So I just got back from a quick jaunt to the Bay Area for an extended weekend and my family's annual trip to two ballparks. This year, we visited some concrete structure in Oakland and AT&T Park. Read on to find out what I, ahem, liberated during my tour of AT&T Park.

Warning, this is crazy long. And no pictures, yet. And this is just the first part, since, you know, I'd like to get to bed soon.

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Ooh, look at me and my clever headlines!



Seriously though, lets get an OT going. I know that we suck and all (and that I really have no reason to bitch since I've been MIA all season, but you gotta get it started somehwere).

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Well I felt obligated to post this, so I did. I saw this little gem in the UT online today and thought it was worth posting here.

A couple things about this article really surprised me, but none more than the fact that I never knew the team stopped paying him outright after the locker incident. I always thought that they filed a grievance after the fact, but it turns out the player's union filed a grievance first so that Khalil would get his money. The team then countered with a grievance to recoup salary.

For whatever reason, the FO just really soured on the guy and I'm glad he's in a new place where I think he'll be given greater degrees of patience than he was here. I also like that LaRussa seems to understand that despite his quiet demeanor, Khalil really cares about the game.

As an FYI, I won't be posting here as often because my job has instituted a new zero-tolerance policy on using the Internet at work. This cuts me to the bone as Gaslamp Ball was often the only thing keeping me sane while I was trapped in front of my computer for 8 hours a day.

I'll do my best to participate in the OTs during the season. There is legitimately nothing better than watching the Padres and cracking jokes about PFOB or seeing what crazy cocaine patterns TTG regales us with next.

I don't write this lightly. For a long time, I have been a vehement defender of the FO. I have been especially committed to Sandy Alderson's approach of trying to build a winning team by assembling under-rated parts with under-appreciated abilities. But as events have unfolded since about August 2008, I have now come to question whether or not Alderson is hurting the San Diego Padres.

From strictly a baseball perspective, I think the guy has a track record that speaks for itself. He came on in 2005 and the Padres instantly won the West two straight seasons and narrowly missed a third. He's had demonstrable success in Oakland and the Padres enjoyed three of their four best seasons under his watch.

Unfortunately, Alderson is no longer just making baseball decisions. Somehow he's become the face of the FO, and it's his interactions with both the public and the players that have forced me to question Alderson's net impact on the team. Follow me below the fold for the rest of my reasoning.

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So the UT today has an extremely long article today that is supposedly about our young hitters but is really a primer for the Padres offseason. KT went through most of the lineup and gave his thoughts.

http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2008/oct/03/padres-1s5padres21488/?padres

Anyone else find some of these nuggests interesting? Obviously I'm interested in the fact that the team's not really sure what to do about Khalil, but the idea of possibly trading Jody Gerut seems completely stupid to me. Thoughts?

I cross-posted this at Ducksnorts this morning, and there's a healthy discussion going on over there. However, I know that our two blog communities think a little differently, and I wanted to get the GLB opinion on this matter.

This is something I’ve been thinking a lot about recently, but how do we make this team better?

Our OF seems to be set. The Headley/Hairston/Gerut/Giles combination seems to be functioning well and all indicators at this juncture point to us keeping Giles next year. Unless someone offers Gerut stupid money, I can’t imagine not keeping that group together for next year.

Our weakest batting positions at this point are SS and C, two spots that are notoriously hard to fill and are notoriously light-hitting. I don’t think anyone would argue that Khalil and Bard aren’t having atrocious seasons, but are these just bad years or are they indicative of their true talent levels (as opposed to their track records as Padres)? But really, outside of these two positions, how do we upgrade the team?

Which brings us to pitching. I really, truly, honestly believe that our bullpen in particular and our pitching staff in general has killed this season for us. I firmly beleive that if our pitching staff were performing more like last year’s iteration that we’d be right in the thick of things.

It’s just interesting how little attention our pitching seems to get from “the experts.” Everyone points to Khalil and our catchers as our problems, but in reality, our pitching has killed us more than anything else.

What do you guys think? How do we fix this team?

So with both the season and current series tied (4-4) and (2-2) respectively, we go for our 7th win on this homestand.

Unlike previously reported, Martin is starting for the Dodgers. That is unfortunate. Some guy that won some award last year is pitching for us after taking a month off.

 And if the powers that be already have one of these up, then I apologize. And yes, this paragraph is designed solely to meet the word limit.

Now I now this is a familiar refrain from me at this point, but Sports Illustrated decided to pile-on and kick the crap  out of the Padres for their lack of drafting success over the past 15 years.

Now, a couple of points:

Today, the Padres are among the worst teams in baseball. There are a myriad of reasons why -- their reluctance to sign high-priced free agents, their dependence on bargain-basement veterans, and their blatant disregard for offense, to name a few.

This is so mind-numbingly stupid that I don't know where to begin. Our record sucks, but we're not among the worst teams in baseball. We missed the playoffs by one strike last year and have posted four winning seasons in a row. I understand that he tries to qualify this ass-hattery by saying "today," but then he proceeds to go through and repeat the same stupid crap that the national press constantly gets wrong about our team. We're not against signing high-priced FAs so long as it's not a stupid move. We extended Jake at a very high price. We don't "depend" on bargain-basement veterans. The only such "bargain-basement" guy was Edmonds and he's been cut. Not really fair to call Giles this, as we've had him for a while. "Blatant disregard for offense" is also stupid, as we play in a ridiculous pitchers park and our offense was really not that bad last year (as GY has pointed out multiple times over the past year).

It is not as though the Padres always pick late in the first round, either. In the past 14 years, they have picked first, second, third and fourth. Each of those bonus babies went bust.

This statement is purposefully confusing, as it makes it seem that we've had these low picks fairly recently. Directly before the quote I pasted, the author comments that we've had four hurt pitchers in a row. Again, this is all done as if to suggest that we've wasted four low picks on hurt pitchers. It's dishonest writing, and it's done on purpose to try to futher the author's point.

Our author then profiles these picks. He tries to mea culpa by saying he's from San Diego and thus he KNOWS his Padres, but here's the kind of stupid crap he writes anyway:

Sean Burroughs, third baseman: Drafted ninth out of Wilson High School (Ca.) in 1998, Burroughs was a former star of the Little League World Series. In five major-league seasons, he was a solid singles hitter, but he managed just 11 home runs.

Burroughs was pretty widely considered a hot propsect and many thought he would develop as a pretty damn good third-basemen. Just because it didn't happen doesn't mean the Padres made some egregious error in drafting him.

Khalil Greene, shortstop: Drafted 13th out of Clemson University in 2002, Greene was the third shortstop taken by the Padres in the first round in six years. Finally, they got the right one. Greene won the National League Rookie of the Year Award in 2004, is among the best defensive infielders in baseball, and belted 27 home runs last season.

I love Khalil more than anyone else here, and even I wouldn't try to pretend that he won the NL ROY in 2004. That was actually Jason Bay, Mr. Jenkins. Greeney won the honor from Baseball America, which sadly, does not mean anything.

Matt Bush, shortstop: Drafted first out of Mission Bay High School (Ca.) in 2004, Bush never advanced beyond Class A. He was converted into a pitcher early last season, but he tore a ligament in his elbow and is still recovering from Tommy John surgery.

Bush was considered a top-ten talent, and although we shouldn't have popped him 1st, it's not like this was drafting a 15th round talent with the overall pick. Yes, Bush was a bad choice for number one. But it wasn't as bad as everyone consistently tries to make it out to be. It's not like we decided to go with a hobo on the street for this pick. Bush was profiled as top-ten.

Matt Antonelli, infielder: Drafted 17th out of Wake Forest in 2006, Antonelli advanced quickly through the Padres' system and nearly made the major-league team this spring. Instead, he was sent to Class AAA and batted .180 through April and May.

I think it's pretty weak to imply that Anotnelli's hitting .180 in AAA this year somehow makes him a terrible pick. He was progressing well and has since stalled. How many other 2006 draft picks are struggling in AAA? We don't know, since Jenkins doesn't tell us, but the implication is that Antonelli was not a great pick.

At the end, Jenkins tries to recover and say that despite all of these "horrible" picks, the Padres have been pretty damn good recently. Which begs the question: Why write this article in the first place?

Was there really nothing better to do with your column space, Mr. Jenkins? How about the phenomenal season Adrian Gonzalez is putting together, despite being mired in a weak lineup and playing half of his games in a place that saps power? Or maybe an article on the weird things that have happened to this team this year?

But no. Mr. Jenkins and Sports Illustrated decide to take the easy route and pile-on with an article ripe with dubious logic and outright factual errors. Go SI!

Unlike most of you, I didn't have the luxury of suffering through another frustrating week of Padres baseball. Mercifully, the only baseball-related information I was able to acquire on my cruise amounted to a quick score (not even a box or a line with it).

So we're 12-20, the worst team in baseball. There's got to be a reason for this, right? Everyone looks at the Front Office and blames them for not building a good team. But let me tell you something.

It is not the Front Office's fault that we have the worst record in baseball.

Read that again.

It is not the Front Office's fault that we have the worst record in baseball.

Here are my reasons:

1. For the most part, we are the same team we were last year. We have effectively only replaced two position players, Cameron and Giles. While Edmonds is an obvious step back, Iguchi should be a step forward. Our rotation only has one change (and Wolf > Wells), while our bullpen has only seen a few new faces. The core group of guys remains the same. There is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY the Front Office could predict that the team would fail to play up to their career averages. Bard has been terrible. Khalil has no power. Giles can't get on-base to save his life. Hairston was apparently nothing more than a fluke. Thatcher appears to be a fluke as well. Hoffman has struggled. K-Cam is getting lit up worse than TTG on Cinco de Mayo.
2. The starting rotation. It's been nails. Germano has been a question mark, but he's our fifth starter. CY seems to finally be getting back in stride and Peavy and Maddux have been more of the same from last year. Wolf has dazzled.
3. Bud Black is an idiot. Some would say that the Front Office should be responsible for this, but Black didn't look quite so ineffective last year. Sure, he made a few questionnable moves, but for the most part, it was a brilliant rookie campaign. This year has been quite different. He's using the wrong people at the wrong times. He's not even using half the people on his roster. Just as they shouldn't be blamed for not predicting the utter collapse of the team, the Front Office cannot be blamed for failing to predict that Black would stop adhering to logic and reason.

There is one thing the Front Office is culpable for. The farm system is currently not in a place where we can recover from a disastrous start. Whereas other teams have players they can patch in when their players struggle, we have nothing. We're about another year out from any meaningful production from our farm guys, and to the team's credit, they've done their best to remedy this. The farm system is better than it's been, but the horrible management of the system from 2000 through 2004 has left us severely crippled right now.

But as we sit here broken hearted, lets make sure we target the right people with our criticism. The Front Office COULD HAVE NEVER predicted that the team would stop playing to it's average production. They cannot be held responsible for the utter failure of the (mostly) same personnel that excelled last year. The players have played like shit Rally Backs, and our manager seems like he's letting the tidal forces of the moon influence the majority of his decisions. This team sucks right now, but it's the team's fault. There are things that Kevin Towers, Sandy Alderson, et. al could have done better, but they don't play the games on the field.

In short, blame Canada.

9-14, fifth place in the West. It's hard to deal with. It doesn't seem real. Somehow, I just can't believe our team is really this bad. We do have a good team, don't we?

Going on the belief that our team is really better than they've played, I started trying to observe other factors that might explain our dreadful start. One tthing that struck me is that we seem to have overwhelmingly faced good pitching. Penny twice, Owalt twice, Cain twice, Lincecum twice.

But we all know that perceptions can be deceiving. Have we really faced the best pitching out of anyone in the West? And what about our offense? Is it all pitching? Are there other reasons we have struggled?

My conclusions are below the fold. Come along, if you please.

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By chance, are any of my fellow GLB'ers going to be making the hard slog through the desert to support our boys at Chase this weekend? I'm heading to Phoenix tonite with the wife and the parents to watch the Padres finally hit a fuc*king homerun. Seriously, it's Chase Field. If I don't see a HR on either Friday or Saturday, I'm gonna cry.

Given that this is my first time to Chase, is there anything I should particularly pay attention to whilst in the snake pit? And no, I'm not talking about that incredibly annoying scream by The Who everytime a Diamondback goes yard. If I wanted annoyingly shrill sounds emanating from a PA system, I'd go see a game at AT&T.

Well, I know this game is going to probably not attract much of an audience given that XX isn't even covering it, but I'll be listening on MLB.com. I have to deal with the Brewers' broadcast, but I'm willing to grin and bear it for all of you.

Jake is on the hill. Some of you have decided that you no longer like him.

Shame on you.

Especially you, TTG.

Actually, I got nothing. Just trying to reach the character limit. Mostly B-squadders today with Kouz and Barrett as the only starters.

[editor's note, by Dex] Good old Phantom and his endless supply of discretionary income that allows him to buy a XM radio player system.

Right, since I'm one of the lucky ones with XM, I'll be listening to this game today.

Corey Brock, our MLBlogger for the Padres, has the lineup for todays game at his blog (http://coreybrock.mlblogs.com/):

CF Jeff DaVanon
2B Oscar Robles
3B Kevin Kouzmanoff
1B Adrian Gonzalez
C Josh Bard
RF Jody Gerut
LF Chase Headley
DH Chip Ambres
SS Luis Rodriguez
SP Tim Stauffer

Corey also notes that Heat, Cla, Trevor, Thatch, Gardner, Zarate, and Wells should get some playing time.

I'll do my best to give updates on exciting plays/scores as the game rolls on. I do have a job so I'm not sure how many updates I'll be able to do. If anyone else can find a Gameday-type thing or has XM, please leave some updates as well.

Since I joined the GLB community only after I was provoked my Drama's now legendary dissertation on Khalil, I probably missed this kind of post from last year.

Does anyone have season tickets for this year? This is my first year as a season ticket holder and I'm completely giddy about it. I managed to convince the wife that part of our monetary haul from the wedding was best used on a 20-game plan.

We'll be sitting about 6 rows back from the LF fence, right above the "N" in the Sony sign if I remember right. Section 128, Row 5, Seats 10 & 11.

Who else has sason seats? Where ya sitting?

There's an article in the UT today which states that Becky Moores just filed for divorce: http://www.signonsandiego.com/sports/padres/20080206-9999-1s6moores.html

The article is somewhat ambiguous and is unsure how, if at all, this move impacts the Padres. You can be sure that Moores won't be exceeding his budget (which I don't really mind since it's the reality of our market size), but I wonder if this means that there might be a sale of the team at some point?

Anyone with business or family law experience out there? How might this proceeding affect the team?

That's what a new SI.com article is claiming. Of the 7 places where Bonds might make sense, Cliff Corcorran has deemed that San Diego would be the ideal place for Bonds.

Personal issues aside, I still don't think Bonds is a good idea for this team, and here's why:

1. Defense. A Giles/Edmonds/Bonds defense isn't going to cover a lot of ground. With all of the games we play in the NL West, that's bound to hurt us. I know that some people have suggested that Bonds isn't that bad defensively, but most contemporary metrics show him to be below average to average at best.
2. PETCO Park. The article cites Bonds' numbers at PETCO, and they ain't pretty. OBP aside, Bonds would probably only be good for long fly-outs (Clay Hensley aside). While this is great with a man on third and less than two outs, the last thing our team needs is someone else who's power will be nullified by the ocean air.
3. Roster spot. Bonds will not play more than 130 games in 08, and he will likely not complete many of the games he appears in. This would essentially mean that we'd be carrying a 25-man roster with at least one (and possibly more - Giles & Edmonds) player who cannot go all the time.

At least that's what Jon Heyman has to say in his latest bit of complete retardation. Even though I am loathe to kick traffic his way, please wallow in the indignity you feel as a Padres fan when you read this crap. It's his "50 winners and 25 losers from 2007" recap.

So, if you were going to profile the 50 winners of 2007, don't you think that someone who unanimously won the NL Cy Young and Triple Crown might be mentioned?

If you're Jon Heyman, baseball writer for a national sports magazine, the answer is no.

Oh, but he does get his digs in at Hoffman, Prior, and Cameron. I'm really surprised that he didn't take an easy shot at Bradley as well.

Someone, please go FJM on this thing. I'm looking at you, Drama.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/jon_heyman/01/03/jonheyman.winnerslosers/index.html

With Blum being picked up by the Astros, and this glorious news of Sledge going to Japan, who do we blame all of our failures on next year?

http://www.signonsandiego.com/sports/weblog/2007/11/slege_to_japan.html

I vote for the Friar. That guy has been totally slacking, especially with the Frankenfriar taking some of his duties. Dude needs to step it up or he's gonna be replaced by Red Ruff and Blue Mews (and yes, those are their names).

I posted these thoughts over at Ducksnorts earlier today, but since I'm a total egoist and love a captive audience, I thought I would share my notions on the NL West and the Padres for next year.

I want to preface my analysis by saying I was pretty dejected after Holliday conspicuosly managed to miss home plate and still be safe. I thought that the Rox were an unstobbale force (powered by Jesus, as some have suggested) and that the D'backs were on the cusp of greatness.

And then I read an article by Nate Silver over at SI. You can read it too. It really made me re-think my concern about this coming season. Here is the article, I apologize for sucking at HTML and not being able to embed quotes yet: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/baseball/mlb/10/31/bp.nlwest/index.html?eref=T1

Without further ado, I give you my thoughts on next year. What do you guys think?

D-backs: I don't care what people say, this year was flat-out statistically flukey. The "kids" didn't compete at nearly the level they were supposed to, and I think it's pretty safe to assume that 07 was Byrnes' career year. As Silver points out in the BP/SI article, the bullpen performed much better than their peripherals. Whereas Heath Bell was a monster in both traditional stats like ERA and sabermetric stats like WHIP, K:BB, the D-backs' relievers were seriously outperforming their numbers. Nobody has any idea how Hudson's surgery will affect his game and its likely that Randy Johnson is not the savior they expect him to be.

Rockies: Aside from their unbelievable run at the end of the year, their pitching failed them pretty consistently. The Rox are probably going to let Fogg and parts of their 'pen walk, which complicates matters for them. Also, there's talk of trading Atkins, which would take another weapon out of their offense. Although they beat us season-record wise, the Rox weren't as dominant as our egos and hearts tell us they were.

Dodgers: Probably the best team in the division (talent-wise), and yet the most poorly managed (from the FO on down). Torre won't cause the Dodgers to play their uber-talented kids, and they'll likely over-react to this season's disappointing finish by throwing stupid money at the wrong people (see off-season, 2006), while allowing key kogs to escape via trade or FA (Kemp, Wolf). The Dodgers will continue to over-rate veterans and under-rate their home-grown talent, which will help us out.

Giants: Abysmal condition. There's no way around it. Even by jettisoning Bonds et al., the Giants have no organizational depth to fill the holes vacated by the mass exodus of their veterans. Barry Zito will continue to doom the team (his contract increases in cost every year) and despite their phenomenal young pitching, the Giants will have no offense to support it. Plus, Matt Cain is a douche.

Padres: Here are my expectations in terms of performance this year by position versus performance last year by position.

C: Bard will probably continue to post surprising OBP numbers, and hopefully some of his power re-appears. We can't expect his RISP numbers to stay at the same level, but he should be a solid piece of the puzzle that delivers similar performance to last year.

1B: By all signs, Adrian is just starting to come into his own. If he continues to drive the ball with authority and learns to hack less-often at pitches above his shoulders, he could put up a very good to great year.

2B: I can't see production out of this position being any worse than last year. By default, we almost have to get better here.

SS: Khalil finally showed what he can do when he's healthy for a full year, and the results were pretty good. His defense is still rock-solid, and his 27 jacks were second on the team. I'd love to see him learn to recognize bad pitches, but I'll take Khalil for what he is. A fantastic defensive short stop that slugs and Ks a bunch (in addition to my hetero life-mate, of course). I anticipate similar production in 08.

3B: From May on, Kouz showed who he truly was. With any luck, he'll continue to grow his confidence and continue to mash. His defense should also improve in his second year, so I anticipate we'll improve our production at this position as well.

LF: Almost like 2B, whatever we run in LF should perform better than last year. I think a Hairston/Bradley combo could be extremely potent, and it will be interesting to see if Headley factors into this discussion.

CF: The black hole/question mark for 08. CF shouldn't make or break us, as Cameron was not a huge part of the offensive equation in 07. I'm completely happy with great D in CF at the sacrifice of some offense. I'm predicting production will be the same or worse in 08.

RF: Giles did his thing despite being hurt all year. For a more thorough discussion, check out Geoff Young's analysis from yesterday (http://ducksnorts.com/blog/2007/10/did-giles-bounce-back-and-where-does-he-go-from-here.html). Either way, I think we can expect at least similar numbers from Giles next year.

SP 1: Jake had his best year ever, and I hope that another season with Maddux helps him mature a little more. I would love for 08 to be the year that Jake becomes the "big game" pitcher.

SP 2: CY had a great year pre-injury. Hopefully he can recuperate in the off-season, get healed, get his head right, and dominate.

SP 3: Maddux will probably decline slightly from last year (and I definitely see him staying a Padre), but he should still be reliable for a quality start every 5th day.

SP 4 & 5: These are the definite question marks. Germano/Hensley and Wells/Cassel/Tomko were league-average and below-average respectively last year in these spots. Hopefully we can at least maintain that status, if not improve.

Relief Corps: I don't think any Padre fan worries about our relief pitching anymore. Seriously, Kevin Towers has got to be one of the best evaluators of relief pitching in the past 30 years.

Overall, I see the Padres getting better at several positions, while only really experiencing potential drop-off in CF. Guys like Khalil and Bard will play their respective roles while people like Adrian, Kouz, and Hairston continue to improve.

With the right moves this off-season, we could certainly be in a great position for 08. Our situation is not nearly as dire as it may seem.

Remember how, the entire season, the NL West was totally swept under the rug as non-important?

If things end as they currently stand, the two teams in the NLCS will be from the NL West. This means that a member of the NL West is guaranteed to be in the World Series.

This obviously doesn't make things better with the fact that we're not there oursleves. However, we should feel some solace over the fact that we had the third best record in the NL this year, but we only missed out on the playoffs because the other teams with better records than us were also from our division.

I wish it was us battling for a spot in the NLDS right now, but unfortunately, it's not. That said, you've got to feel proud that our boys battled and fought all year in a division that earned no respect all season, but has clearly shown itself to be dominant.

[editor's note, by Phantom] Updated below. Right, so this diary and incident need no introduction. But, this is probably not what you're expecting me to say.

Fact is, something clearly happened between Winters, Bradley, Black, Meacham, and Runge. There was a whole lot of yapping going on between everyone. If you watch the replay, when Bradley first gets to first, it looks like he asks Winters a really innocent question, which Winters attempts to answer. However, as the Kouz at-bat goes on, things escalate, until Bradley calls for time and is immediately tossed.

Unlike almost everybdoy else on here, I'm not going to bury Bradley. Something clearly set him off. After Bradley went down, even Meacham, usually an even-keel cat, was f'ing furious. I'm sure we're gonna get a lot of speculation on this, and a bunch of stuff will come out tomorrow morning.

Could Bradley have handled the situation differently? Obviously. But let's not assume that this was an unprovoked action. I don't want to hear the whole "they're professional baseball players" crap. They're human beings like the rest of us. They screw up like the rest of us. Since he's been here, Milty hasn't done anything this volatile. Something clearly happened today that we'll probably never get the full story about. Am I bummed about his ejection and this display? Sure. But if something horrible happened (perhaps some kind of racial-based comment?), then Bradley should have exploded. That's unforgivable in 2007.

So, for better or worse, I'm with Milton Bradley. He cares about winning and he wants nothing more than to make the playoffs. Should he have handled this situation differently? Yes. Could I have if I were in his position?

We'll never know.

From the Padres.com article:

"In 26 years of baseball, I couldn't believe my ears the way that he spoke to Milton was so disrespectful, so angry, so vindictive," Meacham said. "It was weird. The boiling point is when he called Milton a name. Milton did not saying anything to him to get him to do that."

**Balls Deep has been added** I brought this up at the end of tonite's Open Thread, but "balls to the walls" has been disastrous. Since it's inception (Jake's infamous start in AZ), we've only won two games. Though it sounds badass and it rhymes, it's clearly not gonna work for us.

So, where should we go from here? "Experience It" seemed to be pretty effective, and the Padres are now pushing "Mission October". My personal suggestion is to conflate the two as follows:

"Mission It: experience october"

Ideas anyone? Seriously, I'm willing to sacrifice just about anything to get into the playoffs so hopefully a new catchprase will start the fire.

Last night's 9th inning brought into sharp focus one of the questions a few of us have been debating for a while.

When it comes to this team, what is more important? Offense, or defense?

Take for example our situation at second base. Geoff Blum, who has hit well since the ASB (.306/.376/.378) has struggled recently (10 for 45 in his last 10 games). Marcus, who got off to a hot start, has been terrible since May (.129/.191/.177 since the ASB). Recently, Marcus has gone 3 for 21, which doesn't appear to be much better.

Regardless, there is little debate over who is the better defender. Marcus has a much better arm, gets to way more balls (.822 ZR) than Blum (.790 ZR), and is generally just more fluid in the field.

So this begs the question. What is more important to this team? Do we sacrifice a few singles for superior defense? Or do we get a couple more hits but are ready for anything whenever the ball is hit to the right side?

For my money, Blum's lack of power and terrible D make his the less viable candidate. I think Marcus should bat 8th and play 2B every day (unless we give Antonelli or Stansberry a shot in Sept). I'd take Marcus K'ing every AB over Blum's defensive ineptitude.

From what I can find at Cot's baseball contracts, all of our guys should be FA's next year (I could be wrong about Bard though) http://mlbcontracts.blogspot.com/2005/01/san-diego-padres.html

So what do we do about our situation?

Barrett (.231/.238/.288/41 OPS+) has been extremely disappointing since coming over (and if you ever read Ducksnorts, there's a conspiracy theory linking Michael Barrrett starts to Padres losses). He's shown almost non-existent power, neglible on-base skills, and although he's got a gun, it's relatively inconsistent.

Bard (.264/.348/.377/96 OPS+)has quitely put together a strong season, showing great plate discipline (35 BB), but diminishing power (22 xBH). His defense is largely underrated (he blocks balls very well), but he doesn't have much of a gun. I'm easily comfortable with Bard getting 60 to 70 percent of the reamining starts.

Pete LaForest (.421/.522/.632/210 OPS+)has been a monster in his brief time with the Padres, but his minor league numbers suggest an eventual return to Earth (.230/.347/.544/.891 OPS). Regardless, LaForest seems to have pretty decent plate discipline, and we all know about his offensive prowess with him being a lumberjack and all. He's still mostly a question mark on defense (although he did block some really tough pitches from Clay last nite), but at any point, he can change a game with one swing of the bat. Oh, he can also play first and third. Should he stay on the roster for the rest of the year? I give it a hearty thumbs up.

Todd Greene's career averages leave a little to be desired (.252/.286/.444/82 OPS+) but he has a reptuation as a strong defender. Although he's currently on the shelf, I've heard reports that he loves the organization and would be willing to come back next year.

So what do we do for the rest of this year and next year? I personally think LaForest needs to stay on the roster even after Barrett comes off (and I think he should also get more playing time than Barret, though that will never happen) and I think we should re-up Laforest and Bard for next year. There isn't much in the way of available FA catchers this off-season (see below list).

Jorge Posada (36)
Ivan Rodriguez (36) - $13MM club option for '08
Paul Lo Duca (36)
Michael Barrett (31)
Jason Kendall (34)
Ramon Castro (32)
Jose Molina (33)
Yorvit Torrealba (30)
Brad Ausmus (39)

The only person I could see us having interest in is Brad Ausmus who's a great defender (one of the best defensive catchers ever) but is a total offensive liability. I also am not sure if we have much in the system in terms of potential propsects.

What do you think?

Ok, so here's the plan:

We have three of the frighteningly awful orange beach towels from 2005 that have all of the different jerseys from over the years on it. Once we're in the region, we'll go to Walmart and either pick up PVC or some kind of posts. We'll figure out a way to get these suckers up, but essentially, we'll have three bright orange beach towels to mark off our spot. I think we'll stake off territory about halfway up the hill. This will give us a good vantage point and it should also provide us some decent gathering space.

So there's the plan. We're still gonna get there around 6. My entire family will be wearing the retro TG visors they gave out on Friday nite. I'll be wearing a white "Tribute to Tony" shirt. Feel free to stop by and say hey at any point. I'll see if I can snag some of our Ducksnorts buttons to put them on the towels.

Well, we're getting pretty damn close to Tony's induction, and I think it's high time we start thinking about the best way to organize a huge contingent of Padres fans in Cooperstown.

There's a thread about various peoples' plans that has been started at Ducksnorts where we're mulling over the same question: http://ducksnorts.com/blog/2007/06/hall-of-fame-plans.html

My family is planning on arriving at the park for the cermony at 6 a.m. at the latest. Does anybody have any good ideas about the best way to coordinate a massive gathering from the Padres blogs (of course, any Pads fans will be welcome). I think it would be nice to pull something like this off and it would be a great showing for San Diego.

My best idea thus far is to get some kind of banner/flag that could serve as a general meeting place. Of course, I have neither. Any ideas? Has anyone heard of any other big gatherings that are being planned?