Padres Press Clips Wednesday, November 11, 2015
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Padres Press Clips Wednesday, November 11, 2015 Article Source Author Page Gold Glove: Marte, not Upton, the winner UT San Diego Sanders 2 Minor moves: Decker, Tate now free agents UT San Diego Sanders 4 J. Upton falls short in Gold Glove voting MLB.com Brock 6 Why the best relievers, DHs should have a real shot at making the Hall ESPN.com Stark 8 Padres acquire Yankees infielder Pirela UT San Diego Lin 10 Yanks send Pierla to Padres for right Herrera MLB.com Nowak 11 1 Gold Glove: Marte, not Upton, the winner Metrics favored Pirates' left fielder over Padres' Justin Upton By Jeff Sanders | 5 a.m. Nov. 10, 2015 | Updated, 6:09 p.m. UPDATE No real surprise here: Starling Marte has beat out the Padres' Justin Upton and the Marlins' Starling Marte for the National League's Gold Glove Award for left field. The results were officially announced Tuesday evening, though it was difficult to see Upton coming away with the award no matter how many highlight reel catches he managed this season. The metrics alone heavily favored Marte, who made fewer errors, recorded more assists and a better fielding percentage and rated better in six of the seven highlighted metrics below. Most telling was Marte's 24 defensive runs saves (three times Upton's total) and a 12.1 Ultimate Zone Rating/150 that dwarfed both Upton (2.8) and Yelich (0.9). Scroll down for the entire breakdown, as well as a glossary (don't worry; we needed it, too). EARLY VERSION Once upon a time, your bat and reputation had as much to do with winning a Gold Glove as your defensive prowess. Case in point: Rafael Palmeiro won one in 1999 with 28 games at first base and 128 as a designated hitter. Over the last decade, however, the ever-growing power of analytics has unlocked a wealth of defensive information, all of it adding to the credibility of the Rawlings Gold Glove Awards that will be unveiled tonight at 4 p.m. on ESPN. Eye tests aside, here’s a look at the categories that may have assisted voters – managers/coaches (75 percent) and the sabermetrics community (25 percent) – deciding between finalists Justin Upton (Padres), Starling Marte (Pirates) and Christian Yelich (Marlins) as the National League’s best left fielder. For the record, 2 two of three all-inclusive metrics – DRS, UZR/150, Def – prefer the Cubs’ Chris Coghlan (0 DRS, 18.9 UZR/150, 5.3 Def) to the finalists above. And yes, a glossary (thanks, fangraphs.com) follows the alphabet soup below. Gold Glove Finalists | Left Field Marte Yelich Upton Inn 1186.1 786.2 1260.1 E 1 2 3 A 15 5 9 FP .995 .989 .988 rARM 8 2 -4 rGFP 5 2 2 DRS 24 13 8 RngR 3.1 0.2 4.4 ErrR 0.5 0.5 0.4 UZR/150 12.1 0.9 2.8 Def 1.8 -3.4 -4.5 Inn – Innings E – Errors A – Assists FP – Fielding percentage rARM – Outfield Arms Runs Saved above average rRGP – Good Fielding Plays Runs Saved above average DRS – Defensive Runs Saved above average RngR – Range runs above average ErrR – Error runs above average UZR/150 – Ultimate Zone Rating (factors in outfield arm, range and errors in a metric scaled to a 150-game rate) Def – Defensive Runs above average (Measures a player’s defensive value relative for league average, complete with positional adjustments that allow for comparisons across different positions) 3 Minor moves: Decker, Tate now free agents Tracking the Padres' minor league transactions By Jeff Sanders | 10 a.m. Nov. 11, 2015 With the third overall pick in the 2009 draft, the Padres gambled on a two-sport high school athlete they hoped would one day roam center field and hit in the middle of their order and signed him to a club-record $6.25 million signing bonus. Then, 651 picks later, they gave a power-hitting college senior with a few thousand bucks and, essentially, wished him luck in his climb up the system. One exceeded expectations. One … well … did not. Today, both Donavan Tate and Cody Decker are minor league free agents. Their paths to this point in their careers, of course, have varied greatly. Decker is free to seek a new employer after amassing 154 homers across seven seasons, a record for a Padres minor leaguer. He hit a many as 29 in 2012, slugged .524 across nearly 3,000 plate appearances and didn’t get an opportunity in the majors until the final weeks of the 2015 season. The 28-year-old infielder/designated hitter/sometimes-outfielder/rarely-a-catcher went 0-for-11 with five strikeouts and a sacrifice fly while appearing in eight games. The 25-year-old Tate, meanwhile, never advanced higher than high Single-A Lake Elsinore in his six years of Padres control. In fact, he returned to the Cal League this year for a third time in an attempt to resurrect a career derailed by injuries and addiction. In 95 games, Tate hit .211/.290/.334 with six homers, 34 RBIs and 112 strikeouts in 376 plate appearances. http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2015/jul/23/padres-donavan-tate- sober-lake-elsinore-addicition/ A full accounting of the 589 minor league free agents can be at BaseballAmerica.com. 4 Padres signed to minor league contracts for 2016 C: Jason Hagerty (AAA) SS: Diego Goris (AAA) RHP: LHP Jeff Ibarra (AA) Padres’ pending minor free agents C: Miguel Del Castillo (Hi A), Griff Erickson (AA), Tim Federowicz (AAA), Adolfo Reina (AA) 1B: Cody Decker (AAA) 2B: Benji Gonzalez (AAA) SS: Hector Gomez (AAA), Mike McCoy (AAA), Ramiro Pena (AAA) OF: Luis Domoromo (AA), Tyson Gillies (AA), Jake Goebbert (AAA), Donavan Tate (Hi A) RHP: Juan Arias (DSL), Jordan Hershiser (Hi A), Daniel McCutchen (AAA), James Needy (AA), Aaron Northcraft (AAA), Adys Portillo (Hi A), Chris Smith (AAA), Jerry Sullivan (AAA), Cecil Tanner (R) LHP: Eury de la Rosa (AA), Jason Lane (AAA), Caleb Thielbar (AAA) [email protected]; on Twitter: @JeffSanders_UT 5 J. Upton falls short in Gold Glove voting By Corey Brock / MLB.com | @FollowThePadres | November 10th, 2015 SAN DIEGO -- Justin Upton accomplished some very big things in his first, and likely only, season with the Padres. Upton led the team with 26 home runs, he knocked in 81 runs and even stole 19 bases, all while playing above-average defense in left field. But Upton missed out on what would have been his first Rawlings Gold Glove Award on Tuesday, as Starling Marte of the Pirates won the honors. Marte finished third in the National League in DRS (defensive runs saved) with 24 and led all NL outfielders with 16 assists. Upton had eight defensive runs saved and had a career-high nine outfield assists in 146 games. The eight DRS were the most for Upton since he also had eight in 2011 with the D-backs. Christian Yelich of the Marlins was also a finalist for the Gold Glove in left field. Yelich won the award a year ago. A week ago, the Padres opted to extend Upton a qualifying offer, which means he can accept a one-year contract for $15.8 million in 2016 or, the likely scenario, turn it down for what figures to be a lucrative, multiyear contract. Players like Upton who were extended qualifying offers have until 2 p.m. PT on Friday to accept or decline the offer. The Padres are also awaiting the same decision from right-handed pitcher Ian Kennedy. 6 Why the best relievers, DHs should have a real shot at making the Hall Jayson Stark, Senior Writer, ESPN.com The 2016 Hall of Fame ballot went out this week. And I know a lot of you think that filling it out ought to be as easy as making out a grocery list. Oh, really? Well, here's the part that's easy: Ken Griffey Jr.: Hall of Famer. Randy Winn: Not a Hall of Famer. But now it's time for a 21st-century reflection on what's not so easy. What does a Hall of Fame relief pitcher look like? What does a Hall of Fame designated hitter look like? Does anybody know? Does anybody even think about trying to define these things? No? Well, we'd better start figuring it out. We'd better start figuring it out because Trevor Hoffman and Billy Wagner are two of the most important first-year candidates on this ballot. We'd better start figuring it out because, otherwise, Edgar Martinez's eligibility is going to be up before our esteemed electorate notices he was one of the great hitters of his generation. And we'd better start figuring it out because the game keeps evolving. So we, as voters, need to evolve with it, or else the social media world will have every right to keep tweeting about what a bunch of mixed up Neanderthals we are. (And come to think of it, I'd almost take a tweet like that as a compliment these days.) So here's a new way to look at this. Suppose there was a separate Hall of Fame for every position on the field. When election day rolled around for the Designated Hitter Hall of Fame, would you vote for Martinez? C'mon. Of course you would. If he isn't the greatest DH in history, he's at least on the Mount Rushmore. And suppose there was also a Relief Pitcher Hall of Fame.