Just when I thought this was going to get easy it got hard. Today is OF day for my Padres All Time team and with 2 guys wearing Padres caps on their Hall-of-Fame plaques, I figured finding a 3^rd to accompany them would be relatively simple. Then I started looking at the candidates.

Before I get to the guys that made the cut, I want to mention some other guys that didn’t qualify due not being with the Padres long enough. These guys put up some good numbers for the Friars and I owe it to Auntieem0426 to mention some of these names.

Sixto Lezcano – Lezcano came to the Padres along with Garry Templeton and Luis DeLeon in the Ozzie Smith deal. He had a couple of good seasons in San Diego recording a 124 OPS+ in 932 PA. He was then traded to Philadelphia in a trade that yielded, among others, Lance McCullers and would open up RF for a pretty good young player some of you may be familiar of.

Ruppert Jones – Jones spent 3 seasons (1981 – 1983) with the Friars. He recorded an OPS+ of 109 in San Diego and was an all-star in 1982 when he hit .283 and smacked 12 HR.

Jerry Mumphrey – Mumphrey spent one season in San Diego after being acquired from Cleveland for LHP Bob Owchinko (who would go just 12 – 21 after the trade) and OF Jim Wilhelm. Mumphrey posted a 108 OPS+ and stole 52 bases in 57 attempts in 1980. The Friars then moved Mumphrey and P John Pacella for P Tim Lollar (36 – 42 in 4 years in SD), P Chris Welsh and OF’s Ruppert Jones and Joe Lefevre.

George Hendrick – Hendrick was only a Padre for just more than a season but George raked while here. In 730 PA, Hendrick had an OPS+ of 136 with 26 HR and 89 RBI.

Dave Roberts – Prior to becoming a PadrE. Roberts greatest claim to fame was stealing a single base and helping to break an 86 year championship drought for the Boston Red Sox. Roberts spent 2 seasons as San Diego’s everyday CF hitting .285 and stealing 72 bases. “Doc” as he is called, recently underwent successful treatment for Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He was added to the Friars’ coaching staff where he will coach 1^st base and base running.

Greg Vaughn – For the Friars in their magical 1998 World Series run it wasn’t Ken Caminiti, Steve Finley or Tony Gwynn that was the most potent offensive player; it was Vaughn who clubbed a team record 50 HR. In 2 ½ seasons in San Diego Vaughn had an OPS+ of 129.

There were some pretty good players in that group but none of them made the final cut. I’ve alluded to the 2 most obvious candidates, Dave Winfield and Tony Gwynn, already. Of course both easily were voted into the Hall-of-Fame and both were great players for San Diego and without a doubt are on my team. Let’s start there and work our way to the other candidates.

Dave Winfield – Winfield was the 4^th overall selection out of the University of Minnesota in 1973 and made his big league debut soon afterwards. He spent 8 seasons in San Diego appearing in 4 all-star games and winning 2 gold gloves. His slash line was .284/.357/.464 as a member of the Friars. Winfield was a tremendous overall talent and a legitimate 5 tool player. He hammered 156 HR as a Padre but also stole 133 bases.  Winfield was worth 31.6 WAR which averages to just less than 4 wins per season. Defensively big Dave had a TZ of 10 in the OF.

Tony Gwynn – Mr. Padre. We all know how great he was in San Diego; the numbers are simply staggering though. Gwynn literally holds the franchise marks in almost every single offensive category. Here’s a list for perspective with Gwynn’s numbers and the second place number in parentheses:

Games Played – 2,440 (Garry Templeton - 1,286)

Hits – 3,141 (Tempy - 1,135)

Runs – 1,383 (Winfield - 599)

Doubles – 543 (Tempy - 195)

Triples – 85 (Gene Richards - 63)

Total Bases – 4,259 (Winfield - 1,853)

SB – 319 (Richards - 242)

Batting Average - .338 (Bip Roberts – 2.98)

Of course Gwynn spent his entire career, 20 seasons, in San Diego and that helped him accumulate some impressive numbers. However, the separation between first and second in many cases is enormous.

Gwynn finished his career with an OPS+ of 132 which is pretty good for a guy known more for punching singles through the 5.5 hole than for slugging the ball. During his career he won 5 gold gloves, 7 silver sluggers, and 8 batting titles. He also appeared in 15 all-star games.

Defensively, Gwynn was terrific earlier in his career. As he aged and added weight, his defensive prowess took a hit. He finished with a Total Zone (TZ) rating of 5 runs above average for his career as an OF. Although he was 77 runs above average through the 1992 season. All told Gwynn was a 67.9 WAR player and averaged 3.4 wins per season.

There are the two obvious choices for OF on my All Time team. Now we have to find the 3^rd OF. I considered whether I should limit this to CF since both Gwynn and Winfield played mostly corner OF but I figured all-star teams sometimes have to play someone in an unfamiliar position too. I want only the best regardless of position.

Johnny Grubb – Grubb spent 5 seasons roaming the OF for the Padres after being selected in the 1^st round, 24^th overall, in the 1971 draft. He posted a slash line of .286/.363/.397 in 2,043 PA. He was a NL all-star in the 1974 season.

TZ didn’t favor Grubb too well as he was 43 runs below average in the OF. Grubb was worth 8.0 WAR as a Padre in his 5 years here.

Gene Richards – I remember Richards vaguely as a kid. His final year in San Diego was the first year I attended games, 1983. In 7 seasons as a Friar and 3,805 PA, Richards recorded an OPS+ of 112. As we saw earlier, Richards ranks only behind Gwynn in the Padres record book in both SB and triples.

His triple slash as a Padre was a very solid .290/.357/.383. He acquitted himself well in the field finishing with a TZ rating of 9. Richards was worth 19.0 WAR during his Friar career.

Steve Finley – Finley would leave San Diego following the 1998 World Series year and recorded the best seasons of his career in Arizona. Nonetheless, he came to San Diego as a decent starting CF and left here an all-star.

Finley spent 4 years in San Diego and in 2,640 PA he posted a slash line of .276/.334/.458. He won 2 gold gloves and made one all-star squad. Finley also had his first 30-homer season as a Padre and stole 85 bases.

Despite the gold gloves, TZ doesn’t consider Finley a very good defender. In his 4 Padres seasons, Finley rated a -57 TZ. That means he was 57 runs below the average OF. Having watched him I find that hard to believe but both Fan Graphs and Baseball-Reference agree on Finley’s TZ. Despite his fielding not being held in high regard, Finley was still a solid 7.2 WAR for San Diego.

Brian Giles – Giles was once described by former Padres President Sandy Alderson as the prototype player. That’s because Giles excelled at getting on base and extending the pitch count every at bat. “Money Ball” types place tremendous value on those traits and as we all know Alderson was an inspiration of that particular movement.

During his days with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Giles was a power hitter. He averaged better than 37 HR per year in 4 full seasons with the Pirates. Like many LH hitters, Petco sapped a lot of that power from Giles as he never hit more than 23 jacks in San Diego.

As a Padre, Giles posted a slash line of .279/.380/.435 and had an OPS+ of 121. He led the NL in walks once (I know, hardly an exciting stat to lead the league in) and hit better than .300 twice. In 7 years with the Padres Giles was worth 18.1 WAR.

Defensively Giles was horrible according to the advanced metrics. He finished with a -70 TZ rating in the OF. Like I said when discussing Finley I don’t know how much merit we can put in these defensive metrics but I’d like to think a mannequin with a baseball glove could be better than -70 TZ.

Alright now it’s time to choose our 3^rd OF to line up next to Gwynn and Winfield on the All-Time Team. First we eliminate Grubb. He was a decent hitter but not great. He was also below average with the glove. That leaves me to consider Richards, Finley and Giles.

I never would have guessed Richards would be in this position. My inclusion of Finley and Giles was expected; Richards being part of this group was not. But the numbers don’t lie as he was at least comparable to both Finley and Giles.

If we used average WAR per year then Richards actually wins. He averaged 2.7 WAR per season while Giles was a 2.6 WAR and Finley was a 2.1 WAR. I’m not sure WAR alone should be the decisive factor.

Those of you who have read my stuff before know I am a big believer in the advanced stats. I tend to list OPS+ rather than batting averages or HR. I use TZ or UZR/150 to gauge a player’s defensive abilities. However in this case I’m going to go with what my own eyes saw and I remember Finley being a terrific CF. I have no idea why he rated so low on TZ.

In addition, while I appreciate Giles’ ability to work the count and get on base, he also represents a time when Padres baseball was boring. It was a station-to-station offense that lacked athleticism and the ability to take extra bases using speed. His drop in power from Pittsburgh to San Diego (156 points) was not what we were counting on when we traded for him in the first place.

In the end I am going with Steve Finley and despite what the advanced defensive metrics say I am glad to line him up in CF for my team. Richards finished a close second and probably lost in part at least because I don’t remember seeing him play in person.

That’s it; there are the 8 starting position players on my All-Time team. As a bonus, I’m going to write up where I would position each in my lineup.

1. Tony Gwynn RF

1. Mark Loretta 2B

1. Adrian Gonzalez 1B

1. Dave Winfield LF

1. Steve Finley CF

1. Ken Caminiti 3B

1. Terry Kennedy C

1. Ozzie Smith SS

I know Gwynn got the bulk of his PA out of the 3-hole but Gwynn hit anywhere in the lineup. In 512 PA out of the leadoff spot Gwynn was a .324/.389/.433 hitter. Even better is his .419/.460/.476 line when leading off a game in 113 PA.

Mark Loretta had nearly 4,000 PA in the #2 spot in the lineup. His next most at any spot was the 616 PA  he got in the leadoff spot. His on base skill (.377 OBP as a Padre) and his ability to put the ball in play (just 1 K for nearly every 11 PA) make him a good fit in this spot.

Gonzalez hit 3^rd much of the time while he was in San Diego and Winfield’s power and his right-handedness fit perfectly behind Gonzo.

I put Finley in the 5-hole to keep my lefty-righty alternation consistent. Cammy’s power might have profiled better than Finley in that spot but as a switch-hitter Ken is better suited to hit 6^th for me.

Terry Kennedy is a LH hitting Catcher with some pop and will hit 7^th. Ozzie Smith, who was never a great hitter, rounds out my lineup.

Now that we have our hitters and our lineup it’s time we figure out who is going to keep the other team from scoring. Next week we determine who our starting pitchers (one LHP and one RHP) will be for my All-Time team.