I don’t mean to step on Melvin’s toes, but I feel the need to address Sandy’s dismissal myself.

As Mel documented, John Moores is no longer the owner of the San Diego Padres and, in a matter of time, Sandy Alderson will no longer be the team’s CEO. Despite my earlier requests that Sandy be kept on board, I welcome this changing of the guard with open arms.

Plain and simply, my patience has run out.

I have a handful of complaints, leaving out the 99 loses and bleak outlook for 09, that include Alderson’s work as an ambassador to the Padres community and the draft.

I should start by saying that Alderson’s reaching out to the local radio station was a noble effort. Unfortunately, Alderson often came off as prickly and condescending, torpedoing that noble effort. It seemed to create a divide between the people selling the tickets and the people buying the tickets and, coincidentally or not, the team may sell less than two million tickets in 09, a fifteen year low.

And, of course, there is Trevor Hoffman.

There are no heroes or villains in the story of the end of Hoffman’s Padre career. From everything that we know, which admittedly could be nothing, all parties did their part to severe the relationship. Except the fans, who were left playing the role of the children of a bitter divorce, after a year in which the team dropped 99 games, and were tormented with talks of trading the team ace.

If nothing else, this offseason has been exhausting.

Then there’s the draft.

This is likely (probably) cherry-picking, but it’s also legitimate. As we’ve discussed already, the system is lacking in impact talent in the higher levels, with Kyle Blanks and (hopefully) Matt Antonelli looking like the only potential big league starters scheduled for Portland this year. There is more talent the further down you get, especially when you go way down, but they’re years away from contributing.

When you look at the 2008 team, the only homegrown player who came up in the Alderson era and really contributed was Chase Headley. And while Nick Hundley, Paul McAnulty, and Will Venable did chip in, Headley is the only true everyday player generated by this system. And outside the aforementioned Blanks and Antonelli, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot coming soon.

This takes us back to patience. Alderson has had four years with our San Diego Padres and the seeds he’s helped plant (and the “helped” part is an important distinction) are still years away from bearing fruit. That would seem to mean that this team still has a couple of years left throwing dinner parties during its home remodeling.

At some point, you have to ask when enough is going to enough. And it would seem to be now.

R. EDIT: It’s been brought to my attention that Blanks was drafted in 04, before Alderson came onboard. Make of that what you will.

Believe it or not there’s more to being a Padres blogger these days than crying to your friends that you and Khalil had something special, and it just isn’t like him to leave you for your best friend the way he did.

I have good news on a couple fronts, the first of which is that Baseball Prospectus released a bushel of minor league stats for our perusal.  The standard stats are nothing new, what’s great though are the translation stats which give context and comparability to the otherwise dubious minor league numbers.

The first set of stats, called “regular translations” adjust for factors we’re used to adjusting for on our fine web publication, The Sac Bunt.  They accommodate differences in ballpark factors and league difficulty, then they adjust for what we’d expect minor league numbers to translate to at the major league level.  Pretty sweet, eh?

The second grouping, dubbed “peak translations”, get even better.  They adjust for old men in unmarked vans playing among the kiddies.  In other words, a 30 year old non-prospect beating up a bunch of 19 year olds in rookie league isn’t impressing anyone but his tough guy friends from high school.  Peak translations give an idea of what kind of performance we can expect from a player based on these age and league considerations.

This brings us to Padre broadcaster Matt Vasgersian’s favorite prospect, the dude Vasgersian referred to on a spring training broadcast as “Kyle Banks”.  He normally goes by Kyle Blanks, and is tied for third in all double and triple-A in Equivalent Runs.

Equivalent Runs sums up batter’s total offensive value per out.  This includes on base percentage, slugging percentage, and stolen bases, among others.  It is then adjusted for everything mentioned above, and converted into runs.  Then Kyle kicks its ass.

You can find the rest of the list in this helpful minor league translations breakdown.

Here are some other guys I’ve found of note.  Josh Geer is 9th in the PCL (triple-A) for Equivalent Runs Allowed, Joe Thatcher is 9th in Equivalent ERA, Sac Bunt favorite Paul McAnulty is 3rd for Equivalent Average, which is like EqRuns but looks like batting average.  Luke Carlin is 6th in the same category.

Moving down to double-A in the Texas league, Will Inman, Stephen Faris, and Steve Garrison stand at 2nd, 4th, and 5th in Equivalent Runs Allowed.  Chad Huffman is 5th in Equivalent Runs.  These are all peak translations numbers.

So there you go, things to do this time of year besides bitching and moaning.  On the other hand, bitching and moaning are what make the blogosphere go round (Reference: TheSacrificeBunt.com).

As Brother Melvin already filled us in, Chase Headley, the God third baseman has arrived. After two games, he’s hitting .375 (wait, who cares?) with a home run. Not bad. And while he spelled Kevin Kouzmanoff at third base tonight, he made his left field debut last night. He made an error, but it was likely the first night of many that we’ll see Headley patrolling the area opposite Jody Gerut.

Left field has been manned by five different outfielders this season. Scott Hairston, Justin Huber and Paul McAnulty have spent the most time in left, although Huber is now in Portland. The survivors, Hairston and McA, will likely see their playing time decrease with Headley in San Diego.

Where have they set the bar for the Tennessee Stud?

Overall, as of last Friday, the Padres left field as a whole produced an OPS of .759. McAnulty is leading this charge with a .913 OPS. He’s second in at-bats to Hairston, who has an OPS in left field of .666. Huber is at .569, for good measure.

Clearly, Headley has come to save us from the horrors that are Scott Hairston and Justin Huber. What this means for McAnulty, though, might be scarier.

Hairston is sticking around. He’s the only player on the team that can back up Gerut in center, and he still has goodwill leftover from those walk off jobs he hit last season. With Huber wearing Beaver blue, that leaves McA on the bench. Despite his defensive deficiencies, another blast was added to the “high”light reel tonight. One would hope that he’ll stick around given his superior hitting: an overall OPS+ of 110 is fourth on the team for players with 100 at-bats. But barring an injury somewhere, it would seem doubtful that McAnulty will find decent at-bats in the near future, which might not be best for the Padres.

(DC and Brother Preston contributed to this article)

In games Scott Hairston starts, why does he bat leadoff?  It’s happened 10 times in the last month.  The dude is an out maker extraordinaire, making an out in 72% of his plate appearances this year.  Why give him the most opportunities to do what he’s done so well?

I know batting order has been shown to have smaller effect on run production, at least compared to how much time we spend talking about the lineup.  But I have a beef, so evidence be damned, lets talk about it.

On Days Jody Gerut gets off (who, by the way, is a pleasant surprise getting on base at a .356 clip), somebody has to hit at the top of the order.  I suggest Paul McAnulty.  He’s one of the few Padres who knows how to take a walk.  Sporting a .364 OBP, he makes the third fewest outs (stay with me now) of all Padres starters.

• Brian
• Paul
• Adrian
• Whoever else

No question we’re short on samples, but Scott Hairston has never shown an ability to get on base.  A few late inning home runs be damned, his career OBP sits at a paltry .295.  And someone once told me runs are worth the same in the first inning as they are in the ninth.

We have a new poll relating to my Padres game advertising article below, so let me know if my time spent studying ads was worth it.  To check out the results of our previous poll on starting outfielders, click the polls link at the top.

Stone cold sober as a matter of fact.

Not back, back.  But back for long enough to show us what they’re capable of, scoring 7 runs on 14 hits against the Marlins Saturday night.  And demonstrate the crazy unpredictable nature of baseball coming from the team that seemed so far out of sync at the plate thus far in the year.

On the ongoing slow players needlessly giving themselves up on the bases watch, Paul McAnulty tried tagging from second on a pop fly to Jorge Cantu.  You may be concerned to learn that Cantu was playing third base at the time, yes, that third base.  He caught a foul ball near the infield wall and flipped to Hanley Ramirez covering.  The tag was closer than you’d think, but with two outs you have to know value of going from second to third is minimal.  Someone should be told that running just isn’t McAnulty’s game, though I never imagined it would need to be said.

How to Score a Souvenir Baseball at Petco (The Baseball Collector)

This dude’s hobby is going to ballparks and taking as many souvenir baseballs from kids as he can.  At least something like that.  He carries more than 3,000 balls in his collection, employs a glove rigged with a string and pen to snag otherwise unattainable balls out of reach, brings a hat from each team to games and switches between them, and prepares a cheat sheet with names of players so he can call them by name, pictures, and other notes.

The story linked above (the guy’s name is Zack Hample) details his 2006 visit to Petco Park, plus his catch off a home run by none other than Barrold Rutherford Bonds (I made up the middle name).  There’s a Bruce Bochy autographed lineup card and a solid group of Petco Park photographias.  One note from the lineup card: Boch needs to work on his calligraphy.

Padres Playoff Odds (Baseball Prospectus)

Not pretty.  The worst of the worst, in fact:

2.1%: San Diego
2.9%: Pittsburgh
4.7%: Kansas City
5.4%: Washington
5.5%: San Francisco

I refuse to believe ours is that bad of a team.  The problem is, like what Myron at Friar Forecast has been saying: Even if they get back to their expected performance, at this point they’re starting behind the curve.  We’ll need an equally big run above what we expected, just to catch up.  If I’m Kevin Towers, I’d keep an ear out from here until the deadline for interest in Wolf or Giles in exchange for a building block.  It’s about that time.

PECOTA on Padres (and other) Prospects (Baseball Prospectus)

Back to more fun topics of discussion, Nate Silver applies his PECOTA projection system to determine the “upside” score of minor league prospects.  Upside is defined by Silver as “the degree and probability of above-average performance while the player is under the control of his parent club“.  In other words, the score rewards good expectations without considering the bad ones, and only during a player’s cheap years (usually until age 28).

Silver’s most recent article on second basemen prospects highlights Padre property Matt Antonelli.  He scores an upside of 70.1.  This beats the next closest on the list of of Damon Sublett from the Yanks at 69.4.  The highest prospect, for comparison, is the White Sox’ Alexei Ramirez with a score of 111.2, three rankings above our boy Matt.

Silver brings up what he calls “empty walks” when mentioning Antonelli.  He suggests Antonelli’s walks may not be sustainable by his bat when pitchers decimate the zone with strikes.  Craig Stansberry also gets a mention as a “very good prospect” with a score of 60.  Craig’s age of 26 limits his potential as a prospect.

In an older writeup of the PECOTA upside for first basemen, Padre prospect Kyle Blanks gets his due as the third best in the majors at 53.9.  Silver warns of PECOTA’s propensity to penalize weight in its calculation, a fault the system no doubt shares with its real life scouting counterparts.

That’s it for now.  Ask yourself if you’re either depressed or glad to read a Padres blog with Elton John references.  It has to be one or the other.

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 >>

Three days after optioning future messiah Chase Headley to Portland, the Padres have added another outfielder to the mix.

The Padres were already long on outfielders when they acquired Justin Huber from the Kansas City Royals on Wednesday, though they still addressed a need or two in consummating the trade.

The Padres added the 25-year-old Huber for cash considerations or a player to be named later, a small price, Towers said, to land a player that he had long been interested in and one who could fill a need as a right-handed bat off the bench.

Padres acquire Huber from Royals

Huber’s had a little less than 100 big league at-bats and they haven’t been that impressive. His minor league stats, however, show us why the Padres might be interested in him: he’s got a little bit of pop, he walks a lot, and he strikes out even more. Sounds perfect. He’s also a converted first baseman, and was at one point a converted catcher, so he’s probably dynamite with the glove.

The question to wonder about is how he fits in with this team. Along with senior citizens Giles and Edmonds, the Padres have to find room in the outfield for McAnulty, Gerut, and Hairston. Now we’re throwing Huber onto the pile. That’s six outfielders for three spots. Of course, this all depends on how Edmonds is doing. If he starts the season on the disabled list, the problem solves itself but if he’s good to go, someone’s out and it’s probably McAnulty. And if McAnulty’s out, that means he and his 1.012 Spring Training OPS are left exposed.

It should be noted that the last time Towers got one of his guys for a player to be named later, he went on to post an OPS of 1.004 and steal (most of) our hearts. So maybe that old bastard knows what he’s doing.

Melvin Update: Luis Gonzalez and Kevin Cameron were optioned to Portland. The last spot in the pen goes to Enrique Gonzalez.