It’s been pretty well documented … this team has vastly underperformed. Heck, it’s pretty tough to play sub-.400 baseball and not under perform. But the Padres were expected to at least contend this year, and certainly not many people predicted a season like this.

Thanks to Sal Baxamusa, we can take a look at how the Padres hitters ’should’ perform the rest of the way, via a marcels projection (that takes this season’s ugly performance into consideration but also doesn’t weight it too much). Here’s Sal on marcels:

Marcel has a lot of caveats. Basically, Marcel only knows three things: a player’s stats, the stats of the rest of the league, and the player’s age. Marcel doesn’t know anything about injuries, parks, minor leagues or platoon splits. But by and large, this simple system isn’t a whole lot worse than the heavy hitters like CHONE or PECOTA or ZiPS. And there’s a reason why I call them “quick-n-dirty.” The spreadsheet I made is a pretty simplistic tool. It doesn’t forecast RBI or runs—sorry fantasy gurus—and the estimated playing time is based purely on extrapolation. But it does do a pretty good job at most of the other stuff.

So, what follows is each players’ projected line for the rest of the season and his total line (i.e., his current real numbers + projection):

Khalil Greene
Projection: .241/.296/.414
Total: .225/.275/.367

It’s a pretty terrible time to trade Greene, imo. Our best guess is that he’s still a decent hitter (at short), but his numbers so far this season are obviously atrocious. Now, I believe front offices are getting a lot smarter, in general, but I still think recent performance is probably overrated, especially by GM’s. Sure, you could probably spin Khalil to the Red Sox, where both teams have a good understanding of his future value, but, overall, I’d hold onto Greene until his value is up (or just keep him around; he’s a pretty solid player, still).

Adrian Gonzalez
Projection: .284/.352/.492
Total: .280/.349/.497

Gonzalez is real consistent, sorta. If you glance at his slash stats, he’s pretty much been the same guy for the last two seasons: .282/.350/.502 in ‘07 and .277/.350/.501 so far in ‘08 (don’t forget about context, though, as the league averages will change from year to year). While on the surface Gonzalez looks ‘consistent,’ he’s been going about it in a somewhat different way this year:

home runs per fly ball
07: 14.2%
08: 19.2%

average on balls in play
07: .315
08: .294

ground ball percentage
07: 36.9%
08: 42.7

I’m not saying these numbers are particularly meaningful or significant, just that, defining consistency can be a tricky thing.

Brian Giles
Projection: .270/.371/.411
Total: .289/.386/.421

When you consider his fielding*, Giles is still a terrific player. Unless he’s traded, I’d say it’s a pretty sure bet that the Padres pick up his option. He’s worth a lot more than $9 million for one year on the free market, and you can’t forget the $3 mill. buyout if it isn’t picked up.

*also, don’t forget his “arm,” which takes some fielding value away.

Kevin Kouzmanoff
Projection: .272/.329/.443
Total: .274/.324/.442

To me, Kouzmanoff is a fine player to have on your team. He’s probably right around average, overall, he’s in his late 20’s, and he should be relatively cheap over the next few years. You might not hear anyone say, “You can build a winner around that guy,” but you can; He just might not be the main component. That said, if can deal him, shift things around, and make the team better, you may as well …

Scott Hairston
Projection: .256/.318/.462
Total: .261/.313/.493

Hairston may be one of the few Padres playing well above his head. It’s interesting that Hairston, after struggling with the power game in Arizona’s hitter friendly park, has found it in Petco … perhaps that’s a reminder of how hard this projection business is, especially when you’ve only got a few hundred pa’s to analyze (of course, any good forecaster — don’t look here – is going to utilize minor league data, and other stuff, but you get my point).

Jody Gerut
Projection: .267/.338/.399
Total: .274/.334/.405

Gerut’s not too far behind Hairston, with his more respectable obp. But he’s probably more of a fourth/fifth outfielder/platoon type on a contending team (yeah, that’s a bit of hyperbole, as he could easily start in center, on say, the Red Sox, and still be on a contending team …). In fact, sticking with a platoon of Gerut and Hairston in center wouldn’t look bad in ‘09, at least from an offensive standpoint.

Tadahito Iguchi
Projection: .263/.334/.393
Total: .261/.329/.369

One important thing to remember here is that injuries aren’t taken into consideration. If there’s any real change in talent level, say, because of a right shoulder injury, then you better make some type of adjustment (or at least keep it in mind).

Josh Bard
Projection: .268/.345/.396
Total: .243/.319/.346

Pretty much the same thing I said about Greene. Bard’s a solid player having an awful year (not to mention the injury).

I could go on, but since I’m pretending to be the rotoworld blurb guy, this post is probably getting rather lengthy. We’ll tackle the pitchers at some other time.

Anyway, to offer up the old conclusion, these hitters, as a group, are performing below expectations. However, that ‘group’ of under performers is lead by the shortstop and catcher position (i.e., they’ve been so bad, it’s making everybody look bad). Unless there’s something in the water, there’s a pretty good chance those players (Greene, Bard, etc.) will bounce back a bit for the remainder of the year, and, more importantly, in 2009. imo, if the Padres brought back this same group of players next season, they’d have an above average set of position players. But, surely, that wouldn’t be a popular decision! … (and I’m not necessarily an advocate of doing it ; )