This Team Makes Me Drink

As winter approaches, so does another yearly tradition: arguing about who should get voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame now that the ballots are out. The Hall of Fame electorate is entirely comprised of members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA). Sadly, some of these voters are clearly very out of touch with the game or use the honor and privilege of having a ballot to make a spectacle of themselves. Consider, for example, the case of noted sabermetric-disbeleiver Murray Chass, who submitted a completely blank ballot in 2017 in part to (literally) to spare ceremony induction attendees the "horrible thought [of making] people sit through 10 speeches in the hot July Cooperstown sun." The man is literally the sports-writer equivalent of somebody who believes the earth is still flat. While I don't have an official ballot, I do write about baseball sometimes- I'd venture to say that I know more about the game than Mr. Chass and I'...

Hey A.J.- are you listening? There's an idea out there for how you can best utilize all of those starting pitching prospects you've been hoarding over the last three years. It might just change the game forever. Well, we'll see about forever. One thing is clear though: teams are now longer bound to the long-held conventional wisdom that has dictated how the game is played. Nowhere is this more evident that in how teams are managing their pitching staffs. The Tampa Bay Rays were at the forefront of the "opener" revolution, which involved starting games with a relief pitcher. The "opener" would simply pitch the first inning, and then hand the ball off to the actual starting pitcher. The logic behind this? Well, in equal parts due to fatigue and batters familiarizing themselves with the pitcher after multiple at-bats against them, pitchers appear to be markedly less effective after they pitch through an opposing team's lineup three times....

That's a wrap, folks. The Padres' 2018 season is in the books. It ended on a walkoff-strikeout to beat the Diamondbacks, which is the most predictably 2010's era Padres-thing I've heard in a while (see below). Speaking of 2010's era Padres, 2018 was more or less representative of your typical Padre season this decade: they were bad, but not the worst . They didn't win 78 games like I predicted all the way back in April, but they also didn't lose 100 games, which is also nice, I guess. Let's recap the good, meh, and the Eric Hosmer ugly in the year that was: The Good A.J. Preller was able to flip Brad Hand for an elite prospect in catcher Francisco Mejia. While the team now has a logjam of talent at catcher, that's never a bad thing, and more teams are beginning to use two starting-caliber catchers to their advantage. Despite some struggles with breaking pitches, Mejia's bat already looks legit- in one of the high points of ...

Guys, remember when I said at the beginning of the season that the Padres would win 78 games?  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.  I was miserably, miserably wrong. This team sucks.  Honestly though, it's probably in our best interests to really, really, really nosedive this year. The Padres are currently on pace to receive the fourth overall pick in the 2019 draft, and while it might be hard to catch the truly awful Orioles and Royals, there's still hope yet that we might overtake the White Sox for the 3rd overall pick.  So, at least we have that to look forward to. The most reasonable course of action would be to embrace the hell out of the tank, improve what is already the best farm system in baseball, and trust the process for at least one more year, right? WRONG! The Padres were seriously considering acquiring Chris Archer from the Rays for a king's ransom, for some reason. Fortunately, those talks have cooled for now- AJ decided against breaking the piggy ba...

Well guys- the day has finally come. After months (years?) of speculation, Padres All-Star closer Brad Hand and submarine-throwing relief pitcher Adam Cimber were traded to the Cleveland Indians for top prospect Francisco Mejia.  How'd the deal turn out for the Friars? I'd say Padres GM AJ Preller deserves quite a Hand  for making this trade possible ( I swear that's the last time there will ever be a Brad Hand-pun on this blog, btw- the Editor ).  Hand was great for the Padres- the team picked him up off the scrap heap and turned him into a dominant reliever with one of the best sliders in the game. It didn't hurt that they also signed him to a great, team-friendly contract to boot. Cimber, a career minor-leaguer prior to making the team out of spring training this year, also put up solid numbers his rookie season. They'll both be valuable contributors to the Indians' beleaguered bullpen, which has been one of the worst in the league without Andrew...

The 2018 midterm elections may be the most consequential in our history. Yes, the fate of nation's Congress hangs in the balance (which is SUPER important, by the way. You can register to vote here ), but there's also a certain policy issue a little closer to home that will affect us all.  That of course, is the showdown between SDSU West and Soccer City. Both proposals want to transform the land currently occupied by Qualcomm , er, SDCCU Stadium.  While each is centered around sports, the two have radically different visions for the future of Mission Valley. The legislative language of both propositions are highly complex- but it comes down to this: Per the UT , Soccer City wants to put the Mission Valley site into the hands of private developers so they can build a "sports and entertainment district" featuring upscale retail and housing options and, of course, a stadium built to attract an MLS team. SDSU West wants to expand San Diego State'...

Hey fellow Padre fans, honest question: why do you hate Adrian Gonzalez? When Adrian, as a New York Met, came back to Petco Park in April- you fools booed him  incessantly ( see below) .  Adrian was cut by the Mets this week, possibly marking the end of a truly remarkable career- one where many of his best seasons came playing for Padres. However, many of our "fans" don't quite remember it this way. Indeed, the mere mention of him on Twitter is enough to spark vitriolic commentary from armchair general managers and fairweather fans- here's a sample of some actual tweets people have felt compelled to share publicly, for some reason: "I think Adrian acted arrogant after he left and became a dodger so if you want to boo him that's your choice and I understand."   "Any Padre fan who wants an Adrian Gonzalez homecoming is getting blocked and reported" "He’s booed because when he was traded to the Dodgers he had...

So,  I'm gonna do this new thing where I recap the week that was in Padres baseball! Even though the odds are that I won't remember to do this with any regular frequency, there's been a TON to write about this week- and I'm banking on the hope that following weeks will be as exciting as this one! After a disastrous start to the year, the Padres won both series they played, winning 2 out of 3 against the Rockies and 3 out of 4 against the Giants, so check my thoughts below: Padres vs. Rockies: (4/9-4/11) Padres 7 ,  Rockies 6 Padres 5 , Rockies 2 Padres 4, Rockies 6 First off, NOLAN ARENADO IS LITERAL HUMAN GARBAGE. In the series finale, Luis Perdomo threw at him in retaliation for Margot getting hit by a pitch and hurt the night before- and well, just watch the video below: Like it or not, retaliation is a time-tested baseball tradition and a staple of the game's unwritten rulebook. Aside from Arenado, EVERY. SINGLE. PERSON. in Coors Fi...

Drake, a very wise man, once told an ex-girlfriend: " I always saw you for what you could've been; ever since you met me like when Chrysler made that one car that looked just like the Bentley... I always saw you for what you could've been ." Indeed, in the wake of an 0-4 start, I find myself thinking about the Padres for what they could've been. It would've been so easy to think about what would've happened if Eric Hosmer didn't ground in to multiple rally-killing double plays, if Brad Hand didn't implode and cough up a 3-run lead in the 9th against the Brewers, or if Luis Perdomo and Bryan Mitchell could command their respective fastballs. It's easy, so, so, easy  to think about the Padres being 4-0 right now and on top of the division- even if just for this week. But is this really  what we want? This has been a very, very long rebuild. and a far from perfect one at that- but it's coming to an end. The question now? What...

HAPPY OPENING DAY! In mere hours, we'll have Padres baseball again. And there's something interesting about Padres baseball being back this time, too. For the first time since 2004- when Petco Park opened- there's a genuine sense optimism about the direction of this franchise. Even national pundits that have routinely disrespected San Diego sports unanimously agree that a bright future awaits the Padres. On this Padres roster, you'll see young faces like Dinelson Lamet and Manny Margot, who are primed for breakout years after solid rookie seasons. You'll also see veteran leaders in Wil Myers, Chase Headley, and Tyson Ross. Also, I'm not sure if you guys checked, but A.J. Preller signed some guy by the name of Eric Hosmer. I don't know if he's any good or not ( more on that part later), so we'll see. But I digress. And of course, as Scott Boras infamously stated, the Padres farm system is "a volcano of hot-talent lava.... [waiting] t...

After enduring the most boring baseball offseason in recent memory , the Padres took a metaphorical sledgehammer to the frozen free agent market and signed first baseman Eric Hosmer to an 8 year, 144 million dollar contract- by far the largest and most lucrative in team history . Obviously, the prospect of signing Hosmer has been an extremely polarizing subject amongst Padre fans, but he does indeed have a nice resume; he had an All-Star season last year (25 home runs and 4.1 Fangraphs Wins Above Replacement), won two Gold Gloves, will be a clubhouse leader ( essentially a worthless construct, but whatever lol ), and was a key contributor to the Royals' 2015 World Series-winning team. The Padres even got him for less than we were expecting- the first five years of the contract are front-loaded and will pay him 20 million dollars annually, in addition to a 5 million dollar signing bonus . After the fifth year, Hosmer can opt out of his deal. Should he decide to sta...

Former Padres General Manager Kevin Towers passed away today after a long battle with cancer at 56. This is unbearably heartbreaking news. Towers, while not a perfect GM, oversaw Padres teams for 15 seasons (KT was a member of the organization for nearly 30 years, more than half his life! )- and he was one of the most gifted talent evaluators of his generation. When he needed to, he could bring stars players into town- like Kevin Brown, who had one of the best seasons of any pitcher in baseball history. Brown was worth almost 10 WAR in his lone year with the Padres after Towers pulled the trigger and acquired him from the ( surprise! ) Florida Marlins...some things never change. Towers turned throwaway players like Heath Bell, Rondell White, and Mark Loretta into All Stars, and acquired franchise cornerstones Adrian Gonzalez, Ryan Klesko, Phil Nevin, and Brian Giles. This is just a shortlist- one could build entire rosters of overlooked players that Towers turned i...