Previously on The Sac Bunt: We discussed the Padres meager offensive production and the various aging veterans who could come in and theoretically provide some punch.

At the time, the Padres were 13th in the NL and 23rd in the majors with a .312 wOBA. Today, our wOBA remains at .312, but it is now good for 14th in the NL and 25th in the majors. Now that’s consistency! At the time, I threw out Jermaine Dye and Andruw Jones, and later Pat Burrell, as players who might-or-might not be able to help. Burrell has since signed with the Giants and Dye seems to have fallen off the radar, so it’s Andruw Jones who has prompted the writing of this article.

Today, Buster Olney reported that the Chicago White Sox are officially open for business, looking to move the players that they can from their underachieving team. While they have some bench players that might be of interest to us, including Omar Vizquel, we’re focusing on Jones.

When I first brought him up, Jones had a .949 OPS and a .424 wOBA. Those numbers have since dropped to .823 and .363, respectively, after a rough May: .208/.301/.417/.718, .322. It should be noted that Jones’ May is better than entire season for Venable, Gwynn, and Blanks. Faint praise, I know, but notable. While Jones is still drawing his walks, but he’s not hitting the ball very hard, so it’s not out of line to think that he was the beneficiary of a hot start. Fortunately, what hasn’t changed is his contract.

Along with his $1 million worth of performance bonuses, Jones is still signed to the $500 thousand contract he was at the beginning of the year. Depending on who Kenny Williams asks for in return, Jones could be a low-risk/high-reward chance for the Padres to take. If Jones figures something out back in the NL, the Padres have an outfielder who can actually hit the ball and if not, they’re only on the hook for less than half a million dollars and (hopefully) a mid-level prospect with no real future in San Diego.

With the lack of any real optimism in our lineup, this could be the kind of a risk a team vastly exceeding everyone’s expectations should take. If nothing else, they can at least point to this and say that they tried, after they move Adrian and Bell for some prospects.

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.
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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’.

“It’s sad to say, but having been traded a couple of times, I play for the guys in the clubhouse, the players, Buddy [Black] and his staff,” Gonzalez says. “I play in San Diego, but I’m not playing for the name across the jersey. I play for the guys in the clubhouse. You learn that you play for them.”

The Padres have given Adrian Gonzalez around $4.7 million dollars over his career. That’s not $180 million, but apparently it hasn’t been enough to convince him to play for the team. At the very least it should be enough to not say stupid things like this to the public.

I’ve been saying it a lot lately, but hearing Adrian and remembering Jake Peavy talk sure makes me appreciate Heath Bell, the only face of the Padres the last few years who seems to like the team.

Via CBS Sports

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

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

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

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

McLeod tapped as Padres executive (MLB.com)

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

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

Padres’ Tate injured in ATV crash (SignOnSanDiego)

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

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

San Diego Padres Top 10 Prospects (Baseball America)

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

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

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

Good night, and good luck.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy shopping, Jed.

Is there a more pointless role in baseball than that of closer on an awful team?

Heath Bell is having a fantastic season, despite his predictable All-Star loss. His 1.64 ERA has helped make the transition out of the Trevor Hoffman era as painless as possible. And he’s a pretty entertaining guy, what with all the antics. But on this team, it just doesn’t make sense to hang onto him.

This is all going off of the assumption that there is a market for Heath Bell, which isn’t a given. It just seems likely. And if it is the case, this team has to follow through. Over the weekend, former stud Cla Meredith was traded to Baltimore for Oscar Salazar, a bench player. What made this trade possible was the success of the bullpen around Meredith. Along with Bell, the Padres have gotten a lot out of what seemed like a ragtag group. Edward Mujica, picked up after Cleveland dumped him earlier this year, and Luke Gregerson, the PTBNL in the Khalil Greene trade, have been leading the non-Heath Bell charge. And they’re getting help from Mike Adams and Luis Perdomo. This isn’t to say that the bullpen is perfect, because it’s not. Nor is it ranked near the top. But it might just be good enough for an awful team.

But that’s just why the door is open. That Heath Bell will turn 32-years-old in a couple of months and is headed for arbitration after the season is why Kevin Towers should walk through it. To avoid arbitration last year, the Padres gave the then set-up man $1.25 million. You have to imagine, one of the best closers in baseball is going to want a bit more than that. And last time I checked, this team still doesn’t have any money.

There are nine days left till the trade deadline, and the beginning of Towers’ precious August when the “better deals” are always available. Scott Hairston and Cla Meredith made the move elsewhere, and certainly they won’t be the only ones. But with Jake Peavy on the DL, and Adrian Gonzalez all-but-untouchable, the team is strapped for juicy bait. And instead of messing around with a Kevin Correia trade (who’s a player and I’d actually like to hang onto), this team needs to start doing a real job of accumulating talent. And that starts with trading Heath Bell.

With great power comes great responsibility.

With all due respect, Trevor who? The Heath Bell era has begun in San Diego. While we’re not even two weeks into the season, Heath (yeah, he’s already on a first-name basis) sits atop the league with his 5 saves, and he’s using this position to fight the good fight against ESPN and the East Coast Bias.

Heath, who grabbed headlines earlier in the offseason when it became public knowledge that he dropped 20 pounds using Wii Fit, took exception to the coverage his and our team received this past Monday, when they spoiled the opener of Citi Field by beating the Mets.

“I saw ESPN’s promo for tonight’s game. They mention the Mets are opening Citi Field, they mentioned the starting time, but nowhere did they mention the Padres. . . .

“I truly believe ESPN only cares about promoting the Red Sox and Yankees and Mets – and nobody else,” said the closer, a former Met. “That’s why I like the MLB Network, because they promote everybody. I’m really turned off by ESPN and ‘Baseball Tonight.’ When Jake Peavy threw 8 1/3 innings on Saturday, they showed one pitch in the third inning and that was it. It’s all about the Red Sox, Yankees and Mets.”

Padres closer Heath Bell sick of ESPN’s East Coast bias

While Heath’s earned himself new fans with his comments, he’s also received backlash:

While I agree that MLB Network is far superior to ESPN concerning televised baseball coverage, this is pretty petty. The reason the Monday night’s game was telecast was because of the Mets opening their new stadium — just like last year when the Nationals did on Sunday Night Baseball. Bell would also be hard pressed to explain how ESPN doesn’t care about the Cubs, Cardinals, Braves, Phillies, Rays, Indians, Angels, White Sox, Twins and Dodgers. They may try to cater to the more popular teams — how dare they worry about ratings? — but it’s not limited to just three teams. Plus, do they actually have an obligation to cover each team equally? Without trying to speak for ESPN, coverage is generally slanted toward teams that matter to the mass audience — not just a small group of die-hards. The Padres simply don’t right now.

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Simply put, things are going very well for the Padres right now. That’s not likely to continue, so they should be enjoying themselves instead of worrying about ESPN’s coverage. It would behoove Bell to take a page out of the Adam Dunn handbook and not watch or read anything, while remaining indifferent toward media coverage.

Outrageous, you say? While I agree that Monday’s night coverage of the Mets made sense, given that the entire event was built around the opening of that new New York stadium, it shouldn’t water down Heath’s message. Taking what was said about the three teams so literally is silly and a straw man argument.

Isn’t the idea that ESPN doesn’t have a responsibility to cover all teams, and that the Padres should be honored that they’re getting coverage now, the kind of arrogance that has grown undeserved? Not only has the Internet made the so-called experts on ESPN worthless, but the MLB Network has made Baseball Tonight highlights unnecessary? Let us turn to our leader, Heath Bell:

Well- nevermind. Moving on.

Speaking of crushing disappointment from Heath, his entrance music has left something to be desired. He started out at a disadvantage, replacing the man with the most iconic theme song in the history of baseball, but this? Listen:

We at the Sacrifice Bunt are taking it upon ourselves to find Heath’s new, true entrance music. Leave a comment giving your suggestions. Here’s mine:

(warning: pg-13 swagger in this video)

The trade deadline has passed and the Padres completed the following deals:

-Tony Clark to Arizona for Evan Scribner
-Randy Wolf to Houston for Chad Reineke

Exciting, huh?

As we detailed earlier, getting Reineke and Scribner are classic Kevin Towers moves. They’re both under appreciated arms that will likely come out of the pen. Think about Heath Bell (acquired, with Royce Ring, for Jon Adkins and Ben Johnson), Cla Meredith (acquired, with Josh Bard, for Doug Mirabelli), and Scott Linebrink (selected off of waivers). Given that the Padres bullpen E.R.A. has gone from 3.01 in 2007, first in the league, to 4.47 in 2008, 28th in the league, it’s no surprise that Towers took this course of action.

What is surprising is that this was the only course of action taken.

Many Padres heard their names being tossed around in trade rumors, from Brian Giles to Greg Maddux. Besides Clark and Wolf, the only player that seemed to come close to leaving the team was Maddux. But with a trade to the Dodgers never coming to fruition, Maddux will likely continue not winning games for the Padres for the rest of the year.

Maddux handcuffed the Padres when he let them know that he would only accept a trade to a team on the West Coast. Through the process of elimination, this left us with just the Dodgers and, as we’ve already detailed, he won’t be returning to L.A. anytime soon.

At 42-67, the Padres are just behind the Mariners and the Nationals for the worst record in baseball. They’ll have to go 39-14, a .736 winning percentage, to get to .500 by game 162. And while we’re filling in a lot of the blanks here, we think it’s safe to say that the moves not made by the team signal that they’re in it to win it/remain competitive next season.

Giles is a big chip. He is a good hitter with a great O.B.P. and he’ll only get better the further away from Petco he gets, and his name was mentioned in trade rumors with the Mets, Cardinals, and Brewers. Clearly, nothing came true and Giles will remain a Padre for the remainder of the season and, likely, next season as well.

There’s two ways to look at the Giles situation. On one hand, he is this team’s three hitter and is one of the best defensive right fielders in the game. On the other, he is 37 years old and has shown a susceptibility to injuries. In 2006, he finished the season with a slugging percentage of .397, and his .415 mark this season isn’t much higher. The Padres, it would seem, are banking on Giles’ O.B.P. to stay strong into next season, which is risky.

The biggest name to mention in all these trade talks, however, is the one player who wasn’t traded but still isn’t in the Padres organization. On May 9th, Jim Edmonds had an O.P.S. of .498 and was cut by the team. He was picked up quickly by the Chicago Cubs and went Kevin Kouzmanoff, raising his O.P.S. to .757 on July 31st. Edmonds OPS+ was 39 With the Padres. With the Cubs, his OPS+ stands at 132. And the Cubs didn’t have to send a single player to San Diego to get him.

Of course, this move wasn’t so black and white. The management has said that they wanted to see what they had in Jody Gerut (OPS+ 118) and Scott Hairston (OPS+ 117) and you can’t fault them for that. You could say that Edmonds was traded for Gerut, but that’d be disingenuous. Gerut was already on the team and with left field being the game of musical chairs it was, it’s not like there wasn’t room for Gerut. Given the lack of return this team saw at the trade deadline, it would’ve been nice to get something back for Edmonds, even if it was just salary relief.

Looks like we won’t be dealing with the Cubs. But that doesn’t mean we can’t get Matt Murton.

Earlier today, Buster Olney reported the Athletics are looking to move Murton and Huston Street, maybe to the Rays, or maybe even to OUR San Diego Padres.

The Murton news makes perfect sense. When Kevin Towers falls in love, he falls hard. It comes as no surprise that he’s still after his little redhead. And now it seems like Murton has fallen into the best possible scenario for us to grab him. Last year alone, we turned over Jack Cust to Oakland.  They then returned the favor by trading Milton Bradley to us. Maybe that Billy Beane is just a sweetheart and grabbed Murton with us in mind.

The Street news is more confusing. If there’s one skill Towers has shown an aptitude for, it’s finding relievers. Think back to how Towers acquired Bell and Meredith on the cheap. Something tells me it’ll take more than a Ben Johnson to get Street.

21 days left.

Following Trevor Hoffman’s departure from last night’s 3-1 loss to the Twins, boos rained down from the bleachers. Boos, it would seem, intended for the future Hall of Famer after surrendering back-to-back home runs, including the game winner. This didn’t sit well with the Padres clubhouse.

“I didn’t like it,” said manager Bud Black. “This city should be very proud of a player like that for everything he’s done on the field and in the community. I don’t like it. I don’t think it’s fair.”

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“It’s disheartening, knowing what Trevor has meant not only to the organization but the city, and his level of accomplishment is unmatched in our game,” (Tony) Clark said.

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Jake Peavy, who started the game, said he heard the boos in the clubhouse. “I could not believe that,” he said. “That is as disheartening as it gets. I don’t understand it. When you look at all of his achievements, what he has meant, it’s ridiculous.”

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Said teammate Shawn Estes: “How soon they forget.”

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(Heath) Bell didn’t hear the boos that came after Hoffman gave up two home runs in an inning for the eighth time in his career. “If the fans were booing him, shame on them,” he said.

Hoffman hears boos in Twin killing

While we here at The Sacrifice Bunt don’t condone booing, we don’t condemn it either. There is a time and place to boo, although we couldn’t say if that time was following Hoffman’s poor performance. While there are shades of grey when discussing the merits of booing, the merit of the Padres post game conversation seems a bit more black and white.

The Padres lost last night 3-1. They again squandered a great performance by Peavy. In the bottom of the eighth, they had runners on first and second with no out and neither runner made it to third. In the seventh, they had runners on first and third with no out and two ground balls ended the inning with only one run scoring. Jody Gerut was caught stealing on what appeared to be a botched hit-and-run attempt when Edgar Gonzalez flailed futilely at what would’ve been ball four. In back-to-back at-bats, Gerut and Craig Stansberry were unable to get down sacrifice bunts. Oh, and the team’s increasingly unreliable closer came in and jumped his ERA up half a run.

It was an ugly game.

The fact that the Padres find it shocking that the fans could boo their performance seems naive or arrogant, or maybe a little bit of both. The team has fallen back into last place, setting themselves up for a potential rematch of the worsts this weekend when the pitiful Mariners come to town. The offense and pitching are below average. They let Milton Bradley slip through their fingers in the off-season and now he’s leading the A.L. They signed Jim Edmonds to man centerfield, then dumped him after a month and now he’s caught fire with the Cubs.

Now, it should be said that this season is an aberration. The current Padres management has put together the best run in the team’s almost 40 years and we haven’t even begun to reap the benefits of the new farm system. But that doesn’t affect the team that is currently taking the field right now. And the responses of the players from last night suggests they are more concerned with something other than their performance.

Again, we want to be fair. We’re sure that the players are as concerned about their performance as we are. But when the topic on the tips of their tongues is the reaction they got from the crowd, red flags go up. Maybe the fans aren’t what the players should be concerned about. The boos from the stands are a reaction to what is taking place on the field.

More disconcerting is the reaction of manger Buddy Black. For starters, he’s called out the entire city, which seems disrespectful given everything this city has done for the team. At what point does protecting become coddling? A good manager should stand behind his players, but at what point do these players take responsibility? If they continually fail to put down a bunt, a skill practiced by children, does he simply give them a pat on the back? And this doesn’t even get into the idea that Black is asking players ill-equipped to handle a task attempt to perform it anyway.

It’s not like this kind of whining is anything new. Be sure that if the Padres decide to trade a player sometime between now and July 31st that the Union-Tribune will be filled with quotes from players, decrying the actions of the management. We’ll leave you with some past highlights.

“Incomprehensible,” was Trevor Hoffman’s reaction. “Four other teams in the National League West are awfully excited. I probably need to take a day before I say something about this because I’m going to say something stupid.”

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“You have to trust your front office when you are in the middle of a playoff run,” Jake Peavy said. “But, man, to trade away your setup man . . . what kind of a message are we sending here?”

Padres trade Linebrink