Bread, Circuses, and Fences. Oh, my!

As you will come to find out through this blog, I'm as much of a fan of procrastination and putting things off as anyone. So when the Padres would occasionally discuss altering the dimensions of the park and never really get beyond the idea phase (or only make a minor alteration), I understood where they were coming from. There even appeared to be an attitude shift over the last couple of season, with the organizational philosophy seemingly skewing toward using the ballpark as an advantage, as opposed to fighting it. So, it was much to my surprise that the issue of the fences was raised again by the club, this early in the season.

Why now? The skeptic in me thinks it has something to do with the Padres getting hammered in the PR department. The team is struggling, half of the county can't watch the team on television, and the ownership situation is an embarrassing (yes, Barry Bloom. Embarrassing.) mess. It's a distraction. To many, an appealing one. And while I'm sure I'm on the right path here, I also think this is a discussion worth having...if we agree that this is it, once and for all.

It's at this point that I would like to direct you to a couple of great Hardball Times articles written by Geoff Young: Taking Advantage of Petco Park and Petco Park Revisited.

Rankings since 2009:
Doubles
2010 - .810, 30th
2011 - .904, 23rd

Triples
2010 - 1.300, 7th
2011 - 1.387, 5th

Petco Park suppresses offense, that much is clear. What's also clear is that triples are back in style at Petco Park, so perhaps it's that parks fluctuate in certain areas for unknown reasons. That, or we agree to go with the assumption that the lull from 2006-2010 was due to the departure of Ramon Hernandez.

Petco Park has remained at/near the bottom of Major League Baseball in doubles allowed. I'm not sure how the dimensions of Petco Park come into play here, but anecdotally they don't really seem to. The numbers have remained consistent, even after the minor alterations made in the offseason prior to 2006. I see this as an indicator of something deeper than ballpark dimensions, and I fear moving the fences in even more might made it even more difficult to hit a double. Imagine, if you will, Yonder Alonso being thrown out at first base on a ball hit to the wall. You know it could will happen.

Now, take a look for yourself. These are current hit charts for Padres position players: Yonder Alonso, Orlando Hudson, Jason Bartlett, Chase Headley, Andy Parrino, Nick Hundley, John Baker, Will Venable, Jeremy Hermida, Cam Maybin, Chris Denorfia, Jesus Guzman, Kyle Blanks, and Mark Kotsay.

What does this information show us? This team isn't losing ballgames because balls are dying on Petco Park's warning track. They're losing because of a .640 OPS, 65 runs scored, and 21 errors. As of today, Fangraphs lists us dead last in their base running metric BsR. The team plays with a lack of discipline that is alarming. It points more toward the quality of leadership and the quality of the players on the field, in my opinion.

The problem may very well be Petco Park. I believe it plays a part, to a certain extent. And I'm not even against the idea of moving the fences in. As someone who has long desired a thorough study into why Petco Park plays the way it does, I welcome the idea. I look forward to being able to speak to what makes Petco Park the park that it is, free of speculation. I want to know why.


I do have one thing to ask of the Padres: Please...shit, or get off of the pot. Conduct an extremely thorough investigation into why Petco Park plays the way it does, share that information with your fans, and move forward with whatever it is that you decide to do. For the love of God, give us some good science and make this conversation go away once and for all.* And stop with the distractions. Please?

As a side note, aesthetically, this is my favorite concept for Petco Park. Created by @ParkAtThePark some years ago:

Reasons why I love this concept:

• I am not a fan of "Petco Porch"
• The "Beachers" are the worst seats in the park, they're overpriced, and he has eliminated those in favor of extending the Park at the Park.
• We lose the on-field bullpen.
• If you need to alter dimensions at Petco Park, RF is the place to start.
• There is no golf club in this picture, which pre-dates the golf club. Still, a bonus.

* - never gonna happen

Some Day Our Prince Will Come. In the Meantime…

Be patient, Padres fan. Someday our prince will come. That magical kiss of competitive payrolls will smack us on the lips and wake us from our nightmares. That glass slipper of front office consistency will slip gently onto our tired, overburdened feet. Hopefully this time when we kiss the frog of ownership change, it doesn’t turn out to be a poorly dressed dude with a weird beard who leaves behind his cronies in major front office positions after the other owners decide they don’t like the way he ribbits. Or something. I don’t have kids, so I haven’t seen a Disney princess movie in a long ass time (at least 3 weeks). The point is, someday our prince (or princess, you never know) will come and save us from this ownership debacle. Hopefully soon. Hopefully he has no relationship with Barry Bloom.

In the meantime, it sucks to be a Padres fan. Lowest payroll in the league. Off to a slow start with very few bright spots. We’ve got a young team with a lot of potential, but very little of it likely to be realized this season. We’ve got a new amazing TV contract, but still more than half the county can’t watch the games on TV as huge corporations bicker over relatively small fees, and the big TV money has yet to be reinvested into the product on the field.

Those things will likely work themselves out in time (except that the Padres may never be on Time Warner. Get used to that.). Most worrisome are these two facts:  1) we’ve got an Interim CEO who is more concerned with breakfast than baseball, more interested in marketing than Moneyball, and 2) we’ve got a lame duck GM who isn’t afraid to make big trades, but who almost certainly won’t be around to have to deal with the long-term consequences of them (though he’ll still be getting paid for years to come).

Padres Interim CEO (chances of dropping the Interim while keeping the CEO: not dissimilar to the chances Mark Kotsay makes the 2012 All-Star game) Tom Garfinkel seems set on moving in the fences, permanently altering the ballpark that even our detractors *cough*ColeHamels*cough* call unbelievable (in a good way). He talks of ongoing studies and no immediate plans, but he also notes that they could have plans submitted to MLB before the end of the year. Whether or not you think the fences should move, isn’t this something that should be decided by whoever buys the team in the next 12-18 months? Why should Jeff Moorad’s former car fetcher get to make these kinds of franchise-altering decisions? Shouldn’t someone (anyone!) step in and tell him to cool it on the legacy building?

Jeff Moorad’s handpicked General Manager decided that Mat Latos wasn’t worthy of a contract extension, trading him 3 years before he would become a free agent. Jeff Moorad’s handpicked General Manager Josh Byrnes then chose the first baseman he received for Latos, Yonder Alonso, over the younger, higher ceilinged Anthony Rizzo. You can debate the merits of these trades. You can’t debate this: Jeff Moorad is now (basically) gone yet his handpicked GM remains, unafraid to continue making decisions that will affect the Padres roster for the next decade. Shouldn’t someone tell him to chill out? Take away his cell phone? I know we can’t just put the team in a holding pattern while the ownership is in one, but should we really just trust a lame duck GM to build the roster in his vision?

These are my concerns. I’m not afraid of change. I can’t wait for our prince to come and shape this franchise, his new kingdom, in his vision. But what kind of kingdom will our prince inherit? Shouldn’t he get to decide where the castle walls should be? Shouldn’t he decide which generals to keep and which ones to lock in the tower? These are my concerns. I love the Padres. It’s not always easy. It’s especially hard right now. I have hope and patience. Let’s not let Jeff Moorad’s guys ruin a mediocre thing.

Thanks for nothing, Padres!

Introductory articles are horse shit, plain and simple.

We could go through a manifesto, raison d'etre, whatever and so forth...but what's the point? We are a blog, and we will be writing about the San Diego Padres. Nothing more, nothing less, nothing worth rambling on about to get you excited.

Right now, I'm watching The Evil Cole Hamels defeat my Padres, have Fox Sports San Diego name him "Player Of The Game", and continue to be a god damned dreamboat. Simply put, it's the same old song and dance I've seen a million times - player disparages the Padres, player comes to town, player succeeds. While popular culture has rammed the idea of the lowly underdog vanquishing his rival down our throats, popular culture is clearly not a Padres fan.

Werth? Sanchez? Hamels? Hamels? Fart. Noise. In each and every instance. Thanks, Padres. Don't you know we've spent the better part of our day gnashing our teeth on the internet?

Fittingly, Orlando Hudson just made the final out of the game. Thanks for nothing.