{"id":583,"date":"2010-07-07T12:55:24","date_gmt":"2010-07-07T17:55:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/?p=583"},"modified":"2010-07-07T12:55:24","modified_gmt":"2010-07-07T17:55:24","slug":"what%e2%80%99s-going-on-in-the-nl-west","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/archives\/583","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s Going on in the NL West?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>If you check back to my preseason predictions, you will find that mine for the American League are spot on.\u00a0 While the exact order of teams is not perfect, the top of each division is without blemish so far.\u00a0 In the National League, however, I\u2019m not right on a single division through the first half.\u00a0 If someone would have told me that at the halfway mark the Phillies<\/a> would be third in their division and fifth in the wildcard, I would have most likely laughed and degraded whoever said that.\u00a0 Well, they are.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more is that the Cardinals<\/a>, another team I considered an absolute lock to win their division, find themselves behind the Reds<\/a>\u2026that\u2019s right…by two games as a write this.\u00a0 The biggest mystery has to be the West, though.\u00a0 The rankings today for that division read the Padres<\/a> at the top followed by the Dodgers<\/a>, Rockies<\/a>, Giants<\/a>, and Diamondbacks<\/a> in that order.\u00a0 No one is within three games of the Padres as well.\u00a0 My prediction for that division read Dodgers, Giants, Rockies, Diamondbacks, and Padres in that order.<\/p>\n

How are the Padres, a team many viewed as perhaps the worst team in the game going into 2010, winning their division as the All-Star break approaches?\u00a0 Let\u2019s take a look at how the Padres have done everything right and what the rest of the division is doing to allow such a pathetic bunch of players to beat them.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

First, the Padres only have one player in the All-Star Game, and he does not deserve to be there this year.\u00a0 I am talking about Adrian<\/a>.\u00a0 Adrian is far and away the finest player the Padres have had for the last few years, and he continues to be so, but the suggestion that he is even the second best 1st<\/sup> baseman in the NL is laughable.\u00a0 Joey Votto<\/a>, who was left off the initial roster and must now rely on the fans to get him in through the final vote method, is perhaps the MVP of the NL through the 1st<\/sup> half. Adrian\u2019s slashes read .291\/.386\/.517.\u00a0 Joey\u2019s by comparison are a Pujols-esque .318\/418\/.599.\u00a0 While some adjustment is in order when comparing these two to account for the gross difference between Petco and The Great American Ballpark, Votto is still quite clearly more deserving than Adrian.\u00a0 Nevertheless, Adrian is in, and it\u2019s not as though his numbers are not All-Star worthy.\u00a0 It\u2019s just that this year is a little different.<\/p>\n

Adrian is the only regular on the Padres to post an OBP over .340 or a slugging percentage over .420.\u00a0 They have one<\/em> guy with an OPS over .750.\u00a0 To put it bluntly, these guys absolutely suck.\u00a0 They still do.\u00a0 That has not changed.\u00a0 Nothing about their first half should have changed anyone\u2019s mind about the quality of this offense.<\/p>\n

What about the pitching staff?\u00a0 Somehow, the Padres have four starters with ERA\u2019s south of 3.30.\u00a0 The only guy in their rotation with an ERA over that mark is Kevin Correia<\/a> who posts a respectable 5.05 in 16 starts.\u00a0 Let\u2019s take a deeper look at what can only be deemed a miracle.\u00a0 The ace of the staff is Mat Latos<\/a> who is exempt from my bashing because he is honestly good.\u00a0 The guy currently posts a K\/BB of 91\/26 and a sub-1.00 WHIP through nearly 100 IP.\u00a0 He\u2019s a gem, and it\u2019s a wonder that an organization that has failed so many young players was able to get him without trading or damaging him.\u00a0 Anybody else worthy of his ERA?\u00a0 Nope.<\/p>\n

The closest is Clayton Richard<\/a> with a K\/BB of 81\/38, which is a respectable ratio for a back of the rotation guy, but his ERA is a frontline caliber 2.74.\u00a0 The most curious performance through the first half in the Padres rotation?\u00a0 Easily Wade LeBlanc<\/a>.\u00a0 A WHIP of 1.40, a K\/9 of 6, and a K\/BB of 58\/33 buoy his current ERA of 3.10.<\/p>\n

Basically what I\u2019m trying to say is that the Padres must continue to defy the metrics to even come close to the top of their division.\u00a0 By all accounts, they should be getting pummeled as usual.\u00a0 But what is going on with the other teams in this armpit of a division to allow such a bad team to come across so good?\u00a0 The Diamondbacks are playing predictably poorly, so we won\u2019t address them.\u00a0 Tulo is on the DL for a long time, and despite Ubaldo\u2019s effectiveness in the first half and the emergence of CarGon, without Tulo, the Rox don\u2019t have enough either.\u00a0 Let\u2019s investigate the Dodgers because the Giants simply don\u2019t have the offense despite having the West\u2019s best rotation.<\/p>\n

The Dodgers were my pick to win the West in my preseason predictions because their offense is remarkable and their pitching staff should be good.\u00a0 So why aren\u2019t they winning?\u00a0 Matt Kemp, Russell Martin, and Casey Blake are all hitting .265 or below, ManRam has 183 AB\u2019s, Kershaw has walked 50 guys in about 100 IP, and Billingsley has a BABIP of .024 points higher than his career average.\u00a0 I expect all of these situations to correct themselves quite easily except the Manny issue and Kershaw\u2019s wildness.\u00a0 Manny is old.\u00a0 Kershaw is wild.\u00a0 That\u2019s just who they are.\u00a0 Kershaw strikes enough guys out to still be successful with the high walk total, but his starts are a drain on the bullpen.\u00a0 Speaking of the bullpen, the trio of Broxton, Sherrill, and Kuo should be the best 7th<\/sup>, 8th<\/sup>, and 9th<\/sup> inning guys in the West by a ton, but Sherrill has posted an ERA of approximately 7 in under 20 IP due to injury.\u00a0 With a lifetime ERA of 3.60, that will correct itself too.<\/p>\n

I still think the Dodgers will win this division.\u00a0 The Padres are safe from finishing in last simply because the Diamondbacks are presently 17 games back.\u00a0 The Dodgers currently have 4 games to make up.\u00a0 San Diego is a fun group and a true underdog because of how bad they are, and the Dodgers are a challenging team for me to root for because they have such well-publicized problems in their front office both ethically and financially, but I love Ethier and Billingsley.\u00a0 I expect the final standings in the West to look remarkably similar to what I predicted during Spring Training with the Dodgers putting together a run in the second half that takes them to the top where they will be quickly eliminated from the playoffs so long as the Reds don\u2019t win the Central.\u00a0 They won\u2019t.
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If you check back to my preseason predictions, you will find that mine for the American League are spot on.\u00a0 While the exact order of teams is not perfect, the top of each division is without blemish so far.\u00a0 In the National League, however, I\u2019m not right on a single division through the first half.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15,6,11,13,14],"tags":[436,509,587,428,388,585,559,586,297,584,510,588],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":586,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583\/revisions\/586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}