The San Diego Padres either care very deeply about the psyche of prospect Chase Headley, or they’re a pack of close-fisted misers who care more about saving money than winning games – John Canzano, in a recent article on the Chase Headley situation (h/t: Geoff Young).

Or, maybe, just maybe, it’s not quite that simple. Anyway, one thing I neglected to mention the last time I wrote about this situation is when Chase Headley is set to become a free agent. If I understand it correctly, a player gets a year of service time after spending 172 days on the active roster. Since Headley only logged 19 days last year, I believe the Padres could call him up now and this would not be an issue (i.e., he will be under club control through 2014, whether he is called up now or in a month). So, we are back to the “Super Two” issue, the issue that the article linked above centers around. The author says:

But shouldn’t the aim of the Padres be to win as many games as possible this season?

Should it be? I don’t think that should necessarily be the Padres goal. I think the goal should be to win division titles, pennants, and world championships. Leaving Headley down for a few more weeks, in my estimation, gives the Padres a (slightly) better chance of doing those things down the road. Since I believe there is virtually no chance that, in the next couple of weeks, Chase Headley can produce enough to have any significant impact on the Pads’ chances of winning much of anything this year, outside of maybe an extra game or two, then I am all for the current Padres stance on Headley and his extended stay in the minors (not that I know this is actually their stance).

Now, if the Padres were doing this while in a division race (and could vastly improve by adding a guy like Headley), then I’d probably have a different take. But, at this point, they’re not in any race and adding him to the roster just isn’t going to make enough of a difference. Is the few million bucks down the road that big of a deal, either? Well, not really, I guess, but why throw that money away if you don’t have to? I’d rather it be spent on the draft or in some free agent deal in 2010 or something.

And, after all that, we have not even mentioned the fact that Headley could still be in the minors partly to … play baseball (i.e., the finances are likely not the only reason he’s down there). He isn’t exactly Jay Bruce and he is learning a new position.

Nothin’ really new here, as this is pretty much what I discussed last time (and I’ll try not to make a continued habit of it), but I figured I’d point you to the article anyway.

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Here’s Grady Fuson on the upcoming draft. Pretty interesting stuff, but I can’t really get a feel for who they’ll be targeting (not that he’d want to give that away).

Geoff Young took Andrew Cashner in the Future Redbirds mock draft I linked to the other day. I’m not sure I love taking a reliever with the first pick, but if he fell to #23 (iirc, I’ve seen him going pretty high in some mock drafts), I can’t say I’d hate the pick. Apparently, he throws in the mid-to-upper 90’s, but his control may be a bit of an issue. He k’ed 80 and walked 27 in 54.3 innings of work this year at TCU.

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Mark Prior is apparently done for the year. A decent million dollar gamble that didn’t work out … Hope he can get his career back on track at some point.

Hoping to make this a somewhat frequent “feature” — just rambling on about various Padres things … kind of like the link posts, but obviously more Padres specific and with more commentary, too (was trying to get creative with the title, but figured the Gleeman-approach would work just fine) ….

One thing I can never quite understand is why fans, writers, etc. are so sensitive when it comes to the way the Padres spend money on players. According to Richard, here’s what Alderson said in a recent interview:

He also makes the point that regardless of what Player A might get paid, the Padres will spend the same amount on payroll calling it a zero sum game.  Money not spent on one particular player is spent on another, not invested outside the organization.  Payroll is set ahead of time, allocation amongst players is decided annually.

I am a long way from SD. I probably spend very little money directly on the Padres (though I certainly spend plenty of time, which is money, I suppose, in some ways), so perhaps that’s why I’m not so concerned about what exactly their payroll is. I mean, what can I do about it? I do think that if the payroll was higher, they’d have a better chance of winning more games. Why wouldn’t they? Give a good front office more money to work with and they are going to give you more wins, on average. But since I don’t spend much money on the Pads, I just don’t take the relatively low payroll “personally” and I really can’t complain about whatever figure it is. Also, I’m not exactly sure that it’s that low in the first place, if you looked at the market and things like that. But I’m not going to pretend that I know what it should be … I don’t.

Back to the point, kinda … let’s say the Padres are going to spend $75 mill. on players next year. After that’s set, there’s nothing more that management can do, right?. They have to try to win as many games as they can with that payroll. When someone interprets some Kevin Towers move as “dumpster diving” or whatever the term is, I see it more as “trying to maximize the number of games the Pads can win, within the set payroll.”

That brings us to Chase Headley and Tim Sullivan’s piece on him. First of all, I think there are quite a few factors that have contributed to Chase’s extended stay in Portland. Most importantly, I’d guess they are development time and finances. Headley could legitimately use some minor league playing time to refine his game, especially in the field (I would guess …). fwiw, I don’t think Headley is quite the uber-prospect he’s being made out to be. If I had to guess, I’d peg him as a slightly above average player in his first six or so years in San Diego (if he stays here that long, of course). I don’t see him as a franchise type player. But the great thing about Headley is that while he may only be a little better than average (in my opinion, of course), he isn’t going too cost much. That’s valuable …

That, of course, brings us to the super two thing. Why bring him up now, if it might cost you a pretty penny a few years down the line? It just isn’t worth it. Even if he becomes a star and plays great this year, the Padres are most likely not going to make the playoffs. If you can wait a few more weeks to possibly save millions down the road, why not wait? I’m sure there’s an argument there, but I personally think it is pretty good management, especially when that money is going to be spent on players to presumably attempt to make the Padres a better baseball team. Now, if you want to criticize Kevin Towers for “lying” or deceiving, be my guest. I took some sports marketing/public relations classes in college … along with many of the classes in the major (sports management), I didn’t really like ‘em. So I’m not going to attempt to analyze how Kevin Towers should handle these issues with the press and fans.

…

Paul DePodesta has a post up on the Baek-Wells deal. Really great stuff … Also, USSM has extensive analysis and commentary on the deal, of course. Many of the M’s fans seem to hate the deal from their perspective. Personally, I’m a bit surprised by that. I kind of agree with Dave Cameron’s succinct assessment:

Baek is a replacement level pitcher. Seriously, giving him away doesn’t matter - you can get another Cha Seung Baek whenever you want. They’re everwhere.

Jared Wells sucks, but this trade doesn’t matter.

Baek, imo, might be a little better than replacement level … but I don’t think this deal will be that significant for either team.

Programming note: Probably will be bypassing friday links this week, as I don’t have much time between now and then with the comp. … sure I’ll have something to say at some point over the weekend, though.

By Padman

So I’m thinking maybe you can help me with this mb.  I’ve spent the last hour trying to look up the name of the actress who plays a girl named Tina on ABC Family’s “Greek” (which is an awesome show BTW). (ed. note: Padman found the answer below).  Only reason I’m doing this is because a friend of mine thought she looked like a character from an old disney movie we watched when we were kids.  Well, I managed to find out that she’s not the character he thought she was, but can’t find any mention of the actresses name anywhere (including IMDB or the stupid official site).  I know shes been in at least 4 episodes because she is currently dating the main character.

On a more Padre related note after starting the ….HA SOB I found it.  Her name is fricken Lisa Wilhoit and she was on a TV show called “My So Called Life.” Son of a …. that was an hour almost that should have been spent better.

So I guess that’s a nevermind on the question, but I’m too lazy to erase what I already wrote because that would be more of a waste of time.

I got to give a lot of credit to Paul DePodesta.  How many people in the FO of a sports organization (outside of Mark Cuban) actually have a blog to let us know what’s going on in the world of the front office, man?  I think it’s especially interesting since most of the time we don’t really know what people like KT, Sandy, and Depo do when they aren’t at the stadium (scouting?  golfing?)  I personally find it really interesting to read, and I hope hes right that with the 17 inning win it will be the end of the disaster that began with the 22 inning debacle.

In the minors the Beavers managed to take 3 of 4 from the 1st place Salt Lake Bees (it’s amazing how much easier games are when Nick Adenheart isn’t pitching and Brandon Wood and Willits are with the big club).  With that win the Beavers move to 26-23, 2nd place, 7 GB.  However they have a better record than one of the other div. leaders (Memphis), and would be only a game back of another (Oklahoma).  Out of the 16 teams in the PCL only 3 (Salt Lake, Sacramento, and Okl.) have a better winning percentage than the Beavers (although Las Vegas is also 3 games over but are 27-24, lower WP).   They are 17-5 in May and that’s with the Padres recalling one of their top hitters (Gerut), their closer (Wells), #4 starter (Banks), and primary setup man (Adams).

Not bad for a team that finished 58-86 last year (last place).  In fact they haven’t been over .500 since 2004 (84-60)

Readers may not know this, but the Beavers have been around longer then the Padres.  When their team became a franchise the Cubs had just won a world series!!!  6 Beavers have gone on to be enshrined into baseball’s hall of fame.  Dave Bancroft (with Beavers in 1912/1914) spent 16 years between 1915-1930 as a SS for the Phillies, Giants, (Boston) Braves, and Brooklyn Dodgers; enshrined in 1971.  Stan Coveleski (1915) Pitcher, 14 year MLB career with Philly A’s, Indians, Senators, Yankees.  5 time 20 game winner.  Tossed a complete game vs the Dodgers in 1920 WS.  Enshrined 1969.  Mickey Cochrane (1924)  catcher, career .320 BA between 1925-1937.  2 time AL MVP (28′ 34′) led the Tigers to WS in 35 as player/manager.  Enshrined 1947.   Harry Heillman (1913) .342 lifetime BA, 17 year career with the Tigers and Reds.  Enshrined 1952.  Heinie Manush (1920) lifetime .330 BA.  Edged out Babe Ruth for 1926 batting crown.  17 years with Tigers, Browns, Senators, Dodgers, Red Sox, and Pirates.  Enshrined 1964.  And of course the most famous on the list (because it’s the only one I know).  The Great Satchel Paige (1961).  ‘Nuff said.  He was enshrined in 1971.

Geesh and we thought Headley might be a HOF Beaver.

This is a typical, rambling post with no real theme. After I get done discussing something completely unrelated to baseball, I’ve got some thoughts on Dave Bush and Josh Banks, along with some links …

I was just thinking, with finals coming up, why aren’t college (and high school) grades adjusted in any way? I would say the class that I learned the most from this year — a history class — is also the one that will get me the lowest grade (probably a C or C+). I am perfectly fine with that because, in general, I’m not all that worried about grades. I’d like to go to a class, put in the amount of work that I usually put in, and learn something from it. Now it’s nice when that also comes with a decent grade, but with the amount of work that I do put in, that is not always possible.

Anyway, there are two main reasons why my grade will be lower in that class than the others: the teacher (whoops, I guess it’s “professor” now) is pretty difficult and the material is difficult, at least relative to my other classes. If I had to guess I’d say the class average will be like a C and the class average in my other four classes will be in the B area.

Now let’s figure somebody takes five ‘easy’ classes (B averages) and sombody else takes five tough ones. Obviously, it’s not hard to see what’s going on here. One kid can get a C overall and be completely average, compared to the class averages, and another kid can get a B overall and also be completely average. One has a 2.0 gpa or whatever and the other a 3. But, really, they both performed similarly. Like I said before, I don’t really care all that much about grades. But when so much depends on them (playing sports, academic awards, scholarships, staying in the school, getting a job, etc.), why is there no effort to normalize them? Hah! Scholasticmetrics — a new field.

If I write four paragraphs on adjusting school grades, you know it’s going to be a relatively long post. Well, is anyone interested in seeing the Pads pick up Dave Bush? The Brewers just sent him down to the minors. Whenever I see the idea of dealing for pitching brought up, I usually see a similar response from Pads’ fans – “Sure, if we needed pitching, he’d be fine” or something like that. There are two reasons why I don’t particularly agree with that notion:

1. Due to Petco (I’m sure you know what’s coming), the pitching always looks overrated and the hitting always looked underrated. Take a look at BP’s projected final standings — NL averages: 774 RS, 776 RA; Padres: 692 RS, 708 RA

Initially, they look like a team with a great pitching staff and a terrible offense. But, after you throw in the .92 park adjustment, you get: 752 RS, 769 RA. Now they look like a team with a slightly above average pitching (actually, run prevention) and slightly below average hitting. Yeah, it’s quite a difference. Suddenly, trading for a pitcher doesn’t seem that absurd. Combine that we the fact that the Padres have significant injury risks in the rotation (Wolf, Young, even Maddux if you buy PECOTA, not to mention Prior if you’re counting on him) and I think it makes all the more sense.

2. The second reason is that even if you believe the pitching is that much better than the offense, there is still value to add there. If you can create a situation where you give up even less runs, you’re going to win more games, regardless of the performance of the offense. You may be able to gain more wins by adding an impact bat, but it’s not like there’s a point where it stops making sense to reduce the amount of runs you allow. As quickly as somebody says, “you can’t win if you don’t score,” I can say, “you can’t lose if you don’t give up any runs” or something of equivalent ridiculousness.

The real crux of the issue, though, is Dave Bush and his ability to pitch in the majors. MGL has his normalized component ERA over the last four years at:

04: 3.61
05: 4.44
06: 3.42
07: 4.47

Average, for MGL’s version, is 4, by the way. That’s an unweighted (but weighted for inning, of course) average of 3.98 — so he’s been very much an average pitcher over the last four seasons. This year, in a measly 23 innings, it’s 4.87. Of course, the Padres don’t get bonus points for finding a guy who has pitched well in the past. What they want is a guy who will pitch well in the future. I’d certainly argue that four years of average pitching outweigh, by far, 23 innings of well below average pitching, if we only can use the numbers.

If, for whatever reason, Bush is a different pitcher, the usefulness of the numbers is obviously going to be lessened. If you look at his fan graphs page, Bush’s fastball velocity has dropped about 1.5 mph from his 05-06 level (his other pitches have dropped as well). This could be due to, in my best guess, a myriad of factors: the data recorders are off, Bush is a slow starter, everyone starts slow, he’s aging, parks/mounds, there’s trouble with his mechanics or arm, randomness, etc.

But I think that Bush, or a guy like him (that a team ditches early), is a great candidate for the Padres to investigate. One other good thing about him, before I move on to something else, is his contract; he’s under control for 2009 and ‘10. So he’s a legitimate investment and not just a guy that will patch a hole this season.

The Padres picked up a pitcher, Josh Banks, off waivers the other day. If you look at his First Inning card there, you can see that he has great control and what I would assume is not dominating stuff. His strikeout rates are not very impressive and he also gets absolutely pounded quite often (157 extra base hits in ‘06 and ‘07 combined). I’ll be the first to tell you that I don’t trust an analysis which merely glances over his minor league numbers, but I’m not impressed with Banks really. That said, maybe the Padres see something … maybe they figure his power numbers against will be suppressed by Petco or something. Maybe the scouts see something. I don’t know. I’m not expecting much.

Now for some links:

Jonathan Hale has a fascinating look at the Peavy vs. Webb battle from Sunday. That’s just fun stuff. And it’s great to watch these guys, with such different styles, battle for Cy Young’s every year. Then you throw in Johan Santana, and his lefhandedness and great changeup, and you’ve got another different type of pitcher in the mix.

Eric Seidman has a detailed analysis of Matt Cain with PITCHf/x up at Statistically Speaking.

Speaking of Statspeak, Geoff Young was in a round table over there. Regarding what stats I’d like to see on tv broadcasts, I’d personally be fine (thrilled, actually) with BA/OBP/SLG. To make everyone happy, they could throw in runs and rbi and steals and whatever else. It’s not really because I think the masses need to be educated on stats; it’s simply because I’d like to know how the guy is playing! .200, 8 home runs, 20 rbis really means very little to me … but if they show .200/.387/.521, 8 home runs, 20 rbis then I know it’s Adam Dunn in a mid-May. And, more importantly, I know the guy is having a nice offensive season. Most fans know about obp and slg. and they would not be really hard to explain or display. In fact, I’ve seen them listed a few times on various telecasts. Another thing I hate is when they stop showing seasonal numbers after each players’ first ab and switch to game stats. I know NESN used to do this (and still may; I haven’t noticed).

edit: I should add that perhaps Hairston is going to play left and Gerut center. Or maybe Edmonds will be back in time and Hairston will play left. Yup, I really have no idea what’s going on in the outfield … My point about Headley getting sent down, however, does not really change at this point.  

There’s been a lot of discussion on The Chase Headley situation of late. I’ve even received a couple of emails regarding it (they’re encouraged, btw, if you want to talk about baseball or anything else). Figured I would mention a few of my thoughts and pass along a link that you may have missed.

Anyway, Headley was optioned to the Padres minor league camp a few days ago. I’m sure you’ve heard the news. It seems to be a very hot button issue with Padres fans. Headley crushed the ball this spring and the Padres don’t really have an established guy in left, especially with Edmonds not available early on. Combine those two things with Headley’s status as  consensus #1 Padres prospect (except for me, I guess ; ) and you’ve got many fans who want to see this guy in left field on opening day.

Is Headley really that much better than his competition in left? BP has him projected with an ugly .231/.316/.388 line this year. The other projections are more optimistic, with Headley in the mid-700’s OPS range — Bill James projection is the high outlier at .263/.369/.465.

The other main option at this point is Jody Gerut. BP has him at .266/.348/.403. Marcels/ZiPS/Bill James have him pegged slightly lower (~.725 OPS range).

That’s just hitting of course. Gerut’s a natural outfielder and Headley isn’t. I’m not saying a third basemen can’t be a solid left fielder. I would guess that in general, however, they are going to be below average in the outfield … at least in their first season out there in pro ball.

That said, Gerut is not a defensive specialist. UZR has him at average in right and -8 runs in left (in 60 “games”) from 03-05. That’s two years ago, though, and Gerut is 30 years old now (if things have changed, they’re most likely for the worse).

My two main points, if I have any, are: There’s not a huge difference, by the numbers, between these two guys (at least at this point). And secondly, the numbers, in this case, are probably not the only thing you want to use. With both of these guys I think you’re going to want to rely on a good bit of scouting. Gerut hasn’t played much over the last few years and Headley has like 20 major league plate appearances.

If I had to pick one of them, I’d probably go with Headley. However, that’s not really necessary. Triple A does not mean that you’re banished from major league baseball for the season. Headley can go down there and hone his skills in the outfield (and at the plate) and if Gerut and Co. struggle in left, he’ll probably get called up and take over at some point. It’s not the end of the world that he got sent down, imo. (Melvin from The Sacrifice Bunt shares some similar overall thoughts on the issue).

Speaking of scouting and Headley, here’s a nice piece from last week on him (well, he’s #3). I really think this video analysis is going to become invaluable over the next few years. 

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The two main options for the Padres left field spot are Headley and Gerut (among others), but in reality there are hundreds of other guys who are technically candidates. One of them is Jeremy Reed. Apparently, he’s on the trade block up in Seattle (and the Pads may be interested).

Reed projects as an average to slightly below average hitter. In 2006, the fans thought about the same of his fielding. However, UZR has him at +12 runs per 150 in his time in center. The best part about Reed may just be the fact that he’s under control for 3 more years and he’s only 27. He’s not a star; heck, he may not even be average. But with an injury prone/unproven outfield, he’s another extra guy who can clearly play some baseball.

Lots of fun stuff around the net today …

Geoff Young has his Padres preview up at the Hardball Times. Excellent stuff, as you might expect. It’s in the 5 questions format that HBT does, and I generally like that. He touches on the main concerns with the team; left field and the back end of the rotation.  Geoff also talks about two more fascinating subjects: Khalil/Petco and the fan support of the Padres. Take a look.

Mr. Young also has an interview up with the UT’s Tom Krasovic. I have speculated here a few times that Tom is a stathead (I suppose it’s not really speculation when he openly discusses some rather advanced statistical stuff in his columns). Anyway, it’s official; he is one!

When I got the Padres beat, the club’s director of baseball operations was Eddie Epstein, who brought a sophisticated statistical perspective to player evaluation. He wasn’t always right, of course, but he could always back up what he said, and he tended to be right more than he was wrong. Epstein had an air of discovery about him. He was like a treasure hunter who had tapped into reliable methods to find sunken ships or oil reserves.

He goes on to mention another saber-Epstein; Theo, of course. Very cool interview. 

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SG and Co. do a fantastic job over at Replacement Level Yankees (regardless of my thoughts on the Yanks) … check out this post with all of the simulated projections for ‘08 (there’s a part 1 before that as well). The 11 win gap between the lowest and highest Padres projection is certainly wide, but it’s not that rare (just glancing through, there are like 10 other teams with a gap of 10 or more). Interestingly enough, 4 of the 5 teams in the NL West have such a gap. Basically, it is a wide open division. The Giants are the only team I can’t see taking the division … well, okay, maybe like 3-4% of the time. But the other 4 teams all have a legit shot, imo, and this certainly supports that notion.

Right now I’m leaning towards an order of: Dbacks, Padres, Dodgers, Rocks, Giants … but I’ll make my “official” off-the-cuff projections sometime later this week.

Patriot did that already on his blog and it’s a fun read. In terms of the awards, I’m looking forward to the NL Cy Young. It should be a great race with Santana, Peavy, Webb, Oswalt, and probably a few other guys that will emerge.

Probably shouldn’t even mention this … but if I can get up tomorrow morning, I may just “live blog” the Red Sox-A’s game.

Hey, who said I was slowing down? … Just a couple of things I found while perusing the ‘net.

Good stuff from Tim Sullivan on Tower’s bullpen building. KT:

“I can’t really get into details,” Padres General Manager Kevin Towers said yesterday, “but we have guys who do stat analysis who look at lucky versus unlucky. Heath had horrible numbers in the big leagues, but (based on) hard-hit balls versus non-hard-hit balls and balls that should have been caught that weren’t, he just had rough, rough luck.”

That is interesting stuff. Many of us have talked about Bell and the fact that he looked underrated statistically when he came over from the Mets. He had something like a .362 BABiP in 108 major league innings with the Mets. He also had a k/9 close to 9, a bb/9 in the  mid-2’s, and a solid ground ball to fly ball ratio. His homer/fly ball was very high, but that’s generally something that tends to fluctuate quite a bit (iirc) – perhaps that’s one of the areas where the Pads researched.

Anyway, I’m always fascinated with what teams are doing to gain an edge. So what do you think KT is talking about there? My guess is that’s it’s more than just a glance at his BABiP. I’ve always thought looking at a pitcher’s batted balls individually would be interesting. I believe MGL does something like this. That is, look at each batted ball and assign an out probability to it. So, for instance, if Bell gives up a routine fly ball and Carlos Beltran loses it in the lights, he won’t be penalized for it (or it will count as 98% of an out or something). A more detailed approach would perhaps look at things like the ball’s speed and angle off the bat, and then reassign an expected overall BABiP based on that. After that, you could use the expected BABiP and the peripherals to get some sort of expected ERA, which could indicate who’s been lucky or unlucky. I don’t know! But it’s interesting to think about.

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The Mets are doing a service to the rest of the league as they try to turn Jose Reyes into a ground ball machine (hat tip: BTF). Ground ball coach Howard Johnson:

“In a perfect world we’d love to have Jose hit ground ball singles every time up, but he can do so much more. So I’m just trying to make sure that he’s committed to slowing his approach, that he’s not getting too excited and jumping at the ball.”

I’m not saying there isn’t something here (he did hit more fly balls last year than in the past), but the guy is still a dynamic player. A big reason for that is the fact that, unlike many good fielding shortstops, he has some pretty real power. He’s hit 126 extra base hits over the last 2 seasons and due to his great speed, 29 of those have been for 3 bases. I’m guessing part of the reason they’d like more grounders is because of just that … his great speed. Well, so far he’s only got 79 infield hits on 960 total ground balls (according to fan graphs).

However, according to The Hardball Times Annual he was +22 runs overall on grounders and liners last year, but a whopping -19 on fly balls. Part of that’s likely due to his 14% infield pop up%, which is about 4% higher than the league average. I don’t know … like I said, maybe there’s something here or maybe this is just another spring training space filler (although they have Reyes upset with himself when he lines shots off the center field wall …) If I was a coach I would tell him to concentrate on driving the ball, rather than actually hitting it on the ground. But I am not a coach.

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Baseball Digest Daily is like some kind of cyberspace vacuum sucking in all of the internet’s best baseball bloggers. I’m not really sure if I’ve mentioned it before, but check it out if you somehow have not yet. It’s looking like their cast of writers may start to rival that of BP and THT soon (that cast includes Voros McCracken, Pete Toms, Geoff Young, Craig Brown, Michael Lynch, John Brattain, proprietor Joe Hamrahi, and many more). There are a bunch of other guys (and girls) there doing great work (especially Jonathan Hale’s PITCHf/x stuff), who I am just not that familiar with yet. Anyway, it’s turning into quite an impressive site with different bloggers focusing on all facets of the game.

Some people like Joe Posnanski can write about anything whenever they want and leave you saying: “Man, that guy can write.” In fact, there are numerous talented bloggers who can do the same thing. I cannot. But since I’m bored and watching TLC (these real estate shows aren’t that bad), I’m just going to ramble for a while on the usual topics. If I were you, I’d click back or one of the many links on the sidebar before going any further  ; ).

No, really.

First of all, a little blogging news. I want to take another look at Chris Young with the PITCHf/x data, but I finally looked at how to do the conversions via Mike Fast’s work: and … that might not be happening. I hated physics and all of those formulas in high school. I can tolerate them, I suppose, when it involves baseball, but I’m still largely clueless. If anybody knows their stuff, check out this post (and then follow the link to Mike’s data in the comments) and see if you can do anything. If you want, I could send you the CY spreadsheets that I have and you could do the conversions for me, if you’d like (or try to walk me through it). For your noble services, you could use the Young spreadsheet I compiled for whatever you want — it probably took me like a half hour+ to compile, although most computer literate people could probably have the whole league downloaded and into a database in that time.

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With that out of the way, Ken Robothal has the report on Mark Prior. Sounds like the Padres want Prior back by May, but agent John Boggs doesn’t.

“I would hope we wouldn’t try to expedite things,” Boggs says. “As far as I’m concerned, we didn’t want to be in a position where he’d be rushed into duty.”

Boggs is advocating a return closer to early June, or at least that’s what it sounds like here. It’s definitely a little conflict of interests, I think. In most cases, both the player and the team want the best season possible out of the player. That way, the team will be better off and the player will make more whenever he becomes a FA. In this case, however, the Padres want as much as they can get out of Prior (they only have him signed for a year), and while Boggs/Prior would certainly love to give 130 innings of 3.00 ERA pitching, they may also be happy with 40 innings and no injury troubles. Prior can probably get 1 year deals for a few years simply on allure, and a healthy finish to the 2008 season would allow Boggs to pump him up for a larger deal next year. I don’t really know. Both the team and player want the best for their side. Most of the time, that’s the same thing — but it might not be the case here.

***

The Mets have traded for a pitcher by the name of Santana, or so I’ve heard. I have to say that in about 80% of the analysis’ I’ve skimmed though, contracts are not discussed at all. It is not a simple process — trying to evaluate a trade that has both minor and major leaguers — but the contractual aspect at least has to be mentioned. The trade wasn’t simply Santana for Gomez, Humber, etc, etc … it was Santana and his contract for Gomez and his, Humber and his … I may sound like I’m repeating the sentiment of others here, and quite frankly, I am. But, I mean, it’s not exactly rocket science. The Mets will now pay a ridiculous amount of money for the service of Johan Santana, arguably the best pitcher in the game. He’ll almost undoubtedly be the best player in this deal and he’s easily the only sure thing, if such a player exists. But the Twins, a smaller market team, now add a few solid prospects to the fold. If they can get 5 or 6 years of averageish production out of a couple of them, the Twins are going to make out pretty well.

At the same time, I don’t mind the deal for the Mets either. I’ve discussed the whole sweet spot thing here before, but essentially the Mets help to (virtually .. kinda, sorta) lock up a playoff spot with the move, as well as increase their chances greatly in the playoffs. Even if the Mets lose out in the long run on this deal (which is not necessarily likely), the immediate impact may well be worth it. For me, the deal seems like a pretty fair one, but that doesn’t always sell papers or page clicks, I guess.

There is, of course, the idea that the Twins didn’t get as much as they could have — well, I’m not into the whole rumors thing. I mean, who knows how many of those proposed trades were legit, and how many were completely made up or simply incorrect. With the Twins’ success evaluating prospects over the years, I’m willing to at least give them some benefit of the doubt here. At least, I’m not willing to write a long piece criticizing the deal and then end up being way off(though, I will waste too many words criticizing the criticizers).

***

Courtesy of Dan Fox, here’s a stat related article from mlb.com writer, Marty Noble. Noble, at least as I see it is largely on the right track. He wants to adjust rbi for opportunity, yet as Dan says, he’s not really using the proper adjustment for opportunities (he’s using at bats). This isn’t news to most of you guys, but one player could have more runners on base than another, even after you adjust the rbi statistic for at bats. Noble closes with this:

OBP, OPS, et al, are the ingredients in the recipe for offense. Runs are the meal.

Well, yes and no. Sure, runs are the only thing that matter in the end. But estimating runs contributed for an individual isn’t as easy as adding his rbi and runs (even after “adjusting for ab’s”). Just think about it. A player hits a single and then scores on a triple. Did he really create a run there? No, he created a single and his teammate did the rest. He should get some fraction of a run created. Or take a grand slam. The player gets 4 rbi and a run scored. That’s 5 “runs created” when his team only actually has 4 runs. A little thought will surely display the inadequacies of rbi/runs, but there’s really nothing new I can say here that you haven’t already heard. It’s nice to see this guy at least explore something different and explain his thought process. Perhaps, a few of his readers will exchange some more emails with him, and we’ll see some progress.

Also, I should mention that in some rare cases, like some pure value added approach, rbi and runs may be what you’re looking for … but I don’t think that was the case here.

***

Lengthy thread on the UT board about Khalil Greene. If you get past the usual message board bs, there’s a lot of good conversation in there (at least in the parts I’ve skimmed). My thoughts on the issue are generally wrapped up in here, so I won’t comment much, other than to say that it’s interesting to see how many people love discussing Mr. Greene.

Also, David Pinto ran the Padres through his lineup tool. He’s got them at about the same as last year. It’s hard to believe that there’s a .49 runs per game difference between the best and worst lineups (that’s almost 80 runs on the year), but that’s what the tool says. Perhaps because they’re each so extreme, it is possible. I don’t know. Pinto also mentions Greene and his home/road splits …

***

PECOTA’s are up. In nonsensical fashion, I’ve got the monthly BP subscription (which is like $20 more a year than the year version), so I’ll have to wait until they update the player cards to see the projections. Remember that while PECOTA is probably the best system out there, all of the advanced ones (and even not so advanced) are pretty darn close. After looking at those results, you’ve got to wonder how the Roto Times is doing their projections.

Staying on the projection theme — I believe I’ve neglected to mention it so far, but SG over at Replacement Level Yankees has a new projection system. It’s based on Marcels but makes various adjustments, like using more years, including park factors, and MLE’s. Fun stuff. We’ll have to see how it does next year.

***

This link is a few weeks old, but it seems appropriate with the latest top 100’s being thrown around. Anyway, RJ Anderson takes a look at prospecting over the last few years. Victor Wang (pdf — By the Numbers) has also been doing some interesting work in the area. Anyway, it’s not a particularly good method, but I may just continue my top prospects series sometime.

***

Well, that’s about it. I really can’t wait for some baseball this season. Last year, I had the stupid mlb.tv thing and I really didn’t enjoy that. Thankfully, I’m getting mlb extra innings this year, so I can actually properly watch a baseball game once again. Anyway, like 3-4 years ago, I used to literally watch like 6 hours of baseball every night. Not so much last season, but I think I’m ready to do that again : )  At this point, I may just live blog spring training games.

Oh, you want my Super Bowl Pick.

Packers 35, Pats 21

The title of this new little series is likely a misnomer — it will be about all of baseball (with a concentration on the Padres, as usual). Anyway, despite having no real talent for writing, I like doing it. So if I don’t have a post lined up, I may throw up a “Friar notes” (anybody have a better title?) post for that day, if I have anything (hopefully) interesting to say. It will generally be links to various stuff around the Web accompanied by my commentary. Rants, stats, links, unjustified opinions. Everything will be here. Not your cup of tea? That’s fine; please come back when I post something that interests you. Anyway, let’s get started.

Okay, there’s actually no Padres in this ….

Brian Bannister, now the Official Non-Padres Pitcher Not Named Pedro Martinez of Friarforecast.com, has a great interview up with Tim Dierkes of MLB Trade Rumors (it’s 3 parts). Here’s Brian:

Bannister: I think a lot of fans underestimate how much time I spend working with statistics to improve my performance on the field. For those that don’t know, the typical BABIP for starting pitchers in Major League Baseball is around .300 give or take a few points. The common (and valid) argument is that over the course of a pitcher’s career, he can not control his BABIP from year-to-year (because it is random), but over a period of time it will settle into the median range of roughly .300 (the peak of the bell curve). Therefore, pitchers that have a BABIP of under .300 are due to regress in subsequent years and pitchers with a BABIP above .300 should see some improvement (assuming they are a Major League Average pitcher).

Because I don’t have enough of a sample size yet (service time), I don’t claim to be able to beat the .300 average year in and year out at the Major League level. However, I also don’t feel that every pitcher is hopelessly bound to that .300 number for his career if he takes some steps to improve his odds - which is what pitching is all about.

That is a pretty solid overview of the DIPS issue from most angles. Of course, when a player talks like a stathead, I have to be overly critical for whatever reason. I mentioned it over at DS, but I think he confuses BABiP and plain old batting average later in the interview. If you look to the invaluable Baseball Reference, you can see splits by counts (under … “counts”).

Glancing through a few years of splits, there does appear to be a slight (negative) correlation between more strikes in the count and a lower BABiP. But it’s nothing like what Bannister says. That’s because he’s looking at batting average in general, and that will be lower on two strike counts because batters can strike out. Anyway, I kinda feel like a jerk because he’s clearly a bright guy and the interview is great, but it’s not like he’s going to read this anyway. By the way, Bannister’s BABiP so far is .259 (in only 203 innings). Also, his theory about getting ahead of hitters as a way to beat the average BABiP still may be true because of the splits I referenced above. Well, like I said, I’m nitpicking. It’s a great interview from an extremely bright kid.

Patriot has posted the first part of a little series on OPS. It should be noted (as he of course does) that the actual calculation of OPS+ (as used on Bref) isn’t OPS/lgOPS — it’s 100 * (obp/lgobp + slg/lgslg - 1). Take a .300/.400/.500 hitter in a .260/.330/.435 context. A straight OPS (ops/lgops) adjustment would be 118. The way it’s done on Baseball Reference gets you 136 (if I did those calculations right). And I believe that makes sense … from Patriot’s article:

Here we can see that OPS has a 2:1 relationship to runs scored. If you are 5% better than the league average in OPS, you will be approximately 10% better in runs scored per out (and, by extension, in runs scored). On the other hand, OPS+ has an almost 1:1 relationship to runs scored.The practical implications of this are that if you see a player listed with an OPS+ of 125, you can interpret this as “the player is estimated to create 25% more runs/out than the league average.” It is of course an estimate, and it may not be as accurate as other estimates, but it does scale properly. 

So the 136 OPS+ means he created about 36% more runs per out than league average. The OPS/lgOPS will also say the same thing, as you multiply the 18 by 2. Just a little tidbit, if you were assuming Bref’s OPS+ was calculated differently. And Patriot’s series will be a must read, as always.

Yesterday John Walsh looked at the Fans’ Scouting Report vs. his arm rating. The Fans’ Scouting Report allows fans to fill out a ballot on the players they watch. They can rate their arms by strength, accuracy, and release. Walsh’s arm rating is explained here. One thing to note, I think, is that Walsh’s arm rating inherently considers an outfielder’s speed/fielding ability (how quickly he can get to the ball). The Fans are asked for release, but I’m guessing they’re not considering the time in which the player takes to track down the ball. So that could be one small area that accounts for some of the disparity between the two numbers.

But, anyway, after Walsh lowers the cutoff for opportunities, he gets a pretty high correlation. He also notes at the end that all of the Fans’ Scouting Report components correlate quite well with each other, which is kind of interesting:

What I guess might be happening is that fans are able to judge a player’s overall throwing skill, but they tend to give a good thrower high scores in all three categories and conversely for poor throwers. They are not able to judge independently the three different throwing categories. That’s my hypothesis anyway.

Anyway, evaluating an outfielder’s throwing arm may be another perfect area for scouting data and stats to come together and produce the best overall estimate.

And to leave you in the most random fashion possible: got linked to this thread over at Baseball Analysts somehow (it’s an older one). You can see Mr. Kevin Goldstein’s infamous line that I have remarked about before (I’m not sure that it’s actual infamous, but it is to me): “there’s only two prospect lists that matter: Baseball America’s and my list.”

He thinks that other people are just regurgitating the info that he and BA provide because they don’t have the same access. Okay, fair point. But it’s kind of like saying that the only stats that matter are the most basic ones because everything else is built off of them. Kevin Goldstein’s ability to gather “information” (other scouts’ opinions) doesn’t really make him qualified to rank prospects any more than the next guy. Perhaps, somebody can take Goldstein’s info and add something to it, and create a much better list. Now, does that list matter?

You can look at any of BA’s top 100’s and see that there’s a ridiculous amount of uncertainty involved in these things (which I why I generally hate them; yes, I know I did one … but I admit that it will end up looking terrible, rather than just pushing it aside and throwing up another list next year). I don’t mind saying that BA’s and BP’s prospect lists are the best out there. To me, though, it’s just ridiculous to come off with the attitude that Goldstein comes off with. By the way, I’m not bringing up old scouts vs. stats debates here. That’s over to me (if it ever existed). Scouts provide a great amount of information and are extremely valuable in prospect evaluation. It’s not even fathomable to say otherwise (how would you separate a couple of high schoolers without them?).

Anyway, to me, “prospecting” is largely BS … I mean, especially when the people doing it can’t admit that it’s a little skill, a little luck, some variables that count be accounted for, and multiple other things. Are the lists fun to talk about? Sure. Are they valuable? Sure. But let’s not overstate it.

Also, from the BP interview linked in the Baseball Analysts column above (okay, it’s right here): Will Carroll says there’s NO WAY Brandon Wood is 6′2” or 6′3”. He’s 6′1” max 

He met him once.

I was, for the most part, not connected to the ‘net for the last week. Tough times. Anyway, not a whole lot of Padres news of late, so this is kind of a random/link post of stuff that’s happened over the last week or so.

Goose Gossage is in the hall of fame. The hall is one of the things I’ve given very little attention to in my online “writing.” For me, it’s just tough to tell, in many cases, who should or shouldn’t be in the hall. Anyway, Gossage is probably a borderline guy, so I don’t really have a problem with him getting in. He had a 126 ERA+in 1809 career innings. By itself, that isn’t overly impressive, but when you add in the fact that a lot of those innings came in high leverage situations, it probably adds quite a bit to Gossage’s case.

My interest isn’t so much with Gossage as it is with some others on the ballot. If you read a lot of stat-oriented blogs, I’m sure you’ve heard a lot of support for Bert Blyleven and Tim Raines. Well, I’m right there with them … I’m sure I don’t have anything to add to the conversation, but I’ll babble on a little bit anyway. 

It’s hard for me to see a real good case against Blyleven. The thing I’ve heard most, and I don’t follow this HOF debate closely at all, is that he didn’t have a good peak and/or he was a compiler. I just, um, don’t see it. I think it’s largely based on his win-loss records, but as we know, that’s very much a team stat and largely out of a starter’s control. Blyleven was pretty awesome from the start of his career (1970) until about 1978. He added many good to great years after that, which is really why I think he’s so tough to overlook. Anyway, take a look at, say, 1973. Here are his rankings in some statistical categories, courtesy of b-ref:

ERA: 2
ERA+: 1
Innings: 4
k/9: 3
bb/9: 2

How is that not dominant? And it wasn’t just 1973. He was in the top 5 in ERA+ 7 times. He was in the top 5 in k’s 12 times. Now, I’m not going to start cherry picking random stats here. K’s, imo, shouldn’t really have too much weight in HOF voting. Wins are the name of the game. It’s just that we can’t use a pitcher’s w-l record to estimate how many wins he actually contributed because of the nature of the stat. Blyleven played on a lot of mediocre teams and still managed to put up a respectable mark. ERA+ misses the boat in some respects (defense, hit sequences, etc), but over the long haul, it should sort guys out pretty well. Since a pitcher has virtually no control over his own team’s offense, why penalize him for it? This guy was one of the best pitchers of his era when it comes to preventing runs. He also did it for a long time. You can call him a compiler, but he was a damn good one.

Tim Raines is another interesting guy. I’m not really blown away by his numbers, in terms of being a lock hall of famer, but when you put everything together, I think he has a pretty good case. He ended up with a career .294/.385/.423 line (that’s a 123 OPS+). Of course, that ignores one of his greatest strengths: baserunning. Take a look at Dan Fox’s recent post utilizing his baserunning metric. Raines ranks right there with Willie Wilson and Rickey Henderson in overall baserunning, thanks in large part to his base stealing proficiency. Most statheads would tell you that steals are overrated. That’s because, by and large, most players stolen base percentage isn’t that much higher than the break-even point. Essentially, they add little extra value from all of the extra noise on the base paths. However, since Raines was so efficient at stealing bases (85%), this doesn’t so much apply to him. And it’s not like he didn’t run often. If you say 650 PA’s is a full year, Raines attempted about 60 steals a year. I heard one argument that he didn’t steal enough because he was too worried about trying to preserve his great stolen base rate. Well, yeah! He didn’t simply run wild (in search of, oh, raw stolen base records). He must have been great at picking his spots. This is a credit to him and not so much a criticism, at least to me.

Raines definitely isn’t a inner circle type, and I don’t think Blyleven is either. But both players should be in, imo. It’s looking liker Blyleven has a pretty good shot, but Raines has a long way to go. Rich, Tom, and co … get going.

I mean, take a look at Jim Rice. His OPS+ is 128 (a whopping 5 points higher than Raines’). Batting runs has Raines at 333 and Rice at 295, largely due to Raines’ superior base stealing efforts and his slightly longer career. There are no play by play defensive metrics that go back that far, but BP has Raines at -34 defensive runs (below average) and Rice at -54. If Rice and Raines were a few percentage points apart, then I’d say no big deal. But Rice has him beat by like 50 percentage points.

Okay, I thought I didn’t talk much about the hall. Here’s some other stuff.

John Walsh checks in with the best outfield arms. John likes to write this article every year, and I like to read it. Great stuff. He looks at all important throwing situations that outfielders are faced with (single with runner on 1st, etc.) and comes up with a runs above/below average figure for each player. It’s also interesting how he serparates kill rate and hold rate. For instance, Andruw Jones was great at holding runners (126 hold+), but terrible at throwing them out (56 kill+). John thinks that he may be living off of a good reputation at this point. But what about the opposite side … runners know he still has a great arm, so they didn’t take the extra base often. Jones, for whatever reason, just wasn’t great at nailing them when they did decide to go. I’m guessing further research by guys like Walsh will answer more questions about what makes an arm great (or, at least, what numbers to look for). For the Padres, Mike Cameron was average in center. Brian Giles was terrible in left at -11.6 runs per 200 opportunities. He was awful in kills and toward the back of the league in holds, as well.

The A’s traded Nick Swisher for three prospects. Goldstein had de los Santos at 1, Gonzalez at 2, and Sweeney at 7. Looks like a pretty good haul for Beane and the retooling A’s. Then again, Swisher is a pretty darn good player too. The Sox have him for the next 3 years. Looks like a relatively fair deal to me, although you have to admire the way Beane is not afraid to make trades like this.

Thanks to Geoff Young’s constantly updated links, I found out that Tony Gwynn hit .402 over a 162 game stretch. Neat stuff.

Baseboogle is an interesting idea. Using googles search engine, you can search through a bunch of hand picked baseball analysis sites.

On a similar topic, Geoff Young’s Padreblogs.com is a great idea. The count is now at 24. The coolest part is the new addition that shows when that particular blog was last updated. Awesome.

That’s it for now … I’ll will post more when I go back to college at the end of this month. Until then, expect only semi-frequent updates from me … unless, of course, I think of something interesting to write about.