Surprise Surprise Surprise - Krasovic misses the facts again

Wednesday August 19, 2009

At least he is consistent. Getting fired by the Union Tribune has not spurred Tom Krasovic into checking the facts before putting his opinion out there on his blog.

In his most recent blog post, Krasovic says "Breaking from their culture under Sandy Alderson ... the Padres are no longer predisposed to drafting a college player in the first round."

Unfortunately, once again he didn't check the facts. The Padres have taken a high school player in the first round each of 2006 to 2008. Decker, Cumberland and Burke.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/draft/?query_type=franch_round&team_ID=SDP&draft_round=1&draft_type=junreg


Krasovic also says that in 1994 Moores "inherited a major league roster loaded with power arms".

Here is the roster.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/SDP/1995-pitching.shtml

Led by Joey Hamilton, the staff included Andy Ashby, Andy Benes, Glen Dishman and Fernando Valenzuela. Scott Sanders also had 15 starts.

Hamilton's fastball sat 90-92.
Ashby's fastball sat at 88 mph. Well actually 87.6 for his career, but I was giving him the benefit of the doubt.
Benes could bring it. A true power pitcher.
Fernando was a screw ball pitcher.
Dishman sat in the mid to high 80's
Sanders sat 90-92, Occasionally hitting 94. He jsut wasn't an effective pitcher.

You make up your own mind how loaded with power arms the 1995 team that went 70-74 was. I would guess one power pitcher of 5 makes it loaded in Krasovic's mind.

Krasovic also says that "the Padres are deep into talks with a switch-hitting, 16-year-old outfielder who'll likely join other newcomers at their Dominican complex by month's end. A $450,000 agreement is in place."

Jairo Kelly and Humberto Valor both signed contracts of about $135k. They were considered the 24th and 25th best International players to be available this season for free agent signings.

So who exactly is this mystery OUTFIELDER?
Here is the list of the top 25 players from Baseball America.
http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/prospects/international-affairs/2009/268478.html

Do you see an outfielder on there?

Yup. Only one, Luis Jolly. He turned down a reported $850k to sign with the Phillies. Maybe he is the one who is going to sign with the Padres for $450k, but he is certainly not a mystery player. He did work out at the Padres facility on Thursday.

Perhaps its actually Edgar Ferreira, a LHP the Padres had work out for them on August 11th at their Dominican facility that they are about to sign?

Either way its not a secret that Krasovic is suddenly breaking the story on.

Krasovic quotes an unnamed "AL Talent evaluator" who says he likes Everett Williams because he is a "5-foot-10ish kid, but he's strong, he can hit, he's a good athlete".

Hey Kras, is this the same "Al Talent Evaluator" you quoted when you were still at the UT that said he didn't like Jaff Decker, because his body type would predispose him to getting chunky as he got older?

Decker, like Williams, is a 5'10" 190-200 lb kid that can hit, throw and steal bases.

Guess that fact escaped you when you wrote those articles about Williams.

Later in his blog post, Krasovic says that you have to credit Alderson with the Tate signing because he budgeted $6 million for the Padres first pick in the draft ("Credit Alderson for helping to lay the groundwork to the Tate deal") and then in the very next paragraph says, " Whether Alderson would've approved $6 million for a high school player, though, is questionable. The Padres took a college player first in all four of his years as CEO, and I'm told that wasn't coincidental."

You can't have it both ways Kras. Either Alderson is to be given credit for budgeting $6 million to sign Tate, or he isn't.

As to Alderson not signing High School players in the first round, see the first section of this article.

Krasovic says, "As a Diamondbacks executive, Moorad endorsed the first-round selection of "high upside" prep players such as Justin Upton and Jarrod Parker."

I guess he is trying to imply is that Moores and the Padres didn't take "high upside" prep players. We have already debunked that myth.

What Krasovic also conveniently leaves out is that the Diamondbacks picked 1st and 9th overall respectively to get those two players. The Padres have not picked in the top 16 since they took Matt Bush, a top 10 prep talent, in 2004.


I can't really find much Krasovic got correct in his blog post as usual.Don't they teach you to do FACT CHECKING in journalism classes in college? Or does Krasovic just intentionally choosing to avoid making sure his posts are factual in order to be more sensationalistic?