A Thread for the San Diego Padres, Circa 2007

Get both Giles some BALCO stat!

Seriously.

t/s: camo vs. brown and gold

I hate the camos but like the idea behind them. I loooove the brown&gold. I'm actually not too hot on the new unis, but like them better than the mid-period blue & orange, which always seemed like such a ripoff of the Mets colors and SF's logo. (although the Padres logo was always a SF ripoff). I'm glad the new uni's are at least original, if not beautiful to look at.

http://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l138/jonnydub/Statue.jpg

Kill Scott Linebrink !!! >:(

This has been a rough week. :/

Cla can flay!

a Seriously rough week. The only consolation I take is that los doyers aren't really taking advantage and pulling away (much) and there are still a lot of head-to-head games between the two teams, and in the last few years those head-to-heads have strongly gone in the Padres' favor. I'd still like to shoot Linebrink into the sun right about now.

http://flickr.com/photos/richardgin/877563000/

HAY GUISE!

Linebrink to the Brewers for 3 minor leaguers:
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2949182&campaign=rss&source=MLBHeadlines

Wow Brewers just got jooked it looks like.

Why you say that? We have a lot more minor-leaguers where those dudes came from, and Linebrink is a pretty damn good MLB reliever, at least most of the time.

I think the Brewers have a real shot at the NL title, and bullpen depth is something they'll need. With that lineup and those front of rotation guys (maybe including Gallardo?), with Sheets healthy, they could be scary. I'm happy to get the good prospects, but it's a smart sacrifice for the Brewers too. That team doesn't have that many weaknesses, especially compared to other NL teams, other than maybe a lack of experience. Now they have a really great 7-8-9.

If only Ryan Braun started the year w/ them. ;_;

Dammit, more like if only Geoff Jenkins and Johnny Estrada and Rickie Weeks were having average years instead of spitting the bit when we need them most, or if Ned would quit whipping Corey Hart in and out of the lineup willy-nilly, or if we weren't regularly "relying" on Craig Counsell. Lately our offense is like "Prince and Braun and pray it's gone." It's bad when our most reliable third hitter is TONY GRAFFANINO.

And yeah Gallardo is 4 REAL, dude has a presence on the mound to go with his 90 mph fastball and nasty stinkin' filthy-ass breaking stuff. We call him YOGA.

oops wrong thread

I love the Padres too

"Why you say that? We have a lot more minor-leaguers where those dudes came from, and Linebrink is a pretty damn good MLB reliever, at least most of the time."

He WAS a pretty good MLB reliever in Offensive Death Stadium and his approaching the wrong side of 30 and the Brewers'll only have him for nine or so weeks. Inman's 20 years old and has torn up the minor leagues thus far (bit of a hiccup in AA recently, but he's TWENTY.) Don't know the other two dudes, but I'd rather have the next 7 or so years of a guy who is regarded as one of the Top 100 prospects in baseball than 9 weeks of a guy who might not be one of the half-dozen best relievers on his new team.

Oh Linebrink will be better than a lot of guys we are using on a regular basis: Brian Shouse, Chris Spurling, etc. I actually wouldn't be surprised if we now try to flip Turnbow for a power-hitting rental outfielder like Jermaine Dye or someone like that.

Also: Inman is a pitching prospect, and guys like that don't exist. With our current setup and other pitchers -- Manny Parra, currently languishing in our bullpen, pitched a PERFECT GAME at AAA this summer -- here is no way Inman would come up until 2009 at the earliest. So I think it's a good move, even if Linebrink is no longer who he used to be. A lot of times, a change of locale can be good in the short term...plus, Turnbow isn't all that reliable, not like he used to be. STEROID CURSE WHAT.

Maybe six is extreme, but Cordero, Villaneuva, Turnbow and Wise are probably better and the other dudes are passable. Nothing indicates to me that Linebrink is a marked improvement over those guys once you take him out of the friendly confines of Padresland. And there may be no such thing as a pitching prospect, but trading a very good and very young minor league arm (and two other guys) for a 9 week rental of a MLB relief arm is poor team management.

I disagree with your boldly stated claim, and so do at least three of the Brewers-covering sources that I trust. But let us let history be the judge of this trade -- if Linebrink is the cause of a Brewers' meltdown leading to missing the playoffs this year, or if any of these three minor-league pitchers ends up tearing up MLB for the Pads for years to come, you win. Otherwise...

Haha deal!

Nate Silver awarded the Brewers a Krivsky for this trade.

Alex, I <3 you boo, but dude small sample size 2007 to date and all:

Scott Linebrink career*:

ERA WHIP BAA
Home 3.39 1.40 .266
Away 2.98 1.10 .216

*that includes a few Houston partial seasons but ya know... quite a majority (86%) of the Home appearances were in SD, 73% of which were at PetCo.

Doug Melvin's track record speaks for itself so far. Every trade he's made has been for a reason. I remember how much shit he got for the Carlos Lee deal, because people jumped on the Kevin Mench part instead of the Francisco Cordero part...but that has worked out nicely after all.

I wonder if the endgame here is Linebrink-as-closer when Cordero bolts next year to be overpaid by some other team.

Linebrink's declining strikeout rate also speaks for itself unfortunately.

...or does it? Lest you forget, Francisco Cordero was pretty bad for the Rangers until he came to Milwaukee.

Also, I love the fact that all the Padres' pitchers are angry about this trade. (This IS a Padres thread, after all.) Who will now set up Hoffman?

The Rangers play in a bandbox! In the AL. Cordero's peripherals were all very very good for the Rangers (high SO rates and a great BB/SO ratio!) High BABIP was the reason his ERA was so high. It was entirely predictable that he would put up better #s in the weaker league in a less extreme stadium!

You sure use a lot of exclamation points Alex.

I ended one of those sentences with a period.

TOUCHÉ

Who will now set up Hoffman?

Heath Bell, who has been great.

I also agree with Shasta that reports of Linebrink as a Petco-created phenomenon are completely incorrect. His performance has declined this year, but he still had been pretty damned solid this year before his meltdown week.

I mean, if he becomes a free agent and the Padres grab him, I would be thrilled to have him back. This is not a guy I wanted to get rid of, despite the fact that he was pissing me off lately. He is a classy dude and a complete bulldog.

Christina Kahrl on the trade btw:

So, I digress, and the Brewers have made a big trade, and this is... exactly the sort of payoff we've come to expect from deadline action these days. Linebrink's not having a bad season per se, but he's clearly not having as good a season as in he had in years past:

Year ERA WXRL ARP FRA
---------------------------------
2004 2.14 3.559 32.6 1.53
2005 1.83 3.729 22.3 2.21
2006 3.57 3.995 12.6 3.44
2007 3.80 1.804 5.8 3.47

It isn't that Linebrink's bad, it's that he's a few rungs below his previously-achieved greatness, and now that we're in a second season of that climbdown--added to the specter of his free agency this winter--he's an odd sort of proposition. Clearly, it's worthwhile to get a guy who's “merely” good with a recent record of flat-out dominance, but I guess I just don't see Linebrink having the same sort of bounceback potential that Francisco Cordero had coming over from the harder league and a harder park last season. Linebrink's leaving Petco behind, and probably a better overall defense.

Then we get into the question of necessity. Did the Brewers need Linebrink? I don't see why they should have. It's one thing to consider him desirable—a lot of GMs still have 2004 on their minds, and if Todd Jones can endure as a closer, of course somebody like Linebrink can close. But the Brewers didn't have a weak pen, they have the fourth-best pen in the National League, and in Cordero, Carlos Villanueva, Derrick Turnbow, Matt Wise, and situational lefty Brian Shouse (an underrated pickup by Melvin from last summer), Yost has an effective and deep relief corps. In terms of 2007 performance, Linebrink's only the fourth-best reliever, and even then, only just, because Wise is having a pretty solid little season soaking up middle-inning work. You trade one of your best prospects, plus a big league-ready lefty, and a third arm, to get two months of a guy who might be your fourth-best reliever?

Now, even if the lefty was a credit to the organization's ability to dig talent out of the independent leagues, and even if there's a pretty solid shot that the draft picks that Linebrink should turn into during during the offseason stand to be pretty tasty--since they'll be made by Jack Zduriencik--I'm still a little non-plussed by whatever it was the Brewers think they've achieved here. They dealt one of their best bargaining chips to reinforce a team strength? That's insecurity writ large.

but our bullpen is no longer a strength, not in the last month, and not today. PAY ATTENTION SABRNERDS.

If the Padres lose a game in which they were winning 11-0 after 1/2 inning, I am going to kill everything.

The new batting coach for the San Diego Padres is former steroid user Wally "The Friar" Joyner!

Jesus do I ever hate David Wells.

Last night's win was their sixteenth shutout already. That is kind of awesome.

Wells is going to be released or traded, depending on which Wells prefers. He has pitched his last game with the Padres.

Also, Geoff Blum is batting .321/.392/.443 since May 1! How is that possible.

Holy Jesus I love Milton Bradley so much. His disgusted batflip on the first of his 3-run shots on friday was amazing.

It is amazing to have a guy on the team who can actually hit!

I wish they could play the Giants and Pirates all the time.

I continue to wish they could play the Giants and Pirates all the time.

If they don't make the playoffs I just might die. :(

Puzzling team, hitting-wise.

Milton Bradley is probably out for the season after getting tackled by Bud Black. :(

Looked like Bradley said Winters called him "a piece of shit."

Here's the story.

Each of the stories I've read, with the exception of the one above, has amounted to "Oh boy there goes Bradley again." He didn't help himself by intimating that Winters caused his injury, but still.

I wish they could play the Giants [...] all the time.

-- polyphonic, Friday, September 21, 2007

Chris Young was roughed up by the last-place Giants, who got a season-high four RBIs from Omar Vizquel to help Barry Zito end a six-start winless stretch in San Francisco's 9-4 victory over the reeling Padres.

San Diego fell into a tie with Philadelphia atop the NL wild-card standings, with Colorado a game back. The Padres are three behind NL West leader Arizona, which has a magic number of four to clinch the division crown.
-- God, Monday, September 25, 2007

booyah.

I don't expect to win them all against the Gnats, just about 90% of them.

Just beat the Brewers twice and it should be all good.

Each of the stories I've read, with the exception of the one above, has amounted to "Oh boy there goes Bradley again."

He didn't exactly handle himself well, whether it was deserved or not. When your manager is trying to restrain you and you resist him to the point that he has to wrestle you to the ground, you deserve whatever happens to you.

Bot 2nd: San Francisco
- D. Roberts doubled to right, F. Lewis scored
- K. Frandsen singled to left, D. Roberts scored
- R. Winn homered to deep center, K. Frandsen scored

Winning when it counts!!

Wrong.

DO IT FOR MILTY

http://www.nndb.com/people/714/000022648/milton-berle.jpg

?

lol whoops.

one for the ACL!

Well Winters just got suspended, but that doesn't really help Bradley (whose "I didn't do nothing wrong" as though attempting to eviscerate the guy to a degree that you had to get tackled by your manager is NOTHING wrong) or the Padres.

It will be nice to not have him around for the Brewers series at least.

Lovin' the Cain/Bombko beef.

I think this playoff berth has been much more satisfying than the last two for me. I'm pleasantly optimistic about the Padres chances in a way I wasn't in the previous years.

Trevor Hoffman blows the game on a triple by Tony Gwynn Jr., a night after the Padres put the game away against Scott Linebrink. And of course, today Joe Thatcher (ex-Brewer) is the losing pitcher.

There was a scary moment where Jason Lane took out Prince Fielder with an awkward diving slide at first, and it really made me question the practice of leaving your best guys out there in a meaningless game. But I guess the Mets/Phillies/Rockies/Diamondbacks are glad that the Brewers didn't just fold up the tents and go home.

It wasn't a meaningless game for Milwaukee at all.

How do you figure.

1. Pride
2. Staying above .500
3. Revenge

I guess that's a good reason to risk injury to your best players.

There is a huge group of Brewers fans that will walk out of the stadium today if they see Prince Fielder jog out to first base.

Wait, were we supposed to sit all our regular everyday players and only play scrubs just because we didn't make the playoffs? So Jason Bay shouldn't have played since like May? And we were supposed to just bend over and LET the Padres win because we owe you something, or something? Oh baseball gods please have mercy on our souls.

By the way tell Jason Lane not to do awkward diving slides into first, okay?

Actually, I called Padres as wild card team back in March, so I got nothing against yr team. Just against yr "logic".

And we gave you Suppan on the last day. YOU ARE FUCKING WELCOME.

lol?

Career-wise, Peavy hasn't pitched particularly well at Coors Field, or even vs. the Rockies...

<i>Wait, were we supposed to sit all our regular everyday players and only play scrubs just because we didn't make the playoffs</i>

No, but I can certainly empathize with someone who does think that.

TONY GWYNN JR!

I think this playoff berth has been much more satisfying than the last two for me. I'm pleasantly optimistic about the Padres chances in a way I wasn't in the previous years.

-- polyphonic, Saturday, 29 September 2007 03:50 (3 days ago)

ouch, sorry dude.