Better Latos Than Never: The 2010 San Diego Padres Thread

Fuck it.

nice

pgammo
Latos has retired 55 of the last 58 batters he's faced. Welcome to the power arm NL Westworld
about 1 hour ago via web

to be fair he faced the stros and the giants, but yeah

Stros are 30th in MLB OBP, Giants are a decent 10th.

What part of WELCOME TO THE POWER ARM NL WESTWORLD don't you understand, contl;drizer?

do you not, even

still

I don't know if Jed Hoyer reads this forum, but I'd just like to say: Jermaine Dye.

These are the top 10 teams in terms of winning percentage since last July 27:

1. New York Yankees: .663 (65-33)
2. Minnesota Twins .612 (60-38)
3. San Diego Padres .608 (59-38)
4. St. Louis Cardinals .604 (58-38)
5. Philadelphia Phillies .576 (57-42)

horseshoes and handgrenades imo

I don't know if Jed Hoyer reads this forum, but I'd just like to say: Jermaine Dye.

when did the padres get a DH slot?

I feel like they have enough defense otherwise to have one bad defender in RF if they can get some offense out of one of the corner spots.

horseshoes and handgrenades imo

Please do not make the mistake of thinking that I believe they will keep this up.

Just looked at the NL standings and the Padres (27-18) have the best record in the league. wtf?

I think the NL playoff races will come down to who plays the NL Central more in Aug/Sept.

Will they even have two all-stars?

Im sure the NL manager will pick Bell out of sympathy

Then again its Manuel so he'll probably have Contreras be one of his relievers because he can.

ade definitely. then pick a SP, garland or latos are prob both deserving imo

I could see Adrian getting passed up because of the depth of options at 1B. Seems to always be someone who gets passed up so that Ryan Howard can entertain the fans.

Wearing '78 throwbacks today

Coaches could also pick Gonzo to fill out the roster because hes a lefty..

not sure how people watch this team day in & day out

obviously they win... but so many sacrifices & stuff -- it would be too much for me

not alot of small ball was played last night when they pimp slapped the mets for 18 runs on 19 hits.

these fuckin guys...

Latos v Johan this aftnoon

Lets go Mets

So are these fucking guys going to win 100 games or what

They currently are more games over .500 than they've been all season.

I still don't get it, but I am increasingly not very intimidated by the other teams in the NL West (for the nth time in the past n years).

Their bullpen is ungodly good. SD pitching staff has the highest VORP in the NL, maybe even MLB.

is that park-adjusted?

I can't speak for the bullpen's road performance, or about VORP, but the overall team ERA on the road is 3.41, second only to Tampa Bay's 3.28. And their road OPS allowed is .661, best in baseball.

I think theyre also best in baseball in preventing inherited runners to score.

Currently are tied for the biggest division lead in baseball (4.5 games).

Only four teams have scored fewer runs than the Padres, and those four teams have a combined winning percentage of .368.

Seems like they automatically win if they score 2-3 runs because of that pitching staff.

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash2/hs041.ash2/35393_416626987840_102173462840_4271173_304841_n.jpg

dag

i think he ate cecil fielder

O_O

that's not tony gwynn is it???

yeah it is, wow.

anyways this is San Diego's year, they are going to win the west this year.

Padres score 13 runs on Adrian Gonzalez's day off, weird.

A friend is going to Las Vegas this summer, so I want to put down a bet on someone to win it all. I'm thinking of the Padres, on the perhaps silly logic that in a "year of the pitcher," it makes sense to go with the team with the deepest pitching. Question to Padres fans (I'm in Toronto): 1) Do you think they have a legitimate chance? 2) What kind of odds do you think I'd get if the bet were placed sometime in August?

somebody shld tell tony abt kirby puckett u_u

Bill James once wrote something to the effect that if Tony Gwynn and Kirby Puckett had a footrace, it would look like two bowling balls careening down an alley side-by-side.

http://www.creepygif.com/images/full/10.gif

What would it look like if James took up a third lane?

Clemenza, the Pads are for real to an extent, but they're having a season like the Rockies did last year. Everything is going right for them, even though (for example) they only scored 5 runs or better six times in June. If they suffer injuries, or serious regression to the mean, you'd have to think that one of the Rockies, Giants or Dodgers is going to overtake them. So while they'd be a good shot at huge odds, their odds right now are probably as unfavourable as they're going to be, so there are likely better bets out there.

What if Ray King propped James on his shoulders?

xpost

Clemenza, the Padres have a real chance of making the playoffs, very long odds but plausibly COULD win the NL, but absolutely no chance of winning the World Series. They would get crushed by Boston, NY, or Tampa.

i think theyd match up well w/ tampa tbh. rays need 2 fix their offense or theyre goin nowhere but to permanently 3rd in the al east

If the padres moved some of their bullpen arms they thought might regress they should get some offense. Then maybe they could have a fighters chance in the playoffs. An offense of Adrian Gonzalez and ??? isnt going to cut it.

I really don't think they can get anyone for a bullpen arm who is going to make a significant difference for the offense. Who trades a significant bat for a relief pitcher?

Thanks for the input. I've made longshot World Series bets before (usually on the Jays--that's been a non-starter for years), so, depending on the landscape come August, I'll likely go with either San Diego, Tampa Bay, or Texas. Throwing away money, I know (not exactly a huge amount--$25, probably), but it's only fun for me if I can actually root for the team I've bet on. Which pretty much eliminates all the big-spending behemoths. And a longshot in baseball, if the playoffs are in view, is still a better bet than a similar longshot in any of the other big four sports.

JEREMAYNES DYE READY 2 GO

I really don't think they can get anyone for a bullpen arm who is going to make a significant difference for the offense. Who trades a significant bat for a relief pitcher?

the giants lol

Molina's pants size is pretty significant but that's about it.

Who trades a significant bat for a relief pitcher?

Adrian Gonzalez for Ugueth Urbina comes to mind...

i suppose he was still a prospect then though but still ! former 1-1 pick

“It has only been 4 1/2 years since I was the World Series MVP,” Dye told FOXSports.com in Feburary. “I’m a winner. Hopefully some teams out there can see that.”

lol

Molina's pants size is pretty significant but that's about it.

― no turkey unless it's a club sandwich (polyphonic), Thursday, July 1, 2010 2:10 PM (54 minutes ago)

yeah, i think he's leading the majors in passed balls as well but other than that, if you think that Molina's .644 OPS is significant (he ranks #17 on the Giants OPS, 3rd of all catchers)... uh...

Batting OPS
Totals
League Rank
Denny Bautista 2
Pat Burrell 1.021
Travis Ishikawa 0.903
Aubrey Huff 0.873
Eli Whiteside 0.836
Andrés Torres 0.814
Juan Uribe 0.803
Édgar Rentería 0.791
Pablo Sandoval 0.743
Freddy Sánchez 0.723
Nate Schierholtz 0.705
Buster Posey 0.695
Matt Downs 0.69
Aaron Rowand 0.689
Madison Bumgarner 0.667
Eugenio Velez 0.644
Bengie Molina 0.644

what a sad ass list btw^^^

After a hot start Posey isnt doing much. Not alot of walks either. Maybe they had to get Molina out of there because he was tainting Pandoval and Posey with his hacking philosophies.

Be careful talking about Posey like that on the Giants thread. They got really uppity when I suggested that he wasn't gonna hit .450 for the remainder of the season.

2 games in a row of 8 shutout innings from the starter + Heath Bell save. Granted, it's the Astros but still...

oops forgot that Adams pitched the 8th tonight. close enough.

Matt Latos is going on the DL because he hurt himself holding back a sneeze.

more like holding back innings amirite

There are people (Tea Partiers?) protesting outside Petco park holding signs saying "Adrian Gonzalez is a Racist" because of his opposition to Arizona's immigration bill right now. (Pads are playing the Dbacks tonight)

http://yfrog.com/giw3noj

thats how cankles got sb'd too iirc

Padres signed Wily Mo Pena, looool

Ugh.

In other news, Ashley Eckstein, David's wife, was on San Diego sports radio today promoting http://heruniverse.com/ "Her Universe". Her line of fashionable Star-Wars themed clothing for fangirls. Lolololol

http://www.ghostofaflea.com/archives/jawas.jpg

Happy Hallowe'en from the Ecksteins 2009

There was a copy of this article in the Padres locker room today:

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/atlanta-braves-built-to-last-san-diego-padres-arent-072010

lol @ this

Opening Day center fielder Nate McLouth is expected to rejoin the lineup soon, perhaps as early as tonight.

Braves general manager Frank Wren also made a wise trade last week, swapping one erratic shortstop (Yunel Escobar) for a reliable one (Alex Gonzalez).

SD is in the catbird seat of the NL if u ask me.

The SS trade was a good move for this year. Letting McLouth make another start as a Brave would be a bad one.

I am digging this Denorfia cat so far.

some priceless mrs. eckstein quotes from that interview:

On her new line of clothes:

“I actually have a new apparel line just for female Star Wars fans. It may come as a surprise to people, but close to half of all Star Wars fans are women. Kind of what Alyssa Milano did with her female line for baseball fans called Touch, I’m doing that for female sci-fi fans. And it’s called Her Universe. You can go to www.heruniverse.com and check it out, we have an online shop, but we’re going to be debuting our line for the first time at San Diego Comic Con…”

On if she’s concerned that there’s an overriding perception that sci-fi is just for dorks:

“I don’t know, over the last couple of years, I think it’s actually kind of cool to date a dork. Watch The Big Bang Theory – that’s what that show is about. And all these so called geeks, I mean, I’m the first person who’s going to say that I’m a geek, and David is the first person who’s going to say that he’s a geek. I mean we are the two of us total geeks and we’ll be the first to admit it. But it’s like there was such a stereotype before and girls didn’t even give these guys a chance, but at the end of the day the guys that are the geeks are extremely smart, they’re just good guys. So I think girls are looking past this stereotype and realizing there’s this whole untapped market of good guys out there and I actually challenge girls even if you’re not a Star Wars fan, wear one of my Star Wars shirts out one night into a bar or a club and see how many numbers you get, see how many times you get hit on. Because wouldn’t a guy think that’s hot to see a girl with a Star Wars shirt on.”

On the high volume of Star Wars gear that can currently be found in the Padres’ clubhouse:

“Yeah! I can’t say that I’m exactly the reason for that. What happened with that was the Hairston brothers are actually Star Wars fans that have nothing to do with my role. Jerry is a Darth Vader fan and Scott loves Yoda, and David was walking by Scott’s locker one day and he saw a little Yoda in there and was like wait a minute, you’re a Yoda fan and he was like yeah I bring this with me. So I was actually in Orlando at Disney World for Disney Star Wars weekend for the entire month and David called me up and said go to the Star Wars store and buy as much Yoda stuff and Darth Vader stuff as you can find. So I brought back this Yoda backpack and I said hey wouldn’t this be funny if they carried this backpack out instead of their little girls’ backpack. So David was like I’ll just show it to Heath. So that’s how it started. There was a picture in the paper and online so I showed that to Lucas Film. And Lucas Film loved it and said actually well Yoda needs a friend, he needs Chewbacca. So Lucas Film actually sent Chewbacca. So that’s how it all started. But the guys are actually Star Wars fans separate from me, but David does have Chewbacca.”

On who gets more attention when they go out – her or David:

“Honestly it just depends where we are; it depends on the city. But to be honest, we’re both a lot like smaller in person, we’re really short, even though people know that David’s short, they don’t expect him to be that short in person. And so we usually get people saying, you know you look a lot like David Eckstein but there’s no way you can really be him. So some times when he just throws on a hat, and I’m really just the voice of the character, we go unnoticed.”

On what their favorite piece of memorabilia is in their house:

“Actually it’s probably my lightsaber, but it’s his bat that they made into my lightsaber. So they painted his bat to look like Osaka’s lightsaber. We did a charity event last year with the Padres and we raised like $5,000 for the Boys and Girls Club of San Diego and the Padres Foundation and they had the team sign it and the cast sign it and it’s literally David’s bat as Osaka’s lightsaber, so that’s probably my favorite piece. We have Star Wars collectibles all over the house.”

On if she feels the force is strong with this year’s Padres:

“I sense the force is strong with the Padres. They have a great group of guys and they believe. They just believe. And I see the fans in the stands and I think they believe as well. That’s the thing about the force, if you just believe, honestly that’ just half the battle believing you can do it.”

Almost ten uses of "actually"!

Bud Black is obviously way too nice a guy. He's been dicked by bad calls twice tonight and is still in the game.

I really thought the Braves would sweep this series. Very happy with today's win.

Should I start believing in these guys or not?

17 games over .500 in late July is pretty damned good, but I still don't believe this is a good baseball team.

They dont stop winning tho! I feel like we're through the looking glass on the 'they gotta lose soon' mentality.

They might get fucking wrecked in the playoffs but I think they have a really good shot at making it.

hope they wear the camo unis all playofffs

this team is essentially what i thought the mariners were preseason when i picked them to win AL West- great pitching and defense, and league average hitting

I don't even really think the pitching is that good. Latos is the only guy who I think would be a starter on the Giants.

they have pitched well to this point though, which can't be undone. i'd expect latos and richard to continue to pitch well, and the other 3 guys to be good enough to keep them in contention

and also don't forget about their absurd bullpen

<3 Chris Denorfia

So are the Padres the NL's Angels? Good pitching, good defense, aggressive baserunning, mediocre offense?

Unlike the Angels, they are among the leaders in walks.

They also among the lead leaders in steals (but not in steal percentage), and also sacrifice hits.

This is the first season I can remember where they've hit better at Petco than on the road.

Meanwhile, only Seattle and Houston have fewer extra-base hits.

well the Angels had some good years of OBP, but thats mostly a function of abnormally high BA. I think last year or the year before was a perfect example of that. They had like every dude in the lineup hitting .300.

the fuck is this?

Miguel Tejada is batting cleanup and hitting fourth in his Padres debut Friday against the Marlins.

BELIEVE

Yeah I should shut up as the pads just pimp slapped my bros 6-1 and 3-2. It was this onslaught of seeing eye singles and bloop hits to the OF that would not be denied.

I wish I could watch the game tonight without paying for it. :(

The Dodgers are absolutely pummeling Richard but have nothing to show for it.

watching now, how have they not scored yet?

The dodgers are a fucking joke thats how.

After I posted that the Padres scored 10 runs, lol

And Richard promptly lets the first two guys on AGAIN.

They should remove Vin Scully's hall of fame plaque and replace it with one that's ten times bigger.

I wonder if the dodgers are losing on purpose just to spite Torre and Colletti

(wrong thread but...) yeah perhaps, torre single handedly lost the game last night by IBB-ing aaron rowand. i mean, i was honestly surprised rowand didn't at least offer at one of the wide throws. when you're walking one of the hardest guys to walk in MLB (and unsurprisingly one of SF's easiest outs)... I can only imagine what that pitcher was thinking.

Ernesto "Guy" Frieri

So do I root for the Padres come the post season or should I hitch my wagon to some other scrappy buzz team? Feel like that ship has sailed for the Rays and I hate the AL generally =\

The entire Padres payroll is slightly more than A-Rod's annual salary but then again, you wouldn't be the first person to be ignoring the plight of 2010 Cincinnati Reds

how do the Diamondbacks give up two runs in the ninth.

seems like they are everyone's whipping boy this year.

WALK OFF

now come on Washington

August 11th: 3rd best record in baseball, best in the NL.

I'm liking the Tejada and Ludwick additions a lot so far.

must be weird having somewhat capable batters in front and in back of A-Gonz.

It's like a sneak peak of 2012!

Man, the Pirates unis today are ugly.

So stoked for this weekend's series

The Padres have one three game losing streak this season and zero four game losing streaks.

jeez, they are gonna pull away!

1-0, with the run on a 4-3 fielder's choice is such a Padres way to win.

<3

if only their unis weren't so horribly horrible

Yeah, I hate the uniforms.

The brown and yellows at least had character.

this is a very good team.

i hope my Giants stay within three games of them the last week of the season when we play them to close it out.

their offense is exactly league average with park adjustments, as bad as it looks from the plain slash lines

25th in extra-base hits! I think that's my favorite meaningless stat about them. (They were 29th and 30th the previous two years.)

26th in slugging percentage! (29th and 30th the previous two years.)

The sky is the limit.

Seriously, they do it all with singles, walks, steals, and sacrifices. It's insane.

The bullpen makes them the least stressful-to-watch sports team I've ever followed. When they have a lead going past the sixth inning, I pretty much relax. And when they get behind by a lot of runs, I don't really have to hang on watching, thinking they might tie it up.

i think it's fantastic that a team which literally no one picked to make the playoffs before the season started has the best record in the NL

The Giants postgame guys were whining about how the Padres have all these guys they've never heard of in the bullpen with "one point something" ERAs.

already dreading Joe Morgan using "mannafacturing runs" as October mantra

Can we play the Cubs forever? Is that allowed?

http://thebloggerinthegloamin.mlblogs.com/384782634_1fba85a222.jpg

I had that shirt.

Can we play the Cubs forever? Is that allowed?

i was saying the same thing two weeks ago. though they did play hard and weren't a walk over.

If you had to choose, would you rather have Manny Ramirez, Brad Hawpe, or Will Venable/Scott Hairston as your team's left fielder?

venable's pretty decent

Good defender, but .754 OPS from a corner guy is underwhelming.

Balk to tie up the game isn't as good as the balk-off, but still pretty funny

The slump finally arrived!

it's hard to find guys who put up numbers in SD that aren't "underwhelming" thanks to your ballpark

adrian gonzalez is only 8th in NL OPS right now but he's way ahead of everyone except pujols+votto in OPS+

the BBRAA love first basemen, but I wonder if three have ever finished 1-2-3 in the voting before

it's hard to find guys who put up numbers in SD that aren't "underwhelming" thanks to your ballpark

Name one guy who underperformed with the Padres in the Petco era, and then left and became a great hitter somewhere else. Or: name one guy whose stats precipitously declined when the Padres moved from Qualcomm to Petco.

Sometimes you just don't have very good hitters. The park has an effect but it is kind of exaggerated.

hah what about Tejada? Hes tearing shit up..

Ludwick, on the other hand...

what has happened to the Padres? i'm loving it but might not matter if we can't win.

what i'm trying to figure out is if it makes sense that the lower-scoring run environment would allow the padres to have more success than other teams with a light-hitting lineup

i don't think that makes sense at all though

hindenberg.gif

i don't know, the dbacks are playing really, really well right now.

how many teams have had a 9-game losing streak and still won a division

idk the answer to that question but, this is from a joepo post from a few days ago

Make no mistake, seven losses in a row is a bad sign. Good teams don’t lose seven games in a row often. The Atlanta Braves did not lose seven in a row from 1991 through 2005. The Boston Red Sox have not lost seven in a row since 2001.

OTOH, didn't the 2000 Yankees lose their last seven and go onto win the WS? They went like 3-15 to end the season or something like that. And I think the 2006 Cards lost like eight in a row in Sept and almost blew an eight game lead to the Astros.

didn't the white sox almost blow it in the year they won the WS

they are having problems and probably has to do with this team being so young. they have a four game series against the Giants this next weekend at home = it all comes down to that. even though they have owned the Giants so far this year.

the Padres lost their ninth in a row on Saturday.

are you an automated robot

sometimes

stats inc is in the building

STATS_MLB With #Padres losing their 9th straight today, worth noting only 2 teams in history have lost 10 straight or more and made postseason. #MLB

Braves lost 9 straight earlier this year.

The two clubs that reached the postseason with losing streaks of at least 10 games were the 1951 New York Giants and the 1982 Atlanta Braves.

Padres' slide ties the 1932 Pirates for the longest losing streak by a first-place team.

What's crazy is that over their last 26 games they are still a .500 team. They just take their wins and losses in bunches.

I don't have much confidence in the Rockies or Giants being able to step up the rest of the way. And if you believe in the Secret Sauce, then the Padres would still be dangerous in the playoffs.

It was a cool mirage while it lasted.

latos is still rollin

can't even remember the last time he got lit up

I heard the problem is the starting pitching is being really overworked (something about the number of innings pitched in a season only supposed to be like 30 more than the season before, and they're currently at 40-50 more than last season?)

^there was a BBTN graphic abt this. i mean, it may be true but wtf should they do abt it

Grab a glove, Bud.

i guess the question is: if the end goal of developing these pitchers and keeping them healthy is to compete & make the playoffs, and you've now done that earlier than you expected, shouldn't you go ahead and let them pitch as long as they're healthy? you just don't know if you're gonna repeat this season's success again in the next few years, especially since you're getting overperformance from a couple guys, so i'd think you would go with the better chance this year.

also the "verducci effect" hasn't actually been verified even though people have looked for it in injury patterns.

CJ Wilson's IP spike: 100 and counting.

also BP says given SD's farm system, they shd enjoy contending while it lasts.

i think they've got 1 more good pitching prospect in the high minors? and no impact hitting prospects that i know of

They're trying to work Luebke and perhaps Castro into the rotation in September to give the rotation some rest, and Chris Young has been doing rehab starts, so hopefully they can cut back on starter innings. But another problem is that the bullpen has been pretty overworked as well, especially Gregerson, and he is starting to become unreliable.

Morbs is definitely right that there isn't much in the well. They don't have a high-impact guy who can replace Adrian when he leaves, and Headley, Hundley, and Venable isn't the core of a contending offense.

But the pitching staff should continue to be good. They're all pretty young. Stauffer deserves another chance to start next year once the Correia experiment is over.

I think one of the biggest risk factors in the 'verducci effect' is age. Its more of a red flag if you pile up innings on guys under 25, I believe. Thats why alot of talking heads arent worried about CJ Wilson. Then again whats his face from the As who converted to starting has been a broken down mess ever since.

that being said I think SD should ride these fools into the ground. theyre not all going to have career years at the same time like they are now.

They shouldn't ride Latos into the ground, but the other guys: sure.

yeah i dont think they can take a long-term view right now with a-gon leaving after next year and no offense in the pipeline. either they win now and then not again for a while, or they lose now and still don't win for a while unless they pull some hitters out of thin air

this season has kinda forced their hand in a weird way, they were 'supposed' to trade gonzalez at the deadline or this offseason for some top prospects to finish out the rebuild but now it'll look marlins-esque if they still do it. even if it's the best choice for future success.

I don't agree with that at all. Blowing out Latos's arm in an effort to pursue some fool's gold would be profoundly stupid.

if they shut latos down before the end of the season would he sit out the playoffs? for some reason i always got the idea that shutting someone down and then sending them back out without a few weeks of warming back up was more dangerous than just letting them pitch all the way through. dunno where i got that from though so it could just be wrong.

They aren't shutting him down, per se. They're trying to give him extra days off, and keep his pitch down when it makes sense. Yesterday they let him go an extra inning beyond the 100 pitch cap because it was 2-1, which I was okay with. I'm fine with stretching him out a bit, but within reason.

yeah that sounds reasonable then

i'm just not sure they should risk throwing this season away to reduce their pitchers' injury risk by an unknown amount for future seasons in which their offense could be worse

Healthy balance of short-term and long-term thinking makes more sense to me.

I thought WE were supposed to give YOU the going away present, Joe Torre ... but thanks!

You're welcome. Anything to keep the Giants out of contention..

Going to the game tonight. Never dreamed I'd be this nervous about a game in September this year.

The sweetest win. Latos v. Lincecum tomorrow is going to be great. Baseball!

The tortured life of Eric Show

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/otl/news/story?id=5543839

The most snide remark came from third baseman Graig Nettles, who said, "The Birch Society is going to expel Eric for making a Red famous."

Haha, amazing.

I don't agree with that at all. Blowing out Latos's arm in an effort to pursue some fool's gold would be profoundly stupid.

― no gut busting joke can change history (polyphonic), Wednesday, September 8, 2010 1:46 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark

no way, mush that kid like an iditarod sleddog and he can put his ws ring on his other hand when his throwing arm falls off. what are they waiting for exactly?

aw

what are they waiting for exactly?

A season when they have a good team around him.

they appear to have a 90-win team around him now; you can't guarantee more w/out a Yankee-sized payroll!

Sometimes I wonder if you guys have seen this team play at all.

gtfo Latos should count his blessings if he pitched for the 1981 oakland a's billy martin would have him at 300 ip by now.

And I would've murdered Billy Martin with my own two hands.

How do you guys see the impending Rockies series? On current form it should be a demolition job but of course baseball never works like that!

I don't have much confidence in the Rockies or Giants being able to step up the rest of the way. And if you believe in the Secret Sauce, then the Padres would still be dangerous in the playoffs.

― NoTimeBeforeTime, Monday, September 6, 2010 6:49 PM (1 week ago)

Um, yeah, I guess I need to retract this. Lincecum vs Latos was pretty convincing.

forgot to link article from last week: Secret Sauce hasn't worked out the last few postseasons.

secret sauce assumes that if you won enough games to make the postseason you have the minimum amount of offense to do well in the postseason (and thus it has no offensive component). these padres are kind of way out there on the margins of run prevention vs production though so i wouldn't expect it to work here.

Don't think I've ever seen Heath Bell bat before.

I just want to cry.

who's got strength-of-schedule advantage rest of the way?

i believe SF does

SF has more rest days, more home games, weaker opponents. Padres are actually not much worse on the road than they are at home so the home/road split may not matter as much.

AGonz singlehandedly trying to keep SD's hopes alive. This game alone is making an MVP case for him.

who's got strength-of-schedule advantage rest of the way?

i broke it all down in the Giants thread, it was as of Monday before any games were played: Sublimated Erotic Desire (SF Giants 2010)

the Red Birds are t-ing off on Latos tonight.

Clearly they haven't been pitching him enough and need to stop babying him.

Chris Young with a good four innings, Gonzo gets some help, back in first.

I assume you will always remember this moment, when Luke Gregerson set the MLB record for holds in a season?

hahahaha. love it.

so how many holds does he have, who's record did he break?

37, no idea who had it before.

I will guess another former padre... Scott Linebrink? Or maybe Scott Shields? Or whomever was 8th inning guy that year Gagne set the record?

Since August 26th:

SD's record vs. the Dodgers - 5-0

SD's record vs. everyone else - 3-14

good guess! xp Gregerson is tied with former Padres reliever Scott Linebrink (2006) and ex-Yankees setup man Tom Gordon (2004).

Haha, I think I remembered that because I introduced Holds to the ILX fantasy league and Linebrink was a darkhorse draft pick for that reason alone.

I think it's safe to say that the record would belong to someone else if the stat wasn't so new.

Like when Rivera set up Wetteland or etc.

also it'd be higher if the 8th inning setup man was as static a role as the 9th inning closer

theoretically its a good thing to rack up high numbers because youre consistently not blowing games. the setup man position moves alot because relievers as a whole are thoroughly inconsistent.

but the stat also relies heavily on the 8th inning guy being consistently blocked by an established closer too..

either way we're wasting too much time discussing this and not enough time celebrating the legacy of luke gregerson.

also set-up men get moved to closer if they are doing their job well. during the 90s/early 00s there was a rash of 7th & 8th inning guys who were "better" (choose your metric) than the guys they were setting up. and then the stats revolution happened.

still waiting on a team with a good bullpen to ditch the closer role (closer by committee has failed for all those teams not because it didn't work but because the reason they were doing closer by committee was they didn't have any elite relievers)

Braves next year would seem to fit that bill with Wagner retiring, but I can't think of a manager with the nads to try it.

bobby cox actually used 2 closers last year didn't he? a lefty and a righty

he was still using the best relievers in the 9th regardless of leverage though

Yeah, Soriano and Mike Gonzalez. By the end of the season MG was mostly 8th inning setup for Soriano. I could see Cox trying it, but he's retiring too.

the Padres are imploding

maybe they are not out yet.

101, 102, 103

is what i just watched real?

WOW

Gonzo never had a chance.

so Chapman is pitching again for the Reds:

100, 102, 101, 100 long, long ball out

103, 104, 102, 104, 105, 103, 102 strike three

this should be in the Reds thread but was only watching because of the NL West.

102, 103, 101, 104 ball four

100, 100, 101, (95 to first), 102, 100, 103, 101 out

stunning

Ughhhhh.

don't believe the guns

tv guns are usually juiced by 2 or 3mph, he's probably topping at 102ish

that 105 pitch is making news:

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=sh-redspadres092410

http://twitter.com/HeathBell21/status/25478584713

bottom of the ninth with two outs: infield hit, hit by a pitch (that didn't hit anything), than a walk.

Padres are down to the Cubs 1-0.

Gonna need a miracle at this point. :/

Remind me (at some point) to reflect on Latos' silly, silly comment w/r/t the Giants at some point when it is better timing than now.

Let's reflect on it now! Why not get it over with.

Obviously he is completely wrong, and probably a moron.

"Baseball works in funny ways. The only way I could honestly put it is, we could be like the Giants and go and change our whole lineup, put guys with 'San Francisco Giants' across their jerseys. We didn't.

"We only added two guys (Miguel Tejada and Ryan Ludwick). We've been the same team all year. We haven't just gone and grabbed guys from other teams."

Mat Latos to cbssports.com

Are you going to reflect on it.

In a minute, I'm trying to wolf down lunch atm.

don'tcha hate when all day meetings cut into your 20-30 mins of daily ILX time?

I don't have any of those, thankfully. :D

SF additions
Pat Burrell - dfa'd by Tampa, claimed on waivers, Giants pay Pat league min $375k
Cody Ross - claimed off waivers from Florida, Giants pick up $1M of salary
Jose Guillen - dfa'd by KC, Giants pay $270k + PTBNL
Mike Fontenot - traded from CHC to SF for high-A prospect Evan Crawford due to season ending injuries to infielders Renteria and DeRosa.

SD additions
Miguel Tejada - traded from BAL to SD for AA pitcher Wynn Pelzer and $1M cash
Ryan Ludwick - 3 way trade with STL and CLE, gave up high A pitcher Nick Greenwood.
Jody Gerut - signed to minor league deal, didn't pan out.
Wily Mo Pena - signed to minor league deal, didn't pan out.

Latos is just butthurt cuz his team stopped playing out of their gourds and fell back to earth. dude should worry about pitching and keeping his team in games rather than other teams' management imtho.

You're skipping two of the Giants' most significant additions: Javier Lopez and Ramon Ramirez, who stabilized their flailing bullpen.

I don't think you can really compare Gerut and Pena to those guys, and anyway Pena and Gerut hit well at AAA Portland. They were just acquired as minor league depth.

But anyway, the Padres have barely any players on their roster that they developed themselves. Venable, Latos, Headley, Hundley... that's about it. They are as mercenary a team as any other.

lopez and ramirez were both discarded from their teams though! it's not like those guys were highly sought after either.

but totes not seeing the forest for the trees here, latos is deluded if he thinks that SD and SF midseason management is any different.

And one of the only reasons the Giants claimed Ross was to keep him away from the Padres.

Also, most of the Padres weren't even in the system at the beginning of 2009.

I just remembered how awesome it was when the Padres swept the last four games of the season in LA to beat the Dodgers for the division title.

What year was that again? 2006?

iirc thats when the dodgers charged into the playoffs against the mets and had jeff kent and jd drew tagged out consecutively at the plate in the first inning of game one. needless to say we did not make it to the nlcs.

is that the same series when peavy cracked a rib in the celebratory clinching dog pile and fucked himself up for the playoffs or was that 05?

It was '96 iirc

ouch, the Padres lose three out of four to the Cubs.

now it doesn't look like they will even go in as the Wild Card as they are two games back.

giants arent invincible and the braves have to play philly.. theyre also getting shellacked 11-2 at the mo

That was a baseball game.

How many runs has Pablo Sandoval directly given the Padres due to poor fielding this year. I can think of at least 5.

I love him almost as much as I love Zito.

FUCK YEAH

The Padres' playoff odds were at 7 percent at the start of the weekend!

:/

:D

Hate the title to this thread :(

Well, you won't have to see it again anytime soon!

I have no complaints with how this season turned out. Would love to see the Padres spend some money this offseason and really take a shot in Gonzo's last year with the team.

sorry I missed it all

All three games were exciting as hell.

good luck with your elbow next April Mr. Better Latos Than Never