Knuckle Curve » san_diego_padres

Podres Dies at 75

Geoff Young — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 15:39:33 +0000

Left-hander Johnny Podres, who pitched from 1953 to 1969 for the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers, Detroit Tigers, and San Diego Padres, died Sunday night at age 75. During his playing career, Podres won 148 games and was named to three All-Star teams. He also owned a sparkling 4-1 World Series record and won three championships with the Dodgers.

My thoughts go out to the family and friends of Mr. Podres.

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Rangers, Tigers Swap Spare Parts

Geoff Young — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 21:17:09 +0000

The Texas Rangers have traded outfielder Freddy Guzman to Detroit for catcher/first baseman Chris Shelton.

Who are these guys? Glad you asked.

Guzman once was known as Pedro De Los Santos and played second base in the San Diego Padres organization. Then when the visa crackdowns came along, his name changed and he aged a few years. Guzman has decent on-base skills and is fast. His ceiling is a poor-man’s Juan Pierre, but really, he’s a fourth outfielder. Actually, so is Pierre, but I digress.

Shelton spent all of 2007 in the minors after batting .273/.340/.466 for the Tigers in ‘06. The guy has some serious power from the right side of the plate. He came up through the Pittsburgh Pirates organization as a catcher but primarily has played first base in the big leagues, although he did log six games behind the dish back in 2004.

Neither of these guys should be impact players for their new teams, but both could contribute. Shelton has more offensive upside, while Guzman provides stronger defense.

Hey, they can’t all be blockbusters.

Other Voices

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White Sox Sign Linebrink

Geoff Young — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 18:15:32 +0000

I’ll have more to say on the trend of overpaying relievers in another venue, but for now it’s enough to know that 4 years for $19 million is an insane amount to give a guy like Scott Linebrink, which is what the Chicago White Sox will be paying for the right-hander’s services.

I happen to be a big fan of Linebrink. I saw his California League debut with San Jose back in ‘97, when he fanned 10 Stockton batters over 6 innings. I’ve followed him closely since then and was ecstatic when the Padres picked him up off waivers from Houston in 2003. He had some good years in San Diego, and for a time, it looked like he might one day replace Trevor Hoffman as the team’s closer.

The main problem with Linebrink now is that most of his numbers are trending in the wrong direction. He’s still a valuable reliever because he’s durable and probably will give a team 70 innings or so of above-average work, but this is not the lights-out setup man we saw in ‘04 and ‘05. I guess nobody told the White Sox.

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Peavy Wins NL Cy Young

Geoff Young — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 19:03:59 +0000

San Diego Padres right-hander Jake Peavy has won the 2007 National League Cy Young Award. As someone who has been watching him pitch since he wore #22 for the Lake Elsinore Storm, I couldn’t be happier. Congratulations!

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And Then There Were Two…

Geoff Young — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 18:44:00 +0000

The regular season is done save for one final, originally unscheduled game in Denver on Monday afternoon (4:37 p.m. PT first pitch; TBS, XM 183). Thanks to the Colorado Rockies’ 13-1 finish, they’ll host the San Diego Padres in a one-game playoff to determine which team advances to the postseason as the NL wild card.

On paper, Jake Peavy vs Josh Fogg looks lopsided in favor of the Padres. The games, however, are not played on paper. With three studs in the lineup (Matt Holliday, Todd Helton, Brad Hawpe), a strong supporting cast, and a home crowd that hasn’t seen meaningful October games in a very long time, Colorado could be a lot tougher than folks think. And if they do win today, I expect them to reach the World Series.

As a Padres fan, I hope it doesn’t go down that way…

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Angus Interviews Alderson

Geoff Young — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 19:47:30 +0000

Jeff Angus at Management by Baseball has written a couple of informative articles on San Diego Padres CEO Sandy Alderson. The discussion centers around Alderson’s management techniques and includes interviews with the man himself.

I love this riff on Michael Lewis’ Moneyball (aff link):

The revelations in Moneyball actually helped the A’s competitiveness. That’s because when other team owners read the book, many leaned on their own front offices to emulate the deeds (managing walks) but not the intent (finding an undervalued approach and optimizing against it temporarily) of what Oakland had done. And managing walks lost its special value because so many teams pursuing that kind of talent forced the price of it up.

People still get this wrong all the time, and I can’t figure out why…

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Kruk Ain’t No Historian

Geoff Young — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 17:22:54 +0000

Seems ESPN baseball analyst John Kruk is a little confused about the history of #44 in San Diego. He thinks he’s the last Padres player to wear the number, but of course right-hander Jake Peavy currently wears it. For a more complete discussion of the Padres and #44, head over to Ducksnorts…

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Hoffman Saves #500

Geoff Young — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 14:57:59 +0000

San Diego Padres closer Trevor Hoffman notched career save #500 on Wednesday night against the visiting Dodgers. You can read all the details pretty much anywhere, so I’ll just share some photos I took at the game:

Adrian Gonzalez Article

Geoff Young — Sat, 12 May 2007 15:10:35 +0000

I almost forgot to tell you, I’ve got a new article up at The Hardball Times about San Diego Padres first baseman Adrian Gonzalez. In a very short time, he’s become one of my favorite players to watch on a daily basis. He’s also better than a lot of folks might realize. Read the full article to find out why…

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Where the Inefficiencies Are

Geoff Young — Mon, 07 May 2007 21:37:36 +0000

Jeff Sackmann has an article up at The Hardball Times (full disclosure: I am a contributor to THT) called “The New Inefficiency.” In it, Jeff identifies risk acceptance as the current market inefficiency. Identifying and exploiting such inefficiencies is a key strategy employed by “small-market” teams to help reduce the effect of budgetary imbalances between them and their richer counterparts.

For example, as chronicled in Moneyball, the Oakland A’s at one time were able to exploit teams’ lack of demand for players with high on-base percentage. Now that this is common knowledge, they are no longer able to use that particular inefficiency to their fullest advantage.

But the A’s, as any smart organization will do, have adapted and found new ways to help level the playing field. And they’re not the only ones. Here are some concrete examples from the article:

That could mean, as in Cleveland’s case, starting the year with a bunch of platoons with the understanding that some halves of those platoons won’t be available for a month here and there. For Toronto, it means fully expecting to use eight or nine starters to get through the year. For Oakland, it means accepting that you may have to improvise to put three outfielders and a designated hitter in the lineup every night.

Fascinating concept. The San Diego Padres have been doing this with their bullpen for years. While other teams are throwing money at guys with more of a track record, the Padres tend to gravitate toward pitchers that are flawed in some way. Grab enough of them, and you increase the odds that you’ll make it through the season with a decent aggregate performance from your relievers. It doesn’t always work perfectly, but that’s where “risk” comes into play — and why these players don’t cost as much as Danys Baez or Jeff Suppan.

How will teams exploit this “new inefficiency”? This is an excellent question; however, I expect that we’re a bit late in asking it. Jeff has pointed out several examples where organizations already are using risk to their advantage, which most likely means that organizations only just now getting around to it may have missed the proverbial boat.

The good news is, there will be other inefficiencies down the line to exploit. Such is the nature of markets…

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