The Padres are back to their tanking ways which is great for their future. Luckily, Padres Twitter isn’t tanking as they turned in another great week of Padres coverage. With all of the talk about whether the local sports radio stations or newspaper should cover the Los Angeles Chargers, it’s become apparent that it’s not possible to please everyone. It’s probably not even possible to please half of everyone. As Padres fans, we’ve long felt ignored by local radio, and this continues, as what used to be Chargers talk 90% of the time is now stadium talk 90% of the time. Padres blogs and podcasts have picked up the slack to the point where if you really want, you can just occupy your commutes with only Padres (or really, whatever subject you’re interested in) podcasts. With the addition of a second new Padres podcast in a week, the Padres online community is making old media more and more irrelevant everyday.
Days Since Marver Has Actually Written Something: 95 days
Marver claims to be working on some drafts to post, but let’s believe it when we see it. The Gwynntelligence WordPress site drafts folder is a veritable graveyard of half-thoughts by Marver that never came to fruition. This lack of commitment may be what forced Marver to settle for noted safety school UCSB (the safety school jokes will not stop until Marver writes something).
Gwynntelligence Posts:
This is it. We’ll try harder next week.
Padres Blogosphere Posts:
We’ve had a lot of discussions about just how to handle the team tanking. There’s a dissonance between instincts to want your team to win and knowing intellectually that they are better not doing so. Nick wrote a really well-written, thoughtful essay on being a fan during the tank era, while also bringing back junior high memories of the Boomers tennis ball firing tanks.
Pads Prospectus: Can the Padres Follow Houston’s Path To Contention
Introducing the newest entrant into the Padres blogosphere: Pads Prospectus, started by Marcus Pond who used to write for Padres Public. Pads Prospectus put out a bunch of content this week, but I enjoyed this post by Marcus that laid out what the Astros did to get to where they are today. The Astros have always been the better comp than the massively spending Cubs, and there are other parallels; for one, the Astros, like the Padres, weren’t able to unload in-demand stars for a huge haul, and stared from relative scratch in their farm systems. Some other important things to note are that it took three years of over 100 losses plus another 90 loss season to get to respectability, and the rebuild is now in YEAR SEVEN where the team is competing at a championship level. Another important note is that the backbone of the team is based around four high first round draft choices, meaning the Padres cannot expect to do one year of roster build-up and think they have all the pieces, it will take time and continued losing. Even with all this, the Astros needed to luck into Dallas Keuchel, a seventh round choice, turning into a Cy Young Award winner. Great work by Marcus, and looking forward to great things from Pads Prospectus.
Can we just #bringhimhome goddammit?!?! I’m deathly afraid that a Peavy return will turn into a Weaver-esque fiasco, but I have no doubt that I’d buy tickets to watch him pitch again.
East Village Times: Kirby Yates and Waiver Wire Success Stories
In what may be the very first analysis or even recognition of his existence, Patrick Brewer did a nice dive into what was driving Yates’ K rate and whiff rate. So far, Yates has been a nice addition to the bullpen.
Padres Public: With The 3rd Pick in the 2017 Draft, The San Diego Padres Select…
In a rare non-Sac Bunt Dustin post, Padres Public’s Nathan Veale had this great deep dive into who the Padres could take in next week’s draft. Veale predicted Gore, and compared him to Fried but with better secondary stuff. I went back and looked at the scouting report for Fried from 2012 and was decidedly underwhelmed and baffled at how the Padres came to the decision to select him at that draft position. He threw in the high 80’s with a plus-plus curveball and no other real secondary pitches. They also took him over Fried’s far superior (although injured) Harvard-Westlake teammate Lucas Giolito. Anyways, Gore would be fine. Really, anyone but Lewis is fine with me.
Padres Public: 24 Reasons to Like Jake Bauers
Not to pile on the tired Myers trade rehashing, but I have in the past brought up how crazy it is that it’s just totally forgotten that the Padres traded a top 100 prospect that’s currently ranked ahead of Adrian Morejon by Baseball America. Jake Bauers might not be a future superstar, but he looks like a useful piece, especially after reading Sac Bunt Dustin dig into his performance for this piece.
Padres Public: Trading Brad Hand to Every Team
In a crazy concept, Sac Bunt Dustin went through every team and concocted a Brad Hand trade scenario whether that team would want Hand or not. This was a quality Hand job if I’ve ever seen one. While a lot of these scenarios make me salivate, I’d be just fine with getting Soto from the Nationals. I’d give myself a nice hand job if this happened.
The Golden Age of Padres Podcasts:
East Village Times: Patrick and James
Patrick and James did another great podcast for EVT. I found the discussion at about the 12 minute mark particularly interesting. Patrick made the point that Wil Myers is basically a sacred cow among Padres Twitter. It’s now at the point where if you point out that Myers is streaky, has a track record of mentally checking out, or likes terrible Mexican food (ALL INDISPUTABLE FACTS!), you get mauled by people insisting he’s the face of the franchise and an All Star; you will be accused of saying he sucks when you point out that a consistent 115 wRC+ is fine but not great; he is the sacred cow that we must not lay a finger on. This tends to come out even more whenever the inevitable rehashing of the Myers for Turner/Ross/Bauers trade comes up (LIKE THIS WEEK!). Anyways, Patrick and James had an interesting discussion on the topic.
Pads Prospectus Podcast: Episode 1
To go along with their entry into the Padres blogosphere, Pads Prospectus is also contributing to the Golden Age of Padres Podcasting. Marcus Pond and Chad Hamner gave a nice rundown of the minor league system. Pads Prospectus has the unique benefit of having Marcus within driving distance of San Antonio for some eyewitness Missions news.
In a marquee get for The Kept Faith, 1090’s Darren Smith came on to talk about the radio industry, how terrible the city of San Diego is at doing anything, and some Padres talk. I know people say radio is a dying industry but anytime we post anything related to sports radio it ends up being one of our most popular posts/podcasts of all time, so I know this interview will be of interest to many. Plus, it’s always great when Darren let’s his hair down like this.
The 5.5 Hole gang interviewed Kevin Charity from Madfriars to discuss how things are looking in the minor league system, which is all anyone talks about these days. I mean for good reason, it’s just weird that we are all fans of a Major League team and couldn’t care less what is going on with them.
Make The Padres Great Again: Is Luis Urias An Elite Prospect For The Padres
I didn’t get to listen to this, but it’s MTPGA so you know it’s good. Also, yes, Luis Urias is maybe the best prospect in the system at this point.
Tweet of the Week:
And the Jaggy goes to…
Had to give an honorable mention Jaggy to:
Terrible Marver Tweet of the Week:
Leave the Hand job jokes to the pros. This joke attempt is a mess for so many reasons.
Nick Canepa Is An Out Of Touch Irrelevant Old Timer Or Maybe Doing A Bit Tweet Of The Week:
Sarcasm! I get it!!!
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