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.

It’s gotten so bad that I didn’t even watch the game. Wells got rocked again, illustrating just how important location is to the aging pitcher. He just can’t afford to make mistakes. Boomer needs to figure it out and get back to his normal self and give the team 5 or 6 innings with 2 or 3 runs. Of course that won’t be good enough if the Padres can’t score more than one run.

One bright spot was the return of Lil’ Clay Hensley from a long stint in AAA. Clay has battled injuries and ineffectiveness so it was good to see him throw three shutout innings.

Another bright spot was the debut of Joe “The Iron Lady” Thatcher. Joe set down the side in order for a nice major league debut. All three batters were right handed, which bodes well for Thatcher’s future as something more than a LOOGY.

Friday’s matchup is Peavy vs Woody Williams and his 5-11 record. If we can’t win this one we’re in big trouble.

The Scott Linebrink trade rumors were finally put to rest today as the Padres shipped him off to Milwaukee for three minor league pitchers. Given Scott’s recent struggles I think that Kevin Towers got a pretty good deal. It seems like the recent trend in baseball is to overvalue the compensatory draft picks gained when a free agent like Linebrink leaves for another team. Sure the picks are nice but if you can get some good prospects back I think you’re in better shape overall. Sandy Alderson made the point today that they don’t have to pay a signing bonus for these young guys, plus they’ve already had some development time and a track record.

So who did we get?
1. Joe Thatcher - 25 year old lefty, people are projecting him as a LOOGY but Bud Black hasn’t shown an inclination to lock his lefties into a specialty role. Thatcher’s selling point has been his control, he’s posted excellent K/BB ratios throughout his minor league career. He’s expected to join the Padres in Houston tomorrow, most likely he’ll be dropped in the Justin Hampson/Kevin Cameron role as the Human Victory Cigar.

2. Will Inman - 20 years old, he’s put up some terrific numbers, striking out more than a batter an inning with excellent control in A ball. He’s struggled in AA but it’s still early enough to be an adjustment period. Some scouts have said Inman lacks a strong enough fastball to succeed in the major leagues but the Padres pride themselves on not falling into the velocity trap. 4/5 of their rotation throw fastballs that would be judged as below average but they’ve done alright for themselves.

One thing I’ve noticed in reading about Inman is every article mentions his competitive nature, his desire to get guys out and be a successful major league pitcher. I like this quote in particular:

“I think the biggest thing for me to be effective was the fact I don’t walk a lot of guys,” Inman said. “I throw a lot of strikes. I go right after guys. I hate walking guys. I’d almost rather give up a homer than walk them and let them get on base for free.”

I’m sure Bud Black and the rest of the Padres brain trust are happy to hear their 20 year old pitcher has such an aversion to walks.

As for his alleged below average stuff, I’ve seen reports that his fastball is low 90s and he has a pretty good slurvey breaking ball. He also throws a change up, something the Padre coaches will help him refine. That’s more than adequate for a major league pitcher, provided he throws it with good command and a confident attitude.

3. Steve Garrison - 20 year old lefty, listed at 6′1″ and 185, kind of small but he could still fill out a little. This article says that Garrison was throwing 91 mph as a high school senior and also has excellent control.

So the Padres got three prospects, ranging from decent to excellent, for a pending free agent who’s been getting shelled lately. Another great move from Kevin Towers.

One potential move doesn’t sound so great: the Padres are rumored to have offered Shea Hillenbrand a minor league contract with a promise to promote him within 10 days. In the past I wasn’t as down on Hillenbrand as some people but recently he’s been awful and he’s always seemed like a jerk. However, Bud Black must be familiar with him from their days with the Angels so maybe he knows something we don’t. As long as it doesn’t cost more than a minor league contract I suppose it can’t be a disaster but it’s hard to see the upside here, especially because promoting Hillenbrand would probably mean moving Branyan.

As for today’s game, I think we’ve hit a new low. Aaron Cook threw a complete game against the Padres today and only threw 74 pitches. And he gave up 9 hits! He also had two strikeouts so lets do a little math. 27 outs + 9 hits = 36 batters. That’s 2.06 pitches per batter. Subtract the minimum of 6 pitches for the 2 Ks and that’s 68 pitches for 34 batters, exactly 2 per. How is this even possible?? Looking closer I see that Brian Giles was caught stealing and the Rox turned two DPs so that cuts down on the pitches a little, but still. Any time your team allows an opposing pitcher to throw a CG with fewer than 100 pitches you have to hang your head. Truly pathetic.

Another good outing from Maddux is wasted by a bullpen meltdown, this time from Linebrink and Meredith. At least the bats woke up, although one could argue that 5 runs in Coors is like 1 in Petco.

Commenters at Ducksnorts are trying to remain calm but some Cub fans have been visiting and trying to stir the pot against Michael Barrett. Apparently Barrett is a one-man losing machine who poisons everything he touches.

The Gaslamp Gang is looking for solutions too. The consensus seems to be our lineup is ok (except for Marcus Giles) but our bullpen is out of whack. Bell should be the 8th inning guy (something I’ve been saying for months) and Kevin Cameron needs a bigger role. Another suggestion is to use Cla Meredith as the guy who comes in immediately after a starter leaves, which was pretty much his role last year. I love him as a guy you bring in when the starter poops out and leaves two guys on with nobody out. Cla is a ground ball machine and nothing demoralizes a team like killing a rally with a double play.

Rich Campbell at San Diego Spotlight mentions that at this point it’s probably smarter to hang on to Linebrink and get the draft picks when he leaves as a free agent after the season. I would agree with that, as long as Black stops using him when the game is on the line. Linebrink needs to be demoted to the Doug Brocail role.

1-3 against a team that supposedly has no pitching. The series was especially frustrating because all of the Padres most aggravating faults were on display. Getting shut down by a retread pitcher? Check. A mediocre Peavy outing? Check. The opposing team blasting balls out of Petco while the Padres don’t? Check.

Game Four was the one that really hurt. Needing a win to salvage the series we had our ace against a journeyman (to put it kindly) with a career ERA over 6 and 1:1 K/BB ratio. Sadly, the result was predictable: Jake coughed up some runs and the offense showed no patience against Durbin (109 pitches in 9 innings). The only bright spot was Linebrink didn’t allow a home run.

Adding to the frustration was home plate umpire Chris Guccione’s unwillingness to enforce the batter’s box against Ryan Howard, his back foot being clearly out of the box. When a manager calls something to the umpire’s attention and the TV broadcast is clearly showing the infraction the umpire needs to man up and admit he missed it and start calling it.

Chris Young: Another ridiculous outing from CY. Lately it seems like he comes out of the gate throwing a no hitter for 3 or 4 innings. Take a look at CY’s numbers for the first three innings over the last 5 games:

15 IP, 5 H, 3 BB, 17 K

The only thing that even gave the Phillies a chance last night was Ryan Howard. This was the first time I’ve been able to watch him hit and it was awfully impressive. Every at bat was an ordeal for Young; Howard fouled off good pitches, wouldn’t fish for bad ones and was willing to take a walk rather than chase a borderline pitch. Young threw 116 pitches in 7 innings, 28 of those were to Ryan Howard.

Heath Bell: Another impressive outing for Bell. He really should be the first option for the 8th inning.

Trevor Hoffman: Howard led off the 9th against Trevor and it was a brilliantly pitched sequence to get him. Unfortunately it seemed to have sapped some of Trevor’s control, he really had problems hitting his spots against Rowand (walk) and Burrell (single). Fortunately the next two hitters were completely overmatched by Trevor’s change up, he struck them both out for the save.

More than any other pitcher, Trevor must get that first pitch over for a strike:

2007 batters facing Trevor:
After 0-1: .106/.145/.167
After 1-0: .263/.333/.474

If Trevor gets that first pitch fastball on the outside corner for a strike the fear of the change up comes into play. If he misses it, he has to throw the fastball again for a strike and the hitter can sit on it.

Sorry about the continued lack of updates. Baseball blogging in the summer is not easy.

I only caught the first couple of innings of Monday night’s game so I missed David Wells breaking out the knuckleball against Paul LoDuca:

“It’s the first time I’d done it in, like, (11 years),” said Wells, who’d last thrown a knuckleball in an at-bat against Boston’s Jose Canseco in 1996. “I’ve been throwing it and contemplating it, but you’d never think to throw it in a tight game. … The look in LoDuca’s eyes was unbelievable. I’ll never forget the look ever. He said, ‘What the (expletive) did you just do?’ And I said, ‘My bad, dawg.’ “

Given Boomer’s difficulties in getting past the 6th inning I’d like to see him throw a lot more knuckleballs, maybe save them for the third time through the order. Once Wells gets tired he starts relying on that big slow curve and hitters sit on it. The knuckler would give him another option and would definitely keep hitters on their toes.

I was expecting something better from Jake Peavy last night. The extra rest over the All Star break should have allowed him to recuperate but he made a few mistakes and gave up 3 runs in 6 innings. Peavy said he felt fine but it seemed like his control was just a little off and he had trouble putting away some Mets hitters.

Here’s a stat for you: Over his last 4 starts, Chris Young is 2-0 with a 1.04 ERA, 37 strikeouts, 3 walks and 15 hits over 26 innings. He’s nearly as dominant now as Peavy was in May.

Jeez, the All Star break seems to drag on forever but it was really only 3 days so let’s get back into it. First, some Friday links:

Baseball Analysts has a nice article by Joe P. Sheehan looking at Jake Peavy’s arsenal.

Jake’s next start has been pushed back a couple of days due to soreness in his bicep. I say skip his next start and let him rest up for the stretch run.

Looking for something different in your Padres gear? Check out this hilariously geeky Khalil shirt, courtesy of the Gaslamp Ball crew. For the thinking fan, check out the Ducksnorts store. Hmm, maybe I should work on a Friar Watch shirt?

The Hardball Times has another Enhanced Gameday article, this time looking at sinkers versus fastballs: which one is harder to hit? The answer might surprise you. I love all the new research we’re seeing as a result of Enhanced Gameday. Once this system is in all the parks and MLB gives us a true database with a user friendly interface it’s going to be the biggest revolution in baseball analysis since Bill James started the Baseball Abstract.

That called strike three to Marcus Giles to end the game on Sunday was every bit as bad as we thought it was:

Of course it wouldn’t have been strike three if Marcus hadn’t swung at the second pitch, which was well off the plate. It’s inexcusable for an umpire to call that pitch a strike in that situation. 0-2, 2 outs, the game on the line. I have a feeling that the CB Bucknor wanted to end the game with a dramatic punch out so he made the call. Yet another example of why he’s widely regarded as the worst umpire in the game.

David Wells was ejected from Saturday’s game for arguing balls and strikes. Did he have a case?

Green = called balls
Red = called strikes
Yellow = the only called ball to Francoeur when he hit the home run

It looks fine to me. The one ball to Francoeur in particular wasn’t even close. I bet Wells was upset about those three balls at the lower right corner; he needs those to be successful.

Maddux was also chirping about the zone during Sunday’s game. He was also dealing with CB Bucknor, widely regarded as one of the worst umpires in the game. Was Bucknor really at fault?

Surprisingly, that looks pretty fair to me. I really expected Bucknor to have blown some calls but nothing really jumps out at me here. I’m sure there are several pitches that Maddux is used to getting, particularly the balls on the outer half of the plate to right handers.

The usual caveats apply of course: the accuracy of the Gameday data and whether the ball crossed the plate after the Gameday system measured it. But it looks to me like we just had a couple of veteran pitchers who weren’t getting the calls they were used to.