An Analysis of the Padres' Current Situation

It's the end of the first week in May, and as a fan I am ready to concede the season. I'll still watch every game I can and root for them, and I still think this is a team as talented as the Dodgers and D-Backs. Unfortunately, the reality of the situation is that the Padres are 10 games back of the D-Backs and 6.5 games back of the Dodgers. That is a ton of ground to make up, even if the Padres are actually a better team.

I wouldn't advocate blowing up the team yet, as miracles do happen in sports, and players are probably not going to lose significant trade value. Holding onto tradeable assets like Brian Giles, Randy Wolf, or Tadahito Iguchi until June still would allow them to be moved before the trading deadline for a decent return. The focus should gradually start shifting from winning this year to evaluating the team for next year. They are set at catcher, first, probably second, short, third, and probably left for next year. They desperately need a solution at center field; to that end they should probably give Scott Hairston the majority of the playing time in center from here on out to see if he can handle it defensively and if he can hit at all. My personal preferred solution is to shift Matt Antonelli to center and sign Mark Ellis as a free agent next year, but it looks like the ship has sailed on moving Antonelli. Venable is another internal candidate, but he'd have to destroy AAA this year to merit consideration as a starting option. Headley looks like the left fielder next year, but McAnulty should be given most of the playing time this year to either establish some trade value, establish himself as a viable starting option, or establish that he'll never be more than a fourth outfielder. Pitching-wise, it makes sense to try out Ledezma on the off chance he can harness his stuff enough to be a back end starter. LeBlanc should be ready for next season, and maybe Inman or Carrillo will be as well. Maybe LeBlanc will get a look in September, but those guys don't really factor into plans for this year.

As for what to do with guys with possible value to a contender: for Wolf and Iguchi, you would need to get something of actual value back, because these guys will likely qualify as type B free agents and can be offered arbitration to get draft picks. I'd guess Brian Giles will likely qualify as a B free agent too, but he'd probably accept arbitration since he'd make a lot more than that way than in free agency. Many teams could use a starter like Randy Wolf, particularly if he can mostly maintain his hot start for another month. The Braves come to mind as a team with a desperate need, and Brent Lillibridge could be an interesting return for him. Lillibridge could be a long term replacement for Khalil Greene at shortstop, or he could shift to center and be the answer there. Or he could suck and be the answer nowhere. Giles seems like a fit with the Indians, who could use some more offense from their corner outfielders. I don't really know who they could ask for in return, but that's ok, I also don't know if he has a no trade clause, if the Padres are interested in exercising his option for next year, and any other possibly right field external right field candidates that could be better than him. So this is all wild speculation. I'm not sure who would have a need for Iguchi. Him starting to hit better might help create a better market for his services, but teams aren't so wild about giving up lots for a second baseman.

When a team gets into a position like the Padres are, in last place despite expectations of contention, fans like to criticize someone, usually the front office. Sometimes it's not errors by the front office. Sometimes it's just randomness. Last year Mark Kotsay had a 57 OPS+. The two years before that he was at 88 and 97. He's never been as good as Edmonds at any point in his career. Yet here he is putting up a 122 OPS+ this year in the early going. Maybe the Braves scouts are better than the Padres' scouts; that's quite possible in the overall scheme of things - they did a ridiculous amount of winning over the past decade and a half. Maybe in this case the Braves got lucky and the Padres did not. The Padres nearly won the division last year with basically the same team as the one this year. Mike Cameron and Milton Bradley have proven to be key losses, but Wolf has been a key gain, and Iguchi should have been an improvement at second. This could have been a division winning team this year, and the difference between leading the division and owning a 12-21 record is not Aaron Rowand in center instead of Jim Edmonds. It's not Kyle Lohse or Hiroki Kuroda in the fifth spot instead of Justin Germano. The slow start this year has been caused by the breakdown of almost every player on the roster, including most of those players that were instrumental in winning the division last year. For that reason, there is basically nothing the front office could have done to stop this from happening. Sometimes you just get unlucky.

Fun Factoid of the Day

The third place team in the NL West is farther behind the Diamondbacks than any other last place team is behind it's respective division leader. The NL West also has baseball's best record, the Diamondbacks, and it's worst, the Padres (a mere half game behind the Rockies, baseball's second worst record). Way to represent, NL West. 

Fun Factoid of the Day

Last year on the first of May Mike Cameron was hitting .192/.267/.240 in 116 PA, with 29 K's. From May 1 to the end of the season, Cameron hit .253/.341/.473 (with half his games at Petco). Sometimes good players have slow starts. Sometimes people on the wrong side of 30 have bad starts and bounce back. Sometimes, they don't bounce back.

Floundering Friars, Surging Snakes, and Down in the Dumps Dodgers

I'd like to write something analyzing the events of the first part of the season that's occurred. Unfortunately, for almost every potential topic, I come back to the same refrain: small sample size. Padre bullpen getting torched: small sample size. Padre offense not being worth a darn: small sample size. The Diamondbacks being awesome and firing on all cylinders: small sample size. Andruw Jones looks like the worst kid on a little league team with his flailing attempts at sliders: small sample size. The Dodgers in general can't really hit: small sample size. You get the picture.

Thus, my outlook on what has transpired to this point, specifically the D-Backs' dominating lead over the rest of the division, is significantly more optimistic than the average Padre, Rockie, or Dodgers' fan. Sure, the Diamondbacks are crushing the ball this year, but I still remember their terrible offense from last year, when they tied for the third worst team OPS+ in baseball with an 89.* ** So I remember that terrible offense from last year, and I realize they have almost the exact same players contributing this year, so I am optimistic the offense is in for some serious regression. Sure, young players, which they have a lot of, generally improve as they age, but they don't generally magically transform overnight from a .683 OPS to an .838 OPS like Stephen Drew is doing thus far this year.

* Trivia question: which three offenses last year were at or below the 89 OPS+ mark? Answer at the bottom of this post.
** Yes, I'm totally trying out the Pozterisk style of annotating my posts. Scroll down to the bottom of this post here to see this term used by its inventor. Also, just read all of Posnanski's blog because Joe Posnanski is the best sportswriter in the world today.


I also think the Diamondbacks' bullpen will struggle this year, given that their two most highly leveraged relievers have terrible peripherals (that would be Tony Pena and Brandon Lyon, and yes, those are terrible as in worse-than-Trevor-Hoffman bad peripherals).

Given this possibly optimistic view that the Snakes are in for a fall back to earth, and my general unwillingness to accept the Padres' and Dodgers' offensive struggles as anything more than a small sample size blip, it is no wonder I consider this division far from decided. That 6 game lead certainly helps the D-Backs, though. Last year's AL West race, generally considered a cakewalk for the Angels in the final month of the season after the M's collapsed, was decided by 6 games. 6 games is a large deficit to make up, and requires the Padres, Dodgers, or Rockies to significantly outplay the Snakes to overcome it. To sum up, I'm not worried about what this start says about the relevant talent levels of the Diamondbacks and the Padres, but I am worried about the practical result of it, which is a 5 game lead for Arizona.

Despite the small sample size, there are a couple of Padres I am very much worried about. Jim Edmonds and Scott Hairston have started very slowly, which just adds to the evidence existing before the season that the former is pretty much done and the latter just can't hit major league pitching. If these suspicions continue to be confirmed by their play, the Padres are without a viable centerfielder, which could be a problem. Maybe. Maybe Chris Young can just work on getting everything hit to either left or right field. Dodger fans, if I were a Dodger fan this means I would also be worried about Andruw Jones. I was expecting a bounceback close to pre-2007 form, but his performance to this point in the season suggests that last year was not a fluke, and this might be his true talent level now.

The main player I am concerned about based solely on his 2008 performance is Heath Bell. Yes, the Heath Bell with a 3.55 ERA, which was below 1 before today. Looking at the numbers, his strikeout rate has fallen apart, with 5 in 12 2/3 innings, and his groundball rate has collapsed from 59% to 36%. These are numbers from a very small sample size, but from observing him pitch it appears his stuff has slipped too. From fangraphs (scroll to the bottom of that link), his fastball velocity is down 3 mph from last year's, and he's throwing the fastball a lot more this year 80% this year versus 64% last year. These numbers aren't a reversion back to his old New York struggles; even while he was struggling there he was throwing hard, striking large bunches of guys out, and getting lots of ground balls, so this appears to be an entirely new development. I have no idea what the problem is, if there really is a problem; it could just be he needs a little time to find his command or get fully loosened up or whatever. I'm guessing the Padres know better than me what's going on here, so I hope they have a good solution in mind. Or maybe this is still a case of overreacting to a small sample size.

Trivia Answer: The Royals were the worst last year, with a team OPS+ of 85, thanks to one person on the team with over 100 PA compiling an OPS+ over 100 - Billy Butler, who eeked out a 105. The White Sox were the second worst despite a 150 from Jim Thome. And everyone's favorite horrific offensive team, the San Francisco Giants, tied with the Diamondbacks with an 89 OPS+.

The Padres' Bullpen

Last night against the Giants the Padres' bullpen again allowed the opposition to score the winning runs. Ok, so that was after holding them scoreless for the previous four innings, so last night's game is probably the wrong one to use to demonstrate the pen's struggles. Still, the Padre relievers as a group have the second worst ERA in baseball this season. What does this tell us about the Padres' pen and their prospects for the rest of the season? Should they be seeking reinforcements, and should we be re-evaluating the team's true strengths?

In a word, no. In three words, small sample size. In many more words that reiterate those four words, the combined twenty innings the relievers have thrown adds almost no information for us about their individual abilities. Cla Meredith is still a great groundball pitcher with excellent control who dominates righties. Joe Thatcher is still a groundballing sidearmer better against lefties but who can get righties out. Heath Bell is still overall awesome. Trevor Hoffman still has a great changeup and the same stuff he's used to get by with a sub 3 ERA for six years in a row. Enrique Gonzalez, Glendon Rusch, and Wil Ledezma probably aren't going to be very good, but Kevin Cameron and Carlos "Che" Guevara both look solid and available to be called up/activated from the DL.

More on Trevor Hoffman: according to Gameday, Hoffman's velocity is right where it was last year, his changeup still looks as nasty as ever, and he's used his slider effectively at times (he struck out Matt Kemp on three straight sliders). He had a terrible outing against Houston where he struggled with his control, but still almost escaped without allowing a run. Against the Dodgers, he gave up one run on a walk and a single. It's been four innings, two of them excellent. He's given up one extra base hit, so it's not like every ball put in play has been a rocket. It is extremely premature to conclude he's done.