Gaslamp Ball

I still don't think

that the last four years were a fluke. We had pretty solid teams with consistent pitching on both ends, and just enough offense to get by. Our offense was consistently better than it portrayed (Geoff at Ducksnorts has written several articles o this topic) and our defense was stellar.

This year, our bullpen fell aprat early on and gave us an early hole to dig out of. The offense then decided to sputter in response, leading to increased pressure on the pitching staff. This sort of become a violent circle where the hitter tried too hard to bail out the pitching and the pitchers tried to be too perfect to protect the leads. Ultimately, both failed.

I’m really curious to see what happens now. If I had to guess, we’ll retain Iguchi, Adrian, Bard, and Kouz. I think the rest of the team (save Jody Gerut since we have no CF solution) is probably gone. Khalil might stay strictly because we have no SS option, but I have a feeling someone somewhere else will overpay for his services.

Trade Considerations

The UT talked about the possibilities of Giles and Maddux being traded. I guess Maddux has a no-trade clause and Giles gets an extra $2 million if he gets traded in addition to the $4 million buyout/$9 million option for next year. That’s some tough stuff to work around for sludge merchant Kevin Towers.

Wonko - May 20, 2008 reply

I'd also say the past four years

were, in part, a by-product of a really weak division.

I don't buy that

especially since the NLCS came down to two teams in the West. I’ll give you ‘05, but in ‘04, ‘06, and ‘07, the division was pretty good. Remember that the Wild Card came out of the West in 2006 as well.

NLCS and the Wild Card

I’d argue that those things speak more to the weakness of the entire NL than it does to the strength of the NL West.

The fact that we had winning seasons

tells us how bad the rest of the league was. We were horrible.

jbox - May 20, 2008 reply

Meh

I suppose we’ll agree to disagree on this one. I don’t see how the rest of the league could have jumped up in talent this much from 2007 to 2008. Seriously. We won 89 games last year.

We’re on pace for like 60 this year. Either every other team got infinitely better, or we suck balls this year.

why either?

The obvious answer is a little of both. Every other team got better, but not “infinitely” and we suck taint, but not balls.

I can't honestly

but that every team got better. I think we are really not playing up to our level. Did the Rockies get better? Did the Giants get better?

*buy

can you buy that ALMOST every team we've played so far got better?

why isn’t that possible? I said it was probably a little of both.

Teams that have improved

Chicago
Florida
Los Angeles
Arizona
Houston
St. Louis

Teams that have stayed the same or gotten worse:

Atlanta
Colorado
Philly
San Francisco
Seattle

I’m basing the “better or worse” on how their current pace reflects the result from last year. So now, I don’t buy that ALMOST every team we’ve played has gotten better. We’re worse than we’ve been in some time. We weren’t “lucky” or just playing bad teams the past four years. We were a better team and we’re not this year.

OK so getting back to it

Obviously, we got worse and other teams got better. What are we debating here?

Let's review

I said that we had good teams before and that this year we suck. You (and others) implied that our previous success weren’t because we were good, but rather because the rest of the league sucked.

To play that out, the rest of the league would have had to dramatically improve for your premise to be correct. To wit, only half of the teams we’ve played this year can be said to have improved from last year. The rest of them are at about the same level or worse.

Thus, we didn’t string together 4 winning seasons just because the rest of the league sucked. We had those seasons because we had teams that perfromed well and maximized their strengths. This year, we have a team that is not performing close to its estabished norms. We are playing so poorly that we are losing series’ to teams that are the same level or worse than last year. Thus, we suck.

The whole point of this is an attempt to discredit your agrument that we just preyed on a weak league in previous years. I think I’ve done that effectively, and I hope you understand that there is no malice in this argument.

Why do you have to be so malicious, Phantom?

AH HA!!!

All I said is that it doesn’t have to be that the Padres now suck or that the teams got better, but that it could be a little of both. You’re trying to discredit an argument that I never even tried to make.

I WIN!

Touché salesman

Then I guess this argument should be directed at others.

This is more embarassing than that time Drama told everyone about the KG tattoo on my ass.

When he gets traded....

...then it’s going to be really embarrassing.

As I said...

“in part.”

(Man, remember yesterday when Phantom was all like “I’m okay with us not being very good”? Today he’s like “I AM NOT OKAY WITH ANYTHING, ALRIGHT????”)

Totally malicious, right?

Totally

Too funny

I’m still OK with us sucking, I just think it’s disrespectful to our past team’s to say that our success was because everyone else sucked.

But yeah, we suck pretty bad. I’m pretty interested to see what Towers does about it.

Is sucking taint better than sucking balls?

I’m not sure I follow the logic.

Wonko - May 20, 2008 reply

that's what she said?

I agree with Dex

Not about the taint part, but the part about it being some of both.

I only agree

about the taint part.

jbox - May 20, 2008 reply

that's what she said

Either way

It was apparent in the offseason that the NL, in general, was going to be much better than in years past. I think the interleague play this past weekend has demonstrated that fact. Unfortunately, the reality is that the Pads just didn’t keep pace with the other teams as far as trades and free agents were concerned. KT caught a lot of flak for that, at the season ticket holders meeting. But I think people tried to trust him regardless. I think what you are seeing now is KT realizing he has lost a lot of his public trust and he isn’t too stoked about that.

Well he trusted in his players.

I’m not a math understander, but if these guys performed to 80% of last year’s numbers, we would still be better than this.

Aren't we missing a pretty big part of this?

Maybe I’m wrong, but the way I’m reading this….Bud Black’s job is now officially in jeopardy. These comments were a direct shot at the manager. If the GM is questioning the teams intensity…questioning whether or not the players even care that they have gone from an 89-game winner to the joke of baseball…that is a reflection on the leadership of this baseball team.

isn't that a given?

I thought we all knew Bud Black was getting fired soon. That’s the unspoken assumption. He ain’t keeping a job.

Good call

But seems like his job should be in jeopardy. Maybe we can get Willie Randolph after the Mets axe him.

Yup

That was a direct shot at Buddy and at the team’s leaders. I have liked Buddy, though I hate his misplaced trust in our starting pitchers late in games. I assume that KT gave Buddy this “piece of mind” a week ago and is now going to the media because nothing has happened in the clubhouse.

BeantownFriar - May 20, 2008 reply

The fact that we aren't even discussing his ineptitude

is just another example of how irrelevant he is. He’s already gone. We need to start a pool with dates for his dismissal.

july 31

Just glad to see others

with the pitchforks and torches.

No Fun Club

So, if I’m Maddux, I’m thinking “um, so, I can’t pee on rookie’s legs anymore? This club sux”. And, Giles – is he going to have start wearing clothes at appropriate times?

BeantownFriar - May 20, 2008 reply

I say

we bring back Marcus Giles and beg Milton to come back if we promise to fire Bud Black. Then at least we’d lose with some intensity.

I'll tell you what.

Say what you want about the Baby Giles and his poor performance at the plate last season…but the fact of the matter is that was a kid that would not stand for the piss-poor effort being seen on a nightly basis right now. I love that guy. .229 hitter or not…I’d take him back today.

wait, why?

who cares if he wouldn’t stand for it? what would he actually do? sit for it? isn’t that worse?

like I said

we’d lose with intensity instead of lose with apathy. that’s a little better

No, it's not

Intensity would provide brief moments of hope. I don’t want any hope in my Padres. I want poor baserunning, mental mistakes and lackadaisical attitudes so I can stay angry with them.

Guess

I am one of the few who isn’t really angry with the Padres as much as I am with management. I can look at a broken clock and curse it for not working, but it doesn’t make it work, and it isn’t going to fix itself. Either I get a new clock or get in there in replace the broken parts. So far I haven’t really seen an honest attempt by management to “fix the clock”. They just kind of shake it a bit and hope it works. Seems like KT is finally sick of the clock being right just twice a day.

Cutting Edmonds and eating that salary doesn't mean anything to you?

If they didn’t care, they’d have kept throwing Edmonds out there no matter what he did.

ah i get it

this is why we should trade away the entire infield. i don’t trust any of them to get fired up about anything. trade the outfield too.

Move

The Padres down to the PCL and bring the Beavers up to the MLB.

As sarcastic as you are

I would trade/release the entire infield and outfield save for Adrian Gonzalez.

Kouz, too???

But…but…iLOVEkouz5!

I wasn't being sarcastic

I don’t know what Adrian Gonzalez brings to the table except having the most value of any of our position players right now.

Aid

Aside from being a great hitter….he’s a Gold Glove-caliber first baseman. He was born and raised in San Diego. He’s Latino. He just turned 26. He’s a position player we can build around.

Just because a certain player has more trade value than any other…that doesn’t mean you trade him.

Quite honestly, if I could only protect one player…it would be him.

Marcus was either smiling or near homicidal.

These guys have zero fire. ZERO. Someone needs to have shit fit in that clubhouse. Marcus would be the type of guy to do that. Like what a Kevin Brown brought. It’s infectious. Just like the apathy we’re seeing now is infectious.

KT's job should be on the line

after horrendous signings

bosnia08 - May 20, 2008 reply

I doubt it was all KT

And really, the signings haven’t all been “horrendous”. After all, he brought us Bradley last year. Signed Jake to his deal. Made the moves to get CY and Adrian.

Vinny Castilla and Jim Edmonds were really terrible though.

Wolf, Estes, Maddux

I'm not sure what the point is there...

Decent signing, bad signing, great signing.

I wouldn't call Wolf a decent signing.

Wolf is going to be one of our most valuable trading commodities. Someone is going to way overpay for that guy.

Could we do Wolf and Kouz

for Kyle Kendrick and Shane Victorino?

or better yet

Bret Myers? That guy’s got fire.

"How do you spell 'retard'?"

Thought he was traded to

Japan

"Wolf is going to be one of our most valuable trading commodities."

That’s a good thing. Would you call him a bad signing? Because then you’re not making any sense.

Better than decent, maybe.

And Estes doesn’t do anything for ya?

Could you handle Germano and Ledezma on back to back starts if we didn’t have Estes?

We haven't given Estes enough chance to fail yet

And we lost an entire year where that guy was supposed to be playing for us. It’s basically his fault we had to go to Germano and Ledezma in the first place.

No

I think he means he was a great signing, not just a decent signing.

Ah

Still, until we actually get value from him, I’ll call him decent. When somebody overpays, then it’s a great signing. If we don’t get much then he played decent for us while he was with us.

The way I read your comment...

“Decent signing, bad signing, great signing.” It seemed like you were calling him a decent signing. I’d rate it at very good…depending of course on what KT can get out of him.

what if we don't get anything more out of him

then he’s still a very good signing?

Performance wise?

Or return in trade?

Dude all I'm saying

We have no idea what we’re gonna get for Wolf if we in fact trade him. Until something happens, I’m not gonna dream about what might be. Calling him “decent” isn’t a bad thing.

Malicious.

Somebody got a big head in New York.

Just because you had a hooker and an eight-ball of coke waiting for you in your hotel room doesn’t mean you’re Mr. Cool Guy now.

Remember

Nobody wants to hear about your dreams, okay?

He's got us in just as many games as Maddux for half the price.

We've also had Maddux as a solid starter for longer

And there’s the argument that people will actually pay money to watch Greg Maddux as opposed to Wolf.

How many criteria are there for good/bad signings?

tons

I was just being succinct.

As far as this year

That’s three in favor of Towers. I consider the money spent to acquire these and pluses as well, in comparison to what other clubs paid for similar solutions. (I keep thinking back to Carlos Silva w/ the Mariners)

I'd rather not include Estes

Did we pay him for last year? I have trouble ignoring the fact that we haven’t actually got much value out of him yet.

Resigned Dec. 14, 2007 to minor league contract

He’s fighting with PMac to see who gets the cans and bottles from the clubhouse.

Edmonds

Seemed like the only bad signing. For me it was more of the non-signings that were frustrating considering some of what was available in the Pads price range.

Fast forward three months...

The Beavers have been called up, and they can’t hit at Petco either because of the deep fences. I mean, what’s it going to take to move the d-mn things in, expand the sandbox thingie for the kids, so Padres hitters can stop psyching themselves out, or whatever it is that makes them incapable of hitting?

On the other hand, the solution may be as simple as excising beige from the color scheme. KT wants his players to be proud of the name on the uniform…but the things are beige.

Bip Roberts - May 20, 2008 reply

Petco

How about we just demolish the loser place and move back to Qualcomm. I’m down for that.

Holy Crap

Even better. Let the Chargers move into Petco so they can have a stadium that’s not in Chula Vista and the Padres get their baseball park that has shorter fences. DONE AND DONE.

Hah!

That’s perfect!

Bip Roberts - May 20, 2008 reply

Of course both stadiums would require some alterations

but i’m sure we can borrow off the pension budget right?

Sell the naming rights of the project to ABC.

They can tie it into the next season of “Wife Swap”. Maybe we can get Kobey involved?

Or maybe to TLC

they could ressurect “Trading Spaces”

Paige Davis = HOT.

Already resurrected!!!

Paige has dark hair now. Yowza.

Maybe the Pads wil

learn how to play small ball and take advantage of the huge gaps at Petco

I agree

Rather than move the fences, let’s just see some line drive hitters for a change.

That would never work

Too logical? Too baseball-y?

Precisely

Plus, if that strategy was going to work, we would have tried it already.

Duh.

LOL

Same old

How many years have we been hearing about the Pads playing small ball, hitting line drives, etc? And if they’re going to play small ball, they need players who can actually run.

Bip Roberts - May 20, 2008 reply

It's insane

Being in Giant’s/A’s territory I see a lot of A’s ballgames. You’ve never seen a team get more runs off of less power. 5 run innings from just dumping stuff in gaps. Seems like when the Pads have a 5 run inning it tends to be because of multiple run HRs.

or KT will get players who actually fit into the org philosophy

kouz is a real high OBP guy….....so is khalil….......and KT, way to override the Matt Bush signing

bosnia08 - May 20, 2008 reply

maybe KT will actually get

players who fit into the moneyball style than alderson comes from…..OBP OBP OBP OBP OBP

KOUZ, below .300 OBP, khalil below .300.

way to let JACK CUST GO….........GREAT MOVE…....we don’t need OF, we have plenty

bosnia08 - May 20, 2008 reply

Dex

I know you typically reserve the ban treatment for ‘Tec and his fantasy ramblings, but I think we could take a poll here.

Seems like spam comments

Jack Cust

was a good guy to get rid of. He had a hot year last year, but has been weak so far this year. Plus, didn’t we get Bradley for him?

Barrett

Just got an RBI double for Portland. 4-1 Portland

we better take it easy

I don’t want anybody thinking that he’s our savior. Better to let him get completely warm this year and then call him up in 2009.

Good for Mike

We really need him back. So we can trade him.

Speaking of our favorite Triple A team...

We should do a FanPost everyday where we spotlight the player of the previous game for Portland.

We could call it “Post Your Beaver”....or something like that.

Great idea, huh?

Scary Beavers!

BeaverShots!
Eager Beavers?

"Nice beaver!"

“Thank you. I just had it stuffed.”

Now we need a team named after owls...

Who

is going to be responsible for such a tremendous project?

elan

The Tucson Sidewinders

They have their own personal Jesus.

Jesus Merchan.

That's the new savior of our organization.

Fuson, on it, NOW!

Beavers win!

4-1 victory.