Before the season, KT, DePo and the front office group figured that this team should win 90 games this year. At this point, to hit that number, the padres would have to play .627 ball the rest of the way (74-44). Is it doable? Not if the club stays on their current track. But if these guys start hitting a little, the ship could turn very quickly.

I started thinking about the Padres’ predicament in a historical context and wondered whether any team had come back to make the playoffs after such a lousy start. Looking back at the last 25 years, there have been 62 teams that have had a winning percentage of .364 or below on May 18; I understand that some teams have played more or less games than our club at this date, but this was the easiest way for me to calculate everything, and I reserve my right as a blogger to cherrypick stats for the purposes of furthering my argument.

Of the 62 teams that were as bad as the Padres, 58 finished with a record under .500 and 25 finished with a record under .400. That means that based on data from the last 25 years, the Padres have a 6.4% chance of hitting .500 by the end of the season. This is a very arbitrary way of looking at things, but I’m not looking for an accurate estimation of this team’s chances; I’m just trying to cheer myself up by looking at what past teams have done. It isn’t working.

Finally, and more to the point, has any team started as poorly as the Friars in 2008 and still made the playoffs? Yes. The 1989 Toronto Blue Jays stumbled out of the gate to a 14-25 start (.359); that team, led by 17-game winner Dave Stieb and not-yet-former Padre Fred McGriff, finished at 89-73, two games better than the second-place Orioles.

It’s happened before. These Padres don’t make me confident it can be done again. But it can be done.

It’s really a shame, what with spring training starting tomorrow and everything; it’s a shame that the eyes of this sport are focused on a guy who seemingly did things the wrong way and is now getting burned for it.  One of the greatest right-handers in the history of the game should have been lauded on his way out the door, but he got selfish.  He couldn’t be satisfied with being great; he needed to be immortal.  Now, in all likelihood, his legacy is gone, and many of the other things he holds dear (namely, his family and money) could be soon to follow.  I really hope people take a lesson from this, but I doubt it; people will always look for a way to get ahead, regardless of the ethical repercussions.  It’s a sad fact of human nature, and it’s why we see people like Clemens go down in a fiery tailspin.

The USA even played a couple of matches, and both ended in dramatic fashion; they beat France on a try and conversion as time expired, and they lost to Wales in the consolation final when a player shanked the conversion kick after scoring a try with no time left to pull the team within 2. The crowd was pretty docile all day unless the US was playing; they actually got pretty loud for the local boys, which was cool to see. All in all, it was a cool event, and we’ll definitely make a point to get back down for it next year.

You know what the best part of the tournament was, though? Being able to spend a day at the ballpark! It was my first time in the park since the 4th-to-last home game last year, and it got me all pumped up to get back down there and watch the Pads. I can’t even express how ready I am for baseball season. Pitchers and catchers report Thursday (I think), and the first spring games can’t get here soon enough.

With that in mind, let’s take a quick look at the Pads’ latest acquisition: 1B/DH/pinch hitter extraordinaire Tony Clark. On the surface, he doesn’t really look like he’ll get a lot of playing time, since Adrian is so entrenched at first base; I really don’t see Clark getting more than 10 starts at first this year. So, this means he’s going to pinch hit. A lot. Clark is a .232/.308/.442 pinch hitter for his career. Though not impressive on the surface, one must remember that pinch-hitters usually succeed far less than the average hitter simply due to the inherent difficulty in coming in cold to face major league pitching. For reference, Padres pinch hitters last year hit .188/.293/.284. Assuming that Clark will get most of his work off the bench, I’d expect his line to end up closer to his career PH numbers than his .249/.310/.511 performance in Arizona last year. Still, a .450 SLG from your primary pinch hitter can’t be a bad thing; having a threat like that off the bench will be a valuable weapon in the Padres always important bench arsenal. My only concern is that this could take away a roster spot for a guy like Headley if it comes down to it, although I think Headley will do well enough in March to force the Pads to make room. Especially given the cost, this seems like a pretty decent move for the Friars.

Why is that?  Well, it lets us focus on the most important stuff.  Like the fact that pitchers and catchers report in 11 days.

And counting. 

Let’s first look at Khalil’s line-drive percentages, both in Petco Park and on the road. It’s been said that line-drive percentage can be a decent predictor of average and power. In 2007, Khalil posted a .197 ISO (SLG-AVG) at home; however, in doing so, he hit .215 in the process. On the road, his ISO jumped to .231, while his average jumped to .288; the average is significantly different, but I would argue that the power difference could be nothing more than the elevation change. So, do the line-drive percentages give us any clues as to why Khalil’s splits are so funky? To a point, yes, but I think that this might be a spurious correlation. At home, 15% of Khalil’s hits were line drives; on the road, 24% were liners. At a glance, this would seem to indicate that either the Petco environment or the perception of that in Khalil’s head lead him to get less solid contact at home. However, when we look at the 2006 numbers, it appears that this might not be the answer; his percentages were 22% at home and 24% on the road with similar ancillary splits (.210 AVG/.136 ISO at home, .280/.227 on the road). For reference, the league average line-drive percentage was 19.1% in 2007, while the league hit .271 with a .152 ISO. This probably merits a more in-depth look, but I don’t think there’s much here.

However, this does lead me to believe that another percentage might hold the key to this. When we take Khalil’s line-drive and ground-ball percentages and subtract them from 100%, we get the percentage of balls that Khalil hit in the air. At home in ’07, this number came out to 48%; in 2006, the number was 49%. On the road, 41% of the balls Khalil hits were in the air.

Now we’re getting somewhere. Though the sample is kind of small, it’s clear that Khalil hits the ball in the air a little more at home than on the road. This leads me to believe that since Khalil hits the ball more in the air at Petco, there’s something either in the environment or in Khalil’s head that makes the ball hang up a little longer in Petco. Maybe it’s the big gaps, maybe it’s the climate, maybe it’s psychological…I’m not going to pretend to have the answer. However, I think this may indicate something about Khalil’s game that is not adaptable to Petco Park. The secondary numbers seem to back up this premonition; his BABIP at home over the last 2 years is .250, while it’s .302 on the road.  Further, those 2 averages over the last 2 years have only varied by 1 point, which indicates that this might not be a fluke. The small sample size makes me a little skeptical, however.

Anybody think there’s anything to this?

Winter break got really crazy; I spent a lot of time working and a lot of time doing absolutely nothing. Nonetheless, I am back with more worthless commentary on the Friars.

Let’s begin 2008 with another gem from Baseball Reference’s Play Index. This tool is unbelievable if you like to fiddle around with obscure stats as I do; definitely worth $5 to try it for a month. Anywho, I was watching highlights from the Pads’ 1-0 win over LA back on June 5, not realizing that we won that game with 2 hits. I remembered at least one other game that we won with 2 hits this year, so I got to wondering: what team in the last 50 years had the most 2-hit wins in one season?

The answer:

The 2007 Padres are one of three teams that have won 3 games with only 2 hits in the same season, joining the 1971 Giants and the 1965 world champion L.A. Dodgers. Kind of cool that no team outside of the NL West has ever turned the trick.

Only 24 teams over that period have won 2 games in the same season with just 2 hits. One of those teams was the 1978 edition of the Pads, led by Cy Young winner Gaylord Perry.

Not that it means anything, but I thought it was cool to think about. Good to be back.

As promised, here’s the remainder of the trade candidates for center field.

Jeremy Reed
Reed came up full-time in 2005, starting for the Mariners in center for most of the year. Over 144 games, he hit .254/.322/.352. However, in 2006, he dipped to .217 before an injury ended his season; in 2007, he fell off the radar, playing just 13 games in the bigs and being passed in the organization by Adam Jones. Reed did hit .298/.349/.451 in Tacoma last year, showing considerably more power than he did with the club in 2005 (although the hitter-friendly PCL probably had something to do with that). For me, he’s probably about a .260 hitter at best, although I’ve heard he’s a pretty good defensive player; he’d probably be very cheap, since he has little value to the mariners at this point in time. Might be another name to throw in the hat…

Jim Edmonds
Edmonds makes his second home on the disabled list, so he’s definitely an injury risk. He battled groin issues last year and underwent two surgeries after the 2006 season. His OPS has declined each of the last 4 years, starting at 1.061 before falling all the way to .727 last year. Some of the drop in power could be attributed to his injuries, so if he’s healthy, he might show a little more pop in 2008; however, the more likely scenario is that age is finally taking its toll on Edmonds. Looking at range factor, he still shows slightly above-average range in center, although he clearly is not the player he once was. He is also a little expensive, as he is due to make $8M in 2008. He might be able to recapture a little of the old magic, but the chances of that happening are slim. Bringing Edmonds in would be a needless risk, in my opinion.

Tony Gwynn Jr.
Ah, the hometown favorite. Gwynn raised his profile by beating Trevor Hoffman for a game-tying triple on the final weekend of the season with the Pads one pitch away from clinching a playoff berth. He’s currently blocked by Bill Hall in Milwaukee, so he would likely be available for the right price. In fact, Towers tried to get Gwynn in the deal that brought Joe Thatcher over for Scott Linebrink. Gwynn served mostly off the bench for the Brewers in 2007, hitting .260 over 123 at-bats; he’s a career .272 minor league hitter. As far as a major league comparison, I’d say Gwynn looks like a poor man’s Reggie Willits; pretty good average & OBP, no power, good speed, good defense, lousy arm. Good enough for the Pads? Only as a fallback if nothing else pans out.

Johnny Damon
The Yankees seem desperate to pawn off Damon on anyone who will pay a part of his substantial 2008 salary. Melky Cabrera has supplanted Damon in center field for the Yanks, and they do not have room for him in the outfield anymore. For all the whining out of New York, Damon still had a pretty decent 2007; he hit .270/.351/.396 in 141 games. For his career, he’s a .288/.353/.433 hitter with an OPS+ of 102. Those are pretty good numbers for a center fielder, especially in the power department; his numbers dipped last year, at least partly due to an abdominal problem that dogged him in the second half. The perception in the media is that Damon does not have legs to play center anymore; however, his range factor has been above league average each of the last five years, and he still shows good speed on the basepaths (27 SB in 2007). If he’s healthy and still fast enough to play center, he’d probably be a very good fit here; rangy, nice OBP, shows a little gap power. He’s still under contract through 2009 at a problematic $13M per, though, so that could be an issue in trade talks.

Ryan Church
Oops. Looks like we’re a little late on this one. He was traded to New York on Friday.

Well, enough of that unpleasantness. On to the trade candidates…note that not all of these guys have been mentioned in rumors. Some of them are pure speculation on my part as to who might be a decent trade partner.  The list ended up being unexpectedly long, so I’m breaking it into 2 parts; I’ll go over a few of the players today, and the rest (hopefully) tomorrow.

Nate McLouth
We may as well start with the flavor of the week. Mentioned in the Nady-for-Headley rumor today, McLouth hit .258/.351/.459 in 137 games with the Bucs last year. His career big league line is .249/.322/.429 over 284 games; not exactly the stuff of legend, but I wouldn’t say it’s much worse than Cammy would have done. Defensively, McLouth posted a 2.62 range factor and an .886 zone rating, which puts him roughly mid-pack among all NL center fielders. He’s been in the bigs full time since 2006; in 5 minor league seasons, he put up a solid line of .292/.362/.427. A BABIP of .297 in 2007 indicates that his line is probably pretty close to his ability level; moving to Petco, expect the numbers to drop a little, maybe 5-10 points. As far as price, he’s probably not worth it if the deal involves Headley; that’s the offer that was mentioned this morning. If they can swing the deal for someone of lesser value, though, McLouth might be a decent fit. I don’t think I’d go any farther than decent, though.

David DeJesus
Some have mentioned DeJesus as a nice fit, particularly because he fits this new “good OBP” mold that KT and the gang are hooked on (with good reason). DeJesus is a .282/.358/.415 player over 4 years as a starter in K.C.; a pretty decent line, all told, for a center fielder. Last year, he experienced a bit of decline, hitting just .260 with a paltry slugging percentage of .372; unfortunately, it looks like this line is closer to his talent level than the 3 years prior. His BABIPs for 2004-2006: .320, .335, .332. In 2007? .291. Not a sexy pick, but probably a very realistic one; with Joey Gathright behind him, and the Royals apparently hellbent on getting a free agent CF, he can likely be had for cheap.

Reggie Willits
I live in Temecula, so we get Angels games up here; I’ll tune in when the Pads play an early game and the Angels have a late game, or vice versa. I took a liking to Reggie this year; he’s the closest thing to Eric Owens since Eric Owens. Gritty guy, plays his ass off, jersey always dirty…and he can get on base, too.  He hit .293 with a stellar .391 OBP for Anaheim last year. Of course, that all comes with a pathetic .344 slugging percentage, so don’t expect Mike Cameron; this guy won’t do anything more than hit singles, take walks, steal bases and make plays in center. Reggie appears to be tremendously lucky, posting a very high .363 BABIP in ’07; however, Reggie’s BABIP has consistently been in the .340-.370 range through the minors, so maybe there’s something to it. His name keeps coming up in the Miggy Cabrera rumors, and with Torii Hunter now in center, Willits is expendable (read: cheap).

Gary Matthews Jr.
Not so cheap is another expendable Angels center fielder. The former Friar signed a 5 year deal last year at $10M per and was lauded as the answer for the Angels in center; however, he proved his 2006 was a fluke (or a product of that bandbox in Arlington), regressing back to .252/.323/.419 in Anaheim. His .283 BABIP in ’07 indicates he’s probably a little better than that; I’d anticipate him being closer to his career line of .261/.334/.419 in ’08. Still not worth $10M a year for 4 years. I wouldn’t seriously consider Matthews.

Mark Kotsay
Longtime Padre fans likely remember Kotsay trolling around center here from 2001-2003.  He was a favorite of mine during my high school days, probably because his play reminded me of the aforementioned Owens (if you can’t tell, he was probably my favorite Padre of the early ’00s in spite of his average ability).  Kotsay’s a career .282/.337/.415 hitter, pretty similar to DeJesus’ line.  He suffered back issues last year and only got into 56 games, hitting only .214.  In ’06, he hit .275 with a .294 BABIP, so we can probably expect similar numbers in 2008 if he’s healthy.  Due to the injury, he might be had cheap; he’s certainly worth looking into as a low-risk, medium-reward trade option.

Travis Buck
My brother suggested Buck as an option, and it kinda makes sense; Oakland has a surplus of center fielders with Swisher, Kotsay, et al., while we have a surplus at 3B with Kouz apparently entrenched there now.  We have a hole in CF with Cameron now apparently out, and Oakland has a quasi-hole at third with Chavez’s health (and the team’s desire to keep him) still in question.  A Headley for Buck and token prospect deal almost makes sense.  Buck hit .288/.377/.474 last year in 83 games, with a stellar OPS+ of 130.  His BABIP of .347 suggests he played a little over his head in 2007, so that’s something to be aware of.  Using very unscientific methods to adjust his BABIP back down to league average (.290), I come up with a line of .235/.327/.388; his real talent level probably lies somewhere in between.  Like our own Matt Antonelli, he didn’t have much minor league experience before coming up; he played only 127 games in the minors and only 52 above A ball.  In those games, however, he hit .325/.398/.510, pretty good numbers by any standard; thus, he’s probably going to be a solid major leaguer.  Swapping him for Headley would be an exchange of two prospects on roughly the same plane of talent; surprisingly, I think this might be a fair deal.

More to come…

Geoff Blum is out; he signed with Houston. Quick look at his numbers shows he’s not a “new-guard” kind of guy (low OBP, etc.). He stepped up big replacing Marcus Giles down the stretch and also filled the hole Khalil Greene left after his injury in 2006. That underscores what many see as a major problem with Blum: if he’s not getting a lot of at-bats, his performance tends to suffer. Bochy got him into a ton of games; Black did not, and we saw a commensurate drop in performance until he became the regular 2B. Again, this is not the most scientific analysis in the world, but I can see the line of thinking here. Not surprised to see him out, although he was one of my favorites during his time with the club. I’ll miss the person, but not necessarily the player.

Also heard today that the Broken One himself, Doug Brocail, is headed to Houston. He was one of KT’s scrap heap finds, coming back from an angioplasty and having himself a stellar 2007. Problem is, he’s pretty unlikely to repeat the performance in 2008 given his age, and even less likely playing 81 games in the Juice Box. For my $2.5M, I think there are better options, but in his 2 years here he was a great bargain find out of the pen.

On that note, what’s with Ed Wade all of a sudden scooping up all the ex-Friars? Next thing we know, Milton Bradley will be headed for Houston. Maybe this is also part of why the Pads let him go so easily; he doesn’t completely buy into the KT & DePo’s “new-guard” philosophy. Not like he was the crux of the department or something, but still…

I’m still working on the center field trade candidates, and I hope to have that up tomorrow…

Finally, an interesting conversation between a blogger and longtime Philadelphia columnist Bill Conlin regarding the NL MVP race (hat tip Friar Forecast); just goes to show the divide between the sportswriters and the bloggers is as wide as ever. As a former journalism student, I can understand it to a point, but the fact remains that a lot of bloggers have valid points and interesting insights that sportswriters do not offer. Of course, we could argue this for weeks, and no one will change anybody’s mind on it; you’re either with the bloggers or against them. Here’s hoping you’re with me on this.

Aaron Rowand
Rowand was healthy for all of 2007 after a nasty collision with the center field fence in Citizens Bank Park cost him about 60 games in 2006. He responded with a breakout year, going .309/.374/.515, including 45 doubles and 27 home runs. All this computes to a 123 OPS+ and a 7.8 WARP1; basically, Rowand had a stellar season by any standard you want to measure with. However, Rowand’s career numbers tell a somewhat jumbled story. His career line is .286/.343/.462 with an OPS+ of 106. When you look at the four years he’s been a full-time player, though, he’s really had 2 outstanding years and 2 mediocre years. Here are Rowand’s numbers over the last 4 years:

Year Team AVG OBP SLG OPS+ WARP1
2004 CWS .310 .361 .544 130 5.3
2005 CWS .270 .329 .407 93 4.1
2006 PHI .262 .321 .425 86 3.0
2007 PHI .309 .374 .515 123 7.8

So, was Rowand lucky in ’04 and ’07, or unlucky in ’05 and ’06? BABIP tells us the answer is the former; from 2004 to 2007, he posted BABIPs of .341, .318, .297 and .350. As noted in earlier posts, league average is about .290. Though not definitive, these numbers suggest that Rowand’s natural talent level is closer to his ’05/’06 numbers. As a point of comparison, ZIPS has Rowand at .276/.339/.444 next year, although those numbers are adjusted for playing 81 games in Citizens Bank Park. Qualitatively, he’s not a great OBP guy unless he’s hitting over .300, his power comes in fits and spurts, and his defense may be a bit overrated (just my opinion). In that case, at the 5 year/$60M price tag indicated by Randy Miller of PhillyBurbs (hat tip MLBTR), I will pass.

Andruw Jones
Tom Krasovic noted a few weeks ago that the Pads might make a one year offer to the esteemed Mr. Jones, he of the .222 average in 2007. The Pads would offer Jones about $17M; a huge price for any player, especially when you consider that this is the Padres talking. In prior years, Jones was a rather productive hitter hampered by a mediocre batting average and a high strikeout rate.

Talking to my brother a few weeks ago, I called Jones “Mike Cameron with more power.” Is that a fair statement? That depends on whether you can call Jones’ 2007 a fluke. I think, to a point, you can characterize Jones’ 2007 season as a string of bad luck; his BABIP was just .248, well below the league average. Adjusted for a league-average BABIP, Jones would have hit .259, right in line with his career numbers. However, his power dropped substantially last year as well, his slugging percentage falling a full 80 points below his career average. Whether this is related to luck or other factors, such as a withdrawal from performance enhancers, is a matter of conjecture. I would lean towards the former; he’s only posted an OPS below the league average once outside of last year and his peripherals indicate that there were other factors affecting him in 2007. For perspective, PECOTA’s 10th percentile projection for Jones in 2007 was .243/.323/.451, indicating that there was less than a 10% chance Jones would be as bad as he was last year.

“Mike Cameron with more power?” That’s probably unfair to Jones. However, is Jones really twice the player Cameron is? If the Pads were to pay Jones over double what they paid Cameron, that is essentially what the club would be saying. I don’t think I would go that far, but given the market and the need for another bat to protect Adrian Gonzalez in the order, it might be worth overpaying to get him in here.

Kenny Lofton
Here’s a name no one seems to be talking about. Lofton hit .296/.367/.414 for Texas and Cleveland last year, very close to his career line of .299/.372/.423. Lofton is very much a singles hitter, while still exhibiting good speed (23 steals in ’07) and decent range (with a terrible arm) in center. Wow, it’s like Dave Roberts came back to life with 30 extra points of batting average! He’d certainly be a hell of a lot cheaper than Jones/Rowand/et al., and he does some things that help the club win games. According to Baseball Prospectus’ MORP formula, Lofton’s 2007 was worth about $5.4M. If the Padres fail to land one of the big fishes, Lofton might be a nice fallback option, but I wouldn’t make him our #1 target. There are better names out there, whether they come via free agency or trade.

Kosuke Fukudome
As a Japanese player, Fukudome is a bit of an enigma; we don’t really know how he’ll do against players in this league. Fukudome suffered an elbow injury in the middle of the 2007 season; prior to that he hit .294/.443/.520 with Chunichi. For his career, he’s a .305/.397/.543 player; look here for his NPB statistics. A good comparison might be Hideki Matsui, who hit .304/.413/.582 in Japan (NPB stats here) before coming to the Yankees. Matsui has hit .295/.371/.485 since coming to the States in 2003. If Fukudome can come close to those numbers, he’ll be worth at least the $12M per year that he’s expected to fetch. Problem is, it looks like he’ll be no better in center than Brian Giles, and he might be worse. According to Mike Plugh (via MLBTR), Fukudome’s best defensive position is right, which may create a defensive problem for the Friars. However, if he hits anywhere close to the way Matsui did when he came over, it would likely be worth the defensive headaches we may experience with one of these guys in center.