Analysts On Drugs

This is what happens when analysts do drugs - or at least don't pay attention...

The following exchange occurred on ESPN’s Baseball Tonight on Saturday, April 18, 2009

Tim Kurkjian: “…Is there any chance that it helps that not everybody knows who [the Padres players] are?”

Eric Young: “That’s the advantage they have going right now, Tim. The fact that no one is aware of this team. There’s a bunch of young guys that are playing – the teams don’t know their weaknesses, their tendencies.”

Huh?

Let’s look at this for a second…

Starting Position Players:

C Nick Hundley and Henry Blanco
1B Adrian Gonzalez
2B David Eckstein
SS Luis Rodriguez
3B Kevin Kouzmanoff
LF Chase Headley
CF Jody Gerut and Scott Hairston
RF Brian Giles

This is a well-known group… Headley had 331 at-bats last year and Hundley had 198. Neither is a rookie.

Starting Pitchers:

Jake Peavy
Chris Young
Kevin Correia: 409 career IP
Shawn Hill: 211 career IP
Walter Silva: rookie

One rookie here, but Kurkjian and EY wouldn’t have that exchange about 1 guy…

The above exchange could only be accurate about one sub-set of Padres, the middle relievers.

Luke Gregerson
Edwin Moreno
Edward Mujica
Luis Perdomo

Of that group only Mujica has significant innings (70+ career IP).

However, I don’t think that’s what Kurkjian and EY were talking about. The fact is, the David Eckstein and Luis Rodriguez are significant upgrades over what the Padres got from Khalil Greene and three or four second basemen they ran out there last year, the bullpen was awful, and the Padres were at the bottom of all of baseball in on-base percentage...

Are the Padres bullet-proof? Of course not. In fact, if you hold me to it I still think the Padres are probably a .500 team (at best). But they’re a LOT better than the 100-loss season that the experts predicted. But coming to that conclusion would require real analysis… Idiots.