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Though the rule 4 amateur draft may not receive as much national publicity as, say, the NFL variety, its importance is certainly understood in baseball circles. In an age where massive payroll disparities exist between franchises, the easiest way for financially-challenged teams – like the San Diego Padres — to compete is to out-draft, and out-develop, the big spenders.

Developing home grown talent is vital because a players first six years are spent under team control, at a tremendously discounted rate. Let us take, for example, an average player and estimate how much surplus value he’ll accrue in his first six years under team-control:

To clarify, we have an average (2 WAR) player. His Free Agent salary is estimated by multiplying his WAR by the marginal value of a win (~$4.5M in 2012 and escalating $.5M each year). His actual salary is estimated by near-minimum totals for his first three years, and then using the 40%-60%-80% scale, which models how much arbitration-eligible players are paid, when compared to their FA value.

So, if a team can draft and develop an average player, not at all a superstar, it is looking at $40+ million in surplus value over the players first six years – in other words, a tremendous asset to the organization. This is a player that will provide three years of average play for peanuts, and then another three years of average play at 60% of his market value. Overall, this club gets $69 million worth of production for $25.3 million. Add in a signing bonus, minor league salaries, and some developmental fees, and you’re still looking at a great value.

If a team can draft a star player like Evan Longoria, well, it is that much better off. Longoria has already netted the Rays some $50+ million in surplus value in his first two seasons. The Rays went on to sign Longoria to an extension that could be worth $44 million over nine years. They have their cornerstone player locked up at a very reasonable price, thanks to the draft and MLB’s salary dynamics.

Dollars and sense

The draft might sound perfect for its efforts in leveling the playing field between big market and small market franchises. That is its intent, but there is at least one small problem. There is no slot-requirement, and some players that may be top talents are bypassed by small market teams because of signability issues – teams are concerned that, after drafting the player, they won’t be able to sign him to a deal.

A good example is the 2007 draft. Back in the infancy of this blog, as Rick Porcello continued to go unselected (due to aforementioned $ concerns, not talent) , I was hoping the Padres would pick him at #23. The Padres passed, taking Nick Schmidt, who signed at estimated slot money — $1.26 million. Porcello fell into the hands of the Tigers five picks later, who signed for $3.58 million — $2.4 million above slot-recommendation.

Of course, I understood that the Padres were unlikely to take Porcello. After all, they weren’t the only team that passed on him, and they didn’t exactly have that kind of money to throw at a prep pitcher – even, a very good one. However, my theory went that, yes, they would be spending a few million dollars more than desired, but the potential value Porcello could provide later on would be well worth it.

Porcello debuted with the Tigers last year and, conveniently for this article, delivered a league-average season (1.9 WAR). He was worth approximately $8 million in surplus value. He has struggled a bit this season, but his peripheral numbers actually look fine (sans the K-rate), and the Tigers have a solid pitcher locked up under team-control.

It doesn’t work like that every time, kid

The draft is an inherently risky process. Trying to evaluate young players and project what they will become in four or five years is both art and science – and a lot of headaches. Sure, there’s a correlation between draft slot and WAR, but it isn’t a great one. There are no-brainers (A-Rod, Longoria, Strasburg), but there are also countless busts (ie, no-brainers that didn’t work out). The obligatory Matt Bush mentioned comes now.

The Padres may very well have thrown $3.6 million Rich Porcello’s way, if they knew exactly how he was going to develop. But, perhaps their analysis concluded that there was, maybe, a 40% or 50% chance that he wouldn’t give them any MLB value. In the end, maybe he was too risky. Nobody wants $3.6 million to go to waste, especially when there are plenty of other attractive options to choose from.

The draft is critical for all teams. But if the Padres – and other small-mid-level market teams – want to compete, it is almost essential that they draft and develop well. Producing home grown players would give the Padres a (cheap) core to build around, allowing them to add to it with some good trade acquisitions and solid free agent signings. The past era of Padres baseball has been filled with a mixed bag of drafts – some good, a lot not so good. But overall, they missed out too many times when they had a plethora of high picks.

It is critical that this regime not only evaluate talent well, but also not be afraid to spend the extra dollar. If the Padres are confident in their ability to evaluate a draft class – and they should be, with all the brainpower in the front office – then they shouldn’t be worried about spending that extra money. In the long run, it will be money well spent.

I haven’t done one of these in a while, and figured it was about time. If you’re wondering why my post rate has crept above replacement level recently, well, school is out, my baseball season is over, and I have a lot more time to think and write about Padres baseball. Secondly, I recently had minor surgery and thus my outdoor activities have been limited of late. I used to leave the basement at least once a day.  Hopefully, that at least provides a somewhat legitimate excuse for fiddling with PITCHf/x data on a Friday night. Hopefully.

The Padres are 29-20. Frankly, it is still somewhat hard for me to wrap my head around (I know, it shouldn’t be!) And it is not that I think this is a terrible team; no way. It’s just that I didn’t envision the best record in the NL after the month of May, even if things went really well.

The great thing is not only are the Padres playing well by wins and losses, their run differential is also tremendous at +41. Baseball Prospectus’s third order adjusted standings have them at 28-20 (not considering tonight’s win), still best in the NL. BP’s updated playoff odds report: 58% playoffs (basic), 31% (PECOTA-adjusted).

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Discovered some new Padres blogs recently – Padres Trail, Chicken Friars, Woe, Doctor. All worth checking out. If there are any others, let us know in the comments.

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Mike Lee posted an interview with Padres GM Jed Hoyer recently on FanGraphs’ Community Research Blog (a great idea, by the way). We are in good hands with Hoyer.

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Andy Seiler has a good discussion of second base draft prospects at his MLB Bonus Baby blog. That includes rumored Padres first round selection, Kolbrin Vitek:

Vitek’s tools are the most well-rounded of the second baseman group. He’s an above-average hitter with above-average raw power, and he’s a plus straight-line runner. While his hands and footwork at second base leave something to be desired, his quickness allows him to have adequate range to handle the position well.

Andy thinks he will move to third base or centerfield, long-term.

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MLG has a long primer on UZR at FanGraphs. I’ll admit, I don’t even think I’ve read it all yet. But it is worth a look if you’re interested in the inner-workings of the system.

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I’ve been surprised by the negatively surrounding new Padres play-by-play announcer Dick Enberg, evidenced at Gaslamp Ball, RJ’s Fro, and Avenging Jack Murphy. Unfortunately, I don’t (yet) have MLB Extra Innings, so I really haven’t heard much of Enberg. As far as I can tell, the main complaints are:

1. He isn’t biased. He uses his home run call, “touch em all”, when the opponent hits a home run, and he just generally does not seem to be rooting for the Padres and against the other team. There’s a fine line, I think. I don’t want my announcer to be complete homers like the White Sox’s, but you definitely want some bias, and you definitely want to hear some agony, reflecting that of the fan base, after a crushing late inning home run by the opposition.

2. He doesn’t seem overly familiar with the team/city/organization. This is a problem, I think, when you bring in a national announcer like Enberg. I really want my announcer to know the team inside-out, and that is tough to do on the fly.

3. He messes up names, miscalls plays, etc. This I can deal with, if it doesn’t happen at a horrible rate.

I’ve always liked Enberg as an announcer, though I actually don’t know if I’ve heard him call a baseball game. He does have a “big game feel” to him, as I’ve heard some people say, probably because of his voice and the fact that he’s announced so many big games. As far as his early tenure as the Padres announcer, it is obviously hard for me to judge, but it does not seem to be off to a great start.

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Geoff Young recently examined the Padres great start at The Hardball Times, concluding:

Even if the Padres cannot maintain their current pace (.591 WPct, or about 96 wins), they certainly appear to be better than the 75 wins I figured they’d notch this year. How much better will be a function of how far the pitchers regress. They got awfully high in two months. Four months is plenty of time to take a big fall.

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Also at THT, Nick Steiner takes an in-depth look at Braves starter Tommy Hanson. He uses PITCHf/x data to create similarity scores, which is pretty neat. Overall, a lot of good ideas about the future of projecting players.

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At The Sacrifice Bunt, Ray runs down some of the rather unattractive bats the Padres could potentially add.

Our friend Zach did an analysis of Clayton Richard’s 2010 success over at Gaslamp Ball. He says:

In 2009, Richard threw his 4-seamer 51.3% of the time, and the 2-seamer only 19% of the time. In 2010, he’s dropped his usage of the 4-seamer, throwing it only 23.8% of the time, and upped the use of the 2-seamer, now throwing it 35.6% of the time.
Richard has also increased the velocity of his 2-seamer. Where in 2009 he averaged 87.6 mph, this season he’s throwing it at an average of 91.2 mph.

Indeed, if you look at the PITCHf/x data, located on FanGraphs, that’s what comes out. Check out his usage, in 2009 vs. 2010:

It struck me a bit that he’d change his repertoire so much in one-offseason. What’s also striking is the speed of his two-seamer; it has jumped almost four miles per hour in one season, while his four-seamer – and basically the rest of his pitches – stayed at the same mph.

As I thought about this, it started to click that perhaps Richard’s pitch selection hasn’t changed that much, maybe the PITCHf/x algorithm has. I wanted to look at the raw PITCHf/x data to see if I could find anything.

The first graphs I’m going to show has horizontal movement on the x-axis and vertical movement on the y-axis, and the pitches are a different color based on their pitch type (as classified by MLBAM). Remember, the view is from the catcher’s perspective:

2010

2009

You can see the two and four-seamers clustered in the top right of the graph. In 2010 you can see the two-seamers have slightly more horizontal movement and slightly less vertical movement. What is revealing is if we remove two-seamers to get a better view.

2010

2009

Notice the range of the four-seamer, the circled purple triangles, is much wider in 2009. It looks like in 2009, the algorithm was very reluctant in calling a pitch a two-seamer. Most everything in that upper right hand corner was identified as a four-seamer. In 2010, however, it is much more equal – in fact, as you can see by the graph and the chart above, the two-seamer is now being identified more often than the four-seamer.

If we take the 2010 version of the pitch algorithm as the more accurate one, then it appears what happened in 2009 is that a lot of two-seamers were actually classified as four-seamers. So, in reality, Richard’s pitch selection has probably not changed that much – the pitch algorithm has.

And, indeed, it appears that is what has happened. In an email exchange – and here on the Hardball Times – Mike Fast explained to me that Ross Paul, the guy doing some of the behind the scenes work at MLBAM, is now using a neural networks to classify pitches. A neural net is specifically trained to identify pitches from each pitcher, and should theoretically be a more accurate way to classify a pitcher’s arsenal.

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I also created spin graphs for Richard, and while they may not add to the point of this article, I think they are still worth sharing.

2010

2009

Interestingly, it appears that the same thing may be going on with sliders and cutters. It appears that a lot of Richard’s pitches that were being classified as sliders last year are now being classified as cutters.

John Conniff is a senior writer for MadFriars.com, a webzine that covers the San Diego Padres minor league system, and a free-lance contributor to Baseball America and 619 Sports.net. As in the past, we caught up with him to get his impressions of the San Antonio missions on his trip to the Padres’ AA affiliate.

1) The first question has to be “Where is the offense?” The Missions are averaging 2.27 runs per game in May, and as a result are 2-9. This is an extremely talent laden lineup with more top prospects than any other Padre farm team, and yet they are posted next to nothing every day. Is there something in the water that could explain why Carroll, Clark, Kulbacki, Darnell, Canham, and Chalk are all hitting below .250?

John Conniff: I’ve written this before, but it is a really brutal park to hit in; even by PETCO standards. The wind comes in from either right-center or left and just swirls around effectively knocking anything back and keeping balls up long enough to be caught. The only guys who really have success offensively here are either players with line drive swings or that are just so big it doesn’t make a difference (Kyle Blanks).

Also more of these guys had big success at high-A and as well all know AA is the big separator; the pitching is just much better. Most of the pitchers can throw a couple pitches for strikes at any time in the count and you can’t always count on getting a fastball in a hitter’s count.
I think the jury is still out on Darnell and Logan Forsythe. People who watch the team on a regular basis liked what Darnell was doing before he injured his hand last week.

2) For the past few years we have heard about Luis Martinez as a great defensive catcher who has not produced offensively. Martinez has successfully knocked off Canham as the primary catcher, and is leading the Missions in most offensive categories. From what you have seen is Martinez someone who could be the future starting catcher for the Padres?

John Conniff: He had a nice season offensively in the Cal League last year and as you stated he is impressive defensively. At the plate he uses the whole field, especially going the opposite way and seems to have a good idea of what he is attempting to do every at-bat. Additionally this year he’s become a little more patient and has shown some potential. He has slowed down a little in May, but with his defensive skills as long as he can put the ball in play and keep getting on base he has a chance.

As for his chances in the future, it is still too early to tell; particularly in May. Catching is about surviving the season, particularly in the Texas League, and if he is still putting up the same numbers in August, I’ll be excited.

3) Is Cedric Hunter back? Being one of the only bright spots offensively, Hunter has been the catalyst and sadly only contributor for a lackluster offense. As sad as it is to say, with all the power hitters on the club, Hunter is leading the team in SLG (.425). While not great it is still nearly 100 points higher than last year. Are we finally seeing the “developing power” of Cedric Hunter?

John Conniff: I was surprised at how much Hunter had improved this year from the last. He is much shorter to the ball and more selective. Is he ready to go to San Diego now if someone gets hurt? No, but he is on the right path. This month his walks are up and his power numbers are about the same; he profiles more as a gap hitter than a power guy. He’s running a little more this year and he looked good out in center. His biggest challenge is to continue to refine what he is doing.

4) One of the reasons that the Padres were initially tentative about promoting Simon Castro to AA is they were afraid he would be overmatched by hitters. From what you saw, how did he look on the mound? Was he pitching inside?

John Conniff: Simon didn’t really have his best stuff on the day I saw him and still went seven innings and gave up only one unearned run in a no-decision; so he is pitching pretty well. He kind of has a unique delivery with a big sweeping three-quarter motion with a plus two-seam fastball to go along with a good slider.

At 6’5” and at least 225 lbs., he has good size and the day I saw him his velocity was sitting at around 88-93.

5) Aaron Poreda is putting up some nice numbers but is also allowing nearly two runners per inning. It doesn’t seem like the move to the pen has done much for him. What type of adjustments is the Missions staff trying to make to allow the pitcher with the stuff of an ace, be able to find home plate? What are the chances he eventually makes and becomes a mainstay in an MLB team’s rotation?

John Conniff: Mainly they are just trying to work on getting him to be consistent mechanically and trusting his plus fastball. He tries to be too fine with too many pitches, which they were really trying to hammer home in bullpen sessions. As for being a starter the Padres seem to believe he will have a better career out of the bullpen where he will only have rely on one or two pitches and won’t have to repeat his motion over longer periods of time.

6) The Missions have seven relievers that have the stuff to be a closer. Clearly the closers role went to Italiano, but the bigger question might be how does Doug Dascenzo determine who pitches the innings leading up to the 9th? Gomes, Scribner, DeMark, and Lara all have ERA’s below 2., and last year’s Storm closer, Bryan Oland, had a 1.80 ERA before getting roughed up his last start but still has an impressive 16 K in 9.1 IP. With such a dominating pen do they just draw names out of a hat?

John Conniff: Glenn Abbott, the Mission’s pitching coach, told me that coming into the season they looked upon it that they potentially had four closers; Italiano, Scribner, Oland and Gomes. Mike Saeger, the Missions play-by-play announcer, said that it is the best bullpen that he has seen in over twenty years of broadcasting minor league games. So it’s not just the park; all of them throw in the 90’s, throw strikes and have performed this year.

Right now Italiano is probably the top guy and might be able to really help San Diego with his velocity and three-quarter motion. It’s difficult to see right-handers having good at-bats against him.

“At some point, ownership has to lead the revenue,” Gerut said. “It doesn’t always occur where your players first start to win and then you start to build around it. Sometimes the ownership has to lead that first. There’s ancillary stuff that I probably know nothing about. I know sometimes that if you build it, fans will come. It doesn’t always have to work out the other way. You don’t always have to get guys at absolute steals in order to keep them.” – Jody Gerut, in a FanHouse article by Tom Krasovic

As the San Diego Padres have continued to surprise the baseball world with a National League best 28-18 record, the near constant questions of Adrian Gonzalez’s future have calmed. He’s a Padre, for now, and not many people are thinking about a deadline deal at this point. Gonzalez is still working on a fantastic – from San Diego’s perspective — four year, $9.5 Million deal, and is signed for $4.5M this year. The San Diego Padres have a $5.7M option for next year, which is the biggest no-brainer in all of baseball.

So, there is no rush. However, in terms of trade value, as each day passes, Gonzalez loses some. It all about surplus value – the value that a player brings in above and beyond what he is being paid. The two aspects that determine surplus value, then, are performance and salary. Take a look at the chart, an estimation of Gonzalez’s surplus value through the remainder of his contract:

I’m estimating Gonzalez as a 4.8 WAR player, currently, based on his performance since 2007. One could argue either way, but I think it is good enough for blog-work. Using $3.5M per marginal win in 2010 and $4M in 2011, we can estimate Gonzalez’s value on the free agent market ($10.9M for the rest of this season and $19.2 for all of next year). His surplus value is the difference between his estimated free agent worth and his actual contract, which comes out to $21.3M.

Read the rest of this entry »

This week I kept the San Diego Padres at ninth in my rankings.  The aggregate rankings at Yardbarker have the Padres at sixth, down from fifth last week.  Not too bad for a team ranked number 30 in the Yardbarker standings at the start of the season.

Here is how I had the NL West ranked (Yardbarker ranks in parentheses)…

8. Colorado Rockies (16): Scored 8 runs against Greinke in 3.1 innings.

9. San Diego Padres (6): The joy of interleague play: the Padres-Mariners ‘rivalry

10. Los Angeles Dodgers (9): Despite some terrible starting pitching, the Dodgers are only one game out of first.

14. San Francisco Giants (14): Does any team have better starting pitching? … hitting and relievers - not so much

25. Arizona Diamondbacks (22): Dan Haren (4.79 ERA) has given up a lot of homeruns. Otherwise, he has been the same pitcher he has always been.

Sorry, no time for additional comments this week.

The San Diego Padres starting rotation has been excellent so far. The numbers do not lie (all courtesy of FanGraphs):

FIP has been used here on countless occasions, but as a refresher it is a stat that uses three aspects of pitching that pitchers have a lot of control over – strikeouts, walks (plus hit batters), and home runs – to churn out a number that is “fielding independent” and corresponds to ERA.

xFIP is essentially the same thing, except for one very important factor. It takes a pitcher’s fly ball rate and then uses the league average homers/fly ball to determine how many home runs a pitcher “should” have allowed, because research has shown that home run rates are generally a product of fly balls allowed.

Alright, let’s take a closer look at each starter.

Jon Garland is off to the hottest start, value-wise, with a 2.38 ERA. He has also, arguably, been the least effective pitcher on the staff so far – by fielding independent metrics. He’s striking out a staff low 5.3 per nine, and he’s walking almost 5 every nine. Garland has been helped so far by his solid .51 hr/9 (career: 1.10) and a .261 BABiP (career: .289).

Garland’s been a league-average type starter throughout his career, and frankly he has pitched just like one so far. That’s not a bad thing; I just don’t see any strong reasons to suggest that he won’t revert to his old form (as measured by ERA) as the season progresses.

Mat Latos has been excellent all-around, striking out nearly 7 per nine, and allowing just 2 BB/9. He’s been solid by FIP (3.90), xFIP (3.81), and tRA (3.10). The only real “luck-factor” that stands out with Latos is his .240 BABiP. That should creep its way up towards .300 and Latos’ ERA should climb a little bit as well, but overall he should be fine.

Clayton Richard has also been great so far. His .16 HR/9 rate is glaring, though. For one, it’s great. Two, it just isn’t going to stay that low. He’s allowed 51 fly balls so far. If we assume that 11% of them leave the park, he should have 5-6 home runs allowed at this point. He’s only given up one. That’s not a knock on him. He’s pitched well. But home run rates that low simply don’t last. His ERA should come up some, but as his other indicators show, it shouldn’t be a catastrophic decline.

Wade LeBlanc has seen his BABiP go from .224 last year to .321 this season. His ERA has declined, though, because he’s improved his strikeout and home run rates. Despite giving up 42 fly balls, he’s only allowed two home runs. All of the projection systems pegged his HR/9 to be somewhere around 1.3-1.4 before the season. That might not be the case, but LeBlanc should see a pretty large increase in his HR rate as the season progresses.

Kevin Correia, unlike the other four starters, should see his ERA fall if he keeps pitching as he has so far. Correia’s 4.57 ERA is higher than his FIP (4.00), xFIP (3.68), and tERA (4.34). His home run rate may fall a bit, as he’s allowed homers on almost 14% of his fly balls (career:9.4%).

This is of course just a cursory look at these five guys, by no means conclusive research. But what we see here is a pitching staff that is obviously performing excellent. Four of the guys should regress a bit as the season progresses, and Correia should improve slightly. If that happens, the Padres staff will not be the devastating weapon that it has been so far, but it can still be a strength.

The Padres recently called up 24 year old outfielder Luis Durango. Durango has a very unique skill-set, with great contact skills, patience, and speed. He also offers almost no power game. Check out his minor league stats, courtesy of First Inning:

*EXB: extra base hits.

As you can see, Durango does as excellent job putting the ball in play and getting on base. His career groundball rate sits at 72%, which is not necessarily a bad thing for someone with so little power. Taking walks and beating out infield singles are going to be a big part of Durango’s game, if he is to become a successful major league. In his minor league career, he also had 84 bunt hits.

Durango obviously has excellent speed, but has just managed a 67% stolen base rate in the minors. It looks like he has some work to do with that part of his running game; getting good jumps, timing pitchers, knowing when to run, etc. In the outfield, splitting time between center and left, he’s been –26 defensive runs over his career, by Total Zone.

Overall, Luis Durango has a pretty interesting set of skills, in the mold of a Juan Pierre or Luis Castillo. It’ll be interesting to see how his game translates to the major league level.

Arguably the biggest reason for the San Diego Padres fast start is the work of their bullpen.

8 of the 10 relievers used by the Padres this season have a sub 4 ERA. In fact if you take away Ramos (21.21 ERA) and Gallagher (6.92 ERA), the bullpen ERA drops from a really good 3.12 ERA to an insane 2.03, while the WHIP drops from 1.08 (really good) to .892 (WOW). Russell, Stauffer, Gregerson, Thatcher, and Mujica all not only have a stellar ERA but also have a sub 1 WHIP. Russel, Bell, Gregerson, Adams, and Thatcher also average more than 1 K per inning. Needless to say, provided that Stauffer comes back healthy, the Padres do not need any help in the pen.

Are these pitchers playing over their heads? Yes… We cannot expect Stauffer to maintain his 0.39 ERA all year. Nor can we expect Gregerson to allow 11 baserunners all year. But that does no mean that if and when they regress to their norms that the numbers will not still be spectacular. The updated ZIPS projections still have Bell (2.31), Gregerson (2.93), Adams (3.48), Thatcher (3.18), Russell (3.49), and Stauffer (3.84 15 starts), all under 4.00.

All of this is great, and me telling you that our pen is excellent is not surprising. But what might be surprising is that extra depth that the Padres have in AAA and AA who could probably step into the pen right now and put up solid numbers. Here are just a few names that might be called up to replace members of the pen should more injuries or trades occur

Already on 40 man roster:

Ernesto Frieri: Frieri made his major league debut last September. Most Padres fans will not remember him as he only appeared in 2 G, working a scoreless inning in each appearance. MLB totals 2 IP, 0 H, 1 BB, 2 K. Despite being a starter for most of the past 2 years, with rotation depth the front office decided to make him the Beaver’s closer. Frieri has responded to the challenge by going 2-1, 1.50 ERA with 9 SV in 10 opportunities. More impressive is that in his 18 innings he has 27 Ks.

Frieri is a 3 pitch pitchers with a plus FB, with a deceptive delivery, that he can work to all 4 corners of the plate. He sits in the low 90’s but can top out at 95. His curve is a solid pitch, and in the past year has improved greatly. His change is a WIP which might have been why he was sent to the pen. He does need to improve on his walks (averaging 6 BB/9 IP), but he has big time stuff to fit anywhere from closer to long relief on a MLB team.

Craig Italiano: Italiano was acquired in the Scott Hairston deal #1. Italiano has always been known for having big time stuff, but his mechanical issues, and numbers resulting from that have always been the hindrance to his success. However, he comes over to Lake Elsinore, and almost immediately manager Carlos Lezcano and pitching coach Dave Rajsich work on cleaning up his mechanics. The result? His 5.63 ERA with Stockton turned into a 1.44 ERA with the Storm, and he averaged 12.64 K/9! He has since become the closer in an unbelievably stacked Mission’s bullpen where he has posted a 0.93 ERA in 19.1 IP with 8 SV. His K/9 are a bit down (7.0) but its hard to complain with the ERA.

Italiano sits consistently at 94 on his FB and can top out at 98. He has a power slurve that sits in the mid 80’s with tremendous movement. Like Frieri his change is more of a show me pitch to keep hitters from attempting to sit dead red. Either way with Italianos PF velocity and movement, as well as that power slurve, and he could step into the 9th inning of a Padre game tomorrow and be able to pick up the save.

Not on 40 man but WOW:

Mark Worrell: Lifetime minor league ERA of 3.01 with a 10.4 K/9 IP and 3.04 K/BB, Worrell has always had the stats to play at the next level. He was the centerpiece in the Khalil Greene deal was going to be a part of the Padres rotation. Injuries in ST in 09′ cost him the entire year. He might still not be completely recovered from the injury but has put up a respectable 1-0, 3.79 ERA in 19 inning in Portland. I was told to think of Cla (Meredith) except with more speed, so if he makes a mistake it is not an automatic HR.

Brandon Gomes- Along with Italiano Gomes was ranked as one of the top 20 minor league prospects in all of baseball (by Scout.com). A change in his arm slot a few years ago turned him from minor league fodder to MLB prospect. Gomes sits in the low 90s with the ability to top out at 94-95. His best pitch though is his splitter, which is thrown with the same exact arm action as the FB. Hitters think FB and then watch the tremendous late break of the splitter, and often flail over the top or miss it completely. Add a slider that he can throw in the mid 70’s with nice action down and away to righties, and the result was 100 strikeouts last year as a reliever! Gomes has picked up where he left off with a 1-0, 1.66 ERA, and 10.8 K/9 this season (still in AA). Like Italiano, Gomes doesnt have much left to prove at AA, and in nearly any other farm system would be getting ready to make his MLB debut.

Evan Scribner: My last entry into the way too good to be in AA goes to Evan Scribner. Scribner was the Missions closer last year and went 8-4 with a 3.07 ERA and 9.9 K/9. Outside of a stretch where Scribner blew 3 saves in 5 opportunities (in 1 week) he was nearly unhitable. I was shocked not to see Scribner promoted to AAA Portland at the beginning of the season. But like the guy that he is, he managed to take it in stride and has posted even better numbers this year. If his 4-2 record and 1.74 ERA are not good enough, than look at the 30 K in 20.2 IP and the .823 WHIP.

Scribner doesnt have as good of speed as the other prospects, consistently sitting 89-91, but he makes up for it in movement, and a tremendous 12-6 hammer. Scribner’s breaking ball is arguably the best in the organization and with a 20-25 mph difference between his FB and breaking ball he consistently make hitters look…well…like me if I were to take a swing off of him.

There are 5 names that could contribute to the Padres bullpen right now, and have great success. Even with those 5 players I could have still listed Greg Burke (2.45 ERA, 18 IP, 19 K, 0.65 WHIP), Mike DeMark (1-0, 0.60 ERA, 15 IP, 15 K, 0.80 WHIP), and Bryan Oland (0-1, 3.97 ERA, 11.1 IP, 19 K). PLUS all that is not even including every Padre fans favorite Latin American relief prospect Alexis Lara (0-1, 2.37 ERA in AA right now, best known for striking out the side in 2 innings in a late ST game this year), or Aaron Poreda (2.00 ERA and might have the best stuff of anyone if he could work on those 17 BB in 18 IP).

So with that being said, I ask one simple question. Knowing the pen that the Padres have right now, and all the depth that is waiting in the minor leagues….”If you could get a better than expected return for Heath Bell do you make the trade?” “What if you are still battling for 1st?”