Friar Watch

A lot activity for the Padres at the deadline. Maybe not the deals a lot of fans (or players) wanted but I think it really strengthens the club.

In:
Morgan Ensberg
Rob Mackowiak
Wilfredo Ledezma
Will Startup

Out:
Royce Ring
Jon Link
PTBNL
Cash

None of the incoming players are superstars but they should all be useful and the Padres gave up very little to get them. Good moves, despite the grumbling we’ve heard from some of the players. Along with the addition of Scott Hairston and the release of Russ Branyan and Jose Cruz Jr. I think this gives us a deeper, more capable and versatile bench. Even the Shea Hillenbrand move was ok because it didn’t cost us anything and the guy has hit in the past. Not a bad guy to stash in AAA and bring up in September or if there’s an injury.

The other bug move was the firing of Merv Rettenmund as hitting coach, his replacement is Wally Joyner. Given that Merv has hired in exactly the same circumstances last year I’m sure he knows this has more to do with sending a message to the players than any real performance issues on his part. If the players are griping about this one they need to look in the mirror, especially Khalil Greene and Marcus Giles.

I was a fan of the Milton Bradley acquisition but now that I’ve had a chance to see him play I’m even more of a fan. It’s only been 66 at bats but he has a .364/.455/.621 line, along with 3 stolen bases. He plays hard in the field, always hustles and doesn’t give away at bats. I’d love to see the Padres sign him to a 3 year extension and keep him in left field. Just make sure we keep a guy like Mackowiak or Ensberg in case MB gets hurt

Marc Normadin has a nice profile on Cla Meredith over at Baseball Prospectus. He looks at the numbers and concludes that Cla’s recent struggles may be due to poor arm action that negatively impacts the movement on his pitches. I think that’s a reasonable assumption but I’d say location has been the real problem for Cla. Whether it’s arm action or something else he’s just made too many mistakes this year. Like a lot of Padre pitchers he has no room for error. If he’s as much as one ball width up in the zone he’s going to get hit. That’s probably related to the movement; if his pitch sinks like it’s supposed to it’ll just hit the edge of the zone, if it doesn’t it stays up and gets hammered.