As everyone knows, in 2010, the Padres won 90 games. On the field, I-scored-more-than-you wins. But according to the sabermetric number crunchers at Fangraphs, the Padres, as a team, were worth 39.9 wins. These 39.9 wins break down to 16.1 wins from the pitching staff and 23.8 from the offense. Go with me, for a second, when I say that the 2011 team, in order to approach the success the 2010 version had, will have to do their best to replace those wins. That leaves out a bit of nuance but like I said, go with me. And while the pitching staff has some new faces, the star attractions are all returning, making it easier to assume that they’ll do what they did. The offense, on the other hand, is another story.

Starting at the top, the Padres are going to have to find a way to replace Adrian Gonzalez’s production. Brad Hawpe and Jorge Cantu have been brought in to field his position but it’s unrealistic to expect them to replace what Adrian can do with the bat. To do that, everyone on the team is going to have to do their part. In 2010, Adrian was worth 5.3 wins. Let’s cut him a little slack (he was injured, after all) and say that, to replace Adrian, the team is going to have to create an extra 5.5 wins in 2011. This should be a challenge, as everyone will have to take on extra production, so I’ve created a handy guide to help everyone know what should be expected of them.

First base

2010 total: 5.3 wins

2011 expectation: 4.5 wins

As good a place to start as any. Like I said, this position has fallen to Cantu and Hawpe, who won’t match Adrian’s production. It just won’t happen. However, if the two can combine for 4.5 wins, that’ll be good enough. Working in their favor is the platoon they’re expected to see. Combined, taking Hawpe’s numbers versus right-handed pitching and Cantu’s numbers versus left-handed, the two have an .867 OPS. The man they’re replacing has a career .875 OPS, but his has the PETCO mark already on it, a mark that will surely bring down Hawpe and Cantu. Let’s hope it doesn’t bring them too far down.

Just as the two new first basemen won’t be replacing Adrian offensively, it’s doubtful they’ll be able to replace him defensively either. Hawpe, in particular, is an enigma, having logged only a handful of big league innings at first. He could be a disaster, or he could be a discovery. For the sake of assumption, I’ll say he splits the middle and is average. If he is, and these two can reach four and a half wins, the team should be sitting pretty.

Second base

2010 total: 2.7 wins

2011 expectation: 3 wins

Last season, second base was a two man job. David Eckstein and Jerry Hairston, Jr. took turns manning the position, with Eckstein doing most of the heavy lifting (2.0 wins). This year, the Padres have taken a more efficient route and given the job to one man: Orlando Hudson. In three of the last four years, Hudson has hovered around 3 wins, thanks in large part to his bat. Since trading in the astroturf of the Rogers Centre for the natural stuff, Hudson’s glove hasn’t been as sterling as the reputation that precedes it. But in 2010, he tried something different, as his bat fell to league average (98 wRC+) and his glove picking up the slack (+9.8 UZR). I don’t care what path Hudson takes in 2011, just as long as he makes it to the three win mark.

Shortstop

2010 total: 2.2 wins

2011 expectation: 2.5 wins

At the time, I wasn’t crazy about the Miguel Tejada trade but he proved to be a valuable addition to the team, accumulating 1.4 wins in his two months with the team. But now he’s off to San Fran, with Hairston, Jr. in Washington and Everth Cabrera in flux, so the team turned to Jason Bartlett to man the position in 2011. Just like his new double play partner Hudson, Bartlett has been a a model of consistency over his career. Take a look at this graph:

With the exception of that hiccup in 2009, Bartlett’s WAR has been declining steadily every year. It’s been a two-pronged attack, with Bartlett’s offense and defense both fading, and it’s a trend he’s going to have to reverse if he’s going to be a contributing member of the Padres in 2011. Ignoring 2009, Bartlett hasn’t been worth 2.5 wins since 2007, his last year with the Twins, when he was worth 2.8. He needs to figure out how to get back there (maybe he should rent The Bourne Ultimatum to get him back in a 2007 state of mind) if he’s going to meet expectations.

Third base

2010 total: 4.6 wins

2011 expectation: 3.5 wins

After two miserable seasons in left field, Chase Headley finally moved back to third base in 2010 and he was a revelation. Both UZR and DRS agreed that Headley was the best defensive third baseman in baseball. His glove, combined with his average bat, pushed Headley to 4.6 wins, second highest on the team. Expecting Headley to repeat his 16.5 UZR is unfair, both regression and precedence would like a word, but there’s more than enough room for his bat to chip in this year. I’d say that 3.5 wins is a fair expectation for Headley in 2011.

Left field

2010 total: 0.1 wins

2011 expectation: 3 wins

You’re reading that right. Sort of. With Ludwick moving to left for 2011, I’ve grouped his numbers in with the position for 2010. His defense will probably improve moving away from right, but whatever. You get the idea.

Anyway, you’re reading that right. Left field was a black hole for the 2010 Padres, with Scott Hairston and Ryan Ludwick as the main offenders. Ludwick was especially awful. It might be unfair to say but had Ludwick even been an average player after coming over from St. Louis, the Padres would’ve made the playoffs. Fortunately, Ludwick has all of 2011 to make amends.

Truth be told, expecting three wins out of Ludwick seems like a lot. Outside of his Bartlett 2009-esque 2008, Ludwick has steadily held near 2 wins a year. This season, however, Ludwick will be the highest paid non-closer on the team in a contract year. If there’s ever been a time to ball out of control, it’s now (and by that, I mean when the team desperately needs him to).

Centerfield

2010 total: 3.5 wins

2011 expectations: 2 wins

Oh AJ, I still can’t believe that you are gone. It was only a couple of months ago that you were covering centerfield in PETCO with the grace of a gazelle. To think that they replaced you out there with Chris Denorfia, then pushed you out the door. Los Angeles doesn’t know how lucky they are to have you.

In all seriousness, Denorfia and Tony Gwynn, Jr. were a fine pairing. Norf was a bungler out in the field but he could hit, while the opposite was true of AJ. They split the 3.5 evenly (1.8 for Norf, 1.7 for AJ) but now AJ’s a Dodger and Norf’s back to being a fourth outfielder. In their place is Cameron Maybin, the former prodigy who was acquired for relief pitching depth.

Two wins is a lot to ask of Maybin, as he’s never been worth more than one in a season, but he’s never had more than 322 plate appearances in a season either. This year, in San Diego, he’s going to be the man. He’s still got a ways to go offensively, and PETCO won’t help him, but AJ was an automatic out and he did alright. Center field’s a defensive position and if Maybin can accelerate that part of his game, he might be able to reach my expectations. And if not, I guess there’s always Inspector Clouseau.

Right field

2010 total: 2.5 wins

2011 expectation: 3 wins

Will Venable seems to be a player perpetually on the verge of breaking out. He’s got a great combination of speed and power, with a half-decent eye to boot. Unfortunately, he strikes out like crazy and that cuts the legs out from under his stats, if only partially. If he can start making better contact, and work on being a bit more consistent from week to week, Venable will have a great bat to pair with his already impressive glove.

But let’s start small. Let’s go for 3 wins in 2011.

Catcher

2010 total: 3.9 wins

2011 expectation: 2.5 wins

At 2.4 wins, Yorvit Torrealba ranked fourth on the Padres offense, behind only Adrian, Headley, and Venable. But an impressive season led to an impressive pay raise and he took his talents to North Texas, leaving young Nick Hundley to become a man. With Gregg Zaun grizzling behind him, it’ll be up to Hundley to carry the position in 2011.

As I’ve been over before, Hundley has an undeservedly bad reputation in Padres circles. No one will ever mistake him for Brian McCann, but Hundley is the kind of player who won’t do anything to hurt you. As his playing time’s increased, his WAR has along with it, topping out at 1.5 wins last season. Now that he’s set to take over, it’s not outrageous to think that his WAR will inch even closer to 2 this season. With Grizzly Adams backing him up, and pitching in a couple of wins in himself, I see no reason why this team’s catching squad shouldn’t be able to do it’s part in 2011.

So there you have it. I think that comes out to 24 wins, a nice even number (that doesn’t include backups or awful hitting pitchers). If everything goes according to the plan I just laid out, this Padres team should be back in the hunt in 2011. Adrian Gonzalez was a loss, no doubt, but Jed Hoyer did a good job of taking that mountain back down to a molehill.

Before wearing out his welcome in Miami and coming to San Diego, Cameron Maybin was a top prospect. In 2007, he was rated the sixth best prospect in all of baseball. His teammate, left-handed pitcher Andrew Miller, was rated the tenth best prospect in baseball and together, they were shipped from Detroit to the Marlins for Miguel Cabrera. It was a mega-trade in the style these kind of things tend to be: two major prospects for one of the best players in baseball. It was a fair deal for both teams, or at least it was as fair of a deal as Florida would get.

Cut to three years later. Cabrera remains one of the best players in the league, Maybin was traded for a couple of middle relievers, and Miller was just non-tendered by the Red Sox. So it goes with prospects. As Padre fans, it’s a reality we know all too well. Our own former top prospect, Matt Antonelli, was also non-tendered this week. There’s no such thing as a sure thing when it comes to a minor league player, which is going to make the Adrian Gonzalez trade feel like we’re stepping out on an invisible bridge.

After years of teasing, the Padres and Red Sox have made reality of the rumors as Adrian is shipping up to Boston. It’s as surprising as a foregone conclusion can be. Once Jed Hoyer came over and his staff was filled with ex-Red Sox front office guys (Jason “Duncan” McLeod, Josh Byrnes as of this week), the fit was just a little too snug. These guys know too much about the Red Sox system and they know which players to target. Which is good, because with a deal that includes no major league players, people are going to expect that they’re certain with their picks.

Casey Kelly, Anthony Rizzo, Reymond Fuentes. These are the names of your new hope, Padres fans. Anyone expecting Clay Buchholz will surely be disappointed–but this is something of a buyer’s market. The Red Sox are playing for a World Series title and trading one of the better pitchers in the league wouldn’t help achieve that goal. But then, as a double agent, Hoyer would know that, right?

This is going to be a hard one to swallow. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s already stuck in a lot of throats out there. The Padres just traded one of the best players in the league and franchise history for a handful of players who may or may not pan out. Like Jorge Arangure said on twitter, “(The) Gonzalez trade will make or break Padres franchise for years to come. Big decision for Hoyer.” I don’t have to tell you about the limitations this franchise has, or that our only real hope is to produce our own talent. Ideally, this trade will help set us up for the best case scenario, Kelly joins Mat Latos and Simon Castro to give the Padres the kind of rotation that leads teams to the World Series. But what if he doesn’t?

Without Adrian, it will be hard for the Padres to compete in 2011. Chase Headley will become the elder statesman. It will fall to the new class of Padres, including Cameron Maybin, to make things work. And while the former Boston farmhands develop (or not) down below, everyone in San Diego will be forced to sit and wait and hope that when the time comes, something’s there to catch us when we step out.

When Dan Hayes’ reported that Headley’s Super Two status might force the Padres to trade Ryan Ludwick, my first thought was “Oh hell no. Trade Headley.”

Don’t get me wrong, I like Headley fine. I’ll be the first to ring the “pitching and defense” bell, and Headley was as good as it got at third base this year. But Ludwick? He’s no slouch himself (career UZR/150 of 5.1 round the outfield) and he’s the team’s only legit middle of the order hitter other than Adrian. If we move Ludwick, who’s going to hit cleanup?

The better question is why we think Ludwick should hit cleanup hitter himself.

In 2008, Ludwick made a name for himself by hitting 37 home runs but he’s hit 39 total over the past two seasons. Despite his 154 in 08, Ludwick has a career wRC+ of 117 and Bill James projects a 115 for him in 2011. And he’ll likely make in excess of $7 million next year.

Ludwick’s been a starter for four years and throwing out his yet to be duplicated 2008, he’s been a 2-win player. Last year, Headley was somewhere between a 3.7 and a 4.6-win player, depending on if you prefer Baseball-Reference or Fangraphs’ numbers. In 1,675 plate appearances, Headley’s only hit 32 home runs and while he plans on hitting the gym this winter, even if he doesn’t, his glove should still provide enough value to this team to make him a keeper.

It’s easy to look at these Padres and think that something needs to be done about the offense, but they weren’t that bad offensively last year. Though it ranked 20th in the league, the team’s wRC+ was a respectable 97. They fell apart in September (82 wRC+), and Headley was especially awful (58 wRC+), but that likely speaks more to conditioning and depth that it does talent and ability. With the exception of Tejada and Torrealba, the team will be bringing back all of the same hitters worth bringing back and hopefully that means more of the same.

In fairness to Ludwick, he was never who we expected him to be. He’s not the -0.3-win Ughwick we saw in August and September, but he’s not someone who will scare pitchers into giving Adrian some fastballs. The potential is there (he hit 18 home runs away from Busch Stadium last year) but while Maybin is a low-risk roll of the dice, Ludwick has $7 million riding on his. With only $10 million available to fill holes at second, short, in the rotation and on the bench, is the smarter risk to go into the crevasse, opening a hole in left to better fill all the others?

Probably. But I’ll defer to Jed on this one.

UPDATE: According to Jeff Fletcher, the Padres will offer Ludwick arbitration. Here we go.

Dan Hayes reported today that the Padres brass is ready to take the training wheels off of Nick Hundley and anoint him the starting catcher for 2011. This comes a week after Yorvit Torrealba declined his half of his mutual option, breaking up the dynamic duo who gave the Padres their most productive year from the catcher’s spot since Mike Piazza and Josh Bard went off in 2006. This’ll be Hundley’s first year in the starring role and the tone around Padresland could best be described as nonplussed but worry not, Hundley’s good. Well, he’s not bad. Let me explain.

First, let’s get this out of the way: catcher is the hardest position on the field to play. In his defensive spectrum, Bill James ranked it ninth, only ahead of the pitcher’s spot, in difficulty. The catcher is not only asked to stay in a crouched position for nine innings while enduring 90 mph foul tips and the potential steamroll, but he has to take a more cerebral role. Why don’t I just let Bud Black break it down, or at least break down what it is he thinks Hundley does right:

“I saw strides this year in his overall handling of the pitchers, handling of the game, and keeping the focus throughout the game,” manager Bud Black said.

“Just his overall in-game awareness, I saw progress. He really made strides on defensive end. I thought he threw better, much more under control and with accuracy.”

Oh yeah, the catcher also has to deal with the base running aspect of the game. Hundley’s .293 CS% would rank him fifth among qualified catchers (out of 13) and is a personal best. But then, who cares? If your beef with Hundley is because you don’t think he makes a good backstop, I’m not sure I can sway your opinion. But if you’re upset over questions concerning the Padres offense and see Hundley as another problem, keep reading.

This season, Hundley finished the year with a wRC+ of 99, which is down one point from his 100 in 2009. For those who don’t know, that makes Hundley incredibly average but consistently so. Of all catchers with 300 plate appearances, Hundley’s 99 was good for 15th out of 29, again pretty average. He was well below the Mauers and Poseys of the league but well ahead of the Kendalls and Bengie Molinas. He was below Torrealba (107 wRC+, 12th in the league) but keep in mind that Torrealba had a career year this season, at age 32. His career wRC+ of 85 is below Hundley’s 93. Again, something to keep in mind if you find yourself getting upset that the team let Torrealba slip away (assuming that they do).

More to my point, of the 17 players who received 100 at-bats from the Padres, Hundley’s 99 was good for ninth. Is this guy good at hitting the middle or what? His WAR of 1.5 also ranked the same. Hundley’s no Adrian, he’s not even Chase Headley, but he has more in common with Chase than he does with Everth Cabrera or Scott Hairston or some of the real holes this 2010 squad had. Jed Hoyer has his work cut out for him if he’s going to repeat this year’s 90-win success story. He’s got holes up the middle and Ryan Ludwick is going to have to do much better than he did after coming over from St. Louis, but Hundley will make Jed’s job easier. Leave him alone and he’ll do well to not mess things up.

It might not be the greatest of praise but for a team with the Sisyphean nature that this club has, it’ll do. Or, at least, it should.

(but probably not for the same reasons)

In case you missed it, and given the way the regular season ended I wouldn’t be surprised if you did, the Giants clinched the World Series last night. Edgar Renteria, who had less than a hundred at-bats in the second half, was voted the series MVP after hitting a three-run homer off of Cliff Lee in the seventh to put the Giants ahead for good. Wilson came in, struck out Nelson Cruz, saluted his dad, and the World Series was over.

I have a confession to make: I was rooting for the Giants. If you wish to stop reading this blog, I understand but give me a moment to explain myself. I like the Giants. Oops! That probably made things worse, didn’t it? When they knocked us off on the last day of the year, I was more relieved than anything else. I’m talking to myself now, aren’t I?

It’s easy to look at the Giants and think “That should’ve been us!” In late August, it looked like it would be. The two teams seem to be built the same way. The Giants finished third in the league in FIP (3.74), right behind us (3.66). We were third in UZR (50.0), right behind them (56.4). They were a bit better than us offensively, but that doesn’t really mean much. Upon closer inspection, however, things are not as close as they seem so get your microscopes out. I’ve got some slides to show you.

We had the best bullpen in the league this year, and it wasn’t close. GAB and the guys contributed 73 wins above average, which was nine plus runs over the second place White Sox. The Giants came in fourth at 59.1, a still respectable number. It went well with the 141.4 runs their rotation was worth, which was good for eighth in the league (fifth in the NL) and which was much better than the 78.4 runs the Padres staff contributed. Latos and co. came in 26th in the league, which honestly sounds kind of crazy.

Mat with one T is obligatory. He is a legitimate ace and worthy of endless tangents, but I’ll stop myself here. After him, Richard had a solid-if-not-amazing season (3.81 FIP, 4.19 xFIP) and Stauffer and Young deserve credit despite their limited opportunities, but then things start to get bleak. The next best pitcher was Garland (4.41 FIP), then Correia (4.69) and LeBlanc (4.74). Garland and Correia both under pitched their xFIP, Correia by fifty points, but that doesn’t mean a whole lot for 2010 or the future, given the uncertainty of those two coming back. Comparatively, the Giants had three starters who out pitched our number two (Lincecum, Cain, Bumgarner) and two more who out pitched our number three (Sanchez, Zito). Or, to put it another way, having an ace isn’t cool. You know what’s cool? Having three aces. I’m exaggerating, at least a little bit, but the point still stands.

It’s easy to hate. It’s easy to look at the Giants and think that it should be us and to think that we deserve a part of that trophy because our collapse helped get the Giants there, but that’s a little arrogant. It distracts us from the idea, which is just an idea at this point, that we missed the playoffs because we weren’t as good as we thought. We were good, don’t get me mistaken. Teams don’t luck into 90 wins but as we found out, 90 wins don’t go as far as you’d think.

A lot was made of how the experts who picked us to finish last were wrong but who is ready to predict a first place finish for the Padres next season? It’s still early but it feels safe to say that we’ll go into 2011 with still only one elite hitter and one frontline starter. The 2010 team’s second best hitter was Chris Denorfia – are you willing to expect a repeat next year? Better yet, are you willing to give him the shot to repeat? There are a lot of questions surrounding this team, including but not limited to:

-Is Will Venable legit?
-Will Headley ever put it together offensively?
-Was Ludwick’s 2008 a fluke?
-What’s to be done with Everth?
-Are Jed and Bud willing to commit to defense and pitching?

And I’m just spitballing. If you look at the Giants, or the Rangers, or the Rockies for that matter, they have questions too but they have more answers than we do, including Lincecum, Posey, Hamilton, Cruz, Tulowitzki, Gonzalez, etc. These players make it easy for their teams to reload, especially since they won’t be changing addresses in 2012. Is it worth it for the Padres to make a run in 2011, knowing that it will be Adrian’s last hurrah in San Diego? It’s easy to see the benefit of such a plan, but it’s just as easy to see the detriment if you look for it.

It doesn’t always feel like it, but the Padres have been pretty good since moving downtown. In seven years, they’ve averaged 82 wins, 84 when you take out the outliers. But with only two playoff appearances and one postseason victory, who cares? The Padres have shown a strong commitment to being good and hoping that’s good enough. That’s a cynical point of view, given the team’s many limitations, so let’s say that they’ve shown a strong commitment to not upsetting the apple cart. What was the last bold move you can remember the Padres making?

I’ll give you a second to think about that one.

Jed Hoyer’s in a tough position. It’s one thing to ship Mark Teixeira out of town when you still have All-Stars around the field, and it’s another thing to ship Cliff Lee out of town when you’re floundering in last place, but what do you do when you’re coming off 90 wins? The Gunslinger is an apt nickname for Kevin Towers because it rarely seemed like he had a plan. He shot first and asked questions later. He could build a bullpen and he won some lopsided trades but hitting the track is no way to support a family. The cupboard was bare more often than not and while we’ve got some cans of soup in there now, we shouldn’t be expecting a Rockwellian Thanksgiving this year. Towers deserves a lot of credit for where he put this team, but he deserves a lot of blame too.

Where the team goes from here is yet to be determined. Hoyer and his staff are beginning their first full offseason. Not committing to Eckstein is a good start, while committing to Ludwick despite his struggles shows confidence. And Hoyer’s not one to shy away from shaking things up – just ask Hanley Ramirez, so there’s reason to believe we’re in good hands. Then again, Moorad is a professional meddler who has already said he wishes he had told his GM how to do his job concerning Pat Burrell. After a 90 win season, is the man who writes the check going to be willing to take a step back to take two forward?

I’m probably being too hard on the Padres. They’ve gone 129 and 107 over the past year and a half and they are a legitimately good team. Nothing can take away from what the Padres accomplished this year, not even a new pennant for the Giants, but 2011 is a new year and at some point, the Padres are going to have to start looking forward.

(Cue “Carry On My Wayward Son” by Kansas)

The Padres and Giants have followed two very different paths coming into this weekend’s final series. On September 1st, the Padres were 76-56 with a three game lead over the Giants. Now, twelve wins and fifteen loses later, the roles have been reversed and the Padres find themselves down three on October 1st. To show you what kind of month we just finished, I’ve made another graph, this one including how the Giants did:

Where the lines diverge is where the Padres began a streak in which they lost four of their last five and the Giants won four of their last five, completing the flip-flop. San Francisco is only one win from clinching the division. But how did we get here?

How did we get here, Ray?

For the season, neither team has bad a strong offense, with the Giants and Padres posting similar wOBA of .318 and .304 respectively (note: don’t forget about park factors). And in September, not much changed. Both teams stumbled but stumbled equally, with the Giants falling to .303 and the Padres to .280. Honestly before I looked this up, this is where I figured the difference came. But that’s why we crunch the numbers.

If you’re dead set on blaming the offense and are upset with the last paragraph, there is hope. Despite their team’s general struggles, the heart of San Francisco’s lineup has been doing their part. Pat Burrell (.373 wOBA), Aubrey Huff (.370), and Buster Posey (.367) have stayed hot, hitting 17 home runs between the three of them this month. As for their San Diego counterparts, Adrian Gonzalez’s September has been solid, if not to his usual standards. His .346 wOBA is second to everyone with regular at-bats, behind only the playing-out-of-his-mind Will Venable (.363). Miguel Tejada’s also doing his part (.327) but his fellow deadline darling is another story. Ryan Ludwick’s time here in San Diego has been something of a disaster–and his September wOBA of .289 is hard to swallow. Jed Hoyer recently committed to bringing Ludwick back and while I’m glad he has (Ludwick’s really battled bad luck here), I understand if you aren’t. I also understand if you’re less than pleased with Chase Headley as well. His .223 wOBA (with a .305 BABIP) is awful– it’s been a horrible end to what was an otherwise excellent season for Chase.

Pitching-wise, the Padres have the edge in FIP (3.66 to 3.74) and the Giants take the edge in ERA (3.37 to 3.41) but over the past month, the Giants’ pitchers have been unhittable (2.75 FIP and 1.78 ERA). This is due in large part to their five starters, who had a combined 2.90 FIP and 2.04 ERA. Our guys didn’t fare as well, ending up with a 3.85 FIP and 4.15 ERA. If there’s a silver lining here, it’s that we’ll avoid the Giants’ two hottest pitchers,Madison Bumgarner (1.96 FIP) and Tim Lincecum (2.18) but really, it’s more of a bronze lining at best.

The season’s not over, but it’ll take a miracle for the season to continue into next week. Against such a formidable opponent, we can only hope that our team’s October goes a bit better than their September.

In a year of unlikely successes, Chris Denorfia might be the unlikeliest. A career minor leaguer*, Denorfia made his way to San Diego in mid-May when Scott Hairston went down, I can only imagine the team advised him to go ahead and buy an apartment. Since then, he’s been the second best hitter on the team with a wRC+ of 134. He’s hit nine home runs in a little more than 200 at-bats, and he’s done it with a BABIP-LD% of 12.9**. Come October, Denorfia will be in the starting lineup and he’ll have earned his place.

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.

With the Padres the proud owners of the best record in the NL (and tied for the second best in all of baseball), the tone of our story has changed. Where everyone had been wondering when the team would trade Adrian Gonzalezand Heath Bell, now people are beginning to wonder if we’ll be buyers instead.

Jed Hoyer started off the talk mentioning he’s not completely happy with the way the offense has been playing:

Frankly we’ve been fortunate to score as many runs as we have given some of the guys we’ve had struggling. The way our pitching staff has thrown has allowed us some patience. At some point our hitters will have to pick up our pitchers. We’re not going to continue to pitch at this rate all season. I think it’s unrealistic to think that.

The team, as of the writing of this article, ranks 23rd in the league in wOBA (13th in the NL) at .312. The team leader is Scott Hairston at .371, followed by backup catcher Yorvit Torrealba at .360, Adrian at an underachieving .359, and Chase Hadley at .349. Everyone else is well below average, with the most egregious offenders being sophomore slumping Kyle Blanks at .305, Evert Cabrera at .250, and Jerry Hairston at .234*.

To this point, the pitching (1st in ERA and xFIP) and defense (2nd in UZR) have led the way, but as Hoyer noted, we can’t just count on getting by with a below-average offense. So who are some candidates to come fix this thing?

TSB favorite Tim Sullivan starts us off throwing Carlos Lee, Jose Guillen, and Jermaine Dye’s names into the hat. Sullivan adds that the price tags hanging from Lee and Guillen might push them out of range. This leaves Dye, who’s become something of a boogeyman around baseball. Following a disappointing contract year (-0.4 WAR), Dye failed to find a job this past offseason. He received interest from a couple of teams (the Cubs and Milwaukee were mentioned) but its believed he’s priced himself out of different situations, which makes it all the more interesting that he’d be willing to come here:

“San Diego was one of the places Jermaine was excited about playing,” (Dye’s agent) Bob Bry said Tuesday. “He continues to work out every morning and hits most days and is still waiting for an opportunity with a team that has a chance to advance to the playoffs. San Diego, seemingly, would be a good fit.”

Right.

Dye’s bat could bring some added oomph to this lineup. Even last year, in a down season, Dye hit 27 home runs with a .344 wOBA. Unfortunately, he was also the worst defensive player in all of baseball. His UZR/150 was -26.4 and on his career, Dye is a -16.3 outfielder. This team definitely needs some offense, but what happens to our pitching and defense with Jermaine Dye roaming around the spacious confines of Petco Park?

Moving on.

Another aging former All-Star whose name is in the mix is Andruw Jones. You might remember him from the monster bombs he hit in Petco as a member of the Atlanta Braves. Or you might remember him from the monster bomb he was as a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers. With his/Jake Peavy’s Chicago White Sox off to a 14-20 start, Jones has made himself into a trade candidate with his .260/.360/.604 line. MLB Trade Rumors has made up a list of teams that might have interest, and said the following about ours:

The Padres have Kyle Blanks in left field, Tony Gwynn Jr. in center field, and Will Venable in right field. Of the three, only Blanks profiles as a top prospect, so the other two could be vulnerable to a Jones acquisition, should San Diego remain in the race.

I’m assuming they mean that AJ and Venable are vulnerable to losing their spot in the lineup to Jones, and not their spot on the roster. At $500K, Jones is a steal not a deal for the production he’s put up, but will it last? I dunno, but Fangraphs took a shot at figuring it out:

Why so pessimistic? Because at this exact point last season, 111 PA, Andruw’s production ceased. For those first 111 PA he hit .278/.405/.544, which amounts to a wOBA, .424, that is nearly identical to his mark this year. Yet from his 112th PA through his 331st, he produced very little. His triple slash sat at .183/.282/.419, a .320 wOBA. His only saving grace was power, as he hit 12 home runs and produced a .236 ISO during that span. Other than that, though, he showed few redeeming qualities.
—
Yet even if he avoids the drop-off he experienced last year, there’s almost no chance he continues at his current pace. Even during his prime years he never produced a .400 wOBA. His peak year came in 2000, when he produced a .390 mark. He came close, too, in 2005, when he hit 51 home runs and produced a .382 wOBA. He might be able to help a contending team, but it won’t be with the numbers he’s producing now.

Jones is a gamble, more so than Dye, because it’s hard to know who exactly we’ll be getting. While he’s slimmed down, this is still the guy who almost ate himself out of the league. He still has the power he’s ever had and if the stars align, he could be the big bopper to help Adrian see more fastballs, but that’s a big if.

As the season progresses, teams will start seeing their dreams of success slip away (but not us) and more and more players will start falling off the tree, leaving us with a better idea of what’s out there. It is only May afterall. Still, isn’t it nice talking about the stars we could trade for instead of the ones we could trade away?**

*Making matters worse, Hairston is fourth on the team in plate appearances. This jack of all trades is truly the master of none: he’s also contributed a -0.9 UZR.

**Buster Posey and Dustin Ackley are future stars, jes’ sayin’.

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.

Padres add Stairs for veteran presence (ESPN)

According to Jerry Crasnick, the Padres have signed Matt Stairs to a minor league deal with an invite to the big league camp.

I like this deal, but I like having a left-handed power-bat on the bench. This seemed to be the offseason to get one, with a couple of veterans finding themselves disregarded, but following Jason Giambi’s return to the Rockies and the AL Central’s interest in Jim Thome, the pickings still seemed slim. Truth be told, Stairs was not very good last year, or the year before, his monster bomb off of Broxton in the NLCS not withstanding, but he has dropped 30 pounds. If Stairs comes into Spring Training as serious as his weight-loss suggests, he would be a great addition to our already impressive bench.

Headley at hot corner a heated decision (Union-Tribune)

Tim Sullivan fills us in on some behind the scenes gossip behind Chase Headley’s move to third.

“Buddy (Black) and I were on the same page,” Towers said recently, describing the Padres’ philosophical divide before his dismissal as general manager. “I’d keep Kouz and trade Headley. But DePo (Paul DePodesta) has always been a huge Headley fan. Huge. As was Sandy (Alderson). Headley was kind of our poster child.”

To which Black responded with a diplomatic “That serves no purpose.” Because of course he did.

I hope that someone gives Towers a studio job, just so we can watch him react to Padres updates as they happen.