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March 20, 2023

“Commie Ball” Is A Step in the Right Direction for Padres

The Padres have some big ideas about moving around the fence in right center field next season. I’m here to say the Padres need to think smaller, but not in terms of field size.

By cutting the mediocre, slow and ultimately worthless middle infield combo of Orlando Hudson and Jason Bartlett this past week (yes, Bartlett is on the DL and still with the franchise, but let’s lay odds as to whether he starts another game in San Diego and I’ll take the “don’t pass”), general manager Josh Byrnes helped shine a spotlight on the true direction this franchise should be pursuing to improve their product and their chances of winning.

Here’s a hint: it has nothing to do with moving in the fences. If anything, the cavern in right center should return to its original position.  Later, I will invoke some childhood Strat-O-Matic history and call this plan “Commie Ball”, and you will know what I mean. Stay with me in the meantime.

Mighty mites Alexi Amarista and Everth Cabrera now man the middle infield for the Padres. They are fast and flashy, with quick slashing bats and quicker first steps out of the box. Put one on the other’s shoulders and you might add up to Mark McGwire.  These guys aren’t about to complain about not being able to hit homers at Petco Park. They’d struggle to touch ‘em all anywhere.

But these guys should love hitting at Petco Park. It’s perfect for them.

See, everyone looks at what Petco Park takes away but fail to see what it helps.  Yes, the ball in the air is killed at Petco Park. The marine layer and natural aerodynamics of the place cut down everything lofted, and the fences are hard to clear after 8pm.  But the gaps are wide and verdant. There are plenty of places to flop a ball over the infield and into safe purchase, or to shoot one past an outfielder playing in too close.

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Young Tony Gwynn would have torn up Petco Park and taken full advantage of the gaps.

Young Tony Gwynn would have torn up Petco Park and taken full advantage of the gaps.

Tony Gwynn would have shown the team how to win at Petco Park, but he retired before the place opened. A shame. It was truly the House That Gwynn Built, but it should have been the house he played inside.

Gwynn, especially the young Gwynn, would have driven the coaches’ defensive alignments crazy. He would have shot the 5.5 hole as per usual, but then ripped one into the open RCF gap when teams cheated to take away left. His speed would have covered the gap on defense and helped turn singles into doubles and doubles into triples.

Petco Park amplifies the talent of a player who can combine speed and line drive hitting with great defense.  It’s exciting.  Here’s a little shrimp like Amarista on Saturday, tagging and taking the extra base on a flyout, slashing line drives and dropping in balls the other way. You get guys like that at the plate and they feel like there’s nothing but great places to hit, because they’re not even trying to put the ball over the fence.  Once on base, they’re always moving forward, not staying in place.

Cabrera has the skill set to succeed at Petco but needs to become consistent, especially on defense.

Cabrera has the skill set to succeed at Petco but needs to become consistent, especially on defense.

It’s not to say that Amarista and Cabrera in particular are the solution (Everth, in particular, needs to catch the ball a lot more frequently), but they look like the prototype. Small, speedy, switch hitting is good, line drive hitting is great. Good eye at the plate, but not with the passive-aggressive attitude which allows our current Padres to lead the league in strikeouts while finishing at the bottom of the slugging categories. And you have to have to have to catch the baseball, with plus defense being a necessity in center and right field and all infield positions.

One of the biggest complaints I hear about Petco and why they need to move the fences in is that the product is boring, with every game feeling the same. Well, yeah…if you keep trying to hit a fly ball over the fence at night, you’re going to keep failing for the most part. But if you craft your game to the place you play and tailor your talent to match, games at Petco can be exciting as all get out.

If the Angels insist on playing Vernon Wells over Peter Bourjos, the Padres should be one of the most aggressive suitors to pick up Bourjos for their outfield.

If the Angels insist on playing Vernon Wells over Peter Bourjos, the Padres should be one of the most aggressive suitors to pick up Bourjos for their outfield.

The Angels, in town this weekend, have a few players who are perfect for Petco Park. Erick Aybar and Mike Trout have thrilled during the weekend with their speed. Peter Bourjos just needs to play here.  If I’m Josh Byrnes, I’m praying for LAA to continue their bullpen struggles, then I’m offering them Huston Street (if recovered), Luke Gregerson (if not) and whatever other puzzle piece the Angels want to bring Bourjos out of Vernon Wells Jail and into the Petco outfield.

And here’s the best part: the Padres can play this exciting and successful brand of baseball on a budget.

What are the two most expensive things to buy in major league baseball in terms of player talent? Big Time Power and Big Time Pitching. If you want to have–for example–Joey Votto (10 years/$225 million) and Matt Cain (six years/$127.5 million) on your ballclub, the current price tag is $352.5 million dollars in total commitment. The Padres total team payroll fits inside that two-player total over six times.

Yes, no Big Time Power hitter will ever sign to play at Petco Park as a free agent. Lamentable for sure, but in the history of the Padres franchise, who’s the biggest free agent power acquisition? His jersey number is retired…

garvey si cover

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So, let’s just say it’s not like the Padres are turning their backs on history by giving up on acquiring free agent power.

This brings us to Big Time Pitching, which the Padres also will never need to spend to acquire. Instead, they have the park which is the MLB version of the pitching Midas Touch, turning every waiver wire quality hurler into a confident out creator.  Exhibit A for the defense:

jeff suppan padresHello, Jeff Suppan.  Another veteran retread working in the same shoes as Aaron Harang, Jon Garland, Ismael Valdes and Pedro Astacio. On Saturday, Eric Freaking Stults emerged from minor league nowhere to work into the seventh inning against the Angels.  It was the fourth longest outing of his career, which dates back to 2006.

Jeff Suppan and Eric Stults can pitch like Edwin Jackson (1 year/$11 million) and Mark Buehrle (4 years/$58 million) for a fraction of the price.  And those are the waiver wire guys. Every year, there’s another in the David Wells-Harang-Garland-Wolf class of free agents who is willing to be the Veteran Anchor for a young staff, rebuild his stats and cash in the following season when he moves from Class C to Class B on a general manager’s free agent menu.

Dale Thayer, Concept Slayer (the concept of needing to pay $7M for a Proven Closer at Petco)

Dale Thayer, Concept Slayer (the concept of needing to pay $7M for a Proven Closer at Petco)

But wait, there’s more! Best of all, Petco Park gives every single pitcher who wears the Padres’ nondescript white and blue the most special gift of all, the gift which keeps on giving: confidence. You come to Petco, and that “uh oh” fly ball which Dale Thayer gave up a couple of times in his first two save opportunities dies in a glove in right center field. Suddenly, you feel like every mistake isn’t going to kill you, and you pitch from a mental position of strength instead of weakness. Now you have Dale Thayer, Team Slayer closing out games. Confidence carries from home to road, it travels well.

And yet, the team seems hell bent on further shrinking their field surface next year by pushing in the walls in right and center.  This already happened once before, when Sandy Alderson pushed in right-center by nine feet after 2006. Nothing changed in terms of homers, singles or doubles, but triples were reduced. Push in another ten feet and you might add a percentage point or two more of homers, but at what cost?  The Padres may be cutting off the very advantages they’ve failed to exploit all this time.

I say, try something different before you turn your park into a mediocre mish-mosh.  Take a team of pipsqueaks, slap hitters, speedsters and defenders, and give them one (ideally two) power threat(s), preferably right handed, to build around.  Keep the fences deep and abandon the idea of bringing up your standard type of hitter. Build your team’s slugging percentage on doubles and triples, and on the concept of turning every one of those extra-base hits into runs.  The little guys who can fly will thrive at Petco and create a brand of baseball you will enjoy watching, and all the while the franchise can stay at or near the top of the pitching charts no matter how much chum they run out to the mound.

strat-o-matic boxI harken back to my Strat-o-Matic days in high school, when my league mate Steve Ross would always build his teams around a high singles/low homers ballpark, and fill his lineup with singles/doubles hitters and speedsters one through eight. His goal not to play a 2-1 or 1-0 game…it was always to score six+ runs per game.  He called it “Commie Ball”, because his offense had a communistic philosophy in his mind, with everyone contributing equally to the team’s offensive success.

The Padres could win with Commie Ball, I’m convinced of it.

padres happyJed Hoyer tripped on the formula in 2010, and for four months the Padres rivaled the Yankees for the best record in baseball while filling their lineup with scrapple like Tony Gwynn Jr. and Jerry Hairston Jr., David Eckstein and Everth Cabrera. These guys were mostly stinking it up offensively of course, but they were converting balls in play into outs on defense, and at the plate they were flipping in bloopers and bleeders then scurrying into second base. With two outs, Eckstein would foul off six straight pitches then sneak a pitch up the middle and here came the run, because everyone (other than valued and missing OBP/SLG threat Adrian Gonzalez) could run.

It was working, shockingly well. Then at the trade deadline, young Jedi succumbed to the Conventional Wisdom and brought in two Proven Veterans to help lead his young team into the playoffs.  Ryan Ludwick and Miguel Tejada immediately made the team slower and worse defensively at two positions, and the Padres’ willy-nilly running offensive style slowed down with two plugs on the basepaths.

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(I did fear this outcome at the time, and it was decidedly the minority opinion.)

With no owner in town, nothing to lose but more baseball games and a general manager who seems to be trending in the right direction, now is the time for the Padres to adopt this revolutionary approach and take on Commie Ball.  Trade away the guys who are still worried about what Petco Park Can’t Do For You.  Go small, run like the wind and catch the baseball.  When the time comes to trade for a power bat, you’re always going to have a reserve of overvalued pitching to draw from.

photos-1Let Amarista and Cabrera be your guide, Padres. They may not be the players who get you to the promised land, but they can be the foot soldiers in the Padres Commie Ball Revolution. Or perhaps “Revolucion”, as the name Amarista already reminds me of Sandinista. The Padres can liberate themselves from the shackles of (the pursuit of) power, stop hitting for the fences and start aiming for the gaps and the flop shots.

Viva Amarista! Viva Commie Ball!  Viva Revolucion!

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