El Cajon Brewing Company: The Padres and Pints Rapid Fire Poll

At the El Cajon Brewing Company edition of Padres and Pints (Episode 2) Corey Brock of Padres.com was besieged by a set of carefully crafted questions. Now it's your turn . . .
Originally we asked Corey the following: "You're on your way to Spring Training. Better music as you pass through Yuma: Band of Horses or Nickleback?"

This was a cheap-shot at Nickleback because that's the thing to do these days. And we all know the answer is Band of Horses. Let's amend the question slightly:




How dare you Canada. HOW. DARE. YOU.

 Next we gave Corey the option of being an inanimate object belonging to a famous ballplayer:




A very difficult question. Dave Parker was cool but also a cokehead. Barry Bonds was (is) a jerk looking for a competitive advantage. It's a toss up.

How about an earring from a specific time and place versus a heroic mustache?




Jack Morris won his game. Don't we have to go with the 'stache?

Different weather conditions can often influence our choice of beverage:




To head for the mountains or not to . . .

The most important question came in the form of political news analysis and delivery:

Norah O'Donnell has a masters in International Studies from Georgetown. That's all I'm saying . . .

There's your rapid fire for this week. Stat tuned for the Port Brewing /Lost Abbey edition of rapid fire.

Hair of the Mudcat

I came across the website of former Padres announcer Mel Proctor where this picture was prominently displayed:

Sterling Hitchcock was still pitching, Dennis Morgino hit left handed, and Mark "Mudcat" Grant had some wild hair -- relatively speaking.

Good guy that Mark Grant. He's officially been around forever.

19 Reasons: The Gwynn Opener and Miserable Giants Fans

The introduction to 19 Reasons can be read here. Here's reason One and reason Two. And Three. And Four. And Five. And Six. Officially, this is Reason Seven.

Opening day in 2011 was awesome. The celebration of baseball's return from a long winter*. But under the advice of Tony Gwynn I chose to also attend the second game of 2011. I dubbed this particular game The Gwynn Opener -- the game attended by fans who aren't consumed by the spectacle that is opening day.

*We don't really have winter in San Diego, relatively speaking. It's more like wummer which is some occasional rain and wind interspersed with beautiful days of sunshine. It's wummer.

Last season's Gwynn Opener was absolutely brutal. Padres fans dissipated after the celebration of Opening Day and I was left to watch the game with a preponderance of drunk-with-championship Giants fans. The Padres also got hammered as Tim Lincecum pitched a gem.

The game was miserable but I have unabashedly included it as one of the 19 reasons that the season was awesome. Why? Because hopefully I've started a tradition of attending both Opening Day and The Gwynn Opener.

What's in store for those who attend The Gwynn Opener in 2012? Purely distilled misery.

This season the Padres get the Dodgers in the opening series and we all know how much Dodgers fans hate Los Angeles and jump at every opportunity to make the sojourn to San Diego.

It is with a fair amount of certainty that I say Padres fans will at least be matched in attendance by our illegitimate Californian brethren form the north. But this game should still be attended, for it is . . . The Gwynn Opener*!

*And if the Padres win the game there's nothing quite like seeing Dodgers fans scurry out of PETCO with their tail between their legs. And, God willing, their knives still sheathed and secure on their person.

Some Guy Ranks The Padres After Their Busy Winter

 Not that we should in anyway care about what a Red Sox beat reporter thinks about the Padres but I'm going back to the "Nick Cafardo" well, so to speak . . .

From the same Nick Cafardo column where I found the statistic used for yesterday's Gwynn Numbers: Strikeout Minutiae:

28. PADRES - Josh Byrnes took over as GM for Jed Hoyer and made some moves to change things for the financially strapped team, which lost closer Bell. Byrnes acquired Quentin from the White Sox, and got promising first base prospect Yonder Alonso from the Reds in the Latos deal, which also brought in righty Edinson Volquez.

I don't think any of this is unfair. I can hardly quibble with someone picking the Padres as the 28th best team in a 30 team league. I think they'll be better than that but I'm not taking umbrage with their placement by the Boston Globe's, Nick Cafardo.

But if you read the assessment of the Padres as related to the other 29 teams it looks out of place. With every other team Cafardo proffers an opinion. He gives his perspective. There's none of that with his blurb on the Padres which I find strange considering that the Padres were one of the most active teams this off season. The Angels, Marlins, and Rangers all spent more money than the Padres but were matched or surpassed in terms of activity.

I'm not offended as a Padres fan but as a reader. If you're going to proclaim to be an expert on every team in MLB at least continue with an opinion on each team since you have decided to rank them all.

For example: "The Padres were one of the more active teams during the winter but it won't help at all in 2012."

I would disagree with it but at least there would be an element of honesty to the column which was clearly mailed in when it came to ranking team #28.

Editor's Note: Nick Cafardo is a member of the Baseball Writer's Association of America. Members of the BBWAA elect players to the Baseball Hall of Fame. He covers the Boston Red Sox. Obviously.

Over At The Fro: Padres and Pints Episode 2 (part 2) at El Cajon Brewing Company

Here's the conclusion to Padres and Pints at the El Cajon Brewing Company featuring Corey Brock: Episode 2: Part 2.

Gwynn Numbers: Strikeout Minutiae

The long walk back to the dugout after having swung a bat and missed -- abject failure personified.

I came across an interesting comment on strikeouts and batting title qualification yesterday morning. Naturally I thought of Tony Gwynn . . .

From Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe:

From the Bill Chuck* files. “Over the last 10 seasons, only three players who qualified for the batting title have struck out fewer than 100 times each season: Ichiro Suzuki, Albert Pujols, and Damon (Johnny).

*This stat comes from a Nick Cafardo column but it is contributed by a guy named Bill Chuck.

When I think of Ichiro and Albert Pujols I think of great hitters, batting champions. Johnny Damon not so much. But this is not about batting championships. It's about guys who received the requisite number of plate appearances to qualify for a batting title (502), to do it for 10 straight seasons, and to have K'd less than a 100 times in each season. I thought it would have been a higher number of players but 'tis a rare thing to stay injury free for ten seasons.

Ichiro Suzuki is a contact hitter. There's no surprise that he is a part of this short list. In winning 2 batting titles during his 11 seasons, Ichiro has averaged 68 strikeouts per season with a low of 53 and a high of 86. For a slap hitter who controls the zone so well these numbers seem high. Despite only two batting titles Ichiro's flurry of 200* hit seasons have led him to a career .326 BA.

*This incredible run ended in 2011 when Ichiro took a nose-dive, collecting a mere 186 hits with  a .272 BA.

Albert Pujols is a power hitter. But he's also a great hitter. In winning 1 batting title during his 11 seasons, Albert has averaged 64 strikeouts per year with a low of 50 and a high of 93. The 93 Ks occurred during Pujols' rookie year and he hasn't been close to that figure since. Despite only 1 batting title Albert Pujols has a career .328 BA.

Johnny Damon is some guy who claimed to be an idiot. His teams over the last 10 years have mostly been winners but he's never won a batting title. To date, Johnny Damon's career is significantly longer than Ichiro's (11) and Pujols' (11) as he has just finished his 17th year. In his 17 seasons Damon has averaged 72 strikeout per year but in his last three years (ages 35-39) he has averaged 93 Ks. Time is slowly catching up with Johnny Damon -- idiot. Johnny Damon once hit .327 during a season. Unfortunately it was only good for tenth place in 2000. He has a career .286 BA.

Clearly Johnny Damon is not in the same class of hitters as Ichiro Suzuki and Albert Pujols. We already knew this. But in living through what appears to be the Age of the Strikeout, Johnny Damon's relative consistency is noteworthy even though, as a lead-off hitter*, he really shouldn't strikeout that much. He should also be lauded for staying healthy, and in so doing, keeping himself on the field and in the line-up.

*In 1573 of Johnny Damon's 2426 games he has hit 1st in the batting order.

Which brings us to Tony Gwynn . . .


Tony Gwynn is masterful. Batting crown discussions begin with the names of Cobb and Hornsby but often end with Gwynn. The man has a statue for crying-out-loud! We know all of this.

In his 20 year career Tony Gwynn averaged a God-like 22 strikeouts per year. His high was 40 Ks in 1988 when he squeaked out a batting title with a .313 BA. His lowest strikeout total (in a batting title qualifying year) was 15 in 1995 when he won his 6th batting title with a .368 BA.

What about the 1997 season when Gwynn started to synthesize all of his knowledge about hitting and stroked a career high 17 HRs? He still only struck out 28 times.

In the last ten years of Gwynn's career (1991-2011) the 1997 season was the only one in which he left the teens for strikeout totals, averaging only 16*.

*Due to injuries, Tony Gwynn only qualified for the batting title in 6 of those 11 seasons.

Tony Gwynn Could Hit So What's The Point?

I have to go back to Johnny Damon. He's 38 years old and entering his 18th season. He is a fit man so a couple of more seasons seems reasonable as he's managed to average 146 games per year over the last three seasons. If he can average the same number of hits (149 in 2010 and 2011) over the next two seasons then retire he would finish with 3021 hits for his career. Johnny Damon -- Idiot -- could find himself at the magical 3000 plateau which nearly ensures induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame*.

*Those in the 3000 hit club who are not in the HOF: Rafael Palmeiro (likely burned the bridge when he wagged finger at Congress and then tested positive for PEDs); Craig Biggio (eligible for HOF in 2013); Derek Jeter (Active. And a shoo-in). Oh yea . . . Pete Rose too.

Gwynn and Damon

Currently Johnny Damon has 2723 hits scattered across 10,693 plate appearances. Tony Gwynn finished with 3,141 hits in 10,232 PAs . . . which is 461 fewer PAs than Johnny Damon. If Johnny Damon gets to 3000 hits then it will have taken him roughly 1500 more plate appearances than it took Tony Gwynn to accomplish the mark. Clearly this discrepancy in PAs and Hits will account for Johnny Damon's low-.280ish BA at career's end.

A Gwynn comparison isn't fair to Johnny Damon. With 8 batting titles to his credit Tony Gwynn is the gold standard when it comes to hitting. It is how he is remembered. Consequently he is in Baseball's Hall of Fame.

When Johnny Damon retires with more than 3000 hits to his name I will remember him as follows: part of the 2004 Red Sox; a flimsy looking swing; a massive jaw-line; and a self-proclaimed idiot.

After the event takes place I'll likely nod my head in affirmation and make a weird face. And then I'll write something about Tony Gwynn. And then, other than to acknowledge he had a nice career, I won't think of Johnny Damon again.

19 Reasons: Corrupting Alexander Pope

The introduction to 19 Reasons can be read here. Here's reason One and reason Two. And Three. And Four. And Five. Officially, this is Reason Six.

In 1734 Alexander Pope penned the following line in his poem An Essay On Man:

Hope springs eternal in the human breast;

The words intended to convey a sense of optimism for mankind -- an attempt to offer a rationale for God's plan. Enlightenment thinkers like Voltaire and Rousseau would later hold Pope's sentiments in high esteem.

It is on the shoulders of these giants, that baseball fans have stood, in trying to explain each April, how their teams surely could. 

Sorry . . .

In the circles of Major League Baseball, Alexander Pope's words have become cliche.

We have corrupted the work of Pope, as we all do each and every spring. We fans of the have-nots in Major League Baseball: the Kansas Citys, the Pitsburghs, the . . . San Diegos. It is our attempt to rationalize following a team who has little chance to reach the heights we dream for it. But we turn out anyways because, as Pope says, "hope springs eternal."

This sense that Pope spoke of accompanied every Padres fan to PETCO Park on April 5th, 2011. Arriving home after taking the opening series in St. Louis (2-1) the Padres opened to a sell-out crowd against the 2010 Champion San Francisco Giants.

With Adrian Gonzalez gone fans tried to convince themselves that this edition of the San Diego team was more balanced than the one that played meaningful games until the 162nd game of the 2010 season. An attempt to rationalize? Regardless, it was our collective hope as fans.

We witnessed valuable contributions by newcomers, Aaron Harang, Jorge Cantu, Jason Bartlett, and Orlando Hudson. And 2010 holdovers, Ryan Ludwick and Chase Headley, stole away Madison Bumgarner's hope when they worked the young Giant for back-to-back walks on 18 total pitches.

At the end of that 3rd inning the Padres would hold a 3-1 lead over the defending champions and as the game progressed Padres fans sensed that the score would continue to idle.

The familiar troika of Gregerson, Adams, and Bell would come in to close out the game for a 3-1 win and on this day a pervasive feeling of hope sustained Padres fans.

As we took in the festivities, the pomp of a Padres home opener, we all held hope that things would continue to go well for the team. We smiled, enjoying the atmosphere and a defeat of the Giants. And we did it amongst friends.

The Padres record, like the opening day score, stood at 3-1 --- .750 baseball. And fans would never see the likes of it again in 2011. Spring doesn't last forever.