FanPost

Padres 2010 Potential Milestones

I did a post like this last year and I figured I'd entertain myself by doing it again. Prominent figures Brian Giles and Jake Peavy are gone this year and with them any chance at any of the milestones being anything other than franchise top 10 lists. But, for those curious about the former Padres Jake still needs 5 wins to get to 100 and now needs 134 K's to get to 1500 while Giles finish 13 HRs shy of 300 and 103 Hits shy of 2000. This year we have 4 guys with chances at some milestones: Adrian Gonzalez, David Eckstein, Heath Bell and Chris Young. Eckstein probably comes as a surprise, but I think you'll be less surprised when you read what it actually is. I admit, I didn't look too hard into other guys. I did see that Scott Hairston has one of the top SLG% in franchise history, but it takes 1500 PAs as a Padre to get into the top 10 there and he'll need more than one season to accumulate that many. Every one else is either too young or just hasn't been a Padre long enough to make some milestone noise.

For some reason I like following this stuff. I'll probably post updates in some Open Game Threads during the season since this stuff excites me so. For those that don't know, you can find the San Diego Batting Leaderboard here and the Pitching Leaderboard here.

All the gory details after the jump (if I'm even lucky enough to get one).

Adrian Gonzalez

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HRs: If Adrian can survive all this trade talk he needs 34 bombs to make it to #1 on the Padres all time HR list. He's currently 6th with 130 and Colbert is first with 163. Along the way he'd pass Klesko (133), Gwynn (135), Winfield (154) and Nevin (156).

2Bs: Adrian cracked the top 10 on the Padres 2Bs list last year and currently sits in 9th with 143. He averages about 35/year as a Padre and hit 27 last year. A repeat of last season would put him in sixth at 170 passing Greene (150), Nevin and Kennedy (both 158). If he hit his average number of 2Bs he'd have 178 and sneak by Klesko (176) for 5th and tuck in right behind Winfield's 4th spot (179). If he matched his career high (46) he'd have 189 and tie Brian Giles for 3rd.

RBI: Adrian also made it to 9th on this list last year with an even 400 RBI for his Padres career, 4 RBI ahead of the late Ken Caminiti. Without a couple of contract extensions he'll never make it to Tony Gwynn's #1 spot (1138), but any average year (100) would put him at 500 RBI and he'd slot in at #4 passing Giles (415), Kennedy (424), Templeton (427), Colbert (481) and Klesko (493). Nevin (573) and Winfield (626) are out of reach for the 2010 season.

Rs: Adrian is 1 run behind 10th place's Bip Roberts' 378. So he should get there in the first week. An average year (94) would give him 471 and vault him all the way to 3rd place passing Roberts, Finley (423), Nevin (428), Templeton (430), Colbert (442), Klesko (449) and Giles (470). He would need a new career high of 108 to pass 3rd place Gene Richards (484). Winfield (599) and Gwynn (1383) are out of reach.

H: Adrian has 680 hits as a Padre and doesn't crack the top 10 currently. He averages 170 hits/year as a Padre and that total would get him to 6th place passing Santiago (758), Colbert (780), Klesko (786), Kennedy (817) and Nevin (842). His lowest total as a Padre came last year (153) and matching that would leave him short of Kennedy and Nevin at 833. A deadline trade would probably still have him cracking the top ten since he only needs 78, add another 22 on top of that and he could probably get to 9th by July 31st and maybe another 6 on top of that would be doable if he was ahead of pace from what he did in 2009.

BBs: Somehow I missed that he even had a shot at the top 10 last year. Probably because I didn't think he'd beat his previous career high by 45! He's currently 10th with 310. He should easily pass Nevin (325) and Carmelo Martinez (327) sometime in May, Gene Richards (338) in June and Colbert (350) by the end of July. He'd have to get close to his career high to get 114 BBs and pass Gene Tenace's 423 for 5th place.

Ks: Happily, he knocked Tony Gwynn out of the top 10 in strikeouts when he breezed by 434 and slid by Klesko for another 9th place finish. Last year, I had predicted he would get the 127 he needed to pass Khalil Greene for 6th, but he really cut down on his strikeouts last year. Unless he establishes another career low (or gets traded) he should move up to 4th on this list, but unless really, really ups his career high, Nevin (669) is safe at #3.

OBP: Adrian had a career high in OBP last year and broke a tie he had with Dave Winfield for 9th to attain sole possession of the 9th spot. This is where he'll stay unless his OBP takes a massive dip in 2010.

AVG: Last year I pointed out that a .001 increase in batting average would get him out of a tie for 5th, but Adrian went the other way and is now in (you guessed it) 9th. He needs a .001 increase to tie Johnny Grubb (.286) for a 8th. Without doing too much fancy math, he'd need to play a whole season here and hit about .290 to do that.

ABs: Adrian is currently not in the top 10 in ABs. He has 2384 and 10th place (Klesko) finished with 2818. Adrian averages 596 AB/year as a Padre, but only had 552 last year. A repeat of 2009 would put him at 2936 and in 8th ahead of Nevin (2928) and Santiago (2872). Getting his average number would put him at 2980 and in 7th passing Kennedy's 2987.

PAs: An average PA year out of Adrian (683) would take him from outside the top ten (2732) to 7th with 3415. That would have him passing Santiago (3065), Nevin (3239), Kennedy (3297) and Klesko (3333). Adrian might even crack this list even if he gets traded in July since he only needs about a half season's worth to slip by Santiago.

1Bs: This is a long shot. He'd need a new career high of 121 to pass Tim Flannery for 10th place. 110 is his previous career high and that was in 2006.

David Eckstein

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HBP: Eckstein hasn't been here long, but he was hit 9 times last year. Eckstein's career high is 27 and he averages close to 15 a year, however he hasn't topped 9 since 2007. He'd need 11 more to create a 4-way tie for 8th with Giles, Loretta and Richard (20). Colbert (22), Gwynn (24) and Burroughs (26) stand in his way after that. If he tied his career high then he'd match our franchise leader Kouzmanoff (36) and pass Greene (32), Flannery (32) and Gene Tenace (35).

Heath Bell

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Saves: The obvious starting category for a closer. He has 44 and is in 7th place. A 40 save season will rocket him up to 3rd past Gary Lucas (49), Craig Lefferts (64), Mark Davis (78) and Hall of Famer Goose Gossage (83). Hoffman is way out of reach with 552 and passing Rollie Fingers for 2nd place (108) would take an epic 65 save season.

Games Finished: The companion stats for closers, especially ones that were regular relievers before getting that precious label. Bell has 83 and is in 9th (who does he think he is, Adrian Gonzalez?). Luis DeLeon (98), Lance McCullers (120), and Gary Lucas (134) seem within reach, but passing Lucas would require him to finished more games than he did in 2009.

Games Played: Another easy stat for a consistent reliever. Bell has appeared in 223 games as a Padre and a healthy full season should put him in 5th place passing Gary Lucas (230), Mark Davis (230), Cla Meredith (233), Dave Tomlin (239), Randy Jones (264) and Rollie Fingers (265).

Chris Young

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Chris Young needed 45 1/3 IP to start qualifying on Baseball-Reference.com for the Padres’ rate stat categories with 500 IP and he got 76.

ERA: However, he couldn't keep his ERA in the 3.40 to 3.50 range so he didn't crack the top 10 in ERA like I projected. Instead he stands at 3.87 and that is quite a gap between him and 10th place Bob Shirley's 3.58 ERA. If he pitches 150 innings this year, he'll need something like a 3.12 ERA to best Shirley and like a 3.06 ERA to beat Benes in 9th place (3.57).

Win%: 2009 was also CY's first year below a .500 Win%. That dip was not enough to keep him out of the top 5 though as he's 5th at .554 behind Gaylord Perry (.660), Bruce Hurst (.591), Peavy (.575) and Joey Hamilton (.556). His best Win% was in 2006 when he went 11-5. If he did that again he'd have a .583 Win% and be in 3rd place. If he could do something like go 14-5, he'd pass Hurst for 2nd.

H/9. CY is the franchise leader in this category, but the lead is tenuous. Hoffman had a rate of 6.974 and Young's is 6.886. He'll have to stay close to or best that established franchise record to keep his lead.

This FanPost was written by a member of the Gaslamp Ball community and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Gaslamp Ball staff or SB Nation.