A primary reason for the San Diego Padres’ success this season has been the strength of the team’s fielding.

The Padres rank first in the majors in UZR/150 and third in Dewan’s Defensive Runs Saved.

Leading the charge has been the centerfield tandem of Tony Gwynn and Scott Hairston who have combined for approximately 7 runs above average according to both metrics.

Because of the severe sample size issues associated with fielding statistics, I do not want to discuss any more individual performances, but collectively the Padres have played 1620 defensive innings (180 9-inning individual games).  That is a somewhat more meaningful sample, and provides some reason to be optimistic about the Padres’ fielding going forward.

The bullpen is good (fourth in reliever’s RAR).  The fielding appears to be a strength.  If the team could get a bit more production out of their starting pitchers (currently ranked 23rd in starter’s RAR), the Padres could be one of the major league’s best run prevention teams.  And that’s not even considering the impact of Petco Park.

In recent weeks, I have published a number of articles that have cautioned against overly raising expectations for this Padres team.  Although I have consistently stated that the San Diego Padres are probably around a 0.500 team (which is nothing to be ashamed of), such talk has elicited murmurs that I might not even be a Padres fan!

In this week’s Yardbarker Power Rankings, I did my best to put aside all questions about my Padres fanhood. Despite my belief that the Padres are a 0.500ish team going forward, I ranked the Padres 12th!

Okay, I guess 12th isn’t that high.   The Padres’ overall rank in the standings was tenth–suggesting that I, a Padres fan, am a tad more pessimistic about the team than the average voter.  There are thirty major league teams, so a team with 0.500 talent should probably be placed somewhere between ten and twenty, but hey, twelfth is a start, and a serious jump from the 21 spot that I had the team in last week.

Here was how I ranked the NL West (Yardbarker rank in parentheses):

7. Colorado Rockies (8): Miguel Olivo would be pretty darn good if he ever learned to take a walk.

8. Los Angeles Dodgers (15): Billingsley has a 5.40 ERA, but a 3.79 FIP that is consistent with his career numbers. He will be fine.

12. San Diego Padres (10): The Padres have one of the best records in the National League, but this is a 0.500 team at best.

13. San Francisco Giants (7): Jonathan Sanchez and Sergio Romo combined to hold San Diego to one hit–a single–on April 20. But it wasn’t good enough for the win, as the Padres became only the 15th team since 1920 to win a game with a mere single.

21. Arizona Diamondbacks (22): Thanks to a ridiculously unsustainable HR/FB rate (37%), Kelly Johnson has 7 home runs. Johnson is a solid enough hitter, but his fantasy owners should enjoy this while it lasts.

Other Thoughts…

• The Red Sox still rank 14th?  Um, yeah….
• The NL West has four teams in both the Yardbarker top 15, as well as my personal top 15.  Its something that doesn’t sound right, but is not completely ridiculous.  The NL West has a lot of average to slightly above average teams, and those teams get to play each other a lot.  The NL West is deep, it just doesn’t have a great team.
• The Orioles, at 3-16, are the last ranked team in the Yardbarker rankings.  I cannot blame the other voters for ranking the Orioles last because their record is that bad.  But Baltimore is not really the worst team in the league.  They have played a brutal schedule.
• The Rays are first, and the Yankees second in the Yardbarker rankings.  I have those two teams flipped. The difference is not significant, but it does highlight my belief that we should weight our pre-season predictions heavier than actual on-field performance at this point in the season.  I felt the Yankees were the best team prior to the season, and with only one more loss than the Rays so far, I see no reason to change my mind.

As of this writing, the San Diego Padres are tied for the best record in the National League at 11-7.  The Padres’ nice start has generated a good amount of optimism amongst fans.  The Padres are a decent enough team, but nothing about their start should surprise people.  That a team we expected to win between 75-80 games has started 11-7 should not significantly change our expectations for the team going forward.

Last year, Sky Andrecheck outlined a simple method for updating pre-season predictions.  Essentially Andrecheck proposed comparing the pre-season win probability distribution with the in-season probability distribution.  The two distributions are then multiplied to determine our updated expectations.

Prior to the season, I predicted the Padres would win 80 games in 2010, a winning percentage of 0.493. Using Andrecheck’s method, we would expect the Padres to play 0.500 ball the rest of the season, and finish with 82.5 wins.

This chart shows just how little the updated distribution differs from the pre-season distribution…

If you expected the Padres to win only 75 games (a 0.463 win percentage) prior to the season, you would expect them to go 0.470 the rest of the way…

The Padres are off to a nice start, but it is nothing out of the ordinary for a team expected to compete at a slightly below 0.500 level.  The Padres are still the same team we thought they were prior to the season. They just happen to temporarily be occupying first place.

*Note: This type of analysis is somewhat sensitive to the level of variance surrounding each of the distributions.  However, I tested to ensure my results were robust to different standard deviations.  They were.

The San Diego Padres defeated the San Francisco Giants this evening in a game in which they only recorded one hit.

According to Baseball-Reference’s play index, 36 teams have won a game with only one hit since 1920.

14 of those teams accomplished the feat with a single.

3 teams accomplished the feat exactly like the Padres: one single, three walks.

2 teams did it with one single and less than three walks.

1 team, the 2002 Seattle Mariners did it with one single and one walk.

Yup, the play-index is fun!

After only twelve games it is hard to make many assumptions or judgments as to the fate of the 2010 San Diego Padres’ farm teams. One thing I can say is that at this early point in the season the pitchers are well ahead of the hitters. That said, here is a look at some positives, negatives, and other observations twelve games into the season.

Portland Beavers (5-7); 3rd place (1 GB)

Positives- Batting: Craig Cooper didn’t even make the opening day lineup. Since then has hit .375/.405/.650 while leading the team in RBI (10) and 2nd in RS (7). Too bad he is a 1B… Denorfria and Mike Baxter have also gotten off to hot starts each hitting over .370…Durango has been on base 16 times this season and has 9 SB.

Pitching: Carrillo (9.2 IP, 0.93 ERA, 1.03 WHIP) and Inman (10 IP, 2.70 ERA, 1.00 WHIP 9 K) are beginning to put themselves back on the prospect map while anchoring the rotation…The Beavers have 4 relievers Frieri, Webb, Worrell, and Burke each with WHIP’s under 1.00, while all having at least an 8 K/9 IP average.

Negatives- Offense: Lance Zawadzki was/is competing for a job in SD has only hit .205/.286/.227 thus far with 3 E and 15 K (44 AB). ..Cunningham and Durango have not been terrible but have not come close to the hype they deservedly received during ST. Both are hitting around .260 with a .300 OBP...Barfield was only 3-18 before being put on the DL.

Pitching: No real negatives outside of the ERAs of Leblanc (7.20) and Russel (11.57). Of course both have come to SD and been lights out.

Notes: The team is sorely missing Antonelli, as the 2B spot has not produced much of anything this year. 8 of the 12 games have been decided by the bullpen (4-4), Beavers are also 2-4 in games decided by 1 run.

Read the rest of this entry »

The week 2 power rankings are up at Yardbarker.  This was how I rated the NL West teams (Yardbarker rank in parentheses), along with my comments:

7. Colorado Rockies (9)-Jimenez’s no-hitter should help him get the recognition he deserves. He is a fantastic young pitcher.

9. Los Angeles Dodgers (14)-Aside from Kuroda, the starting pitching has struggled mightily. Billingsley and Kershaw are too talented for those struggles to continue much longer.

10. San Francisco Giants (6)-The pitching has been phenomenal, but the Giants are amongst the league leaders in runs scored as well.

21. San Diego Padres (24)-Chase Headley is showing why he was once the Padres’ top prospect. Kevin Correia is doing a good job proving his solid 2009 was no fluke.

22. Arizona Diamondbacks (16)-After a number of disappointing seasons, Chris Young is off to a solid start.

Here are some additional notes on the rankings:

• I may have overcompensated for the Giants hot start.  I think I will have them ranked lower than 10 next week.  That their average rank was 6 is still shocking to me.
• The Boston Red Sox fell to 13 in the Yardbarker rankings.  I had the Red Sox rated fourth this week.  As Joe Sheehan mentioned on Twitter: “1) A 4-9 stretch isn’t unusual for even a good team. 2) The Red Sox have played an above-average schedule to start the season.”  To the voters who ranked the Red Sox so low, I ask them whether they truly believe teams like the Giants, A’s, Marlins, Tigers, and Blue Jays are likely to defeat the Red Sox in a 7 game series if it started today.
• The New York Mets are not the third worst team in the majors.  I had them ranked 17th, and feel anything between 15 and 20 is fair.
• The Pittsburgh Pirates are not the 15th best team in the majors.  Their negative 22 run differential (yes, I realize its early to be talking about run differential) is more telling than their 7-5 record.

by Daniel Gettinger

At Ducksnorts Geoff writes:

Someone should check the data, but anecdotally it seems [Venable] hasn’t seen many fastballs since nearly hitting for the cycle in the home opener.

Using Joe Lefkowitz’s Pitch F/x tool, I was able to check the data.  It turns out, if anything, Will Venable has seen more fastballs since falling a double short of the cycle on April 12.

Up to and including April 12, Venable had seen 92 pitches.  59 percent of the pitches he faced were fastballs. After April 12, Venable faced 88 pitches.  65 percent of those 88 pitches were fastballs.  The difference is not statistically significant.

Its interesting how all too often our eyes deceive us when watching baseball.

by Daniel Gettinger

• As a team the San Diego Padres have performed pretty much as expected.  They are currently 6-6 with a slightly positive run differential.  I still think 75-80 wins is a realistic expectation for this team.
• Chase Headley has been locked in offensively, but his defense needs immediate improvement.  He has five errors in 32 chances.  UZR data is not yet available for this season, and even if it was, the sample would be too small to be meaningful.  But Headley’s defense has been so bad that much of his offensive value has likely been negated.
• Will Venable needs to stop swinging at so many pitches out of the strike zone.  He has swung at 34 percent of the pitches out of the zone.  His lack of plate discipline thus far has resulted in a minuscule 4.7 percent walk rate.  Venable has never shown a ton of plate discipline (in either the majors or the minors).  It is something he will need to work on if he wants to become an above average player.
• Perhaps last season was no fluke for Kevin Correia after all.  He’s looked pretty solid.
• Gregerson’s and Adams’ artificially high ERAs are not reflective of the way they have been pitching.
• The Padres bullpen has a lot of good pitchers.  I remain convinced the team will not miss Heath Bell too much once he is traded.
• Labrum surgery is not Tommy John surgery.  Many pitchers never fully recover after having labrum surgery.  They almost never come back stronger.  I hope we have not seen the last of Chris Young as an effective pitcher, but there is a non- trivial chance that might be the case.  (As an aside, I had labrum surgery four months ago, and can certainly understand what Young is going through.  At times the shoulder feels great, but often tightens up after being tested a bit).
• Mat Latos will be fine.  He has given up too many homeruns, but his 30 percent HR/FB rate is nowhere near sustainable.  Braden Looper had the major league’s highest HR/FB rate last season (amongst qualified pitchers), and he was only at 15 percent.  With Latos pitching half of his games at Petco Park, he is highly unlikely to continue serving up home runs at such a high rate.
• Adrian Gonzalez is fantastic.  Nobody wants to pitch to him, and I don’t blame them.  Some team will get an excellent player and the Padres will be properly compensated for trading that excellent player.

by Daniel Gettinger

I was not impressed by San Diego Padres’ pitcher Clayton Richard yesterday.  Sure his results were adequate (5.1 IP, 5 K, 1 BB, 3 R), but he seemed to rely heavily on his all too hittable fastballs.

Pitch f/x shows that Richard threw some type of fastball nearly 83 percent of the time.  He threw 16 four-seamers, 23 cutters, and 28 two-seamers, compared to only 14 off-speed pitches.  I am not entirely positive, but just from scanning the game log, it does not appear that Richard was forced to throw his fastball because he was behind in the count.

Richard’s fastball speed is nothing spectacular, but it is not terrible either.  He throws his four-seamer and two-seamer between 90 mph and 94 mph, averaging approximately 91 mph.  His cutter is a bit slower, averaging 87 mph, with a max around 91 mph.  Generally speaking, he held his speed throughout the start.

The problem is Richard’s fastballs all that much movement.  With the exception of the two-seamer, they are pretty straight.

To illustrate this point, I put together some flight maps using the pitch f/x data.  The first map is the “birds-eye” view, and the second is the “first base” view..

For comparison, lets look at the fastball flight maps from Jake Peavy’s April 7 start against the Cleveland Indians.  Peavy’s fastball speed was approximately the same as Richard’s and like Richard, he threw a large number of four-seamers, two-seamers, and cutters..

A quick comparison of the flight maps shows that Peavy gets  more movement on his pitches than Richard. Of course, this is not surprising.  A large reason for Peavy’s success is that his pitches–even his fastballs–have a lot of movement.  What this comparison confirms is that Richard, as is, is unlikely to become more than a back of the rotation starter. His fastball has adequate speed, but it does not move enough to consistently fool major league hitters if he is throwing it 70 percent-80 percent of the time.  To improve, Richard needs to develop better off-speed stuff, or figure out a way to get more movement on his fastballs.

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?