Results tagged ‘ Padres ’
San Diego Padres 2012 Offseason Recap and Preview
Lost in the Red Sox’s collapse was how well Adrian Gonzalez did on the Red Sox. Even more lost was how devastated the Padres were without him. Let us not forget, this was the team dominating the NL West for most of the season just a year prior. In 2011 however:
Grade: D+
Notable Additions:
Houston Street, Yonder Alonso, John Baker, Andrew Cashner, Mark Kotsay, Micah Owings, Carlos Quentin, and Edison Volquez.
Notable Subtractions:
Heath Bell, Aaron Harang, Mat Latos, Wade LeBlanc, Pat Neshek, Chad Qualls, and Anthony Rizzo.
Why?: While it is true that there were more “notable” players added than were lost, this seems like one of those “quality over quantity” situations. In the aggregate, the quality level of the players lost was just that much higher than that of the players gained to merit a D+ as a grade for their offseason.
It appears, though that the additions have a lot of potential to be integral parts. Huston Street is coming from the park most associated with being hitter friendly to the one most recognized with being a pitcher friendly park, so that can only serve to help him, as far as his statistics are concerned. Andrew Cashner are more obvious in that they are just high-potnetial prospects that could or could not pan out for the Padres. Micah Owings is a sort of double-edged sword of potnetial. The first is that he has the potential to become a great pitcher, but he is probably better known for his hitting, so if he isn’t pitching that well…hey, Babe Ruth was once a pitcher. Both Carlos Quentin and Edison Volquez are great talents that actually have shown themselves to be great players. Now it may be tougher for Quentin to do so in the monstrousity that is PETCO Park, but anyone remember when it was said that the EdisonVolquez-Josh Hamilton deal was said to be a win-win, because Hamilton and Volquez were doing so well for their respective teams?
The reason, though, that I gave the Padres the grade I did is that all this potential is just that, potential. The guys they lost were more consistently proven than those they gained. So it is *possible* that the subtractions show this grade to be unsure, but as of now, the additions are enough worse than the subtractions (as a whole) to earn a D+ grade. For those of you who don’t know, a C means the team gained/lost no talent, a C+ would mean they made a slight addition to the talent of the previous year, and a C- would mean they lost a bit of talent-not to be confused with potential. So if a team traded Bryce Harper for someone like Jonny Gomes, and Bryce Harper was not going to play that year, the team would probably get a C+, because Harper would not have helped their team that year anyway, but Gomes could help the team in that year. Except it would be done for all of the team’s additions and subtractions.
Predicted Record Range: 70-75 wins. I realize that I have the talent on the team getting worse, but I have this feeling that they were a little unlucky and shouldn’t have lost as many games as they did.
Re-view of the Preview: San Diego Padres
First off, here, is the initial entry.
Predicted Record: 70-75 wins
Actual record: 71-91
I am actually very surprised I got this prediction right, because they did win 91 wins in 2010, and however valuable Adrain Gonzalez was to their offense, he is NOT worth 20 games. So, I actually think I made a bad prediction last offseason, because there is no way the Padres should have only won 71 games just because Gonzalez got traded. Only with the regression of the starting rotation (most notably Mat Latos) and the trading of Mike Adams could the Padres have lost so many wins.
I know I gave the Padres an F as a grade, and they lost plenty of players besides Gonzalez, but I didn’t make any mention of said players in the entry, and this leads me to believe that I didn’t take them into account as much as Gonzalez. Even so, I think the net loss of players only accounted for 15 wins. In which case, I should have made a prediction more in the 75-80 range. Anyway, I really can’t complain that I lucked out and my prediction came true. I don’t know how I got to this prediction, but…
San Diego Padres Offseason Recap and Preview
For every team that makes the playoffs there are 4.33 teams that don’t. The Padres were the first third of a team to not make the playoffs. Anyone remember how dominant they were in the West through the first part of the season and the team the Giants beat in the last game of the season to get into the playoffs:
Grade: F
Notable Additions:
Aaron Harang, Cameron Maybin, Dustin Mosely, Jason Bartlett, Orlando Hudson, Brad Hawpe, Gregg Zaun, Chad Qualls, and Jorge Cantu.
Notable Subtractions:
Adrian Gonzalez, Chris Young, Matt Stairs, Jerry Hairston Jr., Tony Gwynn Jr., Miguel Tejada, Jon Garland, David Eckstein, Scott Hairston, and Cesar Ramos.
Why?: In this case, it is in fact the loss of one man that brought them down a couple of letter grades on his own. Let me put it this way, WITH him they had the second lowest Batting Average of.246 in the league and he hit .298. With him they had the fifth lowest runs per game and he scored 81 runs and drove in 101. The second closest player in both categories was Chase Headley with 77 runs and 58 RBIs.
I don’t know about last year but the year before last he drove in over 33% of the team’s runs. That is a big percentage in Basketball where there are 5 players that can produce points but even more so in Baseball where there are nine different players.
In addition to that they did lose a variety of starters to the offseason. I also think that they will still have their great bullpen but the starters will not do as well with an offense that might even be worse than that of Seattle last year.
Predicted Record Range: 70-75 Wins. All I have to say is that you can’t win if you don’t score runs.
Up Next: Colorado Rockies
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