Tacking back Thursday - John bowls and Lincecum turns the Padres into cheese

I am sure that, by now, most of you have seen the highlights or read the articles on Tim Lincecum's porn stache no hitting the San Diego Whale's Vaginas last night.  Other than the no hits thing, there really wasnt anything that stood out in the performance.  Tiny Tim wasnt, like Kershaw was a week earlier, completely dominant and there wasnt a feeling that, no matter what the Friars did, they were hopeless against the Lincecum onslaught of breaking pitches (he threw only 39% fastballs or something like that), like there was with the Rockies in Kershaw's no-no.  There was a feeling, however, that the Padres may, in fact, be the worst collection of hitters in the history of professional baseball.  Take one look at their stat line and it is easy to see why many people are saying this.  For the season, they are hitting 213/273/337 for an OPS+ of 75.  A quick glance at their BR.com page looks like former Padres GM Josh Byrnes cloned Mario Mendoza and had ordered the manager to play him at 7 positions (I legitimately feel bad for Seth Smith who is slashing 290/397/516 right now but only has 24 RBI because no one else is ever on base).  The Padres are currently starting 5 players (Yasmani Grandal, Jedd Jerko-when he isnt on the DL, Chase Headley, Will Venable, and Carlos Quentin) who are hitting under .200.  Other than Smith, there are 2 players with more than 10 plate appearances who have OBPs over .300 (Cameron Maybin at .310 and Chris Denorfia at .301).  No one (again, other than Smith because he is, you know good) has more than 20 walks; aka one walk every 3 games.  No hitting them isnt even impressive.  You know what is impressive?  Giving up 11 runs on 12 hits to them, like the Cubs did on May 23rd behind a great outing from Edwin Jackson.  The Padres starting lineup is OPS+ing about 80, which means that as a team they are 20% worse than the average starting player (think Trevor Plouffe who is OPS+ing exactly 100 right now)...everyone on the team.  And that 80ish average include Seth Smith's 162 OPS+.
 

One more thing on this before we move on to John and his bowling (please note that doesnt read "blowing").  The Padres apparently employ someone named Jace Peterson as a backup middle infielder.  Jace (and I dont know why, but I really want him to be a little known member of ICP, Not-so-Violent J?) is hitting a cool 100/135/100 with 2 runs scored and 0 RBIs over 54 plate appearances for an incredible OPS+ of -31.  Yup, thats a negative sign in front of the 31.  I had no idea that you could even get negatives.  I figured, once you were that terrible, they called you 100% worse than the league average and figured that was a good enough sign to MLB front offices that you probably didnt deserve to be in the Majors and should probably quit baseball to move to Peru and milk male goats. But there is Peterson, still on the Padres roster, and for some reason, starting 4 straight games from June 20th to 23rd and going 1 for 13 with 6 strikeouts...and only having his batting average drop .001 points.  AND THEN, on the 24th, the Padres brought him into the game in the 8th inning as part of a double switch...so he could lead off the 9th.  It might be time to put Buddy Black out to pasture, or at least fire him before he loses all sanity.  Really...what manager is sitting in the dugout saying, "I have a player who is enduring one of the worst statistical seasons in the 140(ish) years of professional baseball, I have just watched him start 4 straight games and get 1 hit.  I should probably do whatever I can so that he leads off the 9th inning of this here game were playing.  I mean,, we are winning 7-2 and the pitcher is really tired after throwing 6 pitches."  Part of it is that the Padres only have 4 rostered infielders who arent physically broken (Jerko and Yonder Alonso are both physically and mentally broken in every sense of the word) and Alexi Amarista is an OF playing 2b, so Black didnt have a lot of options.  But part of it is a larger organizational clusterfuck where no one seems to know what was going on.

The best example of this is from a couple of years ago, when the Padres wanted a young Cincy Reds 1b prospect Yonder Alonso so bad that they were willing to give up a budding superstar ace in Mat Latos (the Pads got prospect Grandal and Edison Volquez's dreadlocks in the deal as well).  Which would have been fine, except the Friars had, almost exactly 1 year earlier, traded the face of their franchise, 1b Adrian Gonzalez, for a package of prospects that included 1b superprospect Anthony Rizzo.  With Alonso then in the fold, the Padres waited less than a month before flipping Rizzo to the Cubbies for Andrew Cashner.  So...follow along...the Padres took Rizzo and Latos and turned them into Alonso (20 HRs and 129 RBI in 3 years as a starting 1b), Grandal (a solid abreviated rookie year, followed by a 50 game suspension and ugly knee injury in 2013, and complete suck this year) and Cashner, who is a great building block, but has suffered through injury problems and just isnt as good as Latos was when he was dealt by the Padres in the first place.  Who knew I was going to write that much about the Padres?

Anyways, on to John.  My wife once told me that John is somehow related to MLB Hallf of Famer George Sisler.  I have never confirmed this with John, but maybe he will confirm or deny in the comments.

1) Who is John the MWP Master? Dont leave out any of the juicy details.

John The MWP Master is 30 years old and lives in the quaint river town Winona. As Louie has mentioned several times, I do work for Fastenal as an IT Senior Analyst. I work with ecommerce and EDI support. I came to Winona back in 2002 for college to become an elementary education teacher. 6 1/2 years later and several major changes later I graduated with a Business Administration major with an accounting minor. I am a huge Twins fan and have been since 1987 when I moved to Minnesota. I also like the Vikings but I feel they will only ever break my heart so I don't like them quite as much as I like the twins. I enjoy movies, video game, bowling, and golf. I am a big fan of fantasy sports however I do no usually do very well. Finally, my favorite color is green and I like long walks on the beach.

2) Whats the deal with your team? You started off so well, but the last several weeks have been a more than a little bit tough. What needs to happen to get you back in a playoff spot?

The deal with my team is the fact that it's my team. As previously stated, I like fantasy sports a lot however I never do very well. We started out pretty hot but then 3/4 of my team ended up on the DL and nobody stepped up to the plate like they should have. I'm now back to having a team that is off the DL but I feel like they have some catching up to do before really hitting their stride again. To get back into playoff contention I think a few things need to happen. First and foremost, my hitters need to start hitting. I feel like week after week I have more players that hit around the .200 mark than don't. I did make the move to get Blackmon which I hope will provide a little spark but I still feel I need some more. Anyone reading this, I would love to talk trades for a SS. I feel really confident with my pitching and hope they continue to pitch like the studs they are. P.S. I really miss Jose Fernandez.

3) I know youre a golfer. Whats your handicap? If we went to Westfield, how many times would you hit the ball into the water or onto a street?

I am indeed a golfer and we still need to get in a round at some point. My handicap is that I play golf. Seriously though I am about a 12 to 15 handicap. Not bad but not great either. I did purchase a new set of clubs at the end of last year and have definitely seen an improvement in my game. Westfield is a dump and should never be played but I suppose if we did play there I wouldn't hit any into the water or any into the streets. If you ask Lester this question he would have to mention hitting several houses and apartment buildings. You might ask yourself, but John, their aren't any apartment buildings while playing Westfield? My answer would be exactly, that's how skilled Lester is. I feel I can make fun of him until he finally beats me.

<ed note: I have no idea how a handicap is determined in golf.  I just know that it is a real thing that golfers talk about.  Anyone know how this is determined?>

4) I used this one with Kyler but I like it. IF you could choose any 4 people in history to have a meal with, what meal would it be, who would you choose and why?

a) Dalai Lama - If you have ever read any of his quotes or books you'd understand. The guy is just super awesome and humble and I feel like I could learn a lot about life from talking to him.

b) I'm kind of a two parter but I would talk with my two Grandpa's. Both of which were huge influences in my life and now that I am older I would love to ask them some more questions. One of them taught me and showed me the proper way to treat everyone and the other taught me to never stop learning and being curious. I just really would like to have one more meal with each of them.

c) Vladimir Putin. Why you ask? Because that dude is crazy and I just want to ask him some questions. I'm not sure which questions I'd ask but one would defiantly be "What the fuck is going through your mind?".

5) Favorite player on you team? What would it take to get you to trade him?

I think my favorite person on my team would be Masahiro Tanaka. This guy has been a consistent stud all year. At no point in time have I ever had to even think about benching him or dropping him which in a year like this I would consider to be a premium. Plus the $19 price for him also pleases me. There aren't many people on my team that are untouchable but you would have to propose a blockbuster trade to me to get him.

6) What sports, if any, did you play growing up? Who is your favorite Twin of all time?

This is actually Dusty with Kent HRbek.

Growing up I played baseball and I also bowled. Then in high school I turned into a punk rocker and started skateboarding and snowboarding. My favorite Twin of all time would be Kent Hrbek. I always remember going to games growing up and loving to see him play. If you ever went to a game while he was playing, he would always act out "no smoking in the Metrodome" which as a 1st grader was very entertaining. Side note, I was at the World Series game where he pulled Ron Gant off first base. If you haven't seen it, here you go. He'll never be a hall of fame baseball player but as a Twins fan, you know what he did to help the Twins win both the 87 and 91 world series.

<ed note: I also love me some Kent HRbek.  When the show "Kent Hrbek Outdoors" first came on, I desperately wanted it to be a show about a guy with a camera who follows Kent Hrbek around to places other than his house...like the gorcery store or Jamba Juice or the Mall of America.  Now that is a show that I would have watched for hours.>

7) Whats the deal with Shae Simmons? How did you even know he existed? Why did both you and Tom try to pick him up on the same day?

Actually you were dead on when you said he used to work for Fastenal. Actually that isn't true at all. I was looking for a RP and was doing a lot of different sorting and searches and he for some reason caught my eye. He doesn't have a lot of innings yet, but he has solid stats which I am hoping continue throughout the rest of year. I actually had no idea that Tom wanted to get him as well until the day I finally got him. I will admit that I am a little scared that Tom wanted him as well because Tom has made some poor choices with his pickups this year but I'm hoping for better.