Padres to wear retro unis for home Thursday games (USA Today)

At this week’s Season Ticket Holder event, Tom Garfinkle announced to the crowd that every home Thursday will now be Throwback Thursday. For those six day games this season, the team will be wearing the 1978 throwback jerseys (as can be seen here), to which we say “Fantastic.”

You may recall, Melvin and I took a shot at fixing the Padres uniform problems, and we’re hoping that these throwbacks are the first step towards the team re-embracing its true identity. We’re holding our breath, Garf.

Padres name new scouting director (Padres.com)

Hoyer’s front office continues to take shape, as Jaron Madison becomes the team’s new director of scouting. He joins Jason McLeod, the new assistant GM, and Chris Gwynn, the new director of player personal, in the front office and like those two, he’s no stranger to San Diego, having served as a scout for the Padres in 2002. More importantly, Madison is a product of Long Beach State, and that is a clear sign of greatness.

Bradley is a reckless risk for Seattle (Yahoo! Sports)

In case you haven’t heard, Milton Bradley was tragically traded to our natural rivals, the Seattle Mariners, and not to us. For the low price of Carlos Silva and his ridiculous contract, the Mariners were able to acquire the best left-fielder we’ve seen in ten years, an assessment Steve Henson might disagree with.

Henson is no fan of Seattle’s recent acquisition, saying that the Mariners will come to rue the day they traded for Bradley, just as the Dodgers did, and the A’s did, and the San Diego Padres did. Certainly I don’t assume to speak for us all, but do you regret the day we acquired Bradley? If so, do you also regret the 11 home runs he hit in 42 games as a Padre? Do you regret his .414 OBP? His .590 SLG? His 168 OPS+ in Petco? Do you regret him stepping on Mike Cameron’s hand and knocking him out for the year? Well, you should regret that last one, but that was an accident.

When Henson speaks of Padres regret, he means Bradley’s blow up following what then-first base coach Bobby Meacham referred to as “the most disconcerting conversation I have ever heard from an umpire to a player.” If you agree with Henson, aren’t you getting mad at Milton Bradley for taking Milton Bradley out of the lineup, and doesn’t that suggest that you do want Milton Bradley in the lineup, and that you don’t really regret having him here? Or am I wrong? Let us know in the comments section.

This decade has come and just-about gone and as is natural, we’re driven to look back at what we have all witnessed over the past 10 years. It was a big decade for the Padres, probably the biggest in the team’s history, even though it lacked a World Series appearance. The team moved into Petco Park, and that signaled a new era of Padres baseball. So before we follow Jeff Moorad and Jed Hoyer into the 10s, I present to you my team of the 00s:

C Ramon Hernandez
1B Adrian Gonzalez
2B Mark Loretta
SS Khalil Greene
3B Kevin Kouzmanoff
LF Milton Bradley
CF Mark Kotsay
RF Brian Giles

While some of these positions picked themselves, some took a bit more deliberation. Please allow me to explain.

Catcher was, surprisingly, one of the harder positions to choose. Mike Piazza, in his one year here, was the cleanup hitter we’ve yet to replace, and Josh Bard hit out of his mind his first year over from Boston. But my final vote went to Ramon Hernandez, who was worth over 6 wins* in his two years here. It also doesn’t hurt that he was my favorite player for the little time he called San Diego home. His hair was just so stylish.

Third base came down to preference: offense or defense. Phil Nevin’s bat needs no introduction. In 2000-01, Nevin hit 72 home runs in Qualcomm–while not quite Petco Park in size, the Q was still a pitcher’s park (.819 park factor in 01). Unfortunately, the less said about Nevin’s defense at third, the better. Just like the more said about Kouzmanoff’s defense at third, the better. While Kouzmanoff hasn’t been a great fielder, as Myron explains, he’s been good. Good enough at least to carry his flailing bat to a couple of wins a year.

Left field was the hardest position to chose. Rickey Henderson, Ryan Klesko, Dave Roberts, and Chase Headley all deserve a mention. Klesko, in particular, may be one of the most underrated Padres for everything he did for the team. But none of these players had enough to overcome Milton Bradley’s zazz! This may be a bit of revisionist history, but Bradley was the single-most exciting Padre I have ever had the pleasure of seeing for myself. As soon as he came over from Oakland, he lit the team up. Undeterred by Petco Park, he posted a home OPS of .977. As we all remember, his season ended a week early when Bud Black was forced to blow Bradley’s knee out, but it was a great run while it lasted.

And while center field was another hard pick, it wasn’t from a dearth of options. You, our loyal reader, surely know Mr. Mike Cameron and The Sacrifice Bunt had something serious together, so it was especially difficult to leave him off the team. While Cameron came and mashed, his worn leather glove found kryptonite somewhere on 19 Tony Gwynn Way. A career 5.7 UZR/150 centefielder, Cameron actually cost the team 10.3 defensive runs while here. Ultimately, Cameron was worth 6.6 wins in San Diego, plus the wonderfulness that is our love. Mark Kotsay on the otherhand, was worth 8.2 wins in 2002 and 2003 alone. In those two years, he brought 8.2 defensive runs to the team, as well as his strong bat.

Also, surprise! This is a cliffhanger. I’ll be back with the pitching half of my team of the decade. Until then, tell us where I went wrong in the comments section.

* Any reference to “wins” is based on WAR, or Wins Above Replacement. Tom Tango has a great explanation of the stat here.

During this past offseason, I wrote an article suggesting that the Padres bring back Milton Bradley. I didn’t need much more evidence than his performance over the 2007-08 seasons. Unfortunately, before I could hit the Publish button, Bradley was off the market, signing a three-year deal with the Cubs.

I, of course, bring it up because he’s back on the market and the Padres have been brought up as a team of interest by both Buster Olney and John Heyman. While such rumors need to be taken with grains of salt, it does raise the question:

Do we want Milton Bradley back?

The first thing we need to address is that corner outfield is not a hole on this team. With Headley, Blanks, and Venable, the team would seem to be set. Where they’re not set is centerfield. While Gwynn, Jr. has been dependable in the field, his hitting leaves a lot to be desired, which would seem to explain Venable starting game after game out there. Unfortunately, while he’s been hitting, Venable has not shown the range you want out of the position (-17.6 UZR/150 in limited time).

The second thing we need to address is Milton Being Milton. Before insulting his way out of Chicago, he went after an announcer in Texas and prompted a season ending Rock Bottom from Bud Black here. It’s not a question of if something will happen but when, and how bad. But while we can only hypothesize about what happens behind closed doors, Ron Washington has said that he would welcome Bradley back to Texas and the Padres offered Bradley a contract following his injury shortened 2007 season, both suggesting that Bradley left these bridges intact.

Then there are the leftover concerns, such his injury history and the two year commitment the team would have to take on. But here’s how I see it:

The Padres do not need Milton Bradley for 2010.

As I said, there’s really nowhere to put him. Assuming that Headley moves either to third base or to another team, that leaves left field for Blanks and right field for Venable, and Bradley can’t play center. But Venable hasn’t shown that he can either, but that hasn’t stopped the team from running him out there everyday. Now, ideally, this offseason sees the Padres trading for a center fielder in the tradition of Mark Kotsay or Mike Cameron. But if the team thinks Venable is their man and the team is without a right fielder, Bradley could work. He would need regular time off, and regular coddling, but he has shown that he is unintimidated by Petco Park, and he could do some damage hitting in front of Adrian.

(This all assumes that the Cubs eat most of the contract and accept a marginal prospect in return.)

RAY UPDATE:

“I haven’t had any calls from Jim about him,” Towers told ESPN.com. “But I think people kind of know what players we target. We have to take chances sometimes. We took a chance on Milton the first time we had him, and he actually played pretty well [before the injury].

“We could be in the market for an outfielder. I’m not saying it’s necessarily Milton. But our experience with him was rather a positive one. It wasn’t really a negative one.”

Padres would take chance on Bradley

First off, I want to make this clear: I’m a big fan of Milton Bradley. He carried the Padres down the stretch in 2007, and I was disappointed he wasn’t resigned that offseason. That said, I have no idea what the guy was thinking while “fielding” big Kyle Blanks‘ inside the parker last night. Let me explain with a helpful diagram:

A couple notes that need to be mentioned: this screen was taken after the throw was made, so center fielder Kosuke Fukudome may have taken a couple more steps toward right, exaggerating his distance a bit. Also, the frame doesn’t show Bradley’s starting position, so he may have had to run a bit further than his arrow shows.

The ball was hit to left center, so it’s a bit understandable that Bradley wasn’t sprinting towards the landing spot on contact. But once it started rolling towards right, I have no idea how Fukudome could possibly beat Bradley.

Oh yeah, Kyle Blanks is the man. If you’re a loyal Sac Bunt reader, you would already know that. And someone should tell all those Cubs fans if they like their team so much they should just go home.

Melvin Update 8/19: Good news for us Bradley fans. That shot above is misleading. This view exonerates him a bit:

Still up for debate, as far as I’m concerned, is if the right fielder kicking back watching a well struck ball to left-center field is justified, before the ball landed and rolled to right.

But now that dream has gone from me.

Have you ever had two friends who dated each other? Two friends that both hung out with you in the same group, that you had many mutual friends with? Did they ever break up?

That’s what Jake Peavy and the Padres are doing.

As Mel pointed out, Peavy’s desires are all over the place. He wants to play on a contender, but he also wants to play on the Braves and Astros, and he wants to stay in San Diego. This we can easily chalk up to confusing. Break-ups are hard to go through. But then there are the comments his agent is making. Comments like:

“It’s a big decision,” said Axelrod, who noted a no-trade clause would have to be part of any trade. “You have to look at all the factors and moving parts. We’re usually pretty deliberate. … At times, (Peavy’s frustration) bubbled over. He’s a fiery competitor. You don’t want to take that out of him. You don’t want to tame that too much. But I heard Jake say it, I heard Brian (Giles) say it and I heard Trevor (Hoffman) say it —- they’re not that far away. I think if they kept (Mike) Cameron, (Geoff) Blum and (Doug) Brocail, they’re in it last year —- 84 games wins this division.”

Cooling off period for Peavy talks

Oof.

Much like the break-up of your friends, this has gotten ugly. Jake has always been one to tell Kevin Towers how to do his job/suggest better alternatives to his own teammates (like Kenny Lofton). I’m even surprised Jake’s agent didn’t throw Milton Bradley in everyone’s face. But those two aren’t done yet. They’re piling on:

“One of the things we will want to look at some point is, ‘Who are you giving up? How much are you weakening your team to make this deal?’” Axelrod said. “If Team X trades three starting pitchers and a starting shortstop to get Jake Peavy, that lessens their chance of being a successful team.”

Peavy throws a curveball into Padres’ trade talks with Braves

The specific player in question is Yunel Escobar, who is looking more and more like the centerpiece of a deal with Atlanta.

It was one thing when Jake told Towers what to do. But now he’s telling Frank Wren, the G.M. of the Braves (the team Jake is not on), how to do his job. What if Wren had a plan that didn’t involve Escobar? Jake’s all but gone from San Diego, but he’s also making it very difficult for the Padres to send him anywhere else.

It’s almost as if he’s playing a game of chicken with Towers. “Trade me for nothing or keep me. Your call.” The scary part is that Towers might actually blink.

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.

There’s little more dangerous than someone who thinks they’re clever. Even if they are clever, once the idea gets in their head, it’s over. Take Chris Ballard, for instance.

Let me take a step back first. Before George Clooney dropped out of the W.G.A. to protect him from having to take responsibility for “Leatherheads,” Rick Reilly was the cornerstone of Sports Illustrated for over 20 years. That ended recently, though, when Reilly made his way over to rival E.S.P.N.

Left Reilly-less, Sports Illustrated established a section, “Point After,” in which a carousel of writers take over the space left by Reilly. Ballard is one of those writers and this week, he wrote an article entitled “Let’s Play Milton Bradley!” The gist of Ballard’s article, which I can’t find online, is that Bradley’s life is a board game because, as you may or may not know, Milton Bradley is also the name of a company that manufactures board games. So Ballard has combined both worlds, making the player a board game/making a board game of the player.

Reilly had a tendency to get really sanctimonious, which is one of the reasons I was never able to really get into him, and Ballard keeps it up. He really hits the Milton highlight reel: the incident in Los Angeles with the plastic bottle (in 2004), the incident in Los Angeles with Jeff Kent (in 2005), and the incident with the three-day stay in jail (in 2003). For good measure, he does mention the incident in San Diego with Buddy Black (in 2007), but a lot of the article is based older Milton Bradley incidents.

For his own good measure, Ballard mentions Bradley’s positive qualities, like his Run a Youth Charity, his role as a good teammate in Oakland, how The Fountainhead is his favorite book (that’s a good thing?), and his incredible year this season. But this part of the article comes off as incredible hollow, as if Ballard strove to be fair in his scathing expose of the Milton Bradley the public doesn’t know.

Oh wait, this is the same shit that’s been following Bradley his entire career. The same shit that prompted him to try to confront Royals announcer Ryan Lefebvre, after Lefebrvre brought up Bradley’s struggles to highlight teammate Josh Hamilton’s redemption. The same shit that made Bradley break down in tears and say “All I want to do is play baseball and make a better life for my kid than I had, that’s it. I love all you guys. … I’m strong, but I’m not that strong.” after manager Ron Washington and general manager Jon Daniels brought him back down to the dugout.

It’s time to change the record and recognize that Milton Bradley is a human being. He’s not the first baseball player to be hounded for what he’s done, just ask Barry Bonds. But where Bonds’ actions threatened the integrity of the game itself, Bradley is only a threat to himself. And he’s been trying, Ringo; he’s been trying real hard. Ballard makes note of Bradley’s six different teams in a very pejorative tone, ignoring that his departure from Oakland was more an act of philosophy and his departure from San Diego wasn’t from a lack of trying by the Padres. Bradley would have to start taking steroids to be strong enough to survive the hounding he’s received. The hounding he’s receiving.

It’s interesting to note that Ballard’s column comes in the same issue of Sports Illustrated as articles about Hope Solo, goalie for the U.S. national soccer team, battling back against her criticisms of her coach and teammate, and Jared Allen, defensive end for the Minnesota Vikings, battling back against his troubles with the law. But while Allen and Solo got a couple thousand words each to cover their troubles, Bradley got a couple hundreds predictably sarcastic words covering his.

The problem here isn’t that Ballard’s article is sloppy, ill-informed, and reeks of self-satisfaction. The problem is that it’s about someone whose problems have been well-documented, much less so than his efforts to clean up his image. Any good writer has been told that sometimes you have to kill your babies. That not everything you write, no matter how good it may be, has to be published. That there are a number of reasons why your gem, your baby, just isn’t going to work.

But, of course, it’s easy for me to point that out. I don’t write for Point After.

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.”

—–

“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.

—–

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.”

—–

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

—–

(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.”

—–

“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

The first full day of Major League Baseball in the year two-thousand and eight has come to a close. What have we learned?

If the Padres only thought about acquiring you, you’re good.

While my guy Hollywood Jim went hitless today (.000/.000/.000) and didn’t even get in the game, some of the names bandied about before he joined the team did okay for themselves:

Kosuke Fukudome went three for three with a walk, a home run, and three RBI. The home run came in the bottom of the ninth with two runners on and the Cubs down by three. If it wasn’t for Tony “Asshole” Gwynn, Jr., he would’ve been the hero in Chicagoland. But T2 came through in the clutch.

Nate McClouth went three for five with a walk, a home run, and four RBI. Although he did make a crucial fielding gaffe that allowed the Braves to come back and tie the game in the ninth. But the Pirates did come back, so it’s all good.

Luke Scott went one for three.

TSB’s guy, Milton Bradley, went oh for two with two walks. A .500 OBP. That guy just finds a way.

Scott Hairston, starting center fielder during tonight’s Astros/Padres competition, went oh for four. But Garfield did go two for three with a walk. He might not have been in the lineup without the Living Legend in center, so that’ll do.

Read more >> Options >>