On Monday I wrote an article at The Hardball Times about Luke Gregerson and his rise to success in the Padres bullpen. Check it out.

I am writing weekly at THT now, and I’m thrilled about that opportunity. As longtime readers know, I have been a huge fan of THT over the years. Much thanks to those who made it happen.

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At View From the Bleachers, a Cubs blog, I take a look at Ted Lilly’s trade value, along with bloggers from other teams with potential interest in Lilly. In the end, I conclude:

Who would we be willing to give up for Lilly’s services? I’d be comfortable trading one B and maybe a throw-in a C prospect, per John Sickels ratings. So, for example, one of either 2B Logan Forsythe or 3B Edinson Rincon and a standard Grade C prospect (maybe a Dexter Carter or Craig Italiano, both RHPs).

Read the whole post for my complete (relatively brief) analysis and to see what everyone else had to say.

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Finally, don’t forget about the Padres Trade Deadline Primer, which you can read about here and purchase here. Check out this free preview to gauge your interest.

The San Diego Padres 2010 Trade Deadline Primer is here. You can purchase the e-book for $9.95. And, before purchasing, you can view a “quarterbook” preview for free.

Here’s the skinny:

Whether you’re a Padres fan, a baseball expert or a fantasy baseball guru, this is your reference guide to the 2010 trading season. Written by Myron Logan of Friar Forecast and a host of experts from other teams, this 160+ page e-book provides all the info you’ll ever need:

- Foreword by Rob Neyer of espn.com

- Summaries of what every other team is looking to do at the deadline, including how it could help your fantasy team

- 150+ easily referenced trade targets with breakdowns

- 120+ impact prospects

- Essays about what other team in the NL West may be focusing on.

Order now and you’ll receive your copy within minutes!

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been working with the folks at TwinsCentric and a bunch of excellent team-bloggers from around the league on a special, mid-season project, a trade deadline primer. There are 30 versions of the e-book, one for every team. Each time one of the Friar Forecast versions sell, I’ll receive 50 percent of the profit with the other 50 percent going to the guys who put the entire thing together. Here’s my sales pitch:

1. It’s a really excellent publication, and I think $9.95 is a great deal for 160+ pages of content from some of the best baseball writers in cyberspace. You get a rundown on every team, a special focus on the Padres, lists of players available at the deadline, potential impact prospects, a fantasy angle, national essays, and a foreword by Rob Neyer, plus much more.
2. I’ll be using it throughout the trade season. It is a really handy resource for all things trade deadline.
3. If sales go reasonably well, I’ll definitely consider putting together an e-book in the off-season, such as a Padres preview or something along those lines.
4. All profit I receive will very likely go back into blogging related activities. Baseball books, subscription Websites, maybe even MLB Extra Innings again next year.

Seriously, consider it. If you can’t make the purchase at this time, that’s certainly understandable, but I think you’ll be happy with the product if you do.

If you do purchase and you like it, don’t be shy about spreading the word to others who may be interested, be it online or in real-life.

Feel free to ask any related questions in the comments.

Over the past few weeks I have been working on a  San Diego Padres Trade Deadline Primer, organized by the folks at Twins Centric.

In short, it’s an e-book that focuses on the trade deadline for all 30 teams, includes prospects to watch, players that might be traded, additional essays, and a foreword written by Rob Neyer. It’s an excellent resource for all of your trade deadline needs. I’ve contributed the Padres chapter, which includes an overview of the season to date, grades by position, trade targets, a relatively lengthy  essay on the “ideal trade candidate,” and more.

The e-book is set to go on sale Sunday night, for $9.95. Soon, when I have all the details, I’ll put together a more comprehensive post telling you more about the e-book and where you can purchase it, if interested.

For now, I just wanted to give you a heads up.

Earlier last month, Friar Forecast turned three years old. Since the blog (in its current state) made its debut in June 2007, there has been only one month in which it did not see an update (September 2008). Overall, we have had 712 posts, good for an average of about 24 per month.

I just know you want to see that in graphical form:

Seriously, though, when I started this blog as a freshman in college, I had no clue that it would be around three years later*. And if you read some of my early posts, you probably had the same doubts. We have certainly come a long way since then, and I like to think the coverage we are providing now is on par with the best of the Padres blogs and websites in all of cyberspace. If not, we’ll get there.

Thanks to *everyone* who has been a reader or helped us out in any way. Here’s to another three years!

*Big thanks go out to Daniel, who has run this blog for the past 15 months and really kept it alive.

We are always looking for ways to improve the site.  Perhaps the most obvious way to do that is to upgrade the content.

With that in mind, we would love to add some new contributors to the mix.  We are open to adding people on either a “guest post,” arrangement or a more permanent basis.

We do not care if you have lots of blogging experience, or no blogging experience.  We just want to add more quality content.

If you have a desire to contribute to Friar Forecast in any capacity, please contact me by sending an email via the “contact” button on the top menu.

by Daniel Gettinger

In Yesterday’s San Diego Union Tribune, Nick Canepa wrote an article titled: Baseball Has Lost Some Charm. The article is utter hogwash, best characterized by passages such as:

The Grand New Game — if that’s what you want to call it (I prefer the old one) — is being overanalyzed into embalmment. Baseball history always has been driven by stats, which is why the steroid era has smacked it in the mouth and it’s still bleeding. But we never knew what an OPS or UZR or any of these other geek formulas were. And, if we didn’t know, the real ballplayers didn’t know. They didn’t need to. They just went out and played.

AND

Baseball remains a marvelous sport, unlike any other, but please don’t tell me it hasn’t lost part of its charm. It has been laundered by too many statistics, too many Ph.Ds, and too much money has nearly washed it clean of characters.

The article is one that most Friar Forecast readers will dislike.  I do not feel the need to analyze it in depth (Melvin has already done that). However, the piece got me thinking.  Not about baseball, and its loss of charm, but rather, about how often we (the blogs) criticize the mainstream media, yet rarely reflect on our own shortcomings.

The biggest issue with blogs is there is more crap than quality.  In few areas is this more evident than in our own Padres community.

Geoff Young has been generous enough to maintain PadreBlogs.com, a listing of all current Padres related blogs.  At the moment, there are 38 Padres blogs listed on the site.  That’s right, 38 unique Padres blogs.

Of those 38 blogs, I see less than a handful that are worth a regular read.

The Padres blogs can be broken down into a few categories: analysis, community, and personal–blogs whose main purpose is to provide the author an outlet for experimentation with writing.  Some blogs fit into more than one category.

I have no problem with the personal blogs.  Although they do not typically interest me, they are generally unassuming.  If someone feels like experimenting with writing, and chooses to focus on their favorite baseball team, that’s fine with me.  I don’t need to read the stuff, but typically, these types of blogs do not badger me to read the stuff.

Analysis blogs are okay.  The biggest issue is there are too many of them.  There are a few “leaders;” analysis blogs with a somewhat sizable following, and then a whole lot of others.  Many of these blogs post very similar commentary as the others.

Such disaggregation is a disservice to readers.  It is difficult to follow so many blogs, and interacting in a meaningful way (one of the advantages offered by blogs) with authors on so many different sites is near impossible.  I encourage authors of analysis blogs to consolidate.  Such consolidation often leads to higher quality articles as there is less pressure to churn out consistent posts when there are numerous authors at a single site.  It also allows readers to get their commentary in less time and without as much effort.

About a year and a half ago, I chose to take my writings from my individual blog to Friar Forecast.  It made sense for me, and it made sense for my readers.  I realize there are reasons to remain independent, so I do not expect complete consolidation within the analysis blogs sphere.  But there should be more than there currently is.

Another issue with analysis blogs is many don’t offer actual analysis.  Some merely offer game recaps and other Padres news.  The mainstream media does a great job reporting Padres and baseball news.  Blogs add value by providing additional analysis that does not require insider access.  There is no reason for a blog to exist if it is only linking or summarizing what has already been written by traditional reporters.

Switching gears…

I cannot stand almost every one of the community based blogs. I don’t deny the value of having one or maybe two strong community sites.  Having more than that is completely unnecessary.

Gaslamp Ball has been around for a while, has a large, active community of fans, and through the SBN platform has the infrastructure to allow those fans to interact in a number of ways.  I see no reason anybody should start a similar blog/community.  Such communities are subject to network effects.  Their value increases as more people use them.  Given Galsamp Ball is doing such a good job in that area, the formation of new communities is pointless.  Unless of course the founder of the new site just wants an ego boost.

As readers and writers of blogs, we often forget that blogs are not perfect.  The shear quantity and duplicity of blogs, even within our own Padres community is daunting and unnecessary.  I encourage consolidation by those providing real analysis.  Those who think forming new “Padres communities” that merely link to other articles, provide underwhelming analysis, and badger us on Twitter and Facebook to join their community is a good idea, should ask themselves why?  Why flood the market with a product that is already available at a higher quality?  Why not participate in an already existing community?

by Myron Logan

Gaslamp Ball celebrates its fifth anniversary today, and I’d like to congratulate them on that accomplishment. I don’t know the exact number, but I’d have to guess that, maybe, 2-3% of sports blogs reach five years. If anything, that number is probably high.

With GLB, it has been five years of quality Padres blogging, which makes the feat that much more impressive.  Seriously, though, to run a high-quality (if, at times, offbeat) blog for that long is quite an accomplishment. This blog has been around for almost three years, and it really feels like forever sometimes.

On a personal note, GLB, along with Ducksnorts, have probably given us more readers than anyone over the years, so yeah, thanks for that too.

Here’s to five more years …

by Daniel Gettinger

Special thanks to Melvin for designing our new logo.  It really looks great!

by Daniel Gettinger

Recently, we were asked to join the Yardbarker Network.

Yardbarker is a network of sports blogs.  It contains over 100 personal athlete blogs, as well as team specific and general sports blogs.  Yardbarker has recently partnered with Fox Sports/MSN to begin syndicating content from network blogs on their sites.

We have decided to join the Yardbarker Network in an effort to expand our readership. The quality of discussion that takes place on Friar Forecast has been great, and we hope that by expanding our readership, those discussions will become even richer.

Although we are joining the Yardbarker Network, Friar Forecast remains an independent blog.  The content of the site will be completely unaffected.

To conform with Yardbarker regulations, we will have to make a few design adjustments:

1) As you may have already noticed, there is now a Yardbarker navigation bar at the top of the site.

2) A Yardbarker widget has been added to the side-bar underneath the recent comments.  This widget contains links to Padres related articles on other sites and blogs.

3) We are forced to include some advertisements.  I have been assured that the ads will be unobtrusive.  The ads are not being introduced in an attempt to monetize the site. Rather, they are merely a requirement of joining the Yardbarker Network.

It may take us a few weeks to get the site design straightened out.  Please be patient as we make the necessary adjustments, and get the site looking as good as possible given the introduction of the new features.

If you have any suggestions on site-design, please let us know.  I have very little (basically zero) web-design experience, so any tips/advice would be highly appreciative.

We are hopeful that our relationship with Yardbarker will help enhance the community experience here at Friar Forecast, and are excited to be joining the network!

by Myron Logan

Okay, so I mentioned it in yesterday’s post, and I’ve been thinking more and more about re-subscribing to Baseball Prospectus, which announced some changes on Monday.

The short back story: I found out about Baseball Prospectus somewhere around 2004 after reading Moneyball. I quickly bought one of their annual books and subscribed to the online content. I was hooked. BP was essentially my Bill James, piquing my interest in sabermetrics and a deeper understanding of the game. Articles by Nate Silver, Dan Fox, and Keith Woolner (among  others) were always insightful, entertaining, and thought-provoking. Not to mention, I had access to PECOTA and the rest of the stable of solid BP writers. $40? That was a bargain.

Somewhere in the last few years, however, I realized myself visiting BP less and less often. $40 a year still was not breaking the bank, but was it worth it for something I rarely used? Nate Silver left the site for his political endeavors, Keith Woolner joined the Indians, and Dan Fox similarly found himself in an MLB front office. It is a credit to BP that about half of their stats-based authors seem to eventually get scooped up by MLB teams, but it also left an unfilled hole in their content.

Now, it seemed to me at this time, BP made a concerted effort to become more “mainstream,” to appeal to a wider audience. They had gained tremendous popularity through the years, and were now serving a broader demographic of people, with maybe only a small percent really caring about which pythagorean win estimator worked best. This was fine, and probably a good business decision, but it did not really appeal to my specific tastes.

At the same time, it seemed like sabermetric writing was popping up all over the net. The Hardball Times was as good as ever, Beyond the Boxscore had been rejuvenated, FanGraphs added a writing element to complement their great stats section, and Tango’s Inside the Book Blog was being updated daily. There were more, too, like Baseball Analysts and Statistically Speaking, not to mention countless team-based blogs.

With all that considered, I let my subscription run out, and have gone without it for a good year or so. Say, for instance, you are an avid bowler, and you have three local alleys to choose from. Two are free, and one is two bucks a game. If the one happens to be vastly superior to the other two, then maybe you will fork up the extra $2 dollars to bowl there. But if the three alleys are essentially equal, well, in time you are probably going to quit going to the one that costs money, and spend your time at the free ones. That is basically what happened. BP shifted their content away from what I wanted, and other sites emerged or improved to fill the void. And my mom saved $40 a year.

In Kevin Goldstein’s announcement, however, it appears that BP is going to again put a much stronger emphasis on pure sabermetrics, with the additions of guys like Russell Carleton/Pizza Cutter (whose work has been featured primarily at StatSpeak) and Colin Wyers (StatSpeak and The Hardball Times). Both guys are super active in the saber-community; they are smart, creative, and they write well. BP has also brought in Tommy Bennett (Beyond the Boxscore) and Jeff Euston (proprietor of Cot’s Contracts), adding to a group of saber writers that also includes recently hired Eric Seidman (graduating from about eight different baseball sites) and Matt Swartz.

To get back to my original question, is this form of Baseball Prospectus worth $40, when I can still get a bunch of analysis, research, and stats for free at the above-mentioned sites? That is certainly an individualized question; personally, I am not sure yet, but the decision is harder than it was a few days ago. What is your take?