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.

(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.

Ray’s note: Sorry about the delay in updating. Technical difficulties.

09. Tony Gwynn, Jr., CF

10. Tim Stauffer, RP/SP

From the acclaimed filmmakers who brought you “Stauffer: The Last Honest Man” comes a heartbreaking story of the gifts and the curses that fathers past down to their sons.

In the sleepy town of San Diego, Tony Gwynn was a king. Honest and just, he ruled over his kingdom with a fair hand. He loved his people and in return they loved him. After years of loyal service, King Tony stepped down to devote his time to the youth of his community, leaving his kingdom in a state of flux. His son, Prince Tony, was away at school and his birthright waited. And waited. After school, the Prince took time to see the world, escaping to the great land of Milwaukee before returning to San Diego.

As humble as his father, the Prince refused to be handed the keys, choosing instead to work for them. He excelled in ways his father never had but he failed in the ways his father had built his legend on and the people of the land had trouble embracing the young Prince’s style.

Coming this winter, “In the Shadow of My Father: The Tony Gwynn, Jr. Story”

—

That really got away from me, but the point stands. AJ will always be his father’s son and his legacy will always be tied directly to his father. I always thought it was strange that the children of legends would even consider following in the parent’s footsteps but I suppose growing up in a life makes you grow a little fond of it. But what happens if your best turns out to be great but not great enough?

If you see your uncles next month round the Thanksgiving table and you tell them how great Tony, Sr. is, they’ll probably tell you that you’re being condescending. But if you tell them how great Tony, Jr. is, you’ll get a better conversation going.

AJ is a career .244 hitter, ninety-four points lower than his father’s .336. The younger’s career .291 is not only eight points lower than his father’s .371, but it’s much lower than the average .333. He’s not a good hitter. It’d probably be charitable to call him a bad hitter. But my goodness, can he play centerfield.

I’m not even going to bother to show you AJ’s offensive statistics from this past year. Trust me when I say that they’re incredibly bad, but trust me when I say that they don’t matter too much. Remember this number: 12.9. That’s how many defensive runs AJ saved above-average in 2010. For all center fielders, 12.9 was the third best mark in the league. And for a pitching staff that was middle of the road, all things considered, it may have been even more valuable.

If you didn’t know, UZR isn’t perfect. AJ’s standing as a great defender isn’t written in stone, not yet at least. But the fact remains that Tony Gwynn, Jr. has saved 18.5 runs above average in 1,842 innings in centerfield, and he brought a reliability to the most important position. Remember Chris Denorfia in center? Remember his diving attempts, few of which actually ended in catches? How’d he make you feel out there? And how did AJ make you feel? As a basement nerd, I’m supposed to ignore the visceral aspects of baseball–but I’m rebelling. Sometimes, how you feel matters. I might call Darren Balsley and get his opinion on that. But I digress.

AJ is not his father. He may have the name and his number may only be one away, but there’s only one Tony Gwynn, Sr. But for me, I want you to tell your uncle that’s all right. Tell him to trust me.

During last week’s chat with XX (which we covered in part here), Jed Hoyer said that payroll will start with a four, meaning we’ve got a range of $40 to $49 million*. This means that Hoyer, and Jeff Moorad depending on when he’ll start meddling, have some decisions to make about the Padres’ roster.

As of right now, the Padres have about $10 million locked up after Adrian Gonzalez’s option and all of the pre-arbitration eligible players. These are no-brainers, leaving decisions about the other thirteen or so roster spots on the 25.

The first three choices involve Chris Young, Jon Garland, and Yorvit Torrealba. As surely as the sun will rise tomorrow, the San Diego Padres will not be paying Chris Young $8.5 million in 2011. They might bring him back at far far less, but his option will not be picked up. As far as the other pitchers concerned, though he’s no All-Star, Garland is who he is: a pitcher who will give the team 200 innings and an above-average ERA. And with the premium this team seems to have put on chemistry, his veteran leadership and Been Thereness will likely come in handy. Six point seven five million dollars handy? I’ll say yes. Same goes with Torrealba. Three point five million dollars might be a bit much for a platoon catcher, especially given how deep this year’s free agent class is in backup catchers, but Torrealba has a rapport going with the team and the pitchers. Why change horses? This brings us to $20 million or so.

Now we come to the arbitration eligible guys. Scott Hairston, Heath Bell, and Ryan Ludwick are all on their third go, Mike Adams is on his second, and Tim Stauffer, Edward Mujica, and Anthony Junior are here for the first time. Immediately, I have to imagine that Hairston will be non-tendered. He’s just very replaceable, with Aaron Cunningham and Chris Denorfia more than capable of doing what he does. Then we have the first timers, who will probably not make much more than $3.5 million between them. Of the three, Mujica’s the most likely to play somewhere else next year, as it’s not a high price to pay for a starter (Stauffer) or a superb defender (Junior). Twenty three million. Adams will come back and I’m guessing he’ll get around $3.5 million himself, a little less than closer Heath Bell got at the same time. Let’s say twenty seven million, before Heath Bell and Ryan Ludwick are counted.

Hoyer’s already committed to bringing Ludwick back, and we’ve already commented that we agree with the decision. Even if Ludwick does end up a bust, $7.5 million, which I’m guessing he’ll get, is a fair price for someone with Ludwick’s potential. Think of it this way: who else can the Padres go get for that much money to hit twenty home runs and play above-average defense? Looking at the pickings, they look rather slim. Thirty five million.

Depending on what number the Padres payroll digits ends in, we’re looking at $5 to $15 million left in the piggy bank. And that also leaves us with a hole at second and question marks at short and center. Theoretically, the Padres could plug Everth Cabrera in at short and AJ in at center, but then we’d have to go back in time and pull Jeff Kent out of 2001 to get enough offense to be credible. And plutonium’s still expensive. They could go with Miguel Tejada at short, but he’s neither a good player anymore nor cheap. Hoyer’s going to have to get creative to fill these holes, especially if he plans on paying Heath Bell $8 million.

This is were I reassure everyone that Bell is a great player. He’s been worth two wins in three of his last four seasons, and this year he was the third most valuable closer in baseball, behind Carlos Marmol of the Cubs and Brian Wilson of the Giants. He’s the rightful successor to the Hoffy throne, but unfortunately he’s gotta go. At the price he’ll command, and that others such as Bobby Jenks and Jonathan Papelbon have commanded before him, he’ll become the highest paid player on the team next year and such a small market team can not afford to invest so much of its payroll into such a speciality position. Especially when Mike Adams can come in and do the job with little to no drop off. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Bell might bring back something good in return.

Michael Bourn. Franklin Gutierrez. Adam LaRoche. These are just a couple names of players who have been acquired for premium relief pitching. With a pitcher of Bell’s caliber, the Padres have the opportunity to build upon their 2010 success. It just seems that Bell’s more valuable on the open market than he is in a Padres uniform.

*Duh.

Jed Hoyer gave an interview to XX yesterday and thanks to the good people at Gaslamp Ball, neither of us have to listen to it. It was surprisingly (at least to me) candid, as if Jed were paying tribute to the Gunslinger. It gave us a good window into his mind. Here are some of the choice hits, as well as my valuable (you’ll see. i’ll show you) opinion.

Hoyer wishes that he and Buddy would have put Tim Stauffer back into the rotation earlier. That’s the one thing that keeps him up at night. It could have brought them 2 or 3 more wins. They waited longer than they should have. They waited until the rosters expanded.

Doi.

Stauffer was the second best “starter” on this team, behind Mat Latos, but he only received seven starts. His 3.02 FIP was only .02 behind Latos and was .79 ahead of Clayton Richard, Mr. Third Place. His xFIP was also solid (3.74), putting him behind Latos and Cory Luebke and his three starts.

In his place, Wade LeBlanc and Kevin Correia combined for 51 starts, or almost a third of the season. The two also combined to give the team a total of 0.1 wins above replacement. In almost 300 less innings, Stauffer contributed 1.3 wins. I hate to have to say this, but the Padres really could’ve used an extra win there at the end of the year.

The Padres struggled all year getting on base in the 1 and 2 spot in the line up. They ranked 27 or 28th getting on base in those positions. It really hurt the run scoring. Hoyer thinks very highly of David Eckstein, he had a really good year but he won’t say if he’ll be coming back next year.

David, David, David. He actually had his best season in years (five, to be exact). Unfortunately, that had nothing to do with his hitting. He had his best defensive year ever, managing average range and letting his sure handedness do the rest. Offensively, it was the same story. A 91 wRC+, which is worse than his career 95, and a total of -5.1 runs contributed. On a team that wasn’t exactly Murderer’s Row, Eckstein had the fourth worst year with the bat. It’s just that Jerry Hairston, Jr. and Everth Cabrera, our other options at second, were worse.

It was nice of Hoyer to lie and say that Eckstein had a really good year. But if he’s looking to upgrade, we’ve found somewhere to start.

Ryan Ludwick is a really good player who struggled in the new environment. He put too much pressure on himself. He thinks that Ludwick will be moved to left field because Hoyer likes Will Venable’s glove in right field.

Ahem:

**Not to editorialize, but I wouldn’t be against the Padres putting Ludwick in left. With a starting trio of Ludwick-Gwynn-Venable, I’m not sure anything would fall in that outfield.

Good Ludwick the rest of the season

Getting past that, it’s good to see that Hoyer isn’t among the masses calling for Ludwick’s head. He definitely stunk while here (78 OPS+) but luck was not on his side (.257 BABIP). Both numbers are considerably down from his career averages (114 OPS+, .309 BABIP). Add in that he was still coming off of an injury and it’s likely that we didn’t see the real Ryan Ludwick these past two months. It was his evil twin, Ryan Ughwick.

Jon Garland had a great year. They’ll talk about exercising his option over the next two weeks. He felt that he performed exactly as they hoped.

A great year might be something of an overstatement, but Garland was who we thought he is (4.41 FIP, 106 ERA+, 200 IP). His option is for $6.75 million and that might be a bit steep, but Garland is a dependable pitcher and the rotation would still only be around $8 million with him.

Gwynn had a good season defensively. The team missed him in the outfield when he was injured. He struggled offensively. He’s a reason for the success of the pitching staff.

AJ was amazing this year, posting the highest UZR/150 of all players with at least 700 innings (33.6). Even being four-to-five hundred innings behind the rest of his competition, he still ended the year second in UZR (12.9) behind only Michael Bourn. This guy can play him some centerfield and seemed to be unaffected by the grand expanse of Petco Park (6.4 home RngR). He had a down year with the bat but like Ludwick, luck was not on his side (.236 BABIP, .050 BABIP-LD%). It’d be a big risk for the team to go into 2011 with AJ installed in center but his defense makes him a valuable player (1.7 WAR in 2010).

Personally, I’d like to see Venable get first crack at centerfield. He showed a lot of promise when Black finally gave him the shot and with his bat, the Padres wouldn’t have to make sacrifices or choose one facet of the game over the other. But given that Black sent Chris Denorfia out for 360 innings (we’ve been over this) I would gladly take another year of Tony Gwynn, Jr.

Looking around the internet, it seems that everyone has an opinion on the moves Bud Black made, or didn’t make, during yesterday’s game. For my part, I have only one thing to say:

Chris Denorfia is not a center fielder. Stop playing him in centerfield.

I like Denorfia, relatively speaking. He’s a solid hitter who should make for a strong fourth outfielder for the 2011 team. But like I said, he’s not a center fielder. His sloppy route on Huff’s double yesterday was an appropriate end to a season in which Denorfia cost the team four and a half runs in only a quarter of the season’s worth of time in center.

Keep Baby in a corner, Bud. Please don’t make Hoyer go all Vinny Castilla on him.

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.

After breaking his hamate bone during Wednesday’s win over the Cubs, Tony Gwynn, Jr.’s season is now over.

Considering he already lost his starting job to Chris Denorfia and his wRC+ dropped to 83, it’s easy to forget the kind of impact AJ had on this team. Gwynn led all major league center fielders in UZR this season with +13.6 runs. He was 3.4 runs ahead of second place Marlon Byrd, who played over 300 innings more than AJ. Three hundred and eight more, to be exact. That’s 34 games. That’s a fifth of a season. AJ finishes his season as the third most valuable outfielder in the majors, behind Carl Crawford and Andres Torres.

Despite his limited playing time and troubles at the plate, AJ has been the fifth most valuable Padre according to WAR. With six weeks left to play, he’ll likely fall in the standings as other players leapfrog him. But for a while, AJ was the epitome of the Padres defense-first philosophy. While I won’t be holding my breath, I hope the team doesn’t forget this coming offseason.