Let’s get this out of the way: Tejada is no longer the player you remember. In fact, he is no longer a good player.

This season, Tejada has been worth 0.1 wins, making him a slight upgrade over current awful Padres Everth Cabrera and Matt Stairs (-0.1 wins) and Oscar Salazar (-0.3), and assuming that he takes Everth’s shortstop job, Tejada will become the worst hitter on the team and it won’t be close (-10 runs. The next lowest position player is Salazar at -3.6). While all current Padres have Petco Park pulling their numbers down, Tejada has Camden Yards lifting his up and he’s still only managed a wRC+ of 81. On the road, that number drops to 60.

But wait, it gets worse. Tejada will likely become our everyday shortstop, a position that he couldn’t find a job at last offseason. In the 16,000+ innings he’s logged at short in his career, Tejada has been worth -30.2 runs (-3.6 UZR/150) and from 2007-09, the last three seasons he played at the position (almost 3,800 innings), he was worth -6.3 runs (-5.3 UZR/150). We don’t have enough information to draw any conclusions, but early returns on Tejada’s play at the hot corner have not been inspiring (-7.3 UZR/150 in 808 innings).

Sounds awful, right? Why would Hoyer make this trade? For starters, it didn’t cost a whole lot. While Wynn Pelzer, our contribution to this trade, was ranked seventh in our system by Baseball America before the season, his lack of control and modest projections make him a small loss. And despite his apparently fading abilities, Tejada has maintained his reputation as a great teammate, earning high praise from none other than Mark Loretta:

Loretta said Tejada was one of the best teammates he ever had.

“He’s just a fun guy to be around,” Loretta said. “He really pulled for his teammates, kind of one of those guys that people are drawn to. Funny, plays every day, plays hurt. He’s a gamer.”

I don’t think I need to tell you that no one, save for Bryan Cranston, has benefited from chemistry like these 2010 San Diego Padres and it sounds like it just got better.

Ultimately, this is an uninspiring-but-inoffensive trade. The team didn’t add the missing piece, but they didn’t just trade Wilson Ramos for Matt Capps either. Tejada hasn’t been a good player so far this season and while it’s possible that a jump into the fire could do him good, he’s still replacing a player worse than him even if it doesn’t.

If nothing else, Tejada makes this team that much easier to build on MVP 2005, so let’s call it a win.

Yes, a post!

What can I say, coming home and websites seems sisyphean when you spend all day working on websites.

Ok, maybe it’s not that bad. Unless Ray changes his mind at least no one at The Sac Bunt is hell bent on including animated gifs on our home page.

So about this article. I know this is a novel concept, but I must make one admission: I talk about sports on the Internet, and yes, sometimes, very rarely, I’m wrong about things I’ve said. In the interest of searching for truth, and not feeling so bad about making fun of other people for being wrong, here are some admissions that need making.

David Eckstein is having a great year

I make fun of his supporters, but I never completely hated his signing and certainly never disliked the guy as a person. I hear he spends a ton of time before ballgames signing autographs for fans, which is admirable and rad. He just hasn’t been as good of a player as people think he is, and I didn’t see why he can’t use his magical “make other players play better” powers from the bench.

This year David sits fourth out of the position players in WAR, though his .309 wOBA drops him to 6th of those with 200 plate appearances. Cheers David, I’m glad to be wrong about you this year.

That marketing campaign behind Everth Cabrera may have been premature

Back in January I provided an array of uninvited Padres marketing opinions in which I suggested the team market the trio of Kyle Blanks, Mat Latos, and Everth Cabrera. Promise, I never expected Cabrera to provide the kind of value Blanks or Latos will likely produce. And I refuse to apologize for including Blanks in the marketing mix, as his slow start was only 120 plate appearances and still has huge potential.  I included Everth in the group because he is the kind of  exciting, speedy, defender at the romance position I would expect fans to rally around. His youth and price tag mean fans can rally around him a long time into the future.

Unfortunately, 440  plate appearances of average production (101 wRC+ ) above A ball meant less than we would like about Cabrera’s future as a hitter. He’s been hurt as well, and he can still become the player we thought we would be, but it is hardly a sure thing.

!!!!!!!!!! Speed never slumps!

This isn’t about speed not slumping, I just can’t help giggling at that phrase.

The Padres’ recent trend in taking risks on the bases isn’t exactly a recent trend. As far back as 2008, we’ve heard spring training stories profiling an emphasis on the running game. The rule of thumb when stealing suggests an 80% stolen base rate , anything less and you’re hurting rather than helping. 68%, 74%, and 71% are the Padres’ success rate the past three seasons.

And as is my usual behavior (leave your psychoanalysis in the comments, plz) I dislike anything that is overvalued. During 2008’s 22 inning gamestravoganza against Colorado, I experimentally live blogged and complained, among other complaints (psychoanalysis again requested) about the Padres focus on base path risk taking.

Well, turns out that in a low run environment like Petco Park, it might just maks more sense to go for the extra base.

How much so? I have no idea. If a lower run environment drops the success rate to say, 79%, then I’m not wrong after all (I will henceforth pretend this is the case in my head). But what if the Petco break even rate is drastically different? That break even rate might be 55% in which case, hell let the McAnultys and Stairs of the world go crazy.

The first place Padres!

I thought even my 78 win prediction leaned toward the homer side, and went as far as renewing that prediction about a month into the season. The link is down (come back Peter Friberg!), but ole Melly would never lie to you. Especially about his being wrong.

I simply didn’t believe in the team’s offense, who currently rank at exactly 100 OPS+.

But then, defense is the new Moneyball right? Our boys lead the legue in UZR/150 defensive metric by a wide margin. The team’s winning ways may be sustainable without much offense thanks to outside the box thinking and scouting.

Some younger players don’t have me convinced me they’re long term starters on a good team. Hello Mr. 109 wRC+ Nick Hundley, where’d that come from?

But things are working well right now and being a Padres fan is simply marvelous.

Melvin Update: According to Baseball-Reference’s Pecota updated playoff odds report, the boys in blue-and-sand and soon-to-be-gray have a 75% chance of making the post-season either via a division championship or wild card.

Living in Chile, I find myself for the first time in a country that actually cares about the the World Cup*, even if it is now over. Clearly I’ve never cared before, not outside of the casual fandom that comes with generally liking sports, but it’s made me realize that I’ve never cared for the WBC either. I’ve watched both tournaments, even attending the Cuba/Japan game last year, but I found myself unengaged on a personal level, not really caring who won. I think that might make me a bad American. Personally, I blame Adam Dunn.


As it’s the player’s fault, I figure that the best way to fix my milquetoast is to build my own (if only hypothetical) team. But then, creating a fantasy Team USA is boring. The only real challenge is whether or not I can find a way to keep Kevin Youkilis off the team, so instead I present to you my picks for Team California. If we’re big enough to be in the G20, I’d say we’re big enough to field our own baseball team.

Rules: For eligibility on the team, a player had to be born in and attend high school in California. That means that Prince Fielder, who was born in Ontario but went to high school in Florida is not eligible.

Catcher – Gerald Laird (Westminster)

Exciting start, right? Laird might not be much with the bat, but it’ll be buried in this lineup. He’s a solid backstop who’ll be there to catch the pitches our All-Star pitchers throw.
Alternate: Rod Barajas (Santa Fe Springs)

First Base – Adrian Gonzalez (Chula Vista)

Now that’s more like it. You know Adrian, so I don’t think I need to tell you why he belongs on this team. Whether or not he’ll pick California over Mexico is another story, but I’ll leave that to someone else to figure out.
Alternate: Derrek Lee (Sacramento)

Second Base – Chase Utley (Long Beach)

Possibly the toughest call of the team, Utley just got the nod over Dustin Pedroia, but really it wasn’t that tough. Utley is one of the most well-rounded players in the game, who can hit for power, draw a walk, steal a base, and play the best defensive second in the game.
Alternate: Dustin Pedroia (Woodland)

Third Base – Evan Longoria (Downey)

We haven’t even gotten to shortstop yet and we already have the best infield that you’ll find anywhere. Along with Utley, Longoria is an easy pick for the Team USA roster (and not just because he attended Long Beach State): another well-rounded player who will hit for power and catch the ball.
Alternate: Michael Young (Covina)

Shortstop – Troy Tulowitzki (Santa Clara)

Like seemingly everyone else on this team (including fellow former Dirtbag Longoria), Tulo is a player who can do it all. If I were the coach, and I’m not (you’ll have to wait to see who is), I’d likely put Tulowitzki in the leadoff spot, which tells you a little bit about how deep this team is in the middle of the order.
Alternate: Jimmy Rollins (Oakland)

Left field – Ryan Braun (Granada Hills)

Oh look, another All-Star. Braun is one more Californian worthy of being on Team USA, and we know this because he played in the 09 WBC. While not quite the complete player his new teammates are, Braun is a major power threat who will feast in the middle of this lineup and hopefully rely on this next guy to hide his horrible, horrible glove.
Alternate: Milton Bradley (Long Beach)

Center field – Tony Gwynn, Jr. (Poway)

If you were to say that this pick is pure homerism, you’d probably be right. But in my defense, I’d like to say the following two things: 1. There are not a lot of quality California-bred center fielders in the bigs right now, and 2. Tony’s not so bad. As Melvin recently argued, UZR is a statistic that requires a lot of evidence before an opinion can really be reached, but I’m willing to take a chance on Tony’s excellent two (or so) years.
Alternate: Adam Jones (San Diego)

Right field – Adam Jones (San Diego)

While Jones is no AJ when it comes to patrolling centerfield, he’s still a solid player who does everything good even if he doesn’t do a whole lot great. With his strong arm, Jones should be able to slide into right without a problem, and any offense he can contribute will be gravy given the kind of guys he’ll be hitting behind.
Alternate: Will Venable (Marin County)

And there’s that. I’m not sure if you noticed, but there are three San Diegans in the starting eight. If one were so inclined, they could build an All-San Diego team that would be able to hold their own in any competition. We’ll see more San Diegans on the pitching side, which I will get to in a couple of days.

As always, please tell me where I got it wrong in the comments section.

*Apologies to the 14 people in the US who like soccer.

Special note: this post doesn’t have a lot of jokes. In exchange for your forgiveness, please accept this photo of Padres prospect Blake Tekotte. Thank you.

When looking at statistics, there are two major pieces of information to learn.

• How much has a player contributed to his team in the past?
• How much will a player contribute to his team in the future?

Often times, the ability of a player to contribute to his team in the future is called “true talent level”. This is a player’s raw ability, with other factors such as luck and the ballpark environment in which he plays stripped from the conversation. This is where the concept of sample size is most important. Without using an adequate sample size in measurement, all the stuff that doesn’t affect a player’s future performance might mess up our opinions. Sample size, among other things, is what gets us there.

While fun and interesting, when talking about things a particular baseball squadron should or should not do, a player’s contributions in the past generally aren’t relevant. Sure there are exceptions–when a lifelong Padre player is negotiating his final contract–for instance. But those are rare.

My stupid example: flipping a coin

Suppose you ask me to call heads or tails as you flip a quarter in the air. I choose heads, and wouldn’t you know it, the quarter lands heads up! Does this mean I will know the result of all future coin flips when asked? In other words, do I have a perfect “true talent level” of calling coin flips? Of course not, and we all understand why. Because of luck.

Along these lines, each measurement (or statistic) has its own requirements for sample size. If you flipped a second coin, and I guess correctly a second time, that still doesn’t prove my coin guessing. We simply haven’t reached the number of coin flips necessary to filter out the luck. As you approach 50 coin flips and calls, my successful calling rate will likely be pretty close to my true talent level of 50%.

Back to baseball: wOBA and UZR

The same applies for baseball measurements. Different stats require different amounts of trial before they eliminate noise. I’m not a stat expert, so I can’t expressly say exactly how many tries one should use for each stat. For me, 3-5 years of wOBA (my favorite hitting stat) is what I want to see when looking at a player. 500 plate appearances at minimum.

When measuring defense with UZR, however, things are different. 3 years of UZR data is worth about 1 year of hitting data. That means when determining a defender’s true talent level, as I understand it, you really ought to look at 9 years of data. I’m completely serial. 3 years of UZR at minimum.

So please, everyone from message board posters to SDUT staff writers, be careful when making judgement about a player’s future potential using statistics. Especially UZR.

Your pal,

Melvin

Previously on The Sac Bunt: We discussed the Padres meager offensive production and the various aging veterans who could come in and theoretically provide some punch.

At the time, the Padres were 13th in the NL and 23rd in the majors with a .312 wOBA. Today, our wOBA remains at .312, but it is now good for 14th in the NL and 25th in the majors. Now that’s consistency! At the time, I threw out Jermaine Dye and Andruw Jones, and later Pat Burrell, as players who might-or-might not be able to help. Burrell has since signed with the Giants and Dye seems to have fallen off the radar, so it’s Andruw Jones who has prompted the writing of this article.

Today, Buster Olney reported that the Chicago White Sox are officially open for business, looking to move the players that they can from their underachieving team. While they have some bench players that might be of interest to us, including Omar Vizquel, we’re focusing on Jones.

When I first brought him up, Jones had a .949 OPS and a .424 wOBA. Those numbers have since dropped to .823 and .363, respectively, after a rough May: .208/.301/.417/.718, .322. It should be noted that Jones’ May is better than entire season for Venable, Gwynn, and Blanks. Faint praise, I know, but notable. While Jones is still drawing his walks, but he’s not hitting the ball very hard, so it’s not out of line to think that he was the beneficiary of a hot start. Fortunately, what hasn’t changed is his contract.

Along with his $1 million worth of performance bonuses, Jones is still signed to the $500 thousand contract he was at the beginning of the year. Depending on who Kenny Williams asks for in return, Jones could be a low-risk/high-reward chance for the Padres to take. If Jones figures something out back in the NL, the Padres have an outfielder who can actually hit the ball and if not, they’re only on the hook for less than half a million dollars and (hopefully) a mid-level prospect with no real future in San Diego.

With the lack of any real optimism in our lineup, this could be the kind of a risk a team vastly exceeding everyone’s expectations should take. If nothing else, they can at least point to this and say that they tried, after they move Adrian and Bell for some prospects.

[1280 x 1024]

[1200 x 800]

[1024 x 768]

Enjoy! I meant to have a new wallpaper for opening day, but when your motherboard dies things gets tough.

And in the realm of actual Padres stuff, it looks like my pre-season prediction of 78 wins was conservative, (!!!) making a new Adrian Gonzalez wallpaper a safe move. Glad to be wrong.

After tonight’s game, the Padres will be a third of the way through the season and they could potentially have the best record in the NL, so it’s only fitting that tonight’s game wil be against the two-time defending NL champion Philadelphia Phillies, with superace Roy Halladay on the mound. But how have the Padres done against the other good teams in the league? Good question, Ray! Let’s take a look:

Record

This list is made up of all the teams at or above .500 at the end of play on June 2nd.

The team’s .559 winning percentage isn’t too far off of their .604 overall mark, which means that they’re doing the fair thing and treating all team’s equally. Less sarcastically, it means that the team isn’t just beating up on the bad teams, but that they are more than stepping up when necessary. In fact, the Padres have played more than twice as many games against the better teams in the league, making their run even more impressive.

Hitting

To assess the team’s hitting, I looked at how they matched up against the top teams in the league by OPS.

As should have been predicted, the team has not hit very well against the better team in the league, but then the team doesn’t hit well against any teams. There are exceptions but none are memorable. Overall, against teams over .500, the Padres have hit below their season average but not by too much, so that can be the silver lining. But really, this should not be a surprise.

Pitching

To assess the team’s pitching, I looked at how they matched up against the top teams in the league by ERA.

In a funny way, these numbers are almost disappointing. There’s nothing wrong with them, as they’re still pretty good. A team ERA of 3.36 would still be good for third in the NL and fourth in the entire league, it’s just 35 points higher than the overall mark and this team’s kind of spoiled me. Though it’s encouraging to see the team do well against the teams that have seen them the most (save for Colorado and Coors Field).

With two-thirds of the season left, this really means nothing and it’s very possible that the ground will start coming up on the Padres. But as far as Halladay and the Phillies are concerned, they are about to start a series with a team that has shown that, so far, it can hang with the big boys.

After Tampa Bay handed Pat Burrell his walking papers earlier this week, he became the latest aging slugger to be named as the new must have item for our San Diego Padres. Here are a couple of reasons why that would not be a good idea:

1. He can’t hit

This seems obvious enough. If you can’t hack it as a DH in the American League (obviously) in a neutral-to-slightly-pitcher’s park (.970 PF since 09), you’re probably not a good hitter. During his time in Tampa Bay, Pat’s bat was worth -0.8 wins, and that was with him playing a total of nine innings in the field. Speaking of which…

2. He can’t field

On his career, in almost 10,000 innings, Burrell has a UZR of -44.6 and a UZR/150 of -7.8. That’s not quite Jermaine Dye, not even close really, but it’s still bad. And who’s to say how he’ll handle playing in Petco. Or how he’ll handle playing the outfield after taking the last year and a half off.

There is the idea that despite all of this, we should take a waiver on Burrell because Why not? With Tampa Bay left footing the bill on the remainder of Burrell’s $16 million contract, he could be had for as little as $300 thousand. But would Burrell really sign for that little? More to the point, would Burrell sign for that little to play on the Padres, in a ballpark that will almost assuredly torpedo the little value he has left going into free agency?

Now, in reasons why he might be a good idea, It should be noted that it’s not unusual for a player to just be unable to make things work going from one league to the next. Edgar Renteria was an All-Star for the Cardinals before signing and failing with the Red Sox*. The next year, he was back in the NL, in Atlanta, back to his old ways. Two years after that, he was traded back to the AL, to Detroit, where the wheels fell back off. These things happen, and it’s possible that Burrell is just an NL-kinda guy.

Also, Burrell doesn’t have to start to be of use to this team. Age (or whatever it is) has caught up with Matt Stairs and fast, so the Padres could find themselves in the market for a new aging slugger who can come off the bench and hit the ball over the fence. Last season, Jason Giambi’s reunion with the Oakland A’s was cut short, leading him to sign with Colorado on a minor league deal. He rewarded the Rockies with a 162 OPS+. If Burrell was willing to do something like this, especially the minor league contract part, what could it hurt to check him out?

*It should be noted that Renteria’s reputation in St. Louis was blown out of proportion and his bad season in Boston wasn’t much worse than some of the ones he had in STL. But this is baseball, so Shhhhh.

With the Padres the proud owners of the best record in the NL (and tied for the second best in all of baseball), the tone of our story has changed. Where everyone had been wondering when the team would trade Adrian Gonzalezand Heath Bell, now people are beginning to wonder if we’ll be buyers instead.

Jed Hoyer started off the talk mentioning he’s not completely happy with the way the offense has been playing:

Frankly we’ve been fortunate to score as many runs as we have given some of the guys we’ve had struggling. The way our pitching staff has thrown has allowed us some patience. At some point our hitters will have to pick up our pitchers. We’re not going to continue to pitch at this rate all season. I think it’s unrealistic to think that.

The team, as of the writing of this article, ranks 23rd in the league in wOBA (13th in the NL) at .312. The team leader is Scott Hairston at .371, followed by backup catcher Yorvit Torrealba at .360, Adrian at an underachieving .359, and Chase Hadley at .349. Everyone else is well below average, with the most egregious offenders being sophomore slumping Kyle Blanks at .305, Evert Cabrera at .250, and Jerry Hairston at .234*.

To this point, the pitching (1st in ERA and xFIP) and defense (2nd in UZR) have led the way, but as Hoyer noted, we can’t just count on getting by with a below-average offense. So who are some candidates to come fix this thing?

TSB favorite Tim Sullivan starts us off throwing Carlos Lee, Jose Guillen, and Jermaine Dye’s names into the hat. Sullivan adds that the price tags hanging from Lee and Guillen might push them out of range. This leaves Dye, who’s become something of a boogeyman around baseball. Following a disappointing contract year (-0.4 WAR), Dye failed to find a job this past offseason. He received interest from a couple of teams (the Cubs and Milwaukee were mentioned) but its believed he’s priced himself out of different situations, which makes it all the more interesting that he’d be willing to come here:

“San Diego was one of the places Jermaine was excited about playing,” (Dye’s agent) Bob Bry said Tuesday. “He continues to work out every morning and hits most days and is still waiting for an opportunity with a team that has a chance to advance to the playoffs. San Diego, seemingly, would be a good fit.”

Right.

Dye’s bat could bring some added oomph to this lineup. Even last year, in a down season, Dye hit 27 home runs with a .344 wOBA. Unfortunately, he was also the worst defensive player in all of baseball. His UZR/150 was -26.4 and on his career, Dye is a -16.3 outfielder. This team definitely needs some offense, but what happens to our pitching and defense with Jermaine Dye roaming around the spacious confines of Petco Park?

Moving on.

Another aging former All-Star whose name is in the mix is Andruw Jones. You might remember him from the monster bombs he hit in Petco as a member of the Atlanta Braves. Or you might remember him from the monster bomb he was as a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers. With his/Jake Peavy’s Chicago White Sox off to a 14-20 start, Jones has made himself into a trade candidate with his .260/.360/.604 line. MLB Trade Rumors has made up a list of teams that might have interest, and said the following about ours:

The Padres have Kyle Blanks in left field, Tony Gwynn Jr. in center field, and Will Venable in right field. Of the three, only Blanks profiles as a top prospect, so the other two could be vulnerable to a Jones acquisition, should San Diego remain in the race.

I’m assuming they mean that AJ and Venable are vulnerable to losing their spot in the lineup to Jones, and not their spot on the roster. At $500K, Jones is a steal not a deal for the production he’s put up, but will it last? I dunno, but Fangraphs took a shot at figuring it out:

Why so pessimistic? Because at this exact point last season, 111 PA, Andruw’s production ceased. For those first 111 PA he hit .278/.405/.544, which amounts to a wOBA, .424, that is nearly identical to his mark this year. Yet from his 112th PA through his 331st, he produced very little. His triple slash sat at .183/.282/.419, a .320 wOBA. His only saving grace was power, as he hit 12 home runs and produced a .236 ISO during that span. Other than that, though, he showed few redeeming qualities.
—
Yet even if he avoids the drop-off he experienced last year, there’s almost no chance he continues at his current pace. Even during his prime years he never produced a .400 wOBA. His peak year came in 2000, when he produced a .390 mark. He came close, too, in 2005, when he hit 51 home runs and produced a .382 wOBA. He might be able to help a contending team, but it won’t be with the numbers he’s producing now.

Jones is a gamble, more so than Dye, because it’s hard to know who exactly we’ll be getting. While he’s slimmed down, this is still the guy who almost ate himself out of the league. He still has the power he’s ever had and if the stars align, he could be the big bopper to help Adrian see more fastballs, but that’s a big if.

As the season progresses, teams will start seeing their dreams of success slip away (but not us) and more and more players will start falling off the tree, leaving us with a better idea of what’s out there. It is only May afterall. Still, isn’t it nice talking about the stars we could trade for instead of the ones we could trade away?**

*Making matters worse, Hairston is fourth on the team in plate appearances. This jack of all trades is truly the master of none: he’s also contributed a -0.9 UZR.

**Buster Posey and Dustin Ackley are future stars, jes’ sayin’.

Normaly this type of ‘as it’s happening’ rant is reserved for Twitter, but my anger can’t be held at the moment by a teeny tiny keyboard.

After waiting in line and paying $14 as it was the cheapest ticket available, I came to learn beer fest mainly consists of the opportunity to wait 30 minutes to pay $6 for 14 oz of beer. Note, this only applies if one is lucky enough to ween one’s way to the front of the line without the keg tapping out.

Now Woe Doctor (is his name woe doctor?) and I are waiting onother 15 minutes to get in the HOF bar and grill. People are abandoning ship for Toronado.

Garfinkel just half-apologized to the crowd, to audible boos. I guess something like “we’ll do it better next year” counts as an apology.

Update: Added photo