On Tuesday night, Adrian Gonzalez, aka Far and Away the Best Player on the Padres, had to leave the game after the fourth inning after he strained his right knee on a slide into third.

On Wednesday night, Adrian Gonzalez, aka Far and Away the Best Player on the Padres, was back in the starting lineup.

Why?

Let’s take a step back. On May 22nd, in another base-running mishap, Jake Peavy hurt his ankle. Five days later, on May 27th, Peavy was back out there anyway, giving up four earned in six plus against the Diamondbacks while only striking out five. He would start two more games, the flu-ridden debacle against the Phillies and a strong start against those same Diamondbacks, before being shut down for months, maybe even the entire season, with a longitudinal tearing in the posterior tibialis tendon. The severity of the injury caught both Peavy and the team off guard, which explains how a star pitcher can be handled so nonchalantly. One would hope that if the Padres had to do it all over again, they’d give Peavy’s ankle more time to build back its strength.

Cue Adrian.

Following the recent days off for Ryan Howard and Justin Morneau, Adrian became the active consecutive games leader. As of the writing of this article, Adrian has played in 284 consecutive games, which leads him 21 games behind Steve Garvey’s Padre record. Garvey, one of the four San Diego Padres worthy of having his number retired. From where I’m sitting, which is in my mother’s basement, something doesn’t seem right. Is risking Adrian’s long-term health worth this streak, if that’s what this is about? And if it’s not, what is it about?

As we’ve been over, this is not the season to be calling out all the stops. I would imagine that Adrian doesn’t want to come out of the lineup, but he’s not supposed to want to come out. That’s when Bud Black is supposed to take a step back, realize that he has the team’s number one prospect who also so happens to be a first baseman just sitting around, and make the best big picture decision.

Of course, to be fair, my mother’s basement doesn’t have all the answers. There’s many nuances that go into running a baseball team that I don’t know. I just have a bad feeling about this.

Technically.

According to Padres personnel, Peavy met with Padres manager Bud Black late Wednesday night to discuss a trade overture from the Sox.

Peavy, whose consent would be needed for a trade to any club, declined all comment after meeting with Black.

Within the clubhouse, though, Peavy referred to the situation as “something to think about” yet also restated his desire to stay in the National League. One of Peavy’s teammates said he believes Peavy respects the Sox’s aggressiveness in pushing for him but may have reservations about pitching for Ozzie Guillen, the White Sox’s volatile manager.

Peavy trade to White Sox may be near

There’s not a whole lot to say right now, so feel free to read everything we said over the winter.

We’ll keep you posted, but in the meantime, we recommend you Google Aaron Poreda. Or just click here. We really do spoil you.

RAY UPDATE: Nevermind. I feel naive.

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.

—

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)

Literally every second, Ray and I get hundreds of emails from loyal SacBuntians clamoring for ways to advertise The Sacrifice Bunt for us, free of charge.

“I’m tired of wearing shirts with boring little green alligators, or apparel without hilarious sayings that show the world how witty and hip I am,” they say. And as is our usual policy when strangers on the Internet tell us to do things: we have wholeheartedly obliged.

The Sacrifice Bunt Shop is here, hipper and with more Padres related double entendres than previously thought possible.

Honest to goodness, we don’t make any money off this stuff, besides the good feeling in our hearts we get when people cover their bodies with the logo of our worthy to be on a t-shirt website.

Most shirts feature a design on the front with a Sac Bunt logo on the back. AA means it’s American Apparel. So they’re a little further up the pricing scale, but the shirts are soft and well fitted. You can choose any t-shirt color your heart desires, but if you want a different color ink, or a different style of shirt (long sleeve or moar women’s styles, for instance) let me know.

I know it’s usually Melvin’s thing to highlight the ridiculousness of the Union-Tribune’s sports reporting, but I’m the one with the degree in journalism, damnit! 

As you, a devoted reader of the Sacrifice Bunt, knows, Petco Park is the hardest stadium on hitters in the entire major leagues. And it’s not even close. But today, we’ve learned that Nick Canepa’s yet to bookmark us. 

The Padres have just begun their sixth season in Petco Park, and it appears they’ve finally called off the exorcists. Extensive and expensive studies by engineers have revealed the place is an expanse of grass and dirt, with fences along its outer edge. There is no cemetery beneath it. They don’t sell voodoo dolls in the gift shop.

It’s difficult to judge any baseball team after a few days, although it’s apparent to just about everyone who doesn’t believe in witchcraft that these particular Padres aren’t going to arrive in Cooperstown in the same bus. But there are enough new faces probably unaware of the Petco Curse, what with so many of the complainers having grabbed their Tarot cards and left the building.

This is not – not – the Petco Triangle.

No more singing the ballpark blues

Let us be very very clear: Petco hurts hitting. It’s very likely that it is in the hitters head, from Nevin and Klesko on up, but for good reason. From 2004 through 2007, Petco suffocated runs by almost 20%, and 2008 was worse. Any hitter that complains about the effect Petco has on their hitting is well within their right. Which is, presumably, why Canepa didn’t talk to any for his article.

Instead, to help show how the team has truly exorcised the hitting hurting demons, he interviewed Peavy and Black.

“I’m so tired of hearing that stuff,” Padres ace Jake Peavy was saying. “We can win here; we’ve won here. So it’s not a bandbox. Matt Kemp hit one off the batter’s eye against me the other day. Hit it hard. I’m tired of ballpark excuses.

For a little bit of context, here’s what Peavy had to say following Monday’s home opening loss:

“Today’s game was nothing new to me,” Peavy said. “It’s always been this way. I’m not knocking any hitters that we’ve had in the past or our hitters now. We’re just going to play low-scoring ballgames. That’s the makeup of our teams here.”

Exactly. For good measure, Peavy pointed out that the other guys don’t have a problem, and Black backed him up.

“There are ballparks that play bigger than this. Guys will tell you Pac Bell, or whatever it is (now AT&T in San Francisco), is harder to hit in. The guys who’ve been here are not going to let the new guys get in a negative frame of mind. This team has moved past that. It’s not like the Dodgers were batting in Arizona and we were batting here.”

——–

“We don’t need players who have the ballpark in their heads,” Black said. “I feel as though our players are strong mentally, so the ballpark shouldn’t come into their heads. You’re playing a baseball game. Play the game.

“Eighteen players play at the same time. It’s a baseball game. When the wind blows out in Chicago, the same guys are playing. I hear about Safeco outs and Citizens Bank home runs and Great American Ballpark home runs. So what?”

Peavy being Peavy. I want to give Black the benefit of the doubt and say that he’s not telling the hitters to man up, but Canepa didn’t intend for that interpretation. I’d be curious what Edgar Gonzalez, who recently told the North County Times that it’s already Petco 3 - Gonzalez Bros. 0 and counting, thinks about Peavy and Black’s comments. 

If only press passes weren’t so hard to come by.

RAY UPDATE:

Whine and ye shall receive.

The North County Times is reporting that Moorad and new president Tom Garfinkel are looking at bringing in the fences.

Asked on XX 1090’s morning show Thursday about the possibility of moving in the fences, Moorad said he’s scheduled to meet with former president Dick Freeman to get an insider’s perspective.

Everything in this article is pretty ambiguous; it says that Moorad and Garfinkle “want to learn all they can about the outfield dimensions at Petco Park,” though I imagine Alderson knew a good amount without doing anything about it. But the implication is there.

In the comments, I threw in a quote from Adrian showing that he knows what’s up, and the NCT throws in some more:

First baseman Adrian Gonzalez favors bringing in the fences, particularly in the gaps. Gonzalez said he’s fine with the depth in right field but would like the gaps in right- and left-center field to be shortened to 385 feet. The current distances are 400 feet in right-center and 401 in left-center.

Gonzalez said the change not only would result in more home runs, but also would affect the way outfielders chase long fly balls.

“If he catches it, he’ll run into a wall,” Gonzalez said. “He’ll have to deal with the wall. Instead he’s running, he’s running, he’s running, and he catches it and is still short of the wall.”

And, to top things off, here’s a very fun fact:

This winter, Padres researchers discovered that fly balls hit more than 325 feet at Petco result in a .278 average as opposed to a major league average of .405.

Not sure how anyone would possibly be aware of this rumor, since The Sacrifice Bunt hasn’t yet reported on it. But Brewers and Padres fans’ respective imaginations have been a buzz the past few days from news of Milwaukee’s supposed interest in trading for Jake Peavy.

The rumor seemingly stemmed from Tuesday’s report from the Union Tribune’s Bill Center:

The Milwaukee Brewers, who have plenty of offense and prospects but are short on pitching, are now said to be interested in Peavy.

Note Center’s use of the vague, unhelpful passive voice in his language. “The Brewers … are now said to be interested.” Said? Who is doing the saying here Bill? Your imagination? Your poor reporting skills?

The only other published source I can find relating to such a “rumor” comes from a Peter Gammons article published last Sunday. Gammons writes:

One reason for Billy Hall’s expected resurgence is the laser surgery he had in the offseason. “It makes all the difference,” Hall says. “I can see again.” Hall believes the Brewers will be in on Jake Peavy, when and if he goes on the market.

According to MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy, this short piece of non-news was Center’s only source for the report he published quoted above. McCalvy goes on to explain that Brewers GM Doug Melvin expressly denies any conversation with the Padres regarding Peavy, and calls the rumors “disruptive”.

It’s easy to see why Center might want to be so vague in his wording, if in fact he is reporting a someone else’s published speculation as something more substantive.

It appears Center’s only source is his quest for relevance. Don’t forget: this man has a Hall of Fame vote.

PECOTA’S Standings (Friar Forecast)

Mr. Logan over at Friar Forecast has a nice write-up on the 2009 predictions and they’re actually not that bad. At least, coming off a season during which the Padres won only 63 games, 74 doesn’t sound so bad. Although, PECOTA isn’t quite an exact science; for 2008, it had the Padres winning 83 games. Maybe we’ll win 94 this year? Probably not, although I feel like the Padres are a couple of fortuitous breaks from contention. One such break would be the return of this man.

Prior is ready to give it one more shot; ‘I don’t want to give up,’ he says (San Diego Union-Tribune)

“Cautiously optimistic.” Those are actually Mark Prior’s words, when discussing his 2009. “If he’s healthy, and all the reports thus far are encouraging, Prior is my ace in the hole.” Those are Kevin Towers’ words, and the optimist in me prefers what Towers has to say. If Prior can at least stay on the mound for 20-some starts and hold Baek back from the third spot in the rotation, the team’s chances of success jump up.

Jake Peavy breaks his silence (Gaslamp Ball)

jbox threw up Peavy’s comments on 1090 yesterday, and they’re rather refreshing after the war Peavy and the front office waged on each other this off-season. Especially refreshing is Peavy’s denial that he ever sang “Go Cubs Go.” Ah, much better. Here’s your knife back, Jake. Sorry for the confusion.

Padres by Position (San Diego Union-Tribune)

Starting with Adrian, Blanks, and first base, Bill Center has been documenting the Padres, position-by-position (hey!). While the articles are a bit sparse, Center does a good job of covering the Padres from top to bottom. He even manages to sneak in a couple juicy nuggets, like how the Padres are looking at moving third baseman Logan Forsythe to catcher.

Best outfield arms of 2008 (The Hardball Times)

Remember when I said Brian Giles was one of the best defensive outfielders in baseball, and that pushed him past Adrian as the MVPadre for 08? Well, about that- The Hardball Times has recently published numbers on outfield arms and Giles’ is unsurprisingly atrocious. He can still run them down, and he’s still worth 1.1 more wins than Adrian, so I stand by my MVPadre pick, but, uh, yeah.

(This is the second installment of what I hope will be an ongoing discussion between us here at the Sac Bunt and new Padres owner to-be Jeff Moorad. Maybe one day, he’ll talk back to us.)

It’s no secret that you’re acquiring a Padres team that has seen better days. They’re coming off a 99-loss season with a repeat looking likely. Your predecessor, John Moores, is going through a very public divorce that seems to have forced the team down to a $40 million payroll, and that payroll has already made casualties of Trevor Hoffman and Khalil Greene (although anyone crying about Khalil should not be listened to), with Jake Peavy looking like he’s next in line.

And to top it all off, there’s not a whole lot to look forward to, with our minor league system getting lukewarm reviews. Keith Law recently ranked our team 19th in the league, while John Sickles and Baseball Prospectus have both assessed the Padres as having depth but without much impact talent coming up.

The current administration has already started taking steps towards making it up to the fans. Among the perks us fans can look forward to this season at the Pet are seven 2-for-1 days, which is two tickets for the price of one, and 5-for-$5 at every home game, a deal that comes with a dog, a soda, peanuts, popcorn, and a cookie. If I recall correctly, all of the 2-for-1 days last season were day games during the week, so I guess that’s nice, but I’ll definitely be looking into the 5-for-$5 deal. And I do hope that something’s done to ensure that these deals go better than last year’s dollar days.

But there is something even better that you, Mr. Moorad, can do to immediately get us fans behind you: bring back the brown.

Before I get ahead of myself, I pose this question to you: what do the Padres have in common with the Brewers, the Red Sox, and the Rays? Clearly, it’s not a playoff berth in 2008, it’s the use of dark blue as a primary color. The Brewers even use gold as a secondary color, one that looks just a bit like the Padres sand, and they’ve used it since the mid-90s. So the Padres fans not only have to deal with futility on the field and a lack of excitement in the minor leagues, but they don’t even have a look to really call their own.

Bringing back the brown, a color that this team used until the early 90s, gives this team an identity. In all of the big three sports, only the Cleveland football team wears brown. Is it because it’s ugly? No. Probably. But what’s ugly? Personally, I think the current Padres look is embarrassing in its blandness and after five years of it, I’m ready to move on. The Padres have a history of brown, having worn it for their first 20 years, and now is the time to come back to it. I’ll even make a deal with you: the mustard, which was as much a part of those jerseys as the brown, doesn’t have to come with it. Keep the sand. In fact, keep the sand jerseys. I like them, although we need to lose the bowtie script. Just bring back the brown.

The Friar was never meant to wear blue.

In case anyone missed the comments section from this post, Sac Bunt reader Old_Padre had some concerns about my use of the tRA statistic in forming my opinion on a Jake Peavy trade. Here’s what he said:

How much of a predictor of future performance is a stat if it has swung back and forth by at least 20% over the last four seasons?

I responded that what I like about tRA is the way it breaks down a pitcher’s results into components for which we can more accurately apply credit or blame. Unfortunately I was not able to add much more to my answer because I am not a statistic guru, I merely enjoy sharing what I have learned with others who might not have the time, interest, or whatever other reason to follow sabermetrics news.

I suggested Old_Padre get in contact with Graham MacAree, the main developer behind tRA for a better answer to his questions. Awesomely, Old_Padre did just that, and thanks to both gentlemen I learned a lot in the process. I would like to re-post their e-mail conversation, in full, so hopefully more readers can benefit from Old_Padre’s diligence.

Mr. Macaree,
I was recently introduced to tRA through a blog post elsewhere written about Jake Peavy. I got into a bit of a conversation with they blogger who suggested I pass my question on to you.
His implied belief about tRA is that because it analyzes all components of the batter/pitcher interaction is that it is more useful as a predictor of future performance. The question I asked in the comments is “How much of a predictor of future performance is a stat if it has swung back and forth by at least 20% over the last four seasons?”
Now, as I read your primer, I don’t know that you would make the assertion that it’s a more accurate predictor of future performance just because it paints a more accurate picture of past results. However, if you DO feel that’s the case, could you help me understand why I saw such significant variance (I say that without having enough time or competence to truly do regression analysis or to look at deviation numbers) in the year-to-year tRA numbers for Peavy and the other guys I listed in the comments.
I’ll admit I’m not that bright (I’m a Padres fan, how smart could I be???) and it’s been far more years since I used SPSS than it was months that I used the damn thing, so my statistical prowess is not, ahem, remarkable. However, I would love to try to understand better.
THANKS!

Graham’s response:

tRA obviously isn’t a perfect future performance indicator - but nothing that we have is a perfect performance indicator. Every stat suffers from large swings year-to-year - if you look at the variation in ERA and compare it to tRA’s, you’ll find that the former’s is much higher. In fact, tRA is something like 2.5x as stable year to year as ERA, and also beats FIP (the most common ‘advanced’) pitching stat by a fairly healthy margin. So although it’s prone to large variations, it’s still more predictive than looking at other stats. Baseball is just too variable for any statistic to remain static.
I hope that clears things up.
-Graham

Old_Padre:

Thanks, Graham. I appreciate that you replied SO quickly!
I certainly didn’t mean to imply that I thought there was no value, or that because it has some variance, it isn’t predictive at all. I guess my beef is more with the tack taken by the blogger… look, his tRA ballooned last year, quick trade him before anyone notices.

Graham:

It may be of some interest to you that one of the alternate names for tRA in development was ‘the Jake Peavy is amazing stat’.

Personally, I think that a ballooning tRA is a large red flag, but it’s certainly not the only thing that should be considered.

Definitely fun to hear our favorite Alabaman was on Graham’s mind when working on tRA. Thanks again to Old_Padre for contributing such great dialogue, and to Graham MacAree for his insight.

I would also like to clarify that I don’t base my opinion that the team should make the right deal for Jake based solely on his 2008 tRA. In fact, that reason would probably land at #4 or #5 on my list. I put Jake’s violent, all effort delivery, age combined with injury risk, the large percentage of team payroll his contract covers, and the holes on the roster that need filling before the tRA thing. Sorry if that wasn’t clear in my original post.

Cheers.

Jake Peavy has a secret buried deep within his 2008 performance. The secret isn’t easy to see, although that has to be true because it’s what defines a secret.

Sabermetricians are pretty good at finding this type of hidden knowledge. One method of finding truth and escaping prejudices in a player’s pitching ability is to use a statistic called tRA. This metric breaks the result of every plate appearance down to a level that allows us to accurately assign credit or blame to the pitcher.

Some of these plate appearance results tRA takes into account are line drives, fly balls, pop-ups, home runs, strikeouts, and walks. Again, the purpose here is to value as accurately as possible the influence on run prevention that pitchers have direct control over. tRA is park and league neutral, and set to the same Runs per 9 innings scale as ERA, a statistic that does poor job predicting future success compared to tRA.

This is a similar process to the FIP stat, though tRA incorporates more detail. Here is more information on tRA, along with some background from Dave Cameron about why ERA isn’t as great as you might think.

Ok, I promised a Jake Peavy secret, and you want one ASAP, am I right? Here you go:

See that there? See the number that jumps out a little bit? Maybe a little jumping? Holy crap. I flipped a lid when I saw that 2008 number.

Seriously, don’t tell anyone. Call me paranoid and delusional, (ok, I’ll call myself paranoid and delusional) but it isn’t an accident this wasn’t posted until after the deals with Atlanta and Chicago fell through.

Though he probably employs more complex metrics than tRA, this information clearly corroborates why Sandy Alderson has held tight to his position that trading Jake is first and foremost a baseball move.

Of course Peavy’s unsightly tRA isn’t the only reason to make the trade. As we’ve mentioned in previous posts, his age, the many needs within the organization, a poor chance the team will compete next year, and the injury risk of pitchers are all motivating factors.

When you couple this reasoning with the the Padres passing on trade opportunities with two teams, and at least one passable offer from the Braves, it makes me think that someone making the case that trading Jake is primarily about lowering payroll has a lot more explaining to do.

An ERA that seems likely an abberation, and the other reasons mentioned above mean that now is a good time to make the right deal for Jake Peavy. Unfortunately, neither the Cubs nor the Braves seem prepared to offer value the Padres prefer. Hopefully Jake’s hidden slump doesn’t manifest itself in a higher ERA come July next season.