Just a thought...

Does Chase deserve Gwynn-like respect?

As a life long Padre fan one must love Tony Gwynn and everything he did for the franchise. The guy was a stand up citizen, good man, and GREAT ball player. There is however a new kid on the block that has played some serious ball, and isn't getting the kind of fan support one would think he'd already earned. And this year he's having his career year and still many don't root for him, so I thought we should take a quick look and compare Gwynn's career year to what Chase Headley is doing this year to see if maybe we fans should get off our high horse, realize what we have in a player, and start rooting for the 3bag, that we might end up losing by way of trade, before it's too late. And for the record in no way am I suggesting that Chase Headley is the next Tony Gwynn.

Now both play a perceived "power" position, so I'm not attempting to cherry pick stats here. Those positions are most often gauged by HR's, RBI, XBH's and now OPS (on base pct + Slg pct). Stats like BA have been looked at as less important so long as the other stats are being produced. I for one disagree with that, but for the sake of this lets go ahead and play that game...
 

1997, Gwynn's 15th year in the league, was his best production year by far. He hit 17 HR's and drove in 119 RBI, while pounding out a total of 68 xbh's and posting an OPS of .957 .... 

2012, Headley 4th full season, at the end of August he's already hit 24HR's and driven in 92 RBI, with 50 XBH's, and an OPS of .847

Headley 24hr/ 92rbi/ 50 xbh/ .847ops

Gwynn 17hr/ 119rbi/ 68xbh/ .957ops

For further comparison, here is Tony Gwynn's career avg season, and this is the guy we all fell in love with. Compare that to what Headley is doing this year and it's even more impressive. Add to this that Headley is doing this while playing 81 games in one of the toughest ballparks to hit in, and I really don't get some of the fans dislike for Headley at all. Seems to me they'd understand how special this guy might be.

Gwynn   9 hr/ 76rbi / 51xbh / .847ops ( this was Gwynn's career avg season that we fell in love with )

Headley 24hr/ 92rbi/ 50 xbh/ .847ops (still a month left to add to this)

2012 final stat line for Chase Headley 

31hr/ 115rbi/ 64 xbh/ .875ops

Headley has almost exactly 1 month of play time left to add to his stats, but if you take a quick look at this doesn't one player, Headley, deserve a bit more fan respect since he's clearly having a fantastic season ?

Anyway just my thought this morning that I wanted to get down before it left the grey matter...

T.Pichierri - Planet Padres Writer

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Planet Padres heads to Ft. Wayne

Today we made our way to Ft. Wayne Indiana to watch the Tin Caps play. This was out first trip to the Padres A ball affiliate, so we were very excited to watch some of the younger, upcoming players showcase their skills. We had a few guys on our watch list and fortunately got to see them all in action for better and worse. Austin Hedges, Donovan Tate, Jace Peterson & De La Cruz topped our list of guys we really wanted to see play.

Once we figured out where we needed to be, due to all the crazy construction going on, it was time for some baseball.Walking up to the front of the ball park you can see they've done a very nice job, and they didn't stop at the entrance.

This is a fantastic venue, with much to do for everyone and every age. Seats are reasonably priced, ballpark is beautiful with downtown Ft. Wayne beyond the OF wall as a back drop. Huge scoreboard in RF on the big brick wall is visible from just about everywhere, except right underneath of course, and sits right above a very cool eating area, and just to the side of a water play area for the kids.

Me and my far better half, who often attends the games I hit up, but usually is chasing around our little ballplayers so I can watch the game.

Jace Peterson had a solid single, Tate hit a ducksnort double into RF (video at bottom), Austin Hedges hit a bomb into LF in the 9th, DeLa Cruz threw 2 shutout innings, and the boys had a walkoff win. Couldn't have asked for much more.

Boxscore

T.Pichierri - Planet Padres Writer

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Get yer O face ready...O'Malley's coming to town ?

O'Malley's are pushing forward to purchase the Padres

Get your "O" face ready folks, Peter O'Malley and family are moving forward to try and purchase the Friars. This could be a match made in baseball heaven for this club and it's fans. Let's all keep our fingers crossed that the boys are finally able to reel in an owner who has the financial backing as well as a desire to win who actually wants to be involve with the club on a daily basis.

Link - Ken Rosenthal writes:

"Peter O’Malley, unsuccessful in his effort to regain ownership of the Los Angeles Dodgers, is now trying to buy one of the Dodgers’ NL West rivals.

O’Malley, his son Kevin and nephew Tom Seidler are mounting an aggressive push for the San Diego Padres and want to close a deal by the All-Star break, sources say.

The O’Malley group has signed documents permitting it access to team financial information, sources say, and apparently has raised sufficient equity to purchase the club.

Initial indications are that the group values the Padres at less than half of the Dodgers’ $2.15 billion sale price, and perhaps significantly less.

The Chicago Cubs, who play in a much larger market than San Diego, sold for $845 million in 2009 — and the price included the Cubs’ historic home park, Wrigley Field.

Padres owner John Moores put his team up for sale this month after a failed effort by former agent Jeff Moorad to buy the club.

O’Malley sold the Dodgers in 1998 to News Corp., the owner of FOX Sports, which in turn sold the team to Frank McCourt.

Guggenheim Baseball, fronted by Magic Johnson and incoming team president Stan Kasten, recently agreed to buy the Dodgers from McCourt after unsuccessful bids by O’Malley and others.

“Our family gave the Dodger pursuit everything we had,” O’Malley told the Los Angeles Times. “We were serious suitors. It didn’t happen. I support the new owners and I want them to do well.”

But not as well as the Padres, if he winds up getting the team"

My opinion on this and nothing more is this...... While I think we all agree the Padres are worth less than the Dodgers, to suggest that any franchise should be worth less than half the value is pretty ridiculous even if other franchises like the Cubs sold for less than half. Sorry but MLB allowed a new precedent to be set, far more recently, when they ok'd the out of control sale price of the Dodgers for $2.1b. With the new TV contract in place, a relatively new, and incredible ballpark to play in, a top farm system in place etc.... There should be no reason for this franchise to sell for "far less" than half.....Seems like a starting place should be around $1.2b, or just over half of what the Dodgers sold for.....Again just my own opinion on this, and regardless of what it sells for it certainly appears like the O'Malley's are a really good fit here in San Diego. Good luck to them and the Padres going forward.

Planet Padres Writer- TPichierri

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Storm take down Lancaster

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9		R	H	E
Lake Elsinore	1	0	0	3	1	0	2	0	0		7	7	0
Lancaster	0	4	0	0	1	0	0	0	0		5	10	3

Recap | Box
W: O'Grady (2-0, 1.12) L: Robinson (0-1, 17.36)
S: Quackenbush (1)

6 different players each had a hit, Noel had two and up'd his BA to .375, Domoromo went deep for the first time this year, and drove in 3 runs. Elsinore used 5 pitchers on the night Andriese getting touched up for 5 hits, 4er over 1.3ip while walking 1 and striking out 4, O'Grady gets the win, while Quackenbush earns the save.

Go Storm!!

Planet Padres Writer- TPichierri

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