Vedder Cup to Remain in San Diego FOREVER

With the victory last night, the Padres ensured that the vaunted Vedder Cup stays in its rightful home right here in San Diego.  That's a good thing since Felix Hernandez is pitching this afternoon which could spell disaster for the Padres.  Luckily, Andrew Cashner has been busy dressing the deer and actually gives us a shot to match up with King Felix.  I expect much beer to be drank at Petco today regardless of the on-field results.  By me.  In little under 2 hours from now.

Here is a celebratory, commemorative Vedder Cup 2013 MS Paint work of art to celebrate this great day.

Vedder Cup 2013

In the midst of Vedder Cup mania, and with Fox Sports San Diego mentioning it approximately 47,000 times tonight, thought it was time for Padres Jagoff to both throw their hat into the ring for Vedder Cup related art and pay homage to the classic Go Mets Die Braves blog.

Hey, Remember Jim Edmonds on the Padres?

Hey remember the old days when our awesome general manager at the time traded promising 3B prospect David Freese for less than 2 months of sub-mediocre performance by Jim Edmonds?  Then we cut Edmonds, he signed back with the Cardinals, and played about a billion times better than he did here.  Freese played some solid 3B with a lot of clutch hitting into the playoffs.  Meanwhile, the Padres were stuck with no power, mediocre fielding Chase Headley who would go on to hit 4 home runs.  I still remember all the complaining and blame gaming about how we could let a bonafide 3B go for basically nothing while we were stuck with a former prospect that will never pan out.  REMEMBER THOSE DAYS?!?!?!

A gold glove and near MVP campaign later, it's pretty clear that Headley is the better player.  He's showing major leadership on the team and backing it up with skills on the field and at the plate.  Freese?  Still a solid player.  But not an MVP caliber player like Headley.  To further analyze this point, I drew up the following hard hitting MATHEMATICAL analysis:

With mathematical analysis like that, it's pretty much an indisputable fact.  Like there are postulates that can be used in a proof that PROVE this analysis.  I'm glad we have Chase Headley on this team.  Also, Jim Edmonds was the worst.  Jim Edmonds made Adam Hyzdu look like a productive outfielder in comparison.

Gio Gonzalez? More like Gio Dongzalez! Amirite?!?!

After a thorough crushing last night, at least we can take solace in the fact that the stadium was really into the game which made it a little more fun.  Very different atmosphere than the Marlins games I went to last week.  Moreso, tonight is retro night.  Which means the team will be wearing brown.  Which is what they should be wearing every night.  It makes me physically ill to know the Padres are wearing the same colors as the Doyers on a nightly basis.  San Diego is all about the brown uniforms.  You think San Diego?  You think brown.  Just look at our hills right now.  Brown plants everywhere.  What do we love in our burritos?  Brown refried beans; black beans are for socialists.  And what do we want our baseball team to wear?  Brown. 

The team needs to look at designing a contemporary brown uniform.  As much as I'd love to see them go back to the 1984 or 1988 browns, I'd love it more if they came up with a new design with brown and yellow as the core colors.  Tom Garfinkel can still peddle the retro gear in the team shops and the team can still make all that sweet, sweet throwback revenue.  This, after all, is the reason the Chargers won't go back to the powder blues - they make too much money being able to sell powder blue throwbacks AND the current unis.  So, fine.  Let's see some new designs, lettering, etc. with brown.  Without making any judgement calls on this year's team's skill level and likely finish, we've gone through a lot of losing years around these parts.  If we're not going to be winning World Series titles, at least give us an attractive looking uniform to root for on the field and to sport in the stands and around town off the field. 

While we're at it, let's tee off on Gio Gonzalez.  He is a huge fan favorite in DC where he is known as a great Tweeter that sometimes gets desperate enough to try and land dates from his followers.  For the love of God, let's see Kyle Blanks in the lineup and see some awesome play from our retro clad team.

Nightmare Before Strasmas

Living in DC for a long time, I had first hand observation of the Strasburg hype once he hit the majors.  Strasmas as it was known.  One Tommy John surgery later, Strasburg isn't throwing in 3 digits anymore and he looks a lot more mortal this year.  Perfect for the POWERFUL Padres offense to pummel him tonight, which Padres Jagoff will be attending to witness the carnage in person.

It should be discussed how awesome the Padres offense is looking right now.  All of the bit pieces are contributing, and even without Carlos Quentin really providing much of anything, they are producing runs. At what point will Bud realize that Kyle Blanks will hit and field better than Quentin?  I understand we need an enforcer for brawls, but can't Carlos handle this duty from the dugout?  FREE KYLE BLANKS!

Padres to Continue Beat Down of America's Worst City

Baltimore is a terrible city.  Like really terrible.  It's not just the slums that The Wire show.  It's not the fact that if you walk 3 blocks off of the Inner Harbor you are liable to be knifed.  It's the terrible native Baltimoreans that truly believe their city is a great city - the greatest city.  Their slogan is "the city that reads".  BIG DEAL BALTIMORE!  We are America's Finest City.  With or without stupid reading.  People in Baltimore talk your ear off about how great Natty Boh beer and Utz chips are.  NEITHER ARE MADE IN BALTIMORE.  They aren't even made in Maryland.  Natty Boh is brewed in North Carolina and trucked into Baltimore so their 12 IQ residents can enjoy that swill.  Just a terrible place. 

Anyways, the Padres are set to thoroughly crush the stupid Orioles in their stupid stadium.  And it's a morning game!  The best kind because that means I can ignore my job and listen to the game. 

The Padres Jagoff Take on the Change the Padres Movement

When I first heard about the Change the Padres movement on the Darren Smith Show months ago, I was totally pumped.  Pumped that someone, in this case David Marver, was finally trying to raise expectations of the fan base of the Padres ownership.  That someone cared enough to painstakingly listen to hours and hours of old interviews to compile a pretty compelling documentary.  Pumped by the fact that the national media was picking up the story of the long suffering Padres fans.  Backed by facts, I thought Marver made some great points - mainly that the Padres ownership led by Jeff Moorad nickel and dimed their way to a huge windfall profit for themselves while Padres fans were left with a bargain basement, non-playoff team to root for.  Obviously, the formula isn't as easy as high payroll equals lots of wins.  Otherwise the sad sack Dodgers and Angels wouldn't be sitting in last place.  The awful, awful Washington Redskins would have 15 Super Bowls.  But, I also don't think anyone would argue that having better players, in general, will help a team have more wins, which is what I think Marver is trying to get at. 

At the same time, I think Change the Padres goes a little far.  First off, he complains about some of the past trades, and sure, I would have liked to have seen Adrian stay but not if the team was Adrian and nothing but league minimum players.  But no one really misses Ludwick, and I still think the Padres got the better of the Peavy trade.  Moreso, I don't think the boycott of games is the right way to do it.  We are fans of the Padres.  We like watching Padres games.  I don't know about Marver, but I enjoy going to the Padres games, and I don't intend on stopping going because I'm cross with Ron Fowler (which in general, I am).  The boycott won't change anything.  The team makes money regardless of his attendance thanks to revenue sharing, TV deals and MLB Advanced Media revenue.  There's a reason they are posting the highest operating income with mediocre attendance. 

The thing I don't get is the apparent hatred for Marver.  I check on the Tweeter and pretty much every game he is involved with a long string of back and forths with people calling him a bad fan, calling him out on hypocrisy, and nitpicking his statements.  From what I see David Marver is a good fan that just wants more from the team's management.  Tonight he was arguing about Yonder Alonso vs. Adrian Gonzalez.  I like both of them.  I think Yonder will improve and become a very decent 1B.  But I see a statement to @changethepadres that says something like "well is Adrian so much better that he'd be worth all the extra money?"  The answer is I don't care about the money.  It's not mine.  I'm not getting a taste of the Padres' profits.  I want the best players possible on the team so that they win the most games possible.  Debating whether a player fits the arbitrarily set budget isn't my concern.  Expect more from the ownership.  Obviously it's not my money, but from the fans' standpoint, we should be demanding more.  Whether that's in the form of a bigger budget by the most profitable team in baseball, or whether that's in a better gameday experience at Petco, EXPECT MORE. 

I think each of the Padres blogs has their niches.  Gaslamp Ball is relentlessly positive, which is great.  Padres Public is bringing an eclectic group of Padres fans together to provide a big variety of content, which is great.  The Friarhood is bringing in depth analysis and great in-person experiences, which is great.  And Change the Padres is bringing an activist viewpoint for fans to always expect more from the team, which is great.  After all, we are the customers.  We SHOULD be expecting more.  I had a MXN burrito for lunch and I expect more, like any customer of anything should.  And Padres Jagoff?  We are bringing the MS Paint dick jokes...

Norfmania

With Norf-mania sweeping San Diego, what better way to celebrate the Norf than by rehashing an old MS Paint bit from last season. Get it? Norf is firing off some super poops at the Marlins. Pew pew pew!