2013 MLB Season Preview Part 4: NL West

NL West

1. Giants
PECOTA: 85 wins
My pick: Over

Two World Series victories in three years and their core is both intact and only now starting to reach their prime. As good as the Dodgers look on paper, I'll still take this group over them.

The decline of Tim Lincecum is disheartening but the rotation still features two top notch aces in Matt Cain and Madison Bumgarner. The Giants were lucky enough to make it through the whole year without any injuries to their starting pitchers, only 2 games were started by someone outside of their regular 5-man rotation. That's not likely to happen again.

With a strong defense, great starting pitching, versatile bullpen, good tactical manager, and a lineup that was actually one of the best in baseball last year, the Giants are primed for another run into the playoffs. They're the best team in this division, though the competition promises to be tougher than in recent years.

Amen to R.A. and the Redeeming Beauty of Baseball

We're almost midway through the 2012 baseball season and ever so slowly some things are starting to become clear. We know the Yankees are once again a dominant force. The Padres are a complete abject disaster. The AL Central is up for grabs. Rookies Bryce Harper and Mike Trout are really good.

And R.A. Dickey is among the best pitchers in baseball.

That last one is the hardest to believe. For one thing, Dickey got knocked around by the Yankees last night. He's also a 37-year-old knuckeballer, which is something of a sideshow in the game of baseball. And yet earlier this year he became the first National League pitcher since 1944 to throw two consecutive one-hitters. His dominance reached the point of 44 and 2/3 straight innings without giving up an earned run until the Yankees finally got to him last night.

But even after surrendering five runs last night, he's still 7th-best in the league at keeping runs off the board. He leads the NL in shutouts, wins, and his tied for the lead in pitcher's WAR (Wins Above Replacement). Most incredibly, he's got the third most strikeouts of any pitcher in the NL and he's by far the oldest guy in the top 10 of that category.

2012 MLB Season Preview Part 4: NL West

More baseball talk...


NL West

1. San Francisco Giants
PECOTA: 86 wins
My take: Under

On July 18th last year (my birthday), the Giants were in first place with a better run differential than the Diamondbacks, an admirable follow-up performance thus far in the season that followed their World Series campaign. From that point on they collapsed (though it was overshadowed by the even louder falls of the Braves and Red Sox) and the Diamonbacks took a stranglehold upon first place that they would not relinquish.

The Giants' third ace, Madison Bumgarner

They boast one of the best pitching staffs in a league that is seemingly loaded with great pitching staffs. Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, and Madison Bumgarner form a devastating trio. While Lincecum & Cain have been doing this for years, Bumgarner came in and had a 2.64 FIP (Fielding-Independent Pitching ERA) in over 200 innings at the age of 21 last year. He's good.

The pitching will be great again but the question with this team remains whether or not they'll get enough offense to win. Pablo Sandoval is one of the most exhilarating hitters in the game but he hasn't had much help over the years. With Buster Posey and Brandon Belt in the lineup all year long, though, this team should pick up the division crown in what promises to be a close race.

2011 MLB Season Preview Part 1: NL West

Over the next week I'll be posting my preview for the 2011 baseball season, covering each of the six divisions.

The format will be the same as last year. For each team I've included their projected 2011 record as predicted by Baseball Prospectus' PECOTA system. The system determines playing time for all players on each team, derives Runs Scored and Runs Allowed totals from their 2011 forecasts, and extrapolates that into wins and losses (take a look at it here). We'll be using the PECOTA record as a baseline and then I will offer my take on each team's chances and how it will all stack up. Please feel free to agree, disagree, hurl obscenities at me, whatever. Let's talk baseball. 


NL West
Last year the San Diego Padres surprised everyone by sitting up in first place for most of the season before the rival Giants made a late charge and toppled them during the regular season's final series. San Francisco carried that momentum all through an exciting playoff run culminating in the franchise's first World Series since they moved from New York in 1958. They'll try to defend their division title this year against a strong collective that features a number of young, burgeoning superstars like Mat Latos, Carlos Gonzalez, Troy Tulowitzki, Clayton Kershaw, Justin Upton, and more. There's plenty of talent in this division, especially pitching-wise. The top four teams all boast potent pitching staffs and so it should be an exciting year in this competitive division once again.

1. Giants
PECOTA:  91-71
My take: Under

An elite pitching staff and patchwork offense carried this team all the way to a championship last year. Can they get back to the playoffs?

All the important pitchers return this year and they'll even get to have Madison Bumgarner in the rotation right from the get-go this time. The bullpen of bearded bombasts returns mostly intact as well. Collectively, this was the best run prevention unit in baseball last year (barely nudging past the Padres with a 3.36 team ERA) and I think we'll see more of the same. Their top four starters (Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, Jonathan Sanchez, and Bumgarner) might only be eclipsed by the quartet assembled in Philadelphia and this group is so young that they could even improve upon last year's performance.

Panda is expected to pick it up this year

The big question mark is, once again, can their offense produce? With such stifling run prevention, the lineup doesn't have to reach all that high. They just have to outscore the opponent. Having Buster Posey for a full season will certainly make a big difference and the same goes for their other add-ons from last year, Cody Ross and Pat Burrell. Aubrey Huff is due for a regression after blasting his way to a career year last season at age 33 but, even if he slips, the team has their best prospect, Brandon Belt, waiting to pounce on an opening. Pablo Sandoval stunk last year but PECOTA projects him to have a nice bounceback season with a .299/.346/.465 batting average/on-base/slugging percentage. New shortstop Miguel Tejada was rejuvenated after escaping the dreary Baltimore atmosphere last season and, though he's not a very good fielder nowadays, he can still hit a little.

So, can this offense outscore its opponents? I think they can. But I don't think this team will win 90 games this year. It's a very tough division once again and, while I think they'll finish ahead of the pack, I see them battling it out with a young Rockies team all year. My prediction is 87 wins and another playoff run.

2. Rockies
PECOTA: 84-78
My take: Over

Just like the other top teams in this division, the Rockies are a team with a deep pitching staff and an unspectacular overall lineup. They do feature two young sluggers in Troy Tulowitzki (26 years old) and Carlos Gonzalez (25) who are only just now coming upon their peak years. These two are arguably the best hitters in the whole division. But the bats around them have been weak. Last year, none of the other regular hitters managed an OPS+ better than the league average and the only addition they made in the offseason was to bring in second baseman Jose Lopez, a free-swinging out-machine (career .297 OBP) though he can hit some homers and should enjoy playing in Coors Field.

Observe the stirrups

The strength of this team is the pitching staff and theirs is deep enough to match up with anyone in the division. The euphoniously named Ubaldo Jimenez has been improving his strikeout rate and ERA in each year of his career thus far and he'll only be 27 this year. He's a good bet to be one of the best pitchers in the NL this year. I'm excited about 23-year-old Jhoulys Chacin (another cool name) getting a chance to pitch in the rotation for a full season and the rest of the rotation is solid with Jason Hammel, Jorge de la Rosa, and Aaron Cook all capable of at least average production. The pen is deep and they've added a couple of flame-throwers in Matt Lindstrom and Felipe Paulino.

Though the lineup relies heavily on two players for run production, the Rockies can reasonably expect to see bounceback seasons from Dexter Fowler, Ian Stewart, and Seth Smith all of whom are still young. Not surprisingly, PECOTA has each of them tabbed for pretty strong seasons (a combined line of .275/.353/.465) and if they come through then this might actually turn into the best offense in the division. I think the Rox will be in the mix all year and I have them finishing in a tie with the Giants at 87 wins.

3. Padres
PECOTA: 80-82
My take: Over

The time is now for Chase Headley

I had a bunch to say about the Padres in a post the other day, the gist of it was that they've done a pretty good job patching up the gaping hole left by the Adrian Gonzalez trade. The lineup doesn't have anyone who's really imposing at all but they don't really have any major weakness either. Everyone in the lineup, with the possible exception of Cameron Maybin, can hit. And Maybin is so young that he just might still turn into a good player. Ryan Ludwick was horrible after coming to San Diego at the deadline last year but if he can hit closer to his normal established performance it'll be a huge boost.

Last year I thought Chase Headley would finally break out and have a big year at the plate but he finished with a measly .266 True Average (a stat that looks like batting average but encompasses every aspect of a hitter's performance). There's more pressure on him to produce now and he's entering his prime so I'm optimistic once again. Petco Park saps offensive numbers to a ridiculous degree but I don't think it's crazy to suggest he can put up a .280/.350/.415 line this year. That doesn't look spectacular but, for his home park it's pretty good and it would represent a big jump in performance for Headley.

The rotation just might be better than last year as they've plugged their only gaping holes. Mat Latos was a beast in his first year and finished in the top 10 of the Cy Young voting. Watching all of his games last year, it seemed his only real problem was immaturity. If he missed a couple pitches or gave up some hits, he'd put on a whole big fuss for everybody to see. He'll only be 23 this year but it would be very surprising if he's still pulling that shit on the mound again after an offseason to reflect on it. I expect him to have another big year.

The amazing San Diego bullpen (something of a Padre tradition, really) is back in full force and should continue to dominate. Even if the team trades closer Heath Bell, they've got at least two other guys who can step in and close games with Mike Adams and Luke Gregerson. This is a team that wins entirely on pitching & defense (with or without Adrian). The pitching is back and the defense has actually been improved with a new double-play duo and the fleet-footed Maybin in center. It wouldn't surprise me if the Padres are in the race for the division title again this year but I expect them to finish a couple games over .500.

4. Dodgers
PECOTA: 87-75
My take: Under

This organization is a Metsian mess. Let's talk about the positives first: they can pitch. Ned Colleti has assembled a very solid rotation with the young aces Clayton Kershaw and Chad Billingsley backed up by a trio of Hiroki Kuroda, Ted Lilly, and Jon Garland. In a league with stacked rotations (the Giants, Phillies, Brewers, Rockies, Marlins) this group can go up against any of them. Don Mattingly gets his first shot at managing and should be able to better connect with the team's young players than senior citizen Joe Torre did.

Now, the bad news. Manny Ramirez is gone and his replacement looks to be Jay freakin' Gibbons, a washed up veteran who was out of professional baseball for a couple years until the Dodgers gave him a job. Matt Kemp was once supposed to be a superstar but he played like he didn't give a shit about anything last year, looking pathetic on the basepaths and generally lolly-gagging all over the field. Things can't really get much worse for him this year and a new, younger manager ought to be able to motivate him better. Andre Ethier is an all-around good hitter when healthy and the same goes for Rafael Furcal but after that, nobody else can hit. James Loney is a perennial disappointment, Casey Blake is 37 and he collapsed last year, and they've plugged the second base hole with Juan Uribe, a fun portly player with some power but not somebody you can really rely on. They also gave a bunch of money to Rod Barajas to be their starting catcher and, like Uribe, Barajas can hit the ball out of the park but makes far too many outs as his pathetic .284 career OBP attests to.

The pen has some good arms but their big closer fell off a cliff last season. PECOTA has an extremely optimistic projection for this team but I'll definitely take the under. I don't think they'll reach .500 this year although I do wish the best for Mattingly.

5. Diamondbacks
PECOTA: 75-87
My take: Even

Well, they definitely won't be nearly as bad as last season's 65-97 stinker. As discussed in this year's Baseball Prospectus annual, they might have finished a lot closer to .500 had it not been for one the absolute worst bullpens in baseball history last year. In general manager Kevin Towers, the D'backs brought in the perfect guy to fix that. If there's anything he's known for, it's putting together a strong bullpen on the cheap. Towers made a couple of quiet moves, bringing in J.J. Putz to close and a few other relievers with some potential and this definitely looks like an improved team. The rotation is young and lacking a true ace but overall it's a pretty solid group. Daniel Hudson looked great in 11 starts (70/16 K/BB and a 1.69 ERA) after being acquired from the White Sox last year and he's only 24. Who knows, maybe he'll become a star.

Their lineup might do some damage. Chris Young finally put together a nice season, fulfilling the high expectations we've had for him right when people started giving up hope. He drew a bunch of walks and just barely missed a 30/30 season (he had 27 homers and 28 steals). Miguel Montero is one of the best young catchers in the league, Kelly Johnson and Stephen Drew can both hit, and while Justin Upton saw his power slip last year, the kid is entering his fourth full season and he's only 23. Don't count him out yet. They picked up Russell Branyan to split first base time with Brandon Allen and both of those guys have prodigious power.

This team certainly won't come close to losing 100 games again this year. They'll keep things competitive in this fun, talent-laden NL West division but look for them to finish under .500.

(Photo credits: Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images; David Zalubowski/Denver Post; Icon SM)

Warmups: Succeeding in a Post-Gon Padre World

When the Padres executed the tough but inevitable decision to trade hometown hero and superstar Adrian Gonzalez over the winter, I objectively praised the bountiful return Jed Hoyer brought back but also subjectively whined about the system that allowed this to happen. At the time I wrote that post I was sitting in an apartment less than 4 miles north of the Padres' home stadium. Now I'm in Austin, Texas with a new view on things and the Padres have retooled their roster through shrewd moves and are set to begin the season next week.

Many analysts and baseball blabbers have been writing them off for 2011, not giving them any chance this year, arguing that their offense will be putrid without the anchor of Adrian entrenched in the heart of their lineup. I've been thinking about the Padres a lot lately and today I'd like to take a look at how Jed Hoyer reconstructed the team in the wake of A-Gon's departure and what we can expect to see from the Friars this season.

The Elite Pitching Staff Remains

The Padres shocked the world by winning 90 games last year and just barely missing out on the playoffs, falling to the eventual World Series-champion San Francisco Giants on the final weekend of the season. The success of the San Diego squad was not an illusion as their run differential was that of a 91-win team and, while their hitting was pretty unspectacular, their pitching staff was absolutely superb.

That's the first thing to keep in mind when evaluating the 2011 Padres: the elite pitching staff is still relatively intact. In fact, they might be a little bit better. The team traded away some relievers but they were arguably the worst relievers in the pen (except for maybe Adam Russell, a solid righty sent to Tampa Bay in the Jason Bartlett trade, though Russell didn't see much time in the majors) and will be replaced by highly capable arms like 25-year-old Ernesto Frieri.

In the rotation, starting pitcher Jon Garland was let go and he did have a nice season last year but he's been replaced by Aaron Harang, another veteran right-hander who has a higher ceiling than Garland and who will inevitably benefit from leaving Cincinnati's tiny park for San Diego's vast pitcher-friendly expanses. As good as the Padre pitching was last year, they did have problems with finding any consistency from the back of the rotation as both Wade LeBlanc and Kevin Correia struggled for the most part (4.83 ERA between them). Correia is gone and LeBlanc might get another shot as a 5th starter if he can stop giving up so many homers but he'll most likely start the season in the minors.

Tim Stauffer, a former #4 overall pick, has been strong out of the pen the last two seasons and will finally get a chance to step into the rotation this year as the #4 starter. It looks like young lefty Cory Luebke will start the season as the team's 5th starter and, while he's a soft-tossing lefty like LeBlanc, he's not nearly as prone to giving up bombs.

Where will the runs come from?

So, the pitching staff that made this team so good last year will be back. But the guy they lost is a hitter, so how will they replace him?

Brad Hawpe will step into the vacated first baseman's role and, while his name certainly doesn't strike fear into the hearts of pitchers, he's actually put up some pretty damn good numbers (.279/.373/.490 AVG/OBP/SLG for his career). While they don't have much money to spend, Jed Hoyer and the think tank he's assembled know what they're doing, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that they scooped up an under-the-radar slugger. While Hawpe had been playing most of his games in the elevated Colorado environment, his hitting is no illusion: he's hit .273/.369/.470 away from Coors Field and he even hit well in his appearances at Petco Park thus far (.281/.371/.451 in 175 plate appearances). That kind of production doesn't match up with what Adrian regularly produced but it's a start.

Hoyer did a nice job making up for the loss by strengthening the Padres up the middle. For all the team's success last year, their middle infield was pretty crappy. Shortstop Everth Cabrera was allowed to bat 241 times even though he hit a puny .208/.279/.278; Jerry Hairston spent lots of time at shortstop and second base and did bop 13 homeruns but overall hit pretty poorly (83 OPS+ where 100 is average) even for Petco's standards; David Eckstein had some exciting hits but matched Hairston's 83 OPS+ on the year. The team did bring in Miguel Tejada and he managed to hit pretty well but he's 37 years old and they had to let him go (to the rival Giants, actually).

That group has been replaced by a solid keystone combo of Orlando Hudson and Jason Bartlett. Both are strong defensively (probably a few runs better than the men they're replacing) and have been at least average hitters throughout their careers. That represents a major step up from what the Pads had last year. In terms of runs, we can use Baseball Prospectus' VORP statistic (Value Over Replacement Player---expressed in runs) to quantify the difference offensively: the Tejada/Eckstein/Hairston/Cabrera combo put up 17.2 VORP last year while extremely conservative preseason projections peg Hudson/Bartlett at 30.3 VORP.

Manning centerfield will be 23-year-old Cameron Maybin, formerly a future superstar. That sounds kinda silly but Maybin's been traded twice and been written off because of struggles in the major leagues even though he doesn't turn 24 until next week and has barely enough at-bats to qualify for a full season in the bigs. His minor league batting numbers have been superb (.871 OPS) and he has excellent range in the outfield. Last year's centerfielder Tony Gwynn, Jr. had great range too but he was a deplorable hitter. Maybin is, at the very least, a big step up and he just might still blossom into a star.

Does all of that make up for the loss of Adrian? No. But it's a big step in the right direction. The Padres won 90 games last year and, according to WARP (Wins Above Replacement Player) Adrian was worth about 6 or 7 wins. The up-the-middle upgrades will make up for a huge chunk of that plus Hawpe should be worth at least 2 wins (Baseball Prospectus has his projection at 1.8), then you have to remember that the Padres have a hulking slugger in their system who should be ready to return and play some first base as well: Kyle Blanks. Blanks struggled last year with an injured elbow and then actually had Tommy John surgery to fix it but he should be back at full strength this year. A full strength Blanks should be expected to mash. In 2009 when he was just 22 years old, he came up and had a 137 OPS+ in 172 plate appearances. Not too shabby.

Don't underestimate the Padres this year.

Warmups: Stadium Stories

Baseball season is on its way. Opening Day is a week from tomorrow and, before I start posting my previews for each division, I'd like to first get a little warmed up for baseball writing with a few posts on various things related to baseball. First up is an inventory of all the major league ballparks I've ever been to.

Doubtless, there are better places to spend summer days, summer nights, than in ballparks. Doubtless.
Nevertheless, decades after a person has stopped collecting bubble-gum cards, he can still discover himself collecting ballparks. And not just the stadiums, but their surrounding neighborhoods, their smells, their special seasons and moods.--Thomas Boswell, How Life Imitates the World Series

1. Yankee Stadium
It was here that I attended my first baseball game ever on July 21, 1995. My brother John brought me to a game as a birthday present (it was a few days after my 10th birthday) and the annual outing to Yankee Stadium would become a birthday staple over the next few years until I defiantly renounced my Yankee fanhood right around the same time everybody started jumping on the bandwagon. My favorite player growing up was Jim Leyrtiz, the bat-spinning back-up catcher and first baseman (who was obscure in those days but went on to become a World Series hero). Each year, John would choose the perfect game to attend, somehow always knowing which games Leyritz would be starting. That first game in '95 Leyritz actually started at first base against the Texas Rangers' lefty Kenny Rogers (Leyritz was replaced by Don Mattingly later in the game). The Yanks won 8-3 and the winning pitcher was Dave Eiland who went on to become the Yankees' pitching coach for these last three years.

I saw a bunch of games here over the years with various people: John and I went to Game 1 of the World Series in 1996 when the Yanks got shellacked by the Braves (though I got to see Jim Leyritz catch the whole game); during the summer of my first job in 1999, working as a messenger for the company both my mom and John worked for in lower Manhattan, a co-worker named Lou decided one day that we should skip work and go watch an afternoon Yanks-Blue Jays game from the bleachers; Baseball Prospectus writer Jay Jaffe brought me along to an ALDS game against the Tigers in 2006; and I got to say my last goodbyes in an early season game against the Rays in 2008, right before moving to San Diego (that was the Yankees' last season in the old stadium).

2. Veterans Stadium
My Aunt Jeanie brought my brother Billy and I to a game here in '95 or '96. It was Billy's first game ever and it was the Phillies against the San Diego Padres, an interesting augur because ten years later Billy would take up residence across the country in San Diego (which led to me moving out there too). That night, Billy caught a foul ball in his hat (!) that was lined off the bat of Pads' outfielder Melvin Nieves. I remember the stadium was enormous and imposing.

3. Shea Stadium

Shea Stadium in 2003

Although I can't recall my very first visit to this lovable old dump, it was here that I would watch more games than anyplace else over the years. After the Yankees started throwing money around (and dumping players like my old fave Jim Leyritz who went on to lead the Padres to the World Series) I grew sick of them and jumped on the bandwagon of my father's team: the Mets. This was during the years of Mike Piazza and Robin Ventura so it was a fun team to follow. I've been a diehard Mets fan ever since and I get maudlin and misty-eyed thinking about this place because, even though the building was a dump, I had so many great memories here. A few that stick out in my mind are these:

• A Saturday night interleague game against the Angels (John's favorite team) in which the Mets rallied twice in the late innings and won. Marlon Anderson tied the game in the bottom of the ninth with an inside-the-park homerun (!) against current Mets closer Francisco Rodriguez. After surrendering a run in the top of the 10th, the Mets put two guys on base with their best hitters, Carlos Beltran and Piazza, coming up. They both struck out. It was all up to Cliff Floyd. He worked a full count, fouled off about a hundred pitches, then struck a monster homerun to win the game. Floyd was hurt so much in his career and is retired now but he provided a bunch of great evenings for Mets fans during a two year stretch. This was probably the most exciting game I've ever witnessed in person. I was sitting with John and his wife Kristina in one of my favorite spots in Shea: near the foul pole in fair territory out in left field.
• A Friday night game against the Phillies that was rain-delayed for about 3 or 4 hours before getting under way. I was at the game with John, Kristina, and my little sister Emily. John and Kristina left early because it was late, wet, and freezing. Me and Em stayed til the bitter end and got to see Carlos Beltran launch a walk-off bomb which had us jumping up and down and screaming with our cheap ponchos on.
• Witnessed the last two games in Montreal Expos history as they played two meaningless matches against the Mets on the last weekend of the season at Shea. The Mets and Expos both stunk that year and I lucked into having tickets to both of the last two games fall into my lap. For the final game, I remember Todd Zeile started at catcher for the Mets in his own last game before retirement. I watched that last game with three of my siblings on a crisp, sunny October afternoon as the Mets won 8-1 and the Montreal squad tossed a bunch of memorabilia to a group of devoted fans gathered above their dugout.

4. Stade Olympique
When it first looked like the Montreal Expos were going to be no more (the league was seriously talking about cutting two teams, they'd eventually settle for moving the Expos to Washington), my brother John, ever ambitious to go on a baseball trip (a trait he instilled in me, thankfully) drove us up to Montreal for a weekend set against the Toronto Blue Jays. The Expos were a pretty good team in those days and we saw two entertaining games in that funky old stadium including a Sunday afternoon battle won on a walk-off smite by the 'Spos.

5. Toronto's SkyDome *
I'll use a * to indicate the stadiums I visited without getting to see a game there. My old Staten Island pal Joe and his mom brought me up to Toronto and Niagra Falls one year and we stayed in the hotel inside of the Blue Jays' home stadium. It was the offseason, though, so nothing was going on but we did sleep within the stadium and could see everything just outside our window.

6. Turner Field
Went to a game here while visiting my sister Laurie in Atlanta years back. I don't remember much about the game except that we sat in dead center, right next to the Braves bullpen (which has three mounds) and a few relievers, Paul Byrd chiefly among them, threw unopened sunflower seed packs to me and Billy after the game.

7. PNC Park

Another weekend baseball roadtrip with brother John. It was a beautiful, scenic drive through Pennsylvania and the stadium is one of the nicest I've ever seen, situated right at the intersection of Pittsburgh's three rivers. The Pirates played the Dodgers in a couple of forgettable games but the beauty of the stadium and the city sticks out in my mind the most. After the first game there was a fireworks show that was surreal---it incorporated not only the three yellow bridges beyond the outfield wall, but even the skyscrapers across the river. Best fireworks show I've ever seen.

8. Citizens Bank Park
When it first opened I took the train one day by myself (I was 18) and watched a game between the Phils and Tigers. The Tigers were atrocious in those days and the Phillies killed them. Over the years, I went to a handful of games here with my brother James and his three sons. In a homerun derby type of game against the Brewers, the guy sitting directly next to us caught a homerun on a line-drive (and we were in the second deck).


9. U.S. Cellular Field (aka new Comiskey Park)
When my brother Billy finished Navy bootcamp in June 2006, my whole family went over to Chicago for the graduation ceremony. After seeing him for a very short time, we had the whole night to ourselves in Chicago. Of course, I wanted to go see a baseball game and the Dodgers were in town for an interleague game with the Sox. Unfortunately, nobody in my family would join me but I took up my dad's offer to drop me off in the South Side and went to the game by myself. It was a lovely June evening and they were commemorating the 1959 World Series between the Sox and Dodgers. The Pale Hose won behind a great game from Mark Buehrle and I somehow ended up with a White Sox towel and then a White Sox credit card which I used for a few years.


10. Wrigley Field *
The next day after the White Sox game, my dad and I went to Wrigley and took a guided tour of the whole stadium. Great experience and, interestingly enough, the Cubbies were in New York playing the Yankees at the time. When I passed through Chicago on my way to California in the summer of '08, my brother Billy and I walked a lap or two around the outside of the stadium while the Cubbies were playing in...San Diego.

11. Petco Park

Oh Petco, how I love thee. After my first visit in 2006 (a memorably explosive game against the Braves) for my 21st birthday, I saw probably 25 games there over the next four years. I absolutely love this place and have so many good memories from there. Thankfully, many of them are preserved on this very blog but I really, really miss going to games there and hopefully will be back in San Diego one day. When I first moved there I got to live my dream: I was living in a rinky-dink studio apartment only two miles from the stadium so, on more than one occasion, I walked from my house to a baseball game. I could go on forever about this place but I'll stop now.

12. Fenway Park
First, did a stadium tour in the summer of 2007 while in Boston for my cousin Mary's wedding. Then, less than a year later, spent a weekend with Mary and her husband and they took me to a game. We sat out in the bleachers and watched the Red Sox and Milwaukee Brewers trade bombs all day. The Sox won 11-7. I've been itching to get back there ever since.

13. Miller Park
During the 2008 cross-country road trip, one of the main stops was in Milwaukee so we could see a baseball game. They played the Arizona Diamondbacks with the roof closed (it was raining outside) and smoked 'em. After the game, Billy and I got to walk along the field because it was Senior Citizens Day and the elderly couple seated next to us said "come with us, you can pretend we're your parents." The people of Milwaukee are great.

14. AT&T Park

Another blurry photo from my clunky old camera.

In August of 2008 I visited San Francisco to look at a grad school I planned to attend, the California Institute of Integral Studies. The school was nice although far too expensive for me but I did get to go see a game while up there. It was an absolutely frigid, cloudy night in August and the Giants played the Braves in a meaningless game when both teams were out of the race. Yet, the stadium was packed and rowdy. This was a rare instance where I didn't stay for the entire game because I was just too cold, didn't prepare for winter weather in August.


15. Citi Field *
Got to do a full tour of the stadium, including dugout and clubhouses while the teams were present. Even spoke to Howard Johnson while he was on an elliptical machine. Did it all while posing as an electrician, hard hat and everything. Amazing and memorable experience, though I won't reveal how I ended up having the opportunity. Don't want to get anyone in trouble.


16. Angel Stadium
Fun, rowdy place. Went there this past summer with my girlfriend for my 25th birthday. Fun time though it was sweltering until the sun finally went down. We sat in the absolute last row of the stadium along the first base line and yet the view of the field was actually pretty good. Our view of the mountain range beyond the stadium was even better.

17. Dodger Stadium

An absolutely gorgeous stadium that seems like it was plopped down in the middle of a dense verdant forest. Went with bro Billy for a September matchup between the classic old New York rivals, the Giants and Dodgers. Sat very close to the field but was annoyed most of the people around us didn't seem to care that much about the game. When the game was over we got to walk right onto the outfield grass and watch a fireworks show, though.

Now that I've listed everything, I realize that during my three years living in California I went to every major league baseball stadium in the state except the Coliseum in Oakland. It's known as one of the worst facilities in professional sports but still, the A's are one of my favorite teams. All the more reason to go back there.

I'm currently situated in the middle of Texas, at least three hours from a pro baseball team but, as a diehard seamhead, I will definitely be taking the long drive to both Houston and Arlington to add those to my list.

Hot Stove Ashes: Examining the Adrian Gonzalez Trade

The cold, fact-based, objective viewpoint:

Adrian Gonzalez was inevitably going to leave the Padres after the 2011 season. With his relatively cheap contract expiring, he would be on the market next winter looking for a new contract worth upwards of $20 million a year. There was simply no way the Padres, with their low budget ($38 million last year, second-lowest in baseball), could afford to pay him that much.

So general manager Jed Hoyer had a choice: either trade the team's best player or hold onto him and let him play out the season before he departs for greener pastures next year. Had he chosen to keep Adrian for one more season and then watch him leave, the Padres would've received a couple of compensatory draft picks for next year's draft. Instead, Hoyer swung a deal with his former employer to bring in a goodie basket filled with hand-picked minor league prospects. It looks like he made a good choice.

The return for giving up the Padre superstar consists of three Red Sox minor league players and the tenebrous "player to be named later." Having served as general manager Theo Epstein's righthand man in that vaunted Boston think tank for the last seven years, Hoyer knew exactly which players he wanted to take from them as these are the kids he originally studied, scouted, drafted and foresaw excellence in to begin with. Hoyer had also brought along the Red Sox director of scouting Jason McLeod when he moved over to San Diego so they certainly had an intricate knowledge of their bartering partner's goods.

Overall, the package looks great although each of the players are still in the stage of development.

• Casey Kelly was the top pitcher in the Red Sox farm system, a righthander with great stuff and superb fielding ability (he played shortstop in the minors up until last year), he's still only 21 years old and will probably begin the season playing in Double-A but look for him to get some starts for the Padres later in the season. 
• First baseman Anthony Rizzo was actually directly compared to Adrian Gonzalez by ESPN's Keith Law who noted that Rizzo played in Portland last year at age 20 (Gonzalez also played in Portland at age 20) while putting up slightly better numbers than Gonzalez in fewer plate appearances: .266/.344/.437, 34 doubles, 17 home runs in 573 PA for Adrian versus Rizzo's .263/.334/.481 with 30 doubles and 20 home runs in 467 PA. 
• Reymond Fuentes is a speedy outfielder, seemingly the type of player the Padres should try to fill up their roster with since they play in such a huge ballpark where speed (on defense and the basepaths) is more valuable than usual. Fuentes is the cousin of Carlos Beltran but doesn't have quite the well-rounded skill set of his major league relative. He's seen as a high-average, speedy guy with great range which sounds a lot like current Padre farmhand Luis Durango but, again, that kind of player is worthwhile for the team that plays in Petco.

Leaving all the emotional stuff aside, this looks like a great move for the Padres. Listening to Hoyer as a guest on Darren Smith's XX1090 radio show during my drive home from work today he compared the deal to the Texas Rangers' sending Mark Teixeira to Atlanta for a bunch of prospects in 2007. Neftali Feliz and Elvis Andrus, who were acquired as prospects in that deal, went on to become big contributors to the major league team that made it to the World Series last year. He also asserted the organization's new emphasis on building a rich farm system that can consistently develop good young players and I think this haul is a great starting point.

Right now, though, these facts are about as easy to swallow as a handful of cold ashes for a Padres fan.


The warm, nostalgic, subjective San Diegan viewpoint:

So if these prospects pan out, develop and become stars in the majors, will we have to watch them leave for more money too?

Adrian Gonzalez was an absolutely perfect fit for the San Diego Padres. A Mexican American who was born and raised here in San Diego, he is an all-around awesome player who enjoyed playing here and, in a perfect baseball world without financial competitive advantages, he would have played his entire career in a Padre uniform, had his name right up there with Tony Gwynn for all the career batting records and eventually had a teary-eyed gray-haired goodbye years from now with his jersey number retired.

Gonzalez wasn't drafted by San Diego and he didn't begin his career here but he made a name for himself and became an established major leaguer and, eventually, a beloved superstar here. After being acquired from the Texas Rangers in 2006 at the age of 24, Gonzalez quickly became the team's best hitter in his first full season at the major league level. From there he had five straight seasons in which he barely missed a game, played superb defense, and slugged over .500 playing half his games in a ballpark that hitters despise.

Ultimately, though, he played too well as he ascended to the ranks of the best players at his position. With Mark Teixeira signing a monster contract for 8 years and $180 million and Ryan Howard raking in $125 over 5 years, the San Diego first baseman's worth went up. His agent started sending clear signals that there would be no "hometown discount" for the Padres to re-sign him. And now, just like that, he's gone. Off to the Red Sox where he'll battle the Yankees and appear on ESPN all the time. For a Padres fan, this tastes like burning ember ashes. Or like your girlfriend dumped you in the morning and could be seen in the passenger seat of her new boyfriend's Porsche that same afternoon.

Yankee fans don't experience that feeling. Even when a player reaches his twilight, when he thinks he's worth a whole heck of a lot more money than the team wants to pay, there's no worry from the fans. As devastating as it must be for a Padres fan to watch their favorite player (the team's best player) leave while in his prime, it's all the more painful that, simply because of geographical location, other baseball fans don't ever have to worry about such a thing.


My own viewpoint:

Just like with Billy Beane in Oakland, it'll be fun to follow this Padres team as Jed Hoyer tries to build an organization that can compete consistently with a low payroll while constantly losing their best players to higher bidders at the height of their talents. I was impressed with the deal he made to bring in Cameron Maybin from Florida, only giving up two fungible relievers. The signing of Aaron Harang also looks nice but that stuff is slim pickings compared to the Gonzalez deal. The outcome of that trade will be forever linked with Jed Hoyer and his legacy or lack thereof.

Braindrizzles

My favorite musical group of all time, the Wu-Tang Clan, is performing right now and I reluctantly gave up on attending the show after getting over to the venue and seeing the line spanning all the way around the corner. Really, though, for a number of reasons I was at least ambivalent and at most uninterested in going to see the Clan in concert and seeing the humongous line just solidified my apprehension into nonattendance.

I've been physically ill, just feeling cruddy and cloudy with a boogery head cold and a combo of other ailments for the past 7 days, most likely brought on by the stressful work environment I'm in each day. Pretty much every day at work features me having to ward off angry vendors to whom we owe tens of thousands of dollars and tell them "we just don't have it" and variations of that pathetic statement. The owner, who is also my co-worker, is a trampled man. His company is crumbling to dust before his very eyes.

I actually saw Wu-Tang perform live here in San Diego exactly two years today and it was a spectacular show. My reluctance to go see them again though is partially because of their never changing up the set list when they perform together as a group; they play the same exact tracks every time. All the mid-90s classics. Never any more recent (last ten years) material. Plus my favorite member, The Rza, won't be performing on the current tour because he's in China directing his first movie, The Man with the Iron Fist starring Russell Crowe.

If one of the members was performing solo or alongside some of the lesser heard but highly skilled Killa Bees then I would be a lot more eager to see it because they would certainly delve deeper into their vast catalogue. I'm glad to hear that 1990s Wu affiliate La the Darkman is one of the opening acts on this tour, though. And I heard he performed this classic song at the San Francisco show on Thursday:


It'd be really special if he got the chance to perform this relatively obscure Wu gem with Masta Killa and U-God, "Element of Surprise" produced by 4th Disciple:




*   *   *
R.I.P. to the great Ron Santo who died at the age of 70 yesterday. The should-be Hall of Fame third baseman was a Chicago Cubs legend. He suffered from diabetes which eventually led to him having both legs amputated but he was still always a mainstay at Wrigley Field. Sad to see him go.

*   *  *
I received a phone call while still in bed sleeping this morning from my friend and co-worker informing me that the Padres had officially traded hometown hero and superstar Adrian Gonzalez to the Red Sox. I'm shocked at how quickly it happened but it really seemed inevitable. Gonzalez is one of the best players in baseball right now and he was entering the last year of an extremely underpaid deal, while it was becoming more and more clear that there was no way the Padres would be able to re-sign him with the money he'd inevitably demand on the market as such a great commodity. It's sad because he's a San Diego native of Mexican-American descent which makes him a perfect fit here but such is the business of baseball. The Padres don't have much money (though I'm not sure why) and he was going to undoubtedly command a huge contract.

The Padres' GM Jed Hoyer is a former whiz kid from the Red Sox front office and so we can be confident that he knew exactly which minor players to snatch up from his former team in return for this most precious trade piece. According to Marc Hulet from FanGraphs, the new arrivals from the Sox already slide right into the top 5 prospects in the Padres system.

While I'm glad I got to attend so many Padres games this summer and see one of the best hitting Padres of all time lead his team through a pennant race, I'm not quite as emotionally attached to the players as some of the Padre diehards and, objectively, this seems like a great deal for the situation they found themselves in. It will be fun rooting for Adrian to kick the Yankees' asses. But I wish this deal didn't have to happen.

*   *   *
For the last few weeks I've been absorbed fully into the happenings of the NBA, watching multiple games every night. Having watched games featuring almost every team in the league, I'm starting to wonder if there are any truly boring teams to watch. There doesn't seem to be right now as even the crappiest teams have a player or two who's worth watching. The best example of this is the perennially pathetic Los Angeles Clippers who have become must-see TV for me lately with rookie Blake Griffin exploding onto the scene with nightly highlight reels of him doing things you normally only see in NBA Jam or old Shawn Kemp highlights.



Even the Knicks, that formally destitute, dilapidated franchise I've always rooted for but most recently shielded my eyes from, seem to be crawling out of their years in the sewer. Mike D'Antoni has the offense clicking, playing fast-paced, exciting and high-scoring basketball while Amare Stoudemire is settling into a consistent streak of awesomeness and starting to have great chemistry with new point guard Raymond Felton. The Knicks are actually fun to watch.

The NBA world was abuzz all week about LeBron James' return to Cleveland to play his former team but after the bullshit about his famous powder toss and the player introductions, there was really nothing special to the game at all. The Heat absolutely scorched a clearly inferior team right from the start and that was the end of it.

*   *   *
I've been reading and loving two excellent but very different basketball books lately, The Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac and Pro Basketball Prospectus 2010-11, and I will write a review for them soon. I can't speak highly enough about both of them. In the Macrophenomenal book, the team over at FreeDarko uses sleek artwork and graphs to examine the culture and essence of the contemporary NBA and the Prospectus book is an absolute gem, reminding me of Bill James' Baseball Abstracts. Glad to see this infinitely awesome sport inspiring such great material.

A San Francisco Treat

Lately I've felt overwhelmed by everything going on in my world(s), particularly in the areas this blog focuses on: Sports (the baseball playoffs have begun and they've been awesome), Music (the skies have been pouring out new music, good stuff that I want to listen to and write about), and Literature (still reading plenty of Joyce material and have lots to say about it). I have a whole bunch of ideas for posts, even a couple unfinished posts, and an outline for an essay that I will not only submit to the James Joyce Quarterly but also will send in for possible presentation at the North American James Joyce Conference next year. It's pretty much the opposite of the usual writer dilemma, writer's block, in that I've got plenty to write about but just haven't been able to find the time to write lately. And when I do get free time, I feel overwhelmed by all the things that are trying to burst out of my head onto the page.

Added to all that is the fact that my job is asking me to start doing work for them while I'm home but they won't pay me for it. So, of course, I won't do it and (of course) they're trying to bamboozle me into doing it. The economy is bad, the company is struggling, etc, etc. That's what they tell me.

Well, let's try to go through some of this stuff in a clear and organized manner. Hopefully that will help me take this Building Roam thing past these hovering clouds and up to the heights I'm hoping to lift it to over these next few months.

Let's start with San Francisco.

When my girlfriend told me she wanted to go to the World Vegetarian Festival Weekend in San Francisco a few weeks ago, I immediately said yes and we began planning a little weekend road trip up to the Bay Area. It would be my first real (longer than 3 hours) road trip since my migration out to San Diego from New York in 2008. I was hyped. Somehow I hadn't realized that the Padres, the team I've followed closely and rooted for all season, would be playing their final three games of the regular season facing the Giants in San Francisco that same weekend. When the Padres went on a losing streak and relinquished their tightly held division lead to the Giants, and with baseball's other postseason spots decided already, that final series in San Francisco would become the focus of the entire baseball world.

On Friday we began our journey a bit later than we should have, not getting on the road until about 3 PM. By the time we reached Los Angeles three hours later, we found ourselves in Friday afternoon rush hour gridlock that tortured us for hours. We still had many many miles to cover until our final destination but we were stuck in LA quicksand. My girlfriend and I began to bicker, we were drowning in an ocean of cars. Before the bickering exploded into something bigger that might jeopardize the precious road trip, we got off at the closest exit and went to a gas station. I went inside to pee and buy some snacks and stood behind a couple of guys waiting for the bathroom already. "Wish I could just take a number and then go buy some stuff," I joked to the gentleman waiting at the back of the line. He proceeded to engage me surprisingly quickly into a pretty one-sided conversation in which he told me how he and his partner (standing next to him nodding every few minutes) were professional drivers who transport 16-wheeler trucks all over the country, this was their first time in Southern California and they were already sick of it because of all the traffic. He carried on for a while and I listened with great interest (what can I say, it was interesting) as he told me all about the job and even mapped out the exact routes they were traveling which reminded me of Chris Farley's security guard character spilling the beans in Wayne's World.

Once we were back on the road and refreshed, we persevered for another 7 hours or so, zooming through the darkness of California's farmlands for what seemed like forever. We made it to the hotel after 3 AM, tired and ragged but very proud of our accomplishment.

The weekend was spectacular. Everything seemed to go perfectly. We spent most of Saturday at the Veg Festival which took place in the lush arboreal enchanted forest that is Golden Gate Park and then, once I gave up on trying to get tickets for the sold out season finale against the Padres, we spent Sunday touring the city, going across the Golden Gate Bridge, and checking out a great Dali exhibit at a cool art gallery in Fishermen's Warf. The exhibit featured rare and exclusive sets of Dali's work like The Alchemy of the Philosophers and his illustration of Dante's Divine Comedy.

It felt great to be up there in that beautiful, culturally opulent city. The air was crisp and gave me an enlivened feeling, unlike the humidity and unbearable heat we've had in San Diego lately. As we walked around the streets my head kept popping forth new ideas to write and I felt like the atmosphere was working to conduct a creative electricity in my body. (Unfortunately I didn't bring my laptop or any notebooks to write in so I didn't jot anything down.)

When the Giants defeated the Padres the city was vibrant. As much as I wanted the Padres to win, it was actually very cool being in the middle of a big city like that when their team clinched a playoff spot (for the first time in 7 years). Without knowing what happened, it would have been pretty easy for one to ascertain as plenty of Giants fans zoomed through the streets honking their horns and waving orange flags and lively, skipping orange-clad fans swarmed the sidewalks.

It wasn't until today that I realized the cool subjective coincidence or synchronicity. Before this past weekend I had only been to San Francisco once, in the summer of 2008 when I visited a potential graduate school (CIIS if you must know). That time, I stayed for just three days and was alone, not really prepared to tour the city and absorb its splendor. But I did go to a Giants game. They faced the Atlanta Braves in a pretty meaningless and crappy (and freezing) game as both teams were well out of the playoff race and on their way to a 4th place finish. Now, after the Giants fought off my very own Padres in the season's final game while I was back in San Francisco again, they are facing (who else?) those same Atlanta Braves in the postseason.

Tonight I watched and marveled over Tim Lincecum's absolutely superb start against Atlanta in which he struck out 14, walked one, and allowed only 2 hits. I've said before that he is perhaps the most entertaining player in baseball right now and he was truly a spectacle tonight. The 26-year-old Lincecum is very generously listed at 5'11" and 170 lbs but he looks more like 5'9" and maybe 150. That's about how big I am. I'm simply awestruck watching this kid baffle major league hitters the way he does. Watching the Braves flail over and over again, an old thought popped into my head, a thought that used to occur to me while watching baseball as a naive young child: "are they even trying to get a hit?"

With his funky, herky jerky wind up, shoulder-length hair, and all-around skateboarder punk aura (he was busted for pot possession in the offseason) he presents an image unlike anything I've ever seen in baseball. He's like a little punk kid who goes out on the mound and makes all the older bigger guys look like idiots. And unlike the squeaky celebrations of the phenom kid in Rookie of the Year or the ugly roaring gyrations of Joba Chamberlain, Lincecum carries himself with the utmost calmness and professionalism. When he struck out the final batter tonight for his 14th strikeout (shattering the Giants franchise mark for strikeouts in a playoff game in his first career playoff game) to complete a two-hit shut out, he simply made a fist, a sign of a job well done. Not the Tiger Woods kind of over-exuberant fist pump either, this was the gesture a geeky but confident kid would make after accomplishing a new high score in a video game at an empty arcade. "Yes, I did it."

Game Story: Padres vs Cubs

San Diego Padres' odds of making the playoffs as of August 26th: 96.7 %

San Diego Padres' odds of making the playoffs as of today September 29th: 21%


After seeing on Twitter that there was a special ticket promotion for last night's Padres game offering a buy-one-get-one-for-$1 deal, I immediately jumped on it and was downtown in my favorite section in Petco Park (Toyota Terrace close to home plate) within a couple hours. It was my first Padres game since an August Saturday afternoon loss to the Phillies when the first place Pads had just begun their long streak of losses.

Last night they were coming off a successful (2 out of 3) weekend series against the Reds but had lost 1-0 the previous night, Monday, to the Chicago Cubs. Fiery, young, and talented staff ace Mat Latos was on the mound facing Ryan Dempster, one of the Cubs' consistently strong rotation cogs for years now. This season, while the Cubs have been terrible and put a pretty weak lineup to the plate, Dempster has continued to be reliable on the mound, ranking in the top 10 in his league in strikeouts, innings pitched, and fewest walks allowed.

The first four innings of the game went very fast as both starters settled into a groove quickly. Dempster allowed only one hit through 4 even though Adrian Gonzalez and Chris Denorfia had both smoked line drives deep into the outfield that centerfielder Marlon Byrd snatched at a full sprint and Latos let up a hit and a couple walks. Then in the top half of the 5th, the 22-year-old Latos gave us another example of how he can pretty easily let his frustration and anger get the best of him while on the mound and have his composure and effectiveness rapidly snowball downward. Latos without a doubt has the ability to be one of the top pitchers in the major leagues (he had the most dominant month in San Diego Padres history back in May with a .160 average allowed) but he is his own worst enemy. He gets pissed when he screws up and he knows it. In the top of the 5th, he allowed the Cubs two runs on an error of his own while trying to barehand a groundball, and then 3 consecutive hits including a hard liner off his leg. After Latos had been struck by the ball, it seemed for a moment like the manager and team trainer weren't even going to come out and check if he was okay (even though you always see them come out just as a precaution, especially with a young pitcher) and I thought maybe they were afraid to come out and talk to him because he just appeared so visibly enraged and explosive due to the inning's proceedings.

He managed to make his way out of that 5th inning allowing only 2 runs but then quickly crumbled in the 6th right after his catcher had smacked a two-run homer to tie the game. A clean liner by Xavier Nady and then a bomb to centerfield by Alfonso Soriano knocked Latos out of the game with his team trailing 4-2.

That's where the game stood in the bottom of the 7th with the (surprisingly meager) crowd lively after their stretch and "Take Me Out to the Ballgame"-singing, ready to scream like crazy for their team to tie the game. Matt Stairs did his part, opening the frame with a smashed ground rule double to centerfield. Chase Headley followed with a walk and the Padres had the tying runs on base and nobody out. As Ryan Dempster beared down and started throwing his slider almost exclusively, here's how the Padres responded:

Nick Hundley: struck out swinging, 1 out

Chris Denorfia: struck out swinging, 2 outs

Yorvit Torrealba: struck out swinging, 3 outs

I was monitoring Dempster very closely during those three at-bats and he really seemed to reach back for something extra in his adrenaline bucket and threw his awesome slider viciously. According to FanGraphs, Dempster's slider alone has been worth a wopping 20.1 runs saved above average this season and he effectively used it to strike out the side and escape a Padre rally in his final inning of the night.

That series of events totally deflated the entire stadium and I began deeply considering leaving the game early (something I absolutely never do) and officially giving up on this disappointing Padres playoff chase. When the long-limbed lanky (physically he is perfectly emblematic of the word "wiry") reliever Mike Adams allowed a home run to the long-limbed lanky (emblematically "wiry") Alfonso Soriano, I was done. I left at the end of the 8th after the Padres amounted absolutely no comeback.

I've loved watching this team play all year. I've been to more of their games this season than I've ever been to see one team in my life and I even once seriously considered them as a World Series threat. But I think the dreamy 2010 Padres Cinderella Story has slowly disintegrated and turned to dust. They won tonight and they need 4 more wins in their last 4 games to clinch the playoffs but from what I saw of them Tuesday night, they don't look like they can mount that last grunt towards the finish line that they need. They look tired and worn out and stressed from the beating they've taken over the last 30 days or so (the team is now 11-15 for the month of September after winning over 58% of their games for the first 5 months). I give them credit for knocking the Rockies off the postseason hill and it's certainly not inconceivable that they beat the Giants head-to-head this weekend but I just don't see these guys suddenly bursting back to life. I'll eat my words if they prove me wrong but to me they look like they're finished.

I'll still be watching and rooting for them, though, and interestingly enough I'll be up in San Francisco all weekend while they battle the Giants. The inevitable dream/fantasy/miracle scenario would feature me at the ballgame Sunday afternoon with a postseason berth on the line and a Padres victory but....we'll see.

As it stands right now the Padres are 2 games behind the Giants in the NL West and 1.5 behind the Braves in the Wild Card. Just going by run-differential, a pretty simple gauge of team skill and overall performance, the Padres (+84) are now lagging well behind both the Giants (+112) and Braves (+121) after being atop the National League for much of the season. There's no doubt these Padres have overachieved for the whole year and no matter what happens these next few days, their current 88 wins is a great season for them (I pegged them for 85 wins before the season and even that was wishcasting*). It's a bit sad that it has to end with them slowing down to a crawl but it shouldn't take away from how posterity views their overall performance.

*By the way, don't look back at those preseason projections...I picked the Giants to finish dead last.

Ten Straight

I spent this beautiful Sunday afternoon doing domestic chores (dishes and laundry) while watching the Padres play the visiting Colorado Rockies. In a game that felt like an intense pennant race battle, the Padres seemed to succumb to the pressure of their mounting winless streak which is now at 10 games. 

Battling a Colorado team that they've had many tight and exciting lateseason battles against over the last five years, they got beaten and swept at home. The Rockies have now won 10 out of 15 games against the Padres this season and 7 out of 9 at Petco Park. The Rox look like they're mounting another one of their customary late season surges as they've now climbed to within 4.5 games of the division-leading Padres. Outfielder Carlos Gonzalez (whom the Rockies acquired from Oakland for Matt Holliday in 2008) is catching fire, currently leading the league in both batting average and slugging percentage. He had 3 hits and a run in the game against the Pads today and seemed to be in the right place every time a Padre smacked a liner or a flyball in his direction, always catching the ball with a nonchalance reminiscent of Andruw Jones' glory days. "I hate him, he's just so smug."

*   *   *

I read the Associated Press' postgame write-up and they described the Padres as "reeling" which invokes in my mind the image of the baseball season as a six-month long race up a mountain's spiral road. The mountain would look like Dante's vision of Mt Purgatory (to the right) and it's as if each team is a race car trying to race up to the top of that mountain. The Padres have been absolutely zooming along their upward path for the entire season but have hit a tiny little pebble that made them start to wobble off track a bit and now they're skidding along the very edges of the mountain. That's what I envision by the word "reeling" as a description for these pennant race Padres. The Rockies have been known to go on these late season streaks (last year they started September winning 10 out of their first eleven) and now they're zooming up towards the tightly matched Padres and Giants and will probably make it a three team race to the NL West finish line.

*   *   *
There was one guy on the Padres who came out to play today like he wanted to single-handedly end this miserable losing streak: Miguel Tejada. The 36-year-old fading superstar was on-point and energetic. Bud Black had moved him down to 5th in the order, demoting him from the #2 spot he'd been occupying and Tejada responded by smoking a single in his first at bat (before successfully stealing 2nd base) and then absolutely crushing a towering two-run homerun in the 6th to tie the game and create the only 2 runs the Padres would score in the game.

In the 9th inning when the Padres were down to their last chance to try and avoid their losing streak growing into double-digits, Tejada led off with a perfectly executed bunt (I usually hate the bunt, especially for a good hitter without great speed, but he placed it absolutely perfectly) for an infield single. The crowd and the Padres finally seemed like they had some life, some energy, some of that late inning intensity and enthusiasm they've regularly had for the whole season (and the last two months of the '09 season). Here was their chance to finally come up big, erase a 9th inning deficit, punch back at the slugging Rockies and here's what they did:

- Chase Headley: struck out swinging (on a pitch that looked right down the middle)

- Matt Stairs: struck out looking

- Will Venable: struck out swinging (on a pitch that was right down the middle)

Game over.

I felt throughout the entire game like I did while I was watching the Mets' final three games of the year in 2007 when Florida knocked them out of the playoff picture. Or 2008 when the Mets absolutely collapsed and fell from first place like the burning Lucifer being flung from heaven. He fell with such force that he smashed through to the middle of the earth, pushing up a mountain at the bottom of the earth that became Mt Purgatory.

Will the Padres win another game this season?

After another loss to the Colorado Rockies yesterday afternoon, the Padres have now gone 9 games without a win. It's the longest losing streak in seven years and the fans here in San Diego are starting to worry that maybe the clock has struck midnight very abruptly on this magical season and this Cinderella Pad squad is turning into a pumpkin.

They had been cruising along at an essentially perfect pace for 5 straight months to start the year. Their record and run differential was better than all but the best two teams in baseball. Counting last year they've actually been playing like the best team in the National League for 7 straight months (they finished the season going 32-21 in the last two months of '09). They had not even had a losing streak longer than 3 games throughout this year and had only experienced such a streak twice.

Now they seem to have ran into a wall and are having trouble getting back up. Well-executed fundamental baseball has been a constant for this crew but we've seen the defense coming apart at the seams in this sloppy 9-game slide. The other night Miguel Tejada, for no apparent reason, tried to catch a throw from the second basemen with his bare hand to start a double play. It was a ridiculous thing to try and he totally missed it, granting the D'backs two extra outs for the inning. Another defensive miscue followed and then Luke Gregerson allowed a monstrous grand slam. Today Everth Cabrera booted an easy grounder that would've started a doubleplay. This is not how the Padres have played all year.

The team's strategy throughout the year has been simple but impeccably executed: keep the games close with strong starting pitching and defense, scrap out a lead with timely hitting, and then hand things off to a virtually unhittable bullpen. During this streak their pitching has been atrocious, allowing almost 6 runs per game and the sputtering offense has only scored 2.3 per contest.

So, is what we've seen these past nine games the real talent level of the Padres? Were the first 5 months of pure excellence a total fluke?

I really don't think so. But the mounting losses are undoubtedly testing this team mentally and you can see guys starting to freak out and have tantrums like Jon Garland did in the Padre dugout during an ugly inning yesterday. Perhaps that's exactly what a discombobulated team needs to get back on track.

*   *   *
Searching for an excuse for this streak of struggles, we can at least grant that they've played against good teams. The Diamondbacks started out terribly but they have played much better baseball as of late, finishing August with a 16-13 record (the same as the Padres during that span). The losing streak began with a 11-5 pounding in Arizona before the Friars came home for a weekend series with the Phillies who always play great this time of year. With reinforcements like Chase Utley and Jimmy Rollins having just returned to the lineup and Joe Blanton and Chase Utley throwing gems, the Phils swept their opponents at Petco. I was at the Saturday game (pic below) and the Padres looked lifeless, showing no indication of the determined, tough at-bats and late inning rallies that have been customary for this San Diego team for basically the last calendar year.

After that embarassing sweep in their home park they went back over to Arizona again and got walloped in a three game set (outscored 19-6) and now the last two games they've battled a Colorado team that is on fire (as they always are at this time of the year) and against whom they've had trouble all season, winning just 4 of 10 games against the Rox. Back in May I stated that the Rockies would probably make a surge eventually and the Padres might not be good enough to withstand it when it comes. Well, here is that surge as they've climbed to within 5.5 games for the first time since July, their best player is back in the lineup after a month on the DL, CarGo is heating up and one mustn't forget the resilient Giants who have continued to nip at the Padres' heels, now sitting only 2 games back. It really is looking like it'll be an exciting September in the NL West.

Last night I found myself up in Los Angeles and actually rooting for the Dodgers as they played the Giants. I'll hopefully make a post entirely devoted to that experience but the Dodgers managed to win and keep the Giants down, otherwise they'd only be 1 game back right now.

*   *   *
So...will the Padres win another game this season or anytime soon?

Of course they will. I think they'll either win today's tilt with Clayton Richard on the mound or, if they lose again and push it to double digits, Mat Latos will blow away the Dodgers on Monday and we'll all forget this ever happened.

But now since they've allowed the Giants to get close again the question remains: can this Padres team win the division?

The Padres have an extremely tough schedule to finish out the year. The worst team they'll face is the Cubs and they've got to face San Francisco seven more times, the Dodgers six, plus seven games against the Cardinals and Reds.

Once they shake off this embarrassing stumble, this is still a quality Padres team. Keep in mind Miguel Tejada is actually hitting pretty well with a 106 OPS+ thus far as a Padre, Chase Headley and Adrian Gonzalez were great in August, and the surprise explosion that is Chris Denorfia's 2010 season hasn't slowed down one bit (145 OPS+ in August). If Ryan Ludwick can shake off his slow San Diego start (.658 OPS) and hit at a rate closer to his established norm, I think the offense will not only be fine but it should be an improvement on what they've been winning with for much of the year. The rotation looks a little more troubling as Wade LeBlanc seems to have lost his touch (although he had great K/BB numbers last month, he's been giving up far too many homers), Jon Garland's luck is fading and Kevin Correia continues to struggle (5.52 ERA on the year, 7.20 in August).There are reinforcements available in-house though, especially long relief man Tim Stauffer who's been itching to get back in the rotation and I think Bud Black and Darren Balsey will sort things out with the starters. The pen is not to be worried about with this team, it's too deep and too talented to fuss over.

These next four weeks are going to be thriling and, no matter what happens, I'll be glad to be watching pennant race Padre baseball in September which is something I never thought possible. I just hope they don't emulate the recent fate of my ignominious Mets.

Absent Note

I haven't been able to put anything up on the blog this week as I have been rehabbing a torn ligament in my knee and working on a huge post to come about A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man which will serve as an introductory post to my series on Ulysses. Hopefully that will be finished up this weekend.

At the moment I'm enjoying watching the Padres' newest pitching star, a young man who was born exactly one day after me in 1985. His name is Ernesto Frieri, he hails from Colombia and amazingly he wears the same jersey number (39) I've chosen to wear for most of my career as an ice hockey player.

How 'bout them Padres?

It's certainly been a great season for the Padres so far. I managed to secure great seats to Thursday afternoon's battle with their rival Dodgers and watched a tense 2-2 game that was won in the bottom of the 9th by Padre pinch-hitter Oscar Salazar. On "Throwback Thursday" with the Padres sporting their 1978 brown-and-yellow uniforms, it was fitting that the game was won by one of the only players wearing the true 70s high stirrups.

*   *  *
It was announced during the game that the Padres had just traded for Miguel Tejada from Baltimore and a great buzz hummed throughout the 42,000-plus in attendance. I heard some bad words about current struggling shortstop Everth Cabrera and grumblings about what Tejada has left. But I like the deal very much and was excited when I heard about it.

Make no mistake about it, this Padre team has some run-scoring issues. Their pitching is so unbelievably amazing that this hasn't hurt their success but general manager Jed Hoyer recognized the team's main issue and made clear improvements with some offensive reinforcement for the pennant race the Padres are now seriously involved in. In his first year running the team, he's already shown a knack for shrews trades. This morning he picked up a solid corner outfield bat in Ryan Ludwick from the Cardinals.

*   *   *
The key in acquiring Tejada is that the Padres have gotten pretty much nothing offensively out of their shortstop position. After a strong rookie season last year, Everth Cabrera has struggled terribly this year with a .198 average and .270 OBP. He's looked pathetic at the plate recently as he's receded further into a slump and taken to bunting in almost every at bat to try and beat out an infield base hit. With David Eckstein injured, Jerry Hairston Jr. has had to cover for him at second base and so Cabrera has been left to rot out there. Now he'll be a back-up and pinch runner.

Tejada hasn't hit well in Baltimore this year but escaping that decrepit failure of a franchise (and the highly competitive AL East division) for the first place Padres should enliven him a bit. He had a very good year for the Astros last season, leading the National League in doubles with 46 so he probably has something left to show NL foes. His diminished defensive range shouldn't be a huge problem with the Padres pitching staff leading the majors in strikeout rate and thus putting fewer balls in play. He's also a perfect platoon partner for Chase Headley at third: Headley struggles with a .194/.263/.242 line against lefties while Tejada has a strong .821 OPS against southpaws for his career.

Ryan Ludwick is a huge addition for this team. Not only is he a very good fielder with a cannon arm (thus not disrupting but perhaps adding to the excellent Padre defense) but he's a solid above-average hitter (.288 True Average) who immediately becomes the Padres' second best offensive player. As a fan, I'm very excited about this upgraded lineup.

Best of all, the Padres didn't have to give up very much to get these two hitters. The best player given up is probably minor league pitcher Wynn Pelzer who they sent to the Orioles in exchange for Tejada. Pelzer was the #5 prospect in their system before this season according to Baseball Prospectus but he's struggled at Double-A this season and will probably end up in the bullpen.

MLB 2010 Midseason Thoughts: National League

Standings as of Saturday morning July 10th, 2010.


NL West
San Diego  --
Colorado  2
Los Angeles 2
San Francisco  5
Arizona  17.5

I like the Padres, I go to many of their games (eight this year so far, two in the past two weeks), and I've written about them a bunch of times here already. I'm very happy to see them in first place but as I've mentioned before, the Rockies and Dodgers have really started to play better after slow starts and they've been biting at the Pads' heels for weeks. The question is: are the Padres truly good enough to win this division? With their extremely pitcher-friendly home ballpark, there's been some confusion about the overall quality of this Padre team. Their pitching has been great, but some silly people discredit that as a park illusion (even though their ERA in away games is the best in the majors) and, big ballpark or not, nobody believes in their offense. The park-adjusted statistics (TrueAverage and OPS+) do show that they've got a pretty weak offensive attack with Adrian Gonzalez (.324 TAv) and Nick Hundley (.271 TAv) being the only above-average hitting regulars. Away from the wide expanses of Petco Park, the team hasn't hit very well at all but with their undeniably awesome pitching they've managed to amass the best road record in the National League.

And the offense has actually performed pretty well at home while the pitching has been great:

4.41 runs scored per game at home
3.17 runs allowed per game at home

They are a team of stellar pitching (led by burgeoning rookie Mat Latos in the rotation and a historically great bullpen) and a just-good-enough offense. It's basically Adrian Gonzalez and a bunch of guys who "get the job done." Early in the season it looked like Chase Headley was going to finally bust out as a high-caliber player but he's really slowed down and currently sits at a pretty weak .259 TAv. Thankfully, Nick Hundley has emerged as a good hitter and, despite limited playing time so far, I'm liking what I see from outfielder Aaron Cunningham.

I had great seats for a Padres-Rockies game last week and saw a nice duel between Pads' lefty Wade LeBlanc and Rox righty Jason Hammel. Aside from an extremely impressive homerun launched over the fence in the deepest part of the yard by redhot youngster Carlos Gonzalez, LeBlanc didn't allow much and pitched a great game but it was blown open by the long-ball serving ways of San Diego reliever Edward Mujica. Colorado looked strong and they took 2 out of 3 in that series without their best player (Troy Tulowitzki). The two teams had a great battle in Colorado last night and they're in a close game right now as I type this. Look for a very entertaining race to the finish line between these two teams over the next three months. Obviously I'll be rooting for the Padres.

While I picked the Dodgers to win the division in my preseason picks, their erratic play has me questioning whether they'll even stay in the mix much longer.

NL Central
Cincinnati  --
St. Louis    2
Chicago   10.5
Milwaukee  10.5
Houston   13.5
Pittsburgh   18

Oh boy was I ever wrong about the Brewers. I feel bad for the Milwaukee fans devoting their time, energy, attention, and emotion to this team. On the other hand, the success of the team on the Ohio River in Cincinnati is undoubtedly for real. Their lineup is very deep, especially with Scott Rolen recapturing his glory days (.306 TAv). Joey Votto (.337 TAv, 22 HRs) is having a huge year, Brandon Phillips is having his typical good year, and I think you can expect Drew Stubbs and Jay Bruce to continue to get better as the season goes on. They've got talented young pitchers up the wazoo (rookie Travis Wood almost threw a perfect game in Philadelphia today) and I don't think even the clumsy ineptitude of toothpick-chewing Dusty Baker can sink this cruising ship.

On the other hand, did anybody see the ending of that Rockies-Cardinals game the other night? The Rox pulled a miracle comeback, scoring 9 runs in the 9th inning while down by 6 but what in the hell was Tony La Russa thinking playing his outfielders so deep? Yet another example of TLR overmanaging to the detriment of the team. Check out the highlights, it was a 9-7 game with 2 outs and a runner on third, Carlos Gonzalez batting. That run at third was meaningless, the pitcher had to simply get Gonzalez out to win the game. Gonzalez stroked a line drive to right field that would've normally been hit directly at the right fielder but Randy Winn was playing as far back as the warning track. I believe this is called "no doubles" defense but who cares about a double in that situation? It looked like the outfielders were positioned there to be ready to retrieve a homerun from over the fence...which is just insane! La Russa was also largely blamed for (twice in one game) losing that extremely long game to the Mets earlier this season. The Cards are supposed to be the favorites to win this division, their rotation is superb (2nd best ERA behind the Padres), and the lineup is solid but I wouldn't be surprised to see La Russa screw up a few more tight games and lose this division by one or two games in the end.

And I'm amazed the Pirates have played bad enough to fall below the Astros. The Astros are pathetic.

NL East
Atlanta   --
New York  4
Philadelphia  5.5
Florida   10
Washington   12.5

Tim Hudson has been the surprise ace (2.44 ERA) of a strong Atlanta pitching staff and the depth of offensive production they've had is staggering. They have an unbelievable ten (!) hitters with a True Average of at least .270. Nine guys have at least a .280 TAv. Five (!) hitters have at least a .290. I think it's clear that they've got a strong hold on the #1 spot atop this division but don't count the Mets and Phillies out. The 2nd place team here will probably take the Wild Card.

I've been pleasantly surprised with this Mets team all season long. As good as that Braves offense is, the Mets are still right next to them in overall True Average. David Wright has regained his status as the Metsiah. His True Average of .326 leads all major league third basemen, a serious feat considering the next closest is Evan Longoria at .313. Wright also leads all 3B in VORP and is 7th in all of baseball by that stat. Angel Pagan has turned into a nifty player, Jose Reyes is getting his mojo back, Jason Bay hasn't hit homers but is still producing (.293 TAv), and although he's slowed down as of late I still trust in what Ike Davis can do. Don't forget about Carlos Beltran! I worried about the rotation coming into this season but Mike Pelfrey has established himself as a force to be reckoned with after adding a splitter to his arsenal while Johan Santana is showing signs of coming out of his weird slump (which was apparently due to tipping off his vaunted changeup), Jonathon Niese is becoming established as a consistent starter (.541 SNWP or Support-Neutral Winning Percentage), and R.A. Dickey has successfully been a big hairy knuckleballer...what's more fun than that?

The Mets bullpen is what worries me. Are Elmer Dessens and Fernando Nieve reliable? Maybe for now, but I'd be pulling my hair out if they were protecting leads late in the season in a pennant race. Although Rob Neyer sees no discernible difference in his peripheral numbers, K-Rod is worrisome. It'd be fun if the Mets could fight their way to the top and knock off the Braves or beat out the Phillies for the Wild Card but it's easy to foresee some big late game collapses by that Met bullpen.

NL MVP thus far: Adrian Gonzalez, Padres
The San Diego star has had yet another huge season batting in the middle of a lineup without any other major threat (see above) and playing half his games in the worst hitter's park in the majors. Taking a look at his park-adjusted numbers at Baseball Prospectus' site (scroll to the Davenport Translations), Adrian would have 38 homeruns right now if he were in a normal park. The major league leader has just 24. Look at his road numbers for crying out loud: .353/.410/.660 AVG/OBP/SLG. 

NL Cy Young thus far: Josh Johnson, Marlins

There are a few guys in the National League having great pitching seasons. The most talked about is probably Ubaldo Jimenez, but Roy Halladay is having another great year, so is Adam Wainwright and even Mat Latos. Josh Johnson has been better than all of them. His 1.70 ERA is the best in baseball (so is his 1.84 Runs Allowed), he has the most Quality Starts, the best opponents OPS, and he's a hundreth of a point behind Cliff Lee for best WHIP all while throwing more innings than all but five pitchers in the NL. Looking at more advanced stats, he currently leads all major league pitchers in Wins Above Replacement, Support-Neutral Win Percentage, and ERA+. His stature in that last mark is just insane, at 246 it means he's prevented runs at a rate 146-percent better than the league at this point (that number also adjusts for any advantage he may get from his home ballpark). The last pitcher to be in that territory was vintage Pedro. Keep watching!