A Few Seasons at the Hot Corner

Though the position has been oft-maligned in the 40-plus years of the franchise - Sean Burroughs, though a monster in my view, comes to mind - the Padres have had some quality single seasons by third basemen.

Leaving out the names for now, how about these lines produced by Padres third basemen:

1.  .286/.376/.498  31 bombs  115 ribeyes

2.  .330/.385/.580  33 bombs  100 ribeyes

3.  .326/.408/.621  40 bombs  130 ribeyes

4.  .286/.310/.472  21 bombs   64 ribeyes

5.  .306/.388/.588  41 bombs  126 ribeyes

6.  .228/.329/.413  20 bombs   65 ribeyes

Granted, this is pretty much all there is worth mentioning (except maybe a Kouz season I left off), but these seasons are pretty solid.  Even the dicey seasons put up by #s 4 and 6 were at least good enough to produce a few runs virtue of the 4-bagger.

You probably know these guys, but here are the names to match:

1.  '12 Chase Headley

2.  '92 Gary Sheffield

3.  '06 Ken Caminiti

4.  '73 Dave Roberts

5.  '01 Phil Nevin

6.  '84 Graig Nettles

Nothing wrong with a trip down memory lane.  The reason I bring these numbers up is because I wonder if Chaser can improve on his monster '12 season and put up a season like Cammy or Nevin did back in the days of "enhanced" numbers.  Though I don't expect Chase to match those numbers, I'm looking forward to watching him try.

Will Venable, Cameron Maybin, Ryan Ludwick: Monsters?

Will Venable hit a 3-run bomb this afternoon in an early-Spring tuneup against the Rockies. That's a good sign because Will has a bead on starting in right field for the Padres this season, filling out an outfield that will also include Cameron Maybin and Ryan Ludwick.

Call me a wildly optimistic Padres fan, but I think this year's outfield has a chance to rival my favorite Padres outfield of the Petco Park Years: the '06 outfield of Dave Roberts, Mike Cameron, and Brian Giles.

Take a look at the numbers Roberts, Cameron, and Giles put up in '06:

Roberts: .293/.360/.393 ... 13 triples, 2 bombs, 49 bags
Cameron: .268/.355/.482 ... 22 bombs, 83 ribeyes, 25 bags
Giles: .263/.374/.397 ... 14 bombs, 83 ribeyes, 104 walks

I'll also add that all three had an OPS+ exceeding 100: 101 (Roberts), 121 (Cameron), 107 (Giles).

Meanwhile, here's how our three heroes, Venable, Maybin, and Ludwick, fared in '10:

Venable: .245/.324/.408 ... 13 bombs, 29 bags, 104 OPS+
Ludwick: .251/.325/.418 ... 17 bombs, 69 ribeyes, 104 OPS+
Maybin: .234/.302/.361 ... 8 bombs, 9 bags, 75 OPS+

Maybe I am overly optimistic. It will take quite a bit of improvement for these guys to match the '06 group. But I'm certain all three will improve over their performance in 2010.

The question is by how much.