enjoy it, because you asked for it.

What does Moorad have in store?

That diatribe aside, I’m happy to report Moorad in this q&a session did answer many of my questions about his role. Until this point, I was pretty neutral about him coming on board. Sandy Alderson as President and CEO satisfied me, even in light of the morbid 2008 season. It did become clear to myself and many others that John Moores’ time as owner needed to end. If the new owner has different ideas for the team presidency, thems the breaks. I get it.

Change for the sake of change, however, is stupid. Being excited for something about which you know no details doesn’t make sense. That’s what Moorad was. Unless I missed something, nobody in the media ever bothered to explain, or ask and “report”, as they apparently call it in the businesss, on what kind of philosophy this guy is all about.

We did learn early on, and was confirmed in the q&a, he believes in investing heavily into amateur talent through the draft and internationally. Well, that’s a good start. But it doesn’t cover everything, not by a long shot.

Rumors swirled that Moorad is a hands on type executive, insofar as intervening with his baseball people in the Diamondbacks organization and lobbying for the boneheaded Eric Byrnes extension. You’ll have to forgive me, but that extension represents all that is completely idiotic and irrational about the shortsighted thinking that pervades the old ways of baseball. Moorad rewarded short-term fan popularity and flash in exchange for the realistic production one would expect from a player like Byrnes. Hearing about it sent a chill down my spine.

Visions of my beloved Padres turning into a small budget version of the Seattle Mariners danced in my head, with owners who think they know baseball pulling strings based on outdated thinking from their 1976 mainstream baseball strategies. 61wins and 101 losses on a $118 million dollar payroll. It wasn’t just the Mariners’ results though. Their entire mindset and philosophy, until recently, was garbage. Like the Eric Byrnes extension. Screw that. I don’t want that.

Luckily, Moorad’s response to mine and similar questions about his role and philosophy seem promising.

MelvinNieves: Hey Jeff. Will you be involved in much player personnel decision-making? If so, what is your philosophy on talent evaluation? Do you believe in the more advanced metrics?

j_moorad: Very little — I believe in letting the club’s GM take a leadership role in all personnel decisions — I’ll be available as a resource as needed. I do believe in any and all forms of scouting, old-school or sabermetrics included.

Very good then. Leave the baseball to the baseball guys. Not surprisingly, he skipped my inquiry about the Eric Byrnes situation. That’s ok. Hopefully the rumor wasn’t true. If it was, it seems he’s learned from it.

There’s still no indication Mr. Moorad will leave the right baseball guys in charge, but that’s a question he smartly will look into and put off until the offseason. And we know he understands there’s a place for stats and a place for scouts. Cheers to that.

Other Stuff

• Right off the bat, reader 23gonzalez wonders about a long term deal for the actual Adrian Gonzalez. “Why wait until 2010?”, is Moorad’s response.
• miatamx5 is curious, as are we, about the possibility of new uniforms. Preferably brown will make a triumphant return. A major uniform change like that does not appear on the horizon, Moorad replies. “I’m a big fan of the Padres colors — unlike Arizona, where we changed the colors completely, the only thing I’m open to is an occasional tweak to the designs.” We need to get started suggesting some tweaks.
• I asked how close the team needs to be to contention in order to add payroll. “Within striking range — if the deadline was upon us today, we’d be open to adding an appropriate player or two.” That kind of answers my question, the cool part is that quote was used as the caption for the article.
• Later in the chat, I was curious to how the PETCO debt affected the sale of the club, and the year to year finances. “…We look at it as a large “rent” payment and accept it as the team’s part of a great stadium project.” A hard question to answer in this dumb little chat no doubt, but not the kind of answer I was looking for.

Lots of other questions and non-answers, including a non-answer about moving the PETCO park fences. Moorad does respond to some personal questions, if you’re in to that kind of thing.

According to Tom Krasovic of the UT and AZcentral.com.

Scribner is a 28th rounder who turned into a gem for the Diamondbacks’ full season A ball South Bend Silver Hawks.  The reliever struck out 52 batters in just 34 innings this year, walking only 8 without allowing a single home run.  His performance was impressive enough to make the Midwest League all-star team, and earned him a promotion to high A ball.

Though Scribner did not make either the Baseball Prospectus or Baseball America top 10s, it is not uncommon for pitching prospects to seemingly come out of nowhere.  See Garrison, Steve, whom the Padres received as a throw-in from the Scott Linebrink deal.

Scribner is a bit old at 22, so hopefully he’ll continue his fast track up the Padres’ system.  The team doesn’t have much need for a pinch hitter like Tony Clark this year, so I see the deal as something for nothing.  Bryan Myrow gives you everything Clark does, and now the team has a roster spot for Young or Bard and additional depth in low levels of the system.

Though if CY gets hurt again, we might have to walk Chris of the field by stacking people on top of each other.

EDIT 7/18: MB has a couple considerations I didn’t make.  He applies minor league park effects and and Scribner’s career numbers.  They’re definitely worth including.

I know this is a few days old, but it’s drawn enough attention to warrant another look. Baseball Prospectus’s Joe Sheehan released his Spring Training Preview for the NL West on February 12th (and has since been republished on CNNSI for the non-subscribing world to see) and it seems that it has accomplished its primary goal of inciting rage amongst the basement dwelling bloggers of the Friar faithful. In my case, this rage is generally directed towards the vacuum of cyberspace through my computer screen in the form of beer-fueled obscenities, the likes of which excite my blood pressure and frighten my neighbors.

I won’t lie, in some ways I love Baseball Prospectus more than my own wife (don’t worry, she doesn’t read this site and cooks a mean chicken pot pie from scratch, a fact that’ll keep her – and this is a rough estimate – at least in my top five), but I really think they phoned this one in. For what it’s worth, I’ve always believed BP was often times unjustly enamored with a youthful roster, regardless of their contributions to the team. But I regress – let’s get to the nitty gritty.

I’m not one to flap my gums when it comes to pre-Spring Training team analysis but I’ve paid a pretty penny for their services and while I expect this from those front-running asshats at ESPN, seeing BP reduced to this level of analysis truly hurts. The most glaring insult for Padres fans (and fans of logic/reason) resides in their Winter Grade analysis for the Friars:

They didn’t do a whole lot to address the aging of the roster, and with the Diamondbacks and Dodgers having passed them in terms of talent on hand, it may be time for the Pads to blow off a year.

“Blow off a year?” Look, I’ll be the first to admit that the Dodgers and Diamondbacks are brimming with young, talented players – but it’s not as if we’re the Twins, staring down the barrel of the gun at a heavily improved Indians or Tigers roster with a new ballpark and significant roster turnover to think about [deep breath]. We’re not looking at a bloated roster with no talent and hope far off on the horizon; if anything, I’d say that this is in response to what was a widely televised flameout to end the 2007 season. You could make a strong argument that the Padres are still built to win now with their depth in the rotation and, in my opinion, an improved lineup competing against the two anointed “top” teams – L.A. and Arizona – who have not necessarily addressed their own offensive woes. I’ll get to that later…

Remember, this is in response to a team that has improved its record in an increasingly more talented division each of the last three seasons with its “aging roster,” and finished third in a tight NL West race only after pushing the season to an extra-innings play-in against the 2007 NL Champions in which the winning run has yet to score (too soon?). Let that settle for a minute before reading it again: “…it may be time for the Pads to blow off a year.”

As if the above assertions weren’t insultingly ignorant enough…

Third baseman Kevin Kouzmanoff’s big second half bought him some time. However, his poor glove and undisciplined approach at the plate are likely to give way very soon to the doubles and walks of Chase Headley.

…what?! Look, everybody knows that the Mashin’ Macedonian is, arguably, one of the worst defensive 3B in the league. It’s not even necessarily debatable. But this is a moot point. Chase Headley is no longer filling out the depth chart as a 3B and he hasn’t been since around the time the Padres missed out on Fukudome in the middle of December. The reasoning behind this is simple: Headley isn’t known for his glove and there’s a pressing need for him in LF. As was outlined in the afore-mentioned Kevin Goldstein headlining article, Future Shock: Padres Top 11 Prospects:

The Padres are moving Headley to left field this spring in order to get his bat into the lineup, and he’ll be given the opportunity to earn a big-league job. The logic of that decision is that neither he nor incumbent third baseman Kevin Kouzmanoff is an especially good defender at the hot corner, but Headley is more apt to succeed in the outfield.

Beyond that, BP had reported nearly a month prior to the publication of Sheehan’s piece that Headley would be moving to the OF by linking to a Padres news article dated to late December. At this point, I’m willing to bet that the $39.99 membership might be a little too rich for Sheehan given his inability to do research through the very site that he writes for.

Additionally, BP has always admired Kouzmanoff’s ability to drive the ball to all fields and, ironically, Goldstein’s Future Shock article from last season has this to say…

Outstanding hitting prospect with well above-average pitch recognition, bat speed and power.

…and while the biggest criticism against him are his unintentional walk totals it doesn’t matter if you absolutely rake, which was the case when assessing his Double-A statisics.

While a 25-year-old at Double-A is far from a spring chicken, and he did draw only 27 unintentional walks in 394 minor-league PAs, 51 extra-base hits in 94 games is pretty amazing.

Now that the misinformation regarding the Padres is out of the way, I would like to look at their supposed inferiority in the farm system. I might be inclined to agree with this statement in past years, however, there is very little evidence within the rest of this article that asserts this point. The Diamondbacks and Dodgers, while both boasting extremely young and talented rosters, have a problem translating that prospect-level talent into Major League stat sheet fodder. The Padres hit better than both of these teams, regardless of talent. This is a point that didn’t go unnoticed by Joe Sheehan, who had this to say regarding those scrappy, young Dodgers:

There are four outfielders for three spots, and it’s excruciatingly clear to anyone familiar with baseball who ranks fourth among them. However, the likelihood that the Dodgers relegate Juan Pierre to a bench role is nil. Every PA he takes from Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier is a mistake.

He goes on to assert that their one move to make is to trade Juan Pierre and let the youngsters pan out; events which, he counters against himself, will never happen. I firmly believe that the Dodgers would be the team to beat if Ned Colletti wasn’t in charge of dismantling this franchise and making poor decisions in the free agent market. To me, this season is no exception. Sheehan disagrees on two counts:

The Jones signing was an excellent case of buying low, and Kuroda’s contract is a good gamble given the price of MLB free agent starting pitchers. Better still, the Dodgers avoided making another bad trade, retaining all of their young talent.

…Kuroda is a good gamble, but wait for the knockout punch…

Ned Colletti has squandered a fair amount of Logan White’s work in his time as the Dodgers’ GM, but he avoided doing so this winter. Thanks to that, he heads into the spring with his best team, and with the best chance of having that team play. There remains the need to push Pierre and Nomar Garciaparra into supporting roles, the latter so that OBP machine Andy LaRoche can take over at third base. The “right” Dodger lineup can win 94 games and the division. How Joe Torre apportions playing time in a situation not dissimilar to the 1996 Yankees will determine whether the Dodgers fulfill their potential.

Might I first point out that Sheehan’s belief that the Dodgers bought low on Andruw Jones’ 2/$36m contract is absolutely absurd. And somebody will need to explain this to me over a few beers one day, but is Sheehan’s entire point that the Dodgers will be awesome(r) if they don’t field the team they’re expected to field? As is my argument, Sheehan has no problem admitting the Dodgers boast some of the best young talent of all the teams in the division but doesn’t mince words – the more games expected starters Pierre and Garciaparra play, the worse the Dodgers will be. Whatever. I guess it’s cool because they’re still young.

On to the Diamondbacks, who for whatever reason have the media seeing Sedona Red while obtaining an unheralded cult following due to media-darling/dog-abuser Eric Byrnes. Let’s go over the facts:

1. Although the Diamondbacks are young (Team Age for Batters/Pitchers, 26.6/28.0), they simply cannot hit. Their 4.40 R/G was only better than San Francisco (4.22) and Washington (4.15).
2. While they went 90-72, their Pythagorean W/L was a paltry 79-83 due to their -20 run-differential.
3. Randy Johnson’s mustache carries with it the secrets of the universe.

Sheehan seems to have securely strapped himself into the Baby ‘Backs Bandwagon (note to self: trademark immediately). Keep in mind that Sheehan’s task – as a baseball analyst who is being paid a lot more than me – is to defend the chance of a repeat NL Division title for the Diamondbacks after they just destroyed all logic and reason when they put up a 90-72 record with a -20 run-differential. He gets off to a strong start:

Josh Byrnes added the missing piece by trading for a top-tier starting pitcher in Haren, dealing many pieces from a deep system while not giving up the very best of it.

Fantastic, this has it all: top-tier pitcher, deep rotation in a pitching-centered division, ability to hold onto the farm leaguers. Excellent. Now reel those suckers in – hook, line, and sinker.

Shuffling Valverde out at his likely peak was aggressive, the kind of year-too-early move that Branch Rickey would admire.

The oddest part about this is why Sheehan decides to link to Rickey’s playing career, but that’s beside the point; the fact of the matter is that the Valverde deal potentially ruins the 2008 Arizona Diamondbacks’ chance at a repeat division title and it has gone unnoticed by not only BP, but multiple sporting news sources who fail to recognize the importance of the bullpen at a time when you’re overcoming a negative run-differential.

Bob Melvin anointed Brandon Lyon as his closer heading into camp, as much to spike a potential controversy as anything else. In the long term, it’s Juan Cruz who has the power stuff to fit best in the role. Tony Pena and Chad Qualls may also make bids if and when Lyon falters.

Every single one of these pitchers had either a career year or above-average production last season. Valverde converted 47 of 52 saves, meaning that more than half of the team’s victories were determined by a player who is no longer on the team. Not necessarily a good omen for a team that values every single run it can get.

I am not going to make a prediction regarding who finishes on top of the NL West before Spring Training has gotten beyond player conditioning drills (is it safe to say Giants, dead last?), but I’m betting that I might come forth with more factual evidence and far less fiction when making such bold statements. Besides, I’ll let you do that for me.

Melvin Update (2/25/08): Preston Gomez is a special guest writer for The Sacrifice Bunt. Ray and I would like to thank Preston for his contribution to our community.

The Rockies destroyed Arizona, just like they destroyed Philadelphia. Just like they’ll probably destroy Cleveland (or Boston, I suppose). And, really, the Diamondbacks have no one to blame but themselves.

Before I get to that, Byrnes really shit the bed, didn’t he? It was only appropriate that he would come up as the tying run with two outs in the bottom of ninth in game four, and it’s poetic that he would ground out to short on a check swing. He didn’t even get a full swing in.

But that situation should never have happened because the Colorado Rockies should never have made the playoffs. Arizona had them against the ropes at the end of the season and they let them slide, as Melvin put in the second string and let the Rockies force their way into a one-game playoff with OUR San Diego Padres. The rest, of course, is history. And since those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it, Black and co. need to learn one important lesson:

Always go for the kill.

Compassion is for the weak. If it’s April and Matt Holliday is up with a bum leg, put a fastball right on his kneecap. You’ll feel real stupid if you don’t and he bashes another 25 home runs next September.

Congratulations to the Rockies, though. That was a dismantling.