Tim Tebow to Play Baseball?

Tim Tebow wants to play Major League baseball. The San Diego Padres would seem the best fit.

Tebow already has the team haircut down.

Player Comparison

Here's a player comparison I've been wondering about lately:

Player A - 7 HR/ 24 RBI/ .241 BA/ .271 OBP/ .412 SLG/ .682 OPS
Player B - 5 HR/ 17 RBI/ .244 BA/ .312 OBP/ .360 SLG/ .673 OPS

Both players man the same position but Player B is making $17 million more than Player A. If you haven't figured it out Player A is Will Middlebrooks who is starting to get hot for the Padres while Player B is Pablo Sandoval who has been pretty disappointing so far for the Red Sox.

Middlebrooks probably needed a change of scenery and I wish him all the best. It's just that this comparison has been bothering me these past few days. The fact that Middlebrooks is also 7-years younger also makes this comparison a little harder to take on a full stomach (no Panda pun intended).

Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

Traditionally New Year's Day was THE big day for college bowl games. This year - NO bowl games at all - not even a lousy Beef O Brady bowl. Tradition don't mean shit to the NCAA. Only TV money is important to those humunculuses in suits... This morning I was thinking that Chris Young would be a good signing for the Red Sox but then I saw that this thought and the reasoning behind it was already recently voiced... I wonder how former Patriots LB Ted Johnson is doing? I hope his early Alzheimer's and concussion related issues haven't worsened... Interesting - Christopher Hitchens a religious man? Father Barron says "Yes"... Huston Street is the highest paid player on the Padres but that should change after Carlos Quentin's arbitration is squared away. It just strikes me as strange that the two biggest salaries on any MLB payroll would come via trade weeks apart... "There are two kinds of people in his up-tight world: his victims and his women. And sometimes you can't tell them apart." That's the tagline from the 1967 Lee Marvin movie Point Blank. Can you imagine that tagline being used for a movie today?... Of course a contract has yet to be signed and who knows Scott Boras could pull a rabbit out of his hat but I think the most overlooked story this Hot Stove Winter is how Boras screwed over Ryan Madson trying to squeeze a 4th year out of the Phillies. Do you think Madson would be happy with a 3-year $33 million deal about now?... Washington fired its entire defensive staff including coordinator Nick Holt following the Alamo Bowl loss... The Texas Rangers have a prospect named Rougned Odor. I love that name! I just hope someone has that sense to make his walk-up music That Smell by Lynyrd Skynyrd... Imagine planning to go to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch your favorite team play its bowl game only to be turned away because Rick Santorum is taking up all the available seating with his entourage and press coverage? I doubt you'd be inclined to vote for Santorum after that. And I have to say that the phrase "Santorum found at Buffalo Wild Wings" sounds very much like a health code violation... Just a reminder - when the Twins traded Johan Santana to the Mets they got prospects Deolis Guerra, Carlos Gomez, Philip Humber and Kevin Mulvey in the deal. How's that working out for ya Twins fans?

Quad 1st Basemen

I've been thinking of 1st basemen recently. This off-season all the talk in Boston was about the Red Sox making a play for the Padres' Adrian Gonzalez. Alex Speier points out why a deal for Gonzo is unlikely. I think Alex misses a very big point - Adrian Gonzalez isn't even the big trophy among young 1st basemen anymore. The new BMOF (Big Man on First) is Joey Votto. Compare the two:

Gonzalez 2010 - 10 HR / 33 RBI / .275 BA / .855 OPS
Votto 2010 - 11 HR / 35 RBI / .321 BA / .986 OPS

Adrian Gonzalez is 28-years old with 86 HR the past three years and has a $5.5 million club option for 2011. Joey Votto is 26-years old with 60 HR the past three years and who will be eligible for arbitration for the first time after this season. Votto will probably cost the Reds more in 2011 than Gonzo will cost the Padres. If the Red Sox are to deal top prospects for a 1st basemen - it will more likely be for Votto who would be under team control longer than the 1-year Gonzo would have.

Both players fall short in comparison to current Red Sox 1st basemen Kevin Youkilis who has 12 HR, 38 RBI, a .320 BA and an OPS of 1.064. Exactly why would a 1st baseman be a priority for Boston again?

More interesting to me is this player comparison:

Player A - 8 HR / 34 RBI / .215 BA / .698 OPS
Player B - 6 HR / 17 RBI / .211 BA / .716 OPS

Player A is the Yankees Mark Teixeira while Player B is the Rangers uber prospect Justin Smoak. It should be noted that Teixeira has had double the plate appearances that Smoak has had this season. Smoak was drafted the year after the Rangers traded away Teixeira. I just find the juxtaposition interesting.

Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

I think that the trump card for those that argue that The Wire was the superior TV series over The Sopranos is the fact that Eric Mangini never had a cameo on The Wire... If Kevin Towers is let go as the GM of the Padres this off-season - I'd like to see Paul DePodesta get another shot as a GM... Have you seen that AXE shampoo commercial that claims that 85% of girls find dandruff on a man to be a turn-off? What the heck is wrong with that other 15% of women polled?... Random thought - do you think Donny Most is living comfortably off the residuals from Happy Days?... Speaking of The Sopranos - today is Lorraine Bracco's (Dr. Melfi) 55th birthday...

Jake Peavy

Don't be surprised if the team who doesn't get Roy Halladay suddenly gets interested in trading for the injured Jake Peavy. Peavy would be under control for more years than Halladay and maybe ready for a September playoff push. Peavy could still be in a position to put a playoff contender over the top and with 3 more years on the contract - the prospects a team would give up could be more than justified.

Padres would love to dump his salary. Peavy makes $11 million this year and $15 mil in 2010, $16 mil in 2011 and $17 mil in 2012. That $5 million or so that the Padres would save this season would be huge for San Diego.

Brian Giles and the Padres

The cash-strapped Padres really want to trade Jake Peavy to get back some prospects and more importantly shed the rest of Peavy's contract. They would also like to trade Brian Giles and avoid having to pay the rest of Giles $9 million contract for 2009. I have no sympathy for Padres GM Kevin Towers when it comes to Giles. He did not have to exercise Giles 2009 team option. In fact doing so was plain stupid as highlighted by the fact that this is Giles current stat line:

Brian Giles - .170 BA / .269 OBP / .248 SLG / .517 OPS

That's awful. You easily could have gotten a AAAA player to post those types of numbers at a minimum salary. Of course since Giles is a 10/5 guy he'll now veto any trade as well (like he did last year when the Padres tried to trade him to Boston). The Padres have to pray their highest paid employee (Giles actually makes more than Peavy at least for this year) breaks out of what they hope is a slump. Personally - I don't think it is a slump.

The Padres picked up Brian Giles $9 million option for 2009 because they thought that it would be difficult to find a hitter of his caliber for $9 million. Bobby Abreu signed a one-year deal with the Angels for $5 million and is a much better hitter.

I have no sympathy for Kevin Towers.

Jake Peavy - Buyer Beware

Jake Peavy turned down a trade that would have sent him to the Chicago White Sox. This may have been a good thing - for the White Sox.

Baseball-Reference.com has a nifty feature called Similar Players. Here are the 10 most similar players to Jake Peavy (according to Baseball-Reference.com). I added some notes after each name and similarity score:

1. Brandon Webb (983) - is 30-years old and has not thrown a pitch this year because of shoulder problems
2. Josh Beckett (956) - not going to comment on Beckett out of fear of jinxing him
3. John Lackey (945) - age 30-years old and has missed the first month and a half of this season before making his first start recently
4. Doug Rau (944) - only made 11 starts as a 30-year old, then missed the entire next season before trying to comeback. Only made 3 more starts the rest of his career. Out of baseball before he turned 33.
5. Pat Jarvis (937) - only made 29 starts after turning 30-years old. Out of baseball by the time he turned 33.
6. Teddy Higuera (934) - missed the entire 1992 season with shoulder issues. For all intents and purposes - he was washed up by 33-years old.
7. Carlos Zambrano (931) - only 28-years old. Ask any Cubs fan if they fear Zambrano going down with a major injury.
8. Orlando Hernandez (930) - Cuban physical freak.
9. Ben Sheets (930) - needed elbow surgery at age 29 and is not expected to pitch at all this season
10. A.J. Burnett (929) - if a team trading for Peavy hopes he can be as healthy as AJ Burnett - then that's a giant red flag right there.

Peavy is signed through 2012 with a 2013 $22 million club option. If the most similar players are any sort of guide then the team trading for Peavy can expect him to spend some significant time on the DL before his contract is up and probably be out of baseball by the time he turns 33.

Buyer beware.

Team Snapshot - San Diego Padres

C - With Nick Hundley as starter and Henry Blanco as backup the Padres are in OK shape at catcher. Nothing flashy, nothing too powerful but stable and cost effective.

1st - Adrian Gonzalez is a star in the making. With no real protection in the line-up for him - I'd look for his walk numbers to go up and maybe his home run totals to go slightly down. If your fantasy league doesn't penalize for strikeouts then Gonzalez could be a good choice at 1st base in a deep position. At mid-season - I wouldn't be surprised to see Gonzalez dangled as trade bait. He's under contract until 2011, he's cheap and the Padres are well stocked at 1st in the farm system. Gonzalez could garner them a top pitching prospect or two if done right.

2nd - Scappy McScrap Scrap

SS - Luis Rodriguez puts the replacement level player idea into real world testing.

3rd - Kevin Kouzmanoff had just a .694 OPS post All-Star game last season and is coming off of shoulder surgery. Maybe they should change his nickname from "Kooz" to "Red-Flag"?

LF - Chase Headley is a 20-HR a year guy waiting to happen but it won't be this year.

CF - Jody Gerut is penciled in as the starting CF for the Padres. Jody Gerut.

RF - The Padres picked up Brian Giles $9 million option for 2009 because they thought that it would be difficult to find a hitter of his caliber for $9 million. Bobby Abreu signed a one-year deal with the Angels for $5 million and is a much better hitter. I've never liked Brian Giles.

DH - They don't have the DH in the NL but the Padres signed Cliff Floyd anyway.

Starters - The Padres have Jake Peavy, Chris Young and the comeback story of Mark Prior plus a bunch of guys who have never been in my kitchen.

Bullpen - Heath Bell takes over as closer and is probably the one real fantasy sleeper on the team.

The Padres on paper are an awful offensive club but with some interesting starting pitchers to watch. The projected over / under for win for the team is 67.5 and I'd take the under as I can easily see this team devolving into a 100-loss team (especially if they trade Jake Peavy mid-season).

The Red Sox Do Have a Big Bandwagon

I got a kick out of this tidbit over at Ducksnorts (Padres baseball) in response to the Padres fire sale:

Q: Should I abandon the Padres?
A: If you are serious in asking the question, then yes, you probably should leave.

Q: Okay, where should I go?
A: Try the Red Sox. I hear they’ve got a pretty big bandwagon.

Yes - the Red Sox do have a big bandwagon. So big its embarrassing - so big it's now the punchline for teams like the Padres I guess.

Red Sox fans used to be known by many as the most savvy in baseball. Now the bar has really been lowered by the bandwagon "pink hats". I remember talking to this guy at a game at Fenway about Dustin Pedroia. I mentioned that I saw him play at Portland. He asked if that's where Dustin went to college.

Baseball Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous baseball thoughts and observations.

Going into the season many thought that offense would be a problem for the Padres but going into today San Diego holds the best team batting average in the NL with a .282 mark. In fact the top 5 hitters in the Padres line-up are all over .300. San Diego just needs to convert those hits into runs - the Padres are 13th out of 16 teams in runs scored.... 16 years ago today Boston's Matt Young pitched 8 innings of no-hit ball at Cleveland and still lost 2-1. Matt Young wasn't Chan Ho Park or Mike Hampton bad a s a free agent signing but he's up there in terms of the worst free agent signings by the Red Sox... Speaking of bad free agent signings - Barry Zito is now 0-3 for the Giants... Sophomore slump? Colorado's Troy Tulowitzki is hitting just .175 for the Rockies... The adult thing would have been to ignore the story. It was stupid to begin with... Symmetry - both Orlando Cabrera and Miguel Cabrera are hitting .182 for the season. Orlando has more RBI though. That has to be making fantasy baseball owners who took Miguel with their first pick real happy...

Baseball Flotsam and Jetsam

I'm hoping that thinking about baseball will help warm me up during this blizzard.

The Padres acquired Jim Edmonds from the Cardinals in exchange for 3rd base prospect David Freese. On its surface this looks like a win-win deal for both teams. The Padres get a veteran bat and an excellent glove in center. The Cardinals rid themselves of a mistake of a contract and get a prospect in return. However, there are questions to this deal. Edmonds is 37-years old and is injury prone these past few years. He's also coming off a season where he played just 117 games and managed a paltry .728 OPS. Edmonds could be cooked. Freese is a 24-year old prospect who was still playing Single A ball. That could be a warning sign (like a high school senior still playing with the JV football team). The big question of course is what the Cardinals do now for a centerfielder... The Dodgers have signed Japanese pitcher Hiroki Kuroda to a three-year, $35.2 million contract. Who knows how good Kuroda will be for the Dodgers but it is clear that the Dodgers have a pretty deep starting rotation with Brad Penny, Derek Lowe, Chad Billingsley, Kuroda and maybe Jason Schmidt returning from injury. Everyone in the NL West seems to be making moves except the Giants. I probably wouldn't be happy if I was a San Francisco fan and my expectations for them would be to own last place next season... The Diamondbacks have acquired Dan Haren from the A's. To me this looks like the classic "five nickels for a quarter" deal and those deals hardly ever work out for the team getting the nickels.... Brad Wilkerson is perhaps the best remaining free agent.

Baseball Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous baseball thoughts and observations.

I thought today we'd start off with a little visual comparison. Yesterday I mentioned Nate Colbert who happens to be the all-time leader in HR for the Padres. Chris in the comments mentioned that according to his 1974 baseball card Colbert was not a handsome man. I was curious and did a GIS search and found this baseball card for Nate Colbert. My immediate thought was that Colbert looked just like the guy from the Red Stripe commercials. You be the judge.


Boo Chris Young pitching like Cy Young in a 6-1 victory over the Red Sox! Hooray beer! Boo Julio Lugo having the lowest batting average in all of baseball! Hooray beer! Boo 19 players having a slugging percentage higher than what Julio Lugo has for an OPS! Hooray beer!

The Blue Jays can make it back to .500 with a win today. In a way - making it to .500 could be the worst thing that could happen to Toronto. I don't think the Blue Jays have a chance at the post-season this year because they won't catch the Red Sox (11 games back) and they won't win the Wildcard (7 back). However, having a winning record will make it tough for the Toronto front office to waive the white flag and make some deals that will make the team better in the future. Troy Glaus could bring some pretty good prospects and he'd probably would waive his no-trade clause to go to either the Angels or Dodgers but if the team still has even a glimmer of hope then he'll probably end up staying in Toronto... I know that all the "official" reports say that Troy Glaus is not on the trading block and holding on to Glaus makes excellent sense because it is very difficult to find a third baseman who can hit 35 HR and have a great glove. However, the Blue Jays are not a franchise that can afford a lot of dead money on the payroll. BJ Ryan, Frank Thomas and AJ Burnett are all just one more injury away from being potential dead money contracts and with Glaus' knees - he's a danger as well... Does Bartolo Colon really have a 6.17 ERA? Wow - that's no way to pitch in your contract year.... Alex Rodriguez is on pace for 63 HR which while not approaching Barry Bonds record of 73 HR in 2001 would still be good enough to set the all-time single season HR record in the American League... Josh Beckett is pretty good with the bat and if he gets a couple of hits today then it is possible that he could sport a better batting average, OBP and slugging percentage than Julio Lugo by the time the day is over... I'm really trying to give Julio Lugo the benefit of the doubt and I want to like him but he's making it difficult...