Random Baseball Musings

[Gilby]

I think everyone who liked them realized they are still an extremely flawed team - the bad outfield defense and zero good infielders. I didn't like them at first, but closer to the start of the season I thought Kemp, Upton, Myers, and Norris would hit enough and that rotation would be good enough to keep them in contention. But I don't think it was hard to see this outcome as a possibility.

[XZero771679666304]

didn't everyone love the padres' offseason and the padres in general going into this year? this seems like a lot of revisionism.

 

No, not really. Many did, but there were still a lot of glaring problems, and as the article pointed out, they essentially emptied their farm system for question marks and guys who figured to be out after one year. IIRC, quite a few people were questioning whether the gains on offense would be at least partially wiped out by the ballpark and the huge downgrades defensively. And of course little was done to address the infield, which was and is an offensive disaster. I think the casual fan was probably pretty impressed by the offseason, but the flaws were pretty easy to see from the beginning of the season.

 

Personally, I felt like the Padres' season was either going to go really well, or they were going to be bad.

[Sammys Boombox]

I think there are a lot of people who thought this was likely to fail for the Padres.

 

That article, though... If I was a Padres fan I would be so depressed. As the article stated they've been pretty boring for quite awhile now, and Preller threw away years of building for nothing.

 

Could you imagine if all of the sudden someone came in and tore down everything that was built the last few years while we suffered through unwatchable baseball? Those years where we looked at the roster and said, "Yeah, Castro is probably the only guy on this team who will play a future playoff game for the Cubs" thrown away for nothing.

[Derwood]

There were a lot of pre-season articles by "experts" who predicted great things for San Diego. They were the sexy pick

[Clem Fandango]

There were a lot of pre-season articles by "experts" who predicted great things for San Diego. They were the sexy pick

 

While everyone was fellating San Diego I was hopping on the Toronto bandwagon, but it seems like no matter how good of a team they put together it always gets bit by the injury bug.

[Guest]

i'm so sick of this [expletive] all star break already

[Backtobanks]

i'm so sick of this [expletive] all star break already

 

As one Tribune writer wrote today - "longest week in sports". So bad that the Tribune started their 14 day countdown to Bears training camp.

[Banedon]

i'm so sick of this [expletive] all star break already

 

As one Tribune writer wrote today - "longest week in sports". So bad that the Tribune started their 14 day countdown to Bears training camp.

 

I don't think the Bears thing has anything to do with the all star break. The Bears are still the most popular sports team in town.

[OleMissCub]

Good god in heaven....

 

Add up the damage and it’s staggering. In one offseason, the Padres traded away one of the best catchers in baseball (Grandal); an above-average starting pitcher (Hahn); an above-average corner outfielder (Seth Smith); an above-average center fielder (Maybin); and pretty much their entire farm system. Per Baseball America, the Padres traded away their no. 1 (Wisler), no. 2 (Turner), no. 4 (Ross), no. 6 (Fried), no. 9 (Eflin), no. 10 (Jace Peterson), no. 15 (Bauers), no. 16 (Mallex Smith), no. 21 (Dustin Peterson), no. 23 (Burch Smith), and no. 30 (Barbato) prospects, along with the 41st pick in the draft.

[Guest]

i'm so sick of this [expletive] all star break already

 

As one Tribune writer wrote today - "longest week in sports". So bad that the Tribune started their 14 day countdown to Bears training camp.

 

I don't think the Bears thing has anything to do with the all star break. The Bears are still the most popular sports team in town.

 

I'm not sure they'd be doing a two week countdown to training camp if there weren't literally nothing else to cover, though.

 

And this is probably the least excited the city has been about the Bears going into a season in a really long time.

[Banedon]

i'm so sick of this [expletive] all star break already

 

As one Tribune writer wrote today - "longest week in sports". So bad that the Tribune started their 14 day countdown to Bears training camp.

 

I don't think the Bears thing has anything to do with the all star break. The Bears are still the most popular sports team in town.

 

I'm not sure they'd be doing a two week countdown to training camp if there weren't literally nothing else to cover, though.

 

And this is probably the least excited the city has been about the Bears going into a season in a really long time.

 

The least excited the city has been about the Bears doesn't mean they still don't crave all the coverage they can get. The Bears are still ridiculously popular.

 

I mean, anyone in Chicago that's a White Sox fan right now is looking for anything to read about besides baseball anyway.

[jersey cubs fan]

I'm not sure they'd be doing a two week countdown to training camp if there weren't literally nothing else to cover, though.

 

Are you familiar with the Bears?

 

 

The all star break happens around the same time every year and training camp begins around the same time every year, meaning there is nothing to cover roughly two weeks before training camp, every year. The Tribune covering the countdown to training camp is not some random decision they made because it's a slow week.

[Guest]

I'm not sure they'd be doing a two week countdown to training camp if there weren't literally nothing else to cover, though.

 

Are you familiar with the Bears?

 

 

The all star break happens around the same time every year and training camp begins around the same time every year, meaning there is nothing to cover roughly two weeks before training camp, every year. The Tribune covering the countdown to training camp is not some random decision they made because it's a slow week.

 

I know this.

 

That doesn't refute what I said, though.

 

If there were baseball to cover, there probably wouldn't be training camp coverage 2 weeks before it even starts. At the very least, there'd be a lot less of it. There just is absolutely nothing else for them to report on.

[Backtobanks]

I'm not sure they'd be doing a two week countdown to training camp if there weren't literally nothing else to cover, though.

 

Are you familiar with the Bears?

 

 

The all star break happens around the same time every year and training camp begins around the same time every year, meaning there is nothing to cover roughly two weeks before training camp, every year. The Tribune covering the countdown to training camp is not some random decision they made because it's a slow week.

 

I know this.

 

That doesn't refute what I said, though.

 

If there were baseball to cover, there probably wouldn't be training camp coverage 2 weeks before it even starts. At the very least, there'd be a lot less of it. There just is absolutely nothing else for them to report on.

 

That was my point, there's nothing else to report on. I'm a Bears' fan, but the media coverage gets pretty ridiculous.

[Post Count Padder]

The Rockies' leader in ERA among starting pitchers this season? Chris Rusin.

[Burt Macklin, FBI]

Joey Gallo: 98 wRC+, 43.9% K%

[Guest]

didn't everyone love the padres' offseason and the padres in general going into this year? this seems like a lot of revisionism.

 

i didn't get that impression at all

[Guest]

all i really remember as far as my impressions of it was that i was making fun of their OF defense

[Guest]

also, i think preller was acting on an ownership edict to win now

[RammyFanny]

The amount of White Sox fans that still think Avisail Garcia is going to turn into some budding superstar is spectacular. Never has somewhat physically resembling Miguel Cabrera done so much for a guy.

[BigSlick]

A couple of pages back but also think how expansion would affect the run environment. It's already hard enough to find competent bats now, stretch talent in the league with 2 more teams and we'll see an even more depressed run environment.

[SouthSideRyan]

A couple of pages back but also think how expansion would affect the run environment. It's already hard enough to find competent bats now, stretch talent in the league with 2 more teams and we'll see an even more depressed run environment.

 

The old argument was offense was up because there weren't enough good pitchers due to expansion.

[BigSlick]

A couple of pages back but also think how expansion would affect the run environment. It's already hard enough to find competent bats now, stretch talent in the league with 2 more teams and we'll see an even more depressed run environment.

 

The old argument was offense was up because there weren't enough good pitchers due to expansion.

But we can actually locate what's causing the run environment to depress, its not some mystical thing that we can apply to whatever we like. The strike zone has expanded (down) and there are more pitchers that can throw harder. The latter might be affected by expansion a little bit, but the former will be completely unaffected by expansion and the availability of talent. So at the end of the day there'll just be more teams requiring more position players that can't handle the expanded zone.

[Tryptamine]

The amount of White Sox fans that still think Avisail Garcia is going to turn into some budding superstar is spectacular. Never has somewhat physically resembling Miguel Cabrera done so much for a guy.

 

It's incredible. He's never been a particularly high touted prospect. If I remember correctly he barely cracked the top 100 and wasn't even a consensus top 100 guy. He was also not that great in the minors until he started sporting 400+babips. I have Sox fans who told me before this year that he was better than the overhyped Bryant and Soler.

[sneakypower]

all i really remember as far as my impressions of it was that i was making fun of their OF defense

now they're toying with the idea of playing Middlebrooks at short & Yonder Alonso at 3rd...