Friar Watch

It’s still early in the season, but not too early to take a look a the Padre staff and see how everyone is doing. Grades are relative to expectations for each pitcher.

Jake Peavy: A+
Jake has picked up right where he left off; if anything, he’s even better now that he’s throwing his change up more often. 16 IP, 5 hits, 12 Ks, 1 ER allowed. The one earned run was due to Edmonds and Hairston misplaying a single into a triple and Bard sliding into the dugout to catch a foul pop.

Chris Young: B
Chris has been walking too many batters, 8 in 12 2/3 IP. He’s always struggled with high pitch counts and this isn’t helping. It seems like a big problem for CY is pitch selection. He frequently gets an 0-2 count on a hitter and then starts throwing fastballs out of the zone or up the ladder. Problem is, he doesn’t throw hard enough to blow it past guys with regularity so they keep fouling those pitches off. Even if he gets them out, he wastes a lot of pitches. I’d like to see him throw his slider out of the zone on an 0-2 count.

CY has also shown a marked improvement in controlling the running game. He’s been using a slide step and even picked a guy off.

Greg Maddux: A
What more do you want out of your 42 year old #3 starter? The Dealer had a couple of rough patches in both his starts, giving up 3 homers in his first and walking two in the first inning of his second game. But Maddux was able to make adjustments and shut down the opposition the rest of the way. He’s also shown his usual Gold Glove-quality defense and is tied for second on the team with 13 IP.

Randy Wolf: A
You sendin’ the Wolf? That’s all you had to say!
Randy has been effective (2.25 ERA) and entertaining, throwing everything but the kitchen sink up there. He’s also shown a very effective lefty pickoff move that will help keep baserunners honest. This is looking like one of the best free agent bargains of the year.

Justin Germano: A+
Justin worked hard in the off season and has reportedly added an extra mph or two to his fastball. Whatever he did, it’s working. He’s yet to allow a run in two starts and looks just as effective as he did when he first joined the Padres last year. Unfortunately he’s still not striking out batters at a high enough rate for long term success but he’s a #5 starter and you can’t give the guy anything less than an A+ for his work thus far.

Tomorrow: We’ll take a look at the bullpen. Grades will be lower…

Mr. Rogers always said each of us is unique and special but thanks to Josh Kalk and his terrific article on using Pitch f/x data to generate similarity scores, we can see that some players are more unique than others.

Specifically, Kevin Cameron’s use of the cut fastball makes him the most unique pitcher in baseball. Interestingly, the data bears out the comparisons to Mariano Rivera:

Pitcher Uniqueness
Kevin Cameron 103
Mariano Rivera 100

Another neat aspect of this method is that even though it doesn’t take into account arm angle, it does pick up the spin of the pitch and ends up grouping Cla Meredith in with Byung Hyun Kim, as well as fellow sinkerballers Brandon Webb, Brian Lawrence and Derek Lowe.

This is another example of all the great work being done with the Pitch f/x data and it’s only going to get better as MLB refines the system.

Quoth P Mac:

“I was ticked off,” he said. “I didn’t try to gain weight, but I did.”

It’s called adulthood Paul, get used to it. It’s good to see P Mac taking his conditioning seriously. He knows this is his last shot with the Padres and he made a real effort to get in great shape.

Also, the article mentions Jim Edmonds went through an intense workout program this off season. I like it when guys do that, it adds to the spring optimism.

On the other hand, I’ve read that Maddux is sticking with his normal routine. The guy has been so consistent and injury free, there’s no reason to change now.

It’s that time again, as pitchers and catchers report to spring training. It’s also time for me to start working the rust out and start posting again. I’m happy to report I’ve picked up a new computer and I’m the best shape of my life. Speaking of, let’s take a look at how the Padres are doing as they report in to Peoria:

Courtesy of the UT:

Trevor Hoffman: “I’ve heard Trevor is in the best shape he’s ever been in, and that the ball is coming out of his hand real good right now,” Balsley said.

Awesome! Trevor is known for working out really hard so it sounds like he turned it up to 11 this year.

Josh Bard: Bard had surgery to repair a tendon in his wrist; this is the first I’ve heard of it but I wasn’t really paying attention back in November. “Bard said his wrist is fine”

Paul McAnulty: P-Mac lost 22 pounds after working out 4 times a day and drinking blue-green algae. “I’m in the best shape of my life,” McAnulty said.

I bet he’s one of those guys who could lose 50 pounds and still look chunky. Everybody loves this guy; it’s good to hear that he’s really going after a starting job. I’d love to see him tear it up in spring and force the team to give him the LF job or trade him to someone that can use him.

Tony Clark: Big T made the 6 minute drive from his home but hasn’t started working out yet. No word on his condition.

Wil Ledezma: Kind of a forgotten man in the pitching mix but he’s always had a good arm. Balsley is tinkering with his rotation, trying to get more consistency.

I love the optimism that comes with spring training. I’ll try to provide frequent updates on how the Padres players are feeling as we go along.

That’s the big question for the off season. Mike Cameron is a free agent, he wants to play for his hometown Atlanta Braves and the Braves have an opening after letting Andruw Jones walk. I’d be shocked if the Padres were able to resign Cameron and our only other remotely viable centerfielder is Milton Bradley and he’s probably going to miss half the season and return with reduced range.

Consensus among most Padre observers is that a good defensive centerfielder is a must given the spacious outfields in Petco and most of the other NL West parks. Fortunately there are several big name centerfielders on the free agent market. Unfortunately, they all have question marks and will likely command salaries that are beyond anything the Padres are willing to pay. With that in mind, lets take a look at some of the other options out there.

Free Agents:
Kenny Lofton - They’ve been calling him Cool Papa Lofton on Fox, that should tell you all you need to know. At age 41 he can still hit a little and seems to have good wheels but is he really an every day centerfielder at this point in his career? I’d love to have him as a 4th outfielder though.

Corey Patterson - Ht .269/.304/.386 for the Orioles. I really don’t know much about him but he has some speed (37 SB, 9 CS) and has shown a little power in the past (24 HR for the Cubs in ‘04). Those are the positives, such as they are. The negatives? This pretty much covers it I think. Oh, and his agent is Scott Boras.

Kosuke Fukudome - See video below. Speculation is that he may put up Hideki Matsui-like numbers. Seems to have a good arm, there are questions about his ability to play CF. It may take upwards of $15 million a year to sign him, and at that point aren’t you better off with Rowand or Hunter?

Trade Targets
Coco Crisp - Had a great year with the glove but not so great with the stick. When he was in Cleveland he looked like he was on the brink of stardom but hurt his wrist after being traded to Boston and hasn’t been the same hitter since. 2008 salary: 4.75 million. 2009 salary: 5.75 mil. Boston has super prospect Jacoby Ellsbury ready to step in and may be looking to dump Crisp so it probably won’t take much to get him.

Jim Edmonds - 2008 salary: 8 million. Looks like he might be washed up, only hit .252/.325/.403 and missed a lot of time with injuries. He’s 38 next year. The new regime in St. Louis might be looking to dump his contract so you could probably get him for next to nothing, which is still too expensive.

Nook Logan - MLBTraderumors.com is reporting that Torii Hunter would like to go to the Nats, which would make Nook expendable. He’s even worse with the stick than Crisp but he’s one of the fastest guys in baseball and has a cool name. He’s another guy who would come cheap but isn’t a guy you want in your lineup.

Elijah Dukes - No thanks

Rocco Baldelli - An intriguing player for sure, Baldelli hit .302/.339/.533 in 92 games in 2006 before going down with an injury and lost most of 2007 as well. If he can stay heathly Baldelli would be one of the top center fielders in the game. Tampa is looking to move him to make room in the outfield and also to save money. He’s scheduled for $2.25 million in 08 but that jumps to $6M option in 09 with a $4M buyout.

Tony Gwynn Jr - The sentimental choice but he hits more like his uncle than his dad.

Felix Pie - big time prospect with the Cubs, has shown power and speed in the minors and has decent on-base skills. If the Cubs decide to go with him in center that means they’ll be looking to move…

Jacque Jones - Everybody loves a local boy coming home, right? Hit .285 in 07 but forgot how to hit homeruns and doesn’t draw walks. Under contract for 08 at $5M.

Adam Jones - Mariners prospect, .314/.382/.586 in AAA last year, Seattle might be looking to trade him but with those kind of numbers he won’t come cheap.

So what would I do? I’d roll the dice and sign Andruw Jones but it’s not my money, is it? Second choice would be to trade for Adam Jones or Felix Pie but I don’t think we have the talent available for that. My third option would be Fukudome but like I said before, with the money he’s going to get we might as well sign Hunter or Rowand. We might be able to get Baldelli for almost nothing due to his injury history and contract. Maybe that’s the best move, along with bringing in Lofton or a guy like Logan as insurance. If none of those work out then go for Crisp or Jacque Jones. KT has traded with Boston and the Cubbies in the past so I think this last option is the most likely, with Fukudome a close second.

Padres fans have been abuzz since mlbtraderumors.com reported that the Padres are going to make a play for Kousuke Fukudome, the next big thing out of Japan. He’s a 31 year old rightfielder with a cannon arm who draws walks and has some line drive power. The Padres big need is in centerfield and there’s some doubt about Fukudome’s ability to cover that kind of ground so perhaps the plan is to put him in right and move Giles to left and scrounge up a cheap centerfielder.

I looked around for some videos on YouTube and like what I see. How can you not like a rightfielder who throws dudes out at first on routine singles?

If this is representative of the kind of umpiring they have in Japan Fukudome should be fine over here. He gets victimized by three atrocious called strikes on a 3-0 count and ends up striking out. He’s no Milton Bradley but he’s definitely a guy who will show emotion:

Here he is victimizing Byung Hyung Kim in the WBC:

Here’s another Fukudome blast. I like the way he takes a big step and kind of glides into the ball and then explodes with a lot of torque:

I love the atmosphere at Asian baseball games. Why don’t we have organized cheers and trumpets? Instead we get the wave and a beach ball.

Need something to get you through the off season? I’m part of an OOTP 2007 league that’s looking for owners. This is a new league with a core group of owners who have been together for years. It’s an international league (put your team anywhere!) with 16 teams featuring mostly fictional players but we’ll probably allow you to add some real life players as long as they’re not on an MLB roster (I’m bringing back Fat Tony).

If you’re unfamiliar with OOTP, it’s only the best baseball sim on the planet. Download the free demo here:
http://www.ootpbaseball.net

Also, I play in a Sunday morning co-ed softball league and we need more players, especially women. This is a casual league for all skill levels and a great way to get out in the beautiful San Diego sunshine. Games are in Mission Beach and we’re usually done by noon so you won’t miss much football.

If you’re interested in one or both leagues, send me a note via the contact form.

There’s a lot to say about last night’s game but I’m still trying to accept that our season is over so this entry will be brief.

Jake Peavy: Sadly, our ace once again let us down in a big game. Whether it’s nerves, loss of confidence, too much adrenaline or a secret injury, for whatever reason Jake always has trouble in these big games. I will give him a ton of credit for hanging tough and not letting it get completely out of hand. Unfortunately that’s the kind of praise you normally give a 4th or 5th starter, not your ace and Cy Young winner.

Heath Bell: Clearly our best reliever. It’s easy to say he should be our closer next year but don’t forget this is his first successful year in the majors and he’s pitched a lot of innings. Let’s see how he comes back next year and how the league adjusts to him.

Doug Brocail: It was good to see Brocail bounce back from that terrible outing in Milwaukee. He’s had his ups and downs but overall he was much better this year than anyone expected.

Joe Thatcher: Thatchmo was dominant, striking out 3 of the 4 batters he faced. That one outing justified the Linebrink trade, everything else from here on out is gravy.

Trevor Hoffman: Trevor remains one of the greatest closers in history and had another fine season but the fact remains that he had two chances to nail down a save to get the team into the playoffs and he blew them both. Should he retire? I don’t know but I doubt he will. He has another year on his contract, he’s not going to walk away from millions of dollars. Trevor is a unique situation because he’s just not effective outside of the closer role. He also presents unique challenges for the manager because he has such a fine margin for error but his future Hall of Fame status means the manager is going to be reluctant to pull him out in the middle of the inning.

Sometime next spring the Padres need to have a talk with Trevor and explain that he’s no longer going to get every save opportunity. He can still be the main closer but the team needs to start working Heath Bell into the mix, getting him some 9th inning experience to groom him for the closer role.

It’s really hard to accept that we lost the game on a blown call but I’m not going to dwell on that. Yes, Brady Clark misplayed some balls in center but he is what he is and he’s not Mike Cameron. Let’s not forget that Mike Cameron is not the Mike Cameron of old, he’s made some bad plays out there as well so it’s not automatic that he could have caught those balls.

I think a lot of us wrote off this team when Bradley and Cameron went down but they hung on by the thinnest of margins just to get to last night’s game and they should be congratulated for that. Anything can happen in one game, and last night we saw a lot of “anything”.

What’s next for Friar Watch? Now that the season is over we’ll be looking back at some key moments and looking forward to next year. Keep an eye on this space!

Coming into the Rockies series there was only one thing the Padres needed to avoid: a sweep. Well they got swept and in the process Milton Bradley revealed how apt the Jenga nickname is. After an 8th inning single Bradley started jawing at 1st base umpire Mike Winters. On the replay it looked like Bradley was asking Winters something and Winters seemed to be replying in a normal, non-confrontational manner. At that point Bradley should have shut his mouth and concentrated on the game but after every pitch he continued to run his mouth about something. Eventually he tried to call time out on his way back to the base and for some reason just went ape shit on Winters. Bobby Meacham had been positioning himself between Bradley and Winters and was able to block Bradley, who looked like he was ready to physically assault Winters. Bradley tried to push Meacham aside when Bud Black ran out and grabbed him by the arm. Bradley wouldn’t let himself be restrained and eventually was wrestled to the ground, twisting his knee in the process. I hope Bradley felt some embarrassment while he was rolling around in pain in front of 35,000 fans, all due to his own inability to control his emotions.

From looking at the replay it looks like Bradley was calling timeout on his way back to the bag, then turns to Winters when he reaches the bag. Channel 4 cut to a wide shot and at that instant you can see Winters is actually talking to Meacham, who was already walking towards Winters with his arms outstretched and shaking his head, in a WTF? manner. As Bradley advanced on Winters it look like Meacham was actually yelling at Winters. After Bradley wass ejected Meacham continued his argument, yelling and pointing his finger in Winters face. Meacham was ignoring the whole Black-Bradley wrestling match and was still hot after Bradley went down and all the other umpires converged.

Was there a racial epithet? No way we can know at this point but I find it hard to believe Meacham would have gotten that worked up over Bradley being thrown out.

Regardless of what was said, I think we’ve seen the last of Milton Bradley in San Diego. I was willing to give him a chance when he came over from Oakland but now I feel like the Boston fans who talked themselves into thinking JD Drew would be a good addition. Bradley is incapable of controlling his emotions and he’s incredibly fragile on top of it. It’s sad to see a guy ruin his career like this but Bradley has no one to blame but himself. All he had to do was make it through the last few games without incident and he was looking at a decent payday as a free agent but now he’s gone and shown he’s still the same old head case. Sure he’ll still make millions but I have to think today’s tantrum cost him a lot. Certainly it’s hard to see the Padres bringing him back, even with two potential holes in the outfield.

UPDATE: After seeing Bradley and Meacham’s comments after the game I have to soften my criticism of Bradley. They say Winters was riding Bradley and called him a “piece of shit”, at which point Bradley lost it. Meacham said it was the worst thing he’s ever heard out of an umpire and felt like it was a racial thing even though there were apparently no explicitly racial terms used. I’ve never seen Bobby Meacham that upset about anything so I have to think Winter was way out of line. Sandy Alderson thought so too and while he’s always had issues with umpires he’s always struck me as very fair minded.

Bradley still has to take responsibility for his actions. If Meacham wasn’t between them I really believe he would have taken a swing at Winters, and when Black was trying to hold him back he needs to calm down at that point. Bradley put the blame on Winters for his injury, which is ridiculous. Bradley needs to understand that it’s his reputation as a hothead that causes fans, players and even umpires to get on him like that. The umpire has no business riding a player like that and should be suspended, if not fired, but Bradley has to learn to control his emotions.

No offense but Bob Melvin is a complete idiot. 2 outs, 2 on and the D Bags down by two, catcher Miguel Montero and his .227 batting average due up. Tony Clark on the bench. Tony Clark who has killed the Padres in the past with clutch home runs (He’s hitting .333 with 3 home runs in 19 plate appearances against the Pads this year). So of course Melvin lets Montero hit, Montero who has never faced Trevor. I’d like to know what batters hit against Trevor the first time they see him. It’s got to be below .150. What makes it even worse is Trevor was really struggling with location again, he left a lot of pitches up in the zone. I was ready to change the channel because I didn’t want to see Clark hit the game winning home run. Wow. That has to be one of the worst non-moves I’ve ever seen.

I didn’t get a chance to post my predictions for tonight, which is too bad because I was spot on. I was going to predict 7 scoreless innings for Hernandez but Melvin would leave him in a little too long. I was also going to predict Greene wouldn’t even touch a Hernandez pitch, he at least made contact so I’m happy to be wrong there. I wouldn’t have predicted the Blummer dinger though.