By all accounts, Scott Hairston is to be activated from the disabled list before Tuesday's game. Up to this point, the Padres' outfield has been just awful offensively, so getting Hairston back into the shuffle should be a big help. He offers a little power (6 HRs) and a decent OBP (.357).

Continue reading this post »

This was originally intended as a comment to Duke Street Kings' "Is Kyle Blanks getting Headley'd" diary. But as I continued typing I decided it was long enough for its own fanpost.

As far as Blanks goes, the tea leaves are clear. First the Padres sent a smoke signal via Bill Center, telling him the team has discussed sending Blanks down. A day later, the director of player development talks to mlb.com and sings the praises of AAA OF Luis Durango.

Durango would not only fill Blanks' vacated outfield slot, he could solve the Padres' leadoff-hitter problems. After a really slow start this season, Durango has a .370 OBP in Portland, and from what Randy Smith says, is playing really well defensively. His base-stealing instincts, though, suck, which is too bad considering he's one of the fastest players in all of baseball. And he's on the 40-man roster.

But the question is not whether the Padres are ready to send Kyle Blanks down, it's what to do with the rest of the outfield? Pitchers are feeding a steady diet of low-and-inside stuff to Will Venable, who just can't adjust. His OBP is down to .291, a point below that of Blanks. Matt Stairs is even farther below, at .240. By comparison, Tony Gwynn's OBP looks stellar at .333. But he himself says he needs to be at .400 to be of any real use to the team. His average is .218.

That's a whole lotta nothin' in the outfield. The team has been making noises about Chris Young not being ready to pitch again until the All-Star break, if then. That sounds like they are considering moving him to the 60-man DL, which would open a spot on the 40-man roster. And the truth is, there are a couple of other guys in Portland's outfield who are more desrving a a call-up than Durango but who are not on the 40-man.

Mike Baxter leads the team in OBP at.411 and has been scoring runs, though his RBI total is low. Chris Denorfia has an OBP of .383.

I think we will see two of the three guys mentioned here -- plus Everth Cabrera back at shortstop -- by Friday, when the Padres return to Petco.

The MLB.com Padres beat writer serves up a really tasty morsel about why the Padres are being so patient with Kyle Blanks and Will Venable. In it, Brock seems to pointedly ask the GM and manager to explain themselves -- and flummoxes both of them.

First Hoyer:

Continue reading this post »

Isn't it obvious? If you carry 23 pitchers on your 40-man roster, you're gonna have problems when you need to replace an infielder, or any position player for that matter. Let me spell it out: The Padres have no infielders on their 40-man roster whom they can call up to replace Everth Cabrera, should they choose to put him on the DL with a bitchy hamstring.

Continue reading this post »

The Padres have a problem. Their outfielders have been rather anemic at the plate. Tony Gwynn (.111 avg) has already been benched. Scott Haiston seems to have replaced him in CF. Despite the seven runs Shrek has helped to produce, he is batting .200. A big improvement over Tony Not A Clone, no?

Will Venable does not deserve to be included with the aforementioned pair because he leads the team in RBI (9), HR (3) and is second in runs (8). But he's batting .222 and I'm not gonna let his relative awesomeness get in the way of my Chardonay-inspired point.

Should I mention Matt Stairs?

Perhaps I should but only in the context of who might be soon shown the door. Because stuff's happening in Portland.

Remember Chris Denorfia, the almost-30-something guy invited to spring training on a minor league contract who ended up putting the major-leaguers to shame? He's still on fire. He's batting .425. That's his avg, not his OBP, which is .465. He's produced 14 runs in 11 games, and seven of his 17 hits have been for extra bases.

Then there is Luis Durango, who began the season by trying to prove his detractors right. In the first seven games, he had only four base hits in 29 at bats. In his last four games, he has gone 8-17. He is also tied for the second-highest stolen base total in all of professional baseball, at least in this country, with nine. Some 28-year-old guy, also in the Pacific Coast League, is ahead of him with 10. Durango's not scoring a lot of runs, though (5).

And now we come to Mike Baxter, a fourth-round draft pick out of Vanderbilt in 2005 who has slowly been working his way up through the Padres' farm system. Despite spending about half of last season with Portland, Baxter was not starting at the beginning of the year. He quickly insinuated his way into the lineup, however. In 10 games, he has a .370 avg and .553 OBP. Besides his 10 hits, he has nine walks against four Ks. Like Durango, he also has five runs. And like Denorfia, he is not on the Padres' 40-man roster.

Baxter is 25, Durango turns 24 this week and Denorfia turns 30 in July. I see at least two of these guys on the major league roster before then.

By the way, is it OK to say fcuk if I spell it like French Connection U.K. does on its T-shirts?

How long will the Padres give Tony Gwynn to prove he's something more than mediocre?

He will be 28 at the end of the season. This will be his fifth year in the majors. In his first four seasons he has proven to be nothing more than a singles hitter with an underwhelming OB% of .331. This off-season he has told sportswriters that he knows he has to improve that figure to at least .400 to have any value to his team. So far in spring training he has been every bit as underwhelming as he has been in his four years in the bigs. His OB% is .339 -- far from where he himself has admitted he needs to be.

Continue reading this post »

I saw this little nugget in an mlb.com story:

He currently has a 0.96 ERA in the Dominican Winter League.

"He" is Luis Perdomo, a Rule 5 pick of the San Francisco Giants last year who was cut at the end of spring training and ended up with the Padres. Perhaps he'll also end up being a bigger steal than Everth Cabrera.

But he's not the only Padres' gem polishing his game in Latin America this winter.

If any of you saw an earlier post I did this week, you'll remember me taking a shot at Radhames Liz, and getting his name transposed. I apologize on both counts. In a tiny sample of four games and 13.2 innings in the Dominican Winter League, Liz has struck out 13, walked four and compiled an ERA of 0.66.

And for those of you who inferred that the Padres know more about what they're doing than I do, well, you were surely right. Liz is playing for Estrellas de Oriente, the same team Eulogio de la Cruz is playing for. The Padres, who picked Liz off waivers, just put de la Cruz on waivers. He has an ERA of 27.00, though in the tiniest of sample sizes -- 2.1 innings over three games. He has walked three and struck out one.

And as Corey Brock noted a few weeks ago, Luis Durango is also in the Dominican league. He has his OBP at .409, though his avg has dropped precipitously over the past couple weeks, down to .315. He has also stolen 10 bases and been caught thrice. He has had 127 at-bats in 37 games.

Those are the Padres in the Dominican league, at least. I don't have time to check the rosters of the Mexican, Puerto Rican or Venezuelan leagues. Perhaps I'll do that tomorrow.

As it stands now, the Padres are ineligible to participate in Friday's draft of unprotected minor-leaguers. Only teams that have space on their 40-man rosters may participate, and the Padres topped themselves off a week-and-a-half ago when they claimed some guy named Liz off waivers from the Baltimore Orioles -- a guy named Liz with a 7.50 career ERA. Yikes. Perhaps Rule 5 participation is now considered a form of dumpster-diving that has no place in an organization that thinks strategically.

Continue reading this post »

First, allow me to illustrate what nomal human beings look like:

Adrian Gonzalez -- .244 average at Petco, .306 on the road (his home run splits are 12-28)

Everybody's favorite Rule 5 pick -- .230, .276 (his stolen base splits are 5-20)

Chase Headley -- .208, .305

Will Venable -- .215, .299

Kyle Blanks -- .216, .288

Kevin Kouzmanoff -- .220, .287

David Eckstein -- .232, .286

Nick Hundley -- .236, .241

Have you noticed the reality? Nobody born on this planet hits better at Petco than they do everywhere else, though Nick Hundley sucks almost as much everywhere else as he does at Petco. But we'll forgive him since he's a pigeon-toed catcher.

So how do you explain Tony Gwynn hitting .279 at Petco and .261 on the road?

Perhaps this is why the Padres front office, and by that, I mean the guy who got fired, is so high on the obese Tony's son.

I just learned to like Skinny Tony a whole lot more.

who can get on base with his speed. Luis Durango basically steals a victory Thursday afternoon, days after the big call-up from double-A. Shows he's someone who in the future might help a club that plays in Petco. Gives an indication that he might be someone who could benefit from some September at-bats for a team that is going nowhere.

Continue reading this post »

A few thoughts about Friday's moves ...

Bad luck losing Arturo Lopez like that. Perhaps the Padres saw enough of him to know that he faces long odds of ever establishing himself in the majors, but I figured the Padres had seen enough of 2B Matt Antonelli (.175, .298, .282 this year at triple-A, .215, .335, .322 last year at the same level) to make the same judgment. Antonelli was the Padres' 2006 first-round draft choice (No. 17 overall), though, and I'm sure keeping him is simply considered orthodox decision-making in major league circles. ...

Continue reading this post »

We know that Everth Cabrera's tour of the Padres' minor league system is over and that he's on his way to the parent club beginning Friday night. We also know that unlike most Rule 5 guys, Cabrera has earned his way onto the big-league roster. That is if you can earn anything during a 14-game "rehab" stint.

Continue reading this post »

It looks like the Padres' shortstop position is about to be upgraded. Luis Rodriguez seems to have finished his rehab stint (4-14 with a homer in four games at Lake Elsinore). But perhaps there's some bigger news. Everth Cabrera, the 22-year-old who is expected to be the Padres' starting shortstop before the end of the season, is on fire.

Continue reading this post »