A Deep Dive: San Diego Surf Dawgs Edition

Fire that manager, my friend.

In the following series, I will take a deep dive look into one organization at a time, looking at the strengths and weaknesses of each team. I’ll offer suggestions for what I might do in a similar situation, or simple things that could potentially help.

As always, these are my opinions only and not meant to offend in anyway. But please don’t hesitate to tell me to fuck off if something bothers you. :-)

Organization: San Diego Surf Dawgs

GM: Tim

Current Record/Standing: 51-60, 5th place in the FL

The Good:

The Surf Dawgs are loaded with talent at premium positions. DeAngelo Vickers is an average hitter and a truly elite defensive catcher, making him one of the most valuable players in the league every year. He’s hitting .326/.374/.423 this season which is a huge step up from his career .675ish OPS coming into the year.

Luis Zuniga continues to be among the best pitchers in baseball, posting a 3.12 ERA through 23 starts this year. And that is despite an extremely unlikely and unsustainable .340 batting average against on balls in play. A fourth straight season with a sub 3 ERA is certainly possible if that numbers comes back down to his career norms.

Closer Ira Zmijewski is a machine, and at 36 isn’t slowing down at all. Over his last 6 seasons with San Diego, he’s posted ERA’s of 1.35, 1.74, 1.14, 2.75, 2.63 and now 1.73 this year. He’s never going to throw a lot of innings, but he’s one of the most trusted 9th inning men in the league. He has a genuine Hall of Fame chance despite throwing only 600 innings over his 14 seasons so far.

The Minor league system is very deep, and has some high end talent that is nearing their CBL debuts. I will talk about Joe Palmiere and Lonnie Melotte below, but players like Rod Phelps, Raul Guerrero, Ken Duffner, Jeremy Adolphson and Kurt Campbell are all great prospects that look to have bright futures.

The Bad:

CF Tim Nunemacher, after posting a 3.4 WAR season last year, has been arguably the league’s worst semi-regular this season. He’s hitting .176/.252/.283 in over 200 plate appearances, and his -4.8 ZR in CF in just 37 games is atrocious. It’s a small sample size and he was a solid player last season, but Joey Trojanowski’s injury has really hurt this team because Nunemacher has been so bad. Thankfully Troj should be back in the near future.

SP Denys Antipov continues to be a disappointment relative to his talent level. After posting a 4.89 ERA last year, he’s been even worse this year, goinn 4-13 with a 5.49 ERA in 22 starts so far.

DH Nacho Diaz is hitting just .158/.195/.275, mostly as a pinch hitter, but with negative defensive value, a sub .500 OPS is not what anyone had in mind.

The Maddening:

Manager Jorge Vega-Rosado has an excellent reputation around the league, helping lead both Manchester and San Diego to the playoffs over the past 6 seasons. However, his quick hooks on starting pitchers is maddening. Especially since the Surf Dawgs top starting pitchers are so damn good. He continues to pull Zuniga after just 80-85 pitches every single start. Cesar Santana and Pete Leconte, both having great years as well, are pulled before they get to the 90 pitch mark almost nightly.

This wouldn’t be a big deal if it happened once a month or so, but let’s take a deeper look at the damage it’s doing with Zuniga over a full season:

Zuniga has made 23 starts, but only throw 127 innings. That’s about 5.5 innings per start, despite Zuniga having 19 of those 23 starts where he allowed 3 runs or less. If we assume 16 pitches per inning for Zuniga, which is probably a bit conservative, that means the manager is pulling Zuniga about 4 batters too early. With him making about 30 starts a season, Zuniga is throwing about 37 innings less than he should be on a normal workload. That might sound inconsequential at first, but 37 innings at Zuniga’s current pace is 7 starts. He’s losing 7 starts a season for no reason other than the manager’s foolish quick hooks.

Extropalate that out to five starting pitchers, and suddenly you realize the bullpen is being forced to throw well over 100 more innings than it should be. With Ira Zmijewski throwing one inning at most per outing, that leaves a lot of innings to be mopped up by tired bullpen arms.

Even with San Diego’s bullpen performing well, they’d likely be doing even better without being overworked. It would also allow the Surf Dawgs to go with a 12-man pitching staff instead of their current 13-man set up, which would give the bench another platoon option.

With Zuniga’s injury history rated as ‘fragile’ it’s important he isn’t throwing more than 100ish pitches per start, but being capped at 75-80 seems more harmful than beneficial.

Suggested Tweaks:

1. Fire the manager.

   1. Obviously, my first move would be to fire the manager ASAP. Managers are only employed to be fired anyway. It should be easy enough to find a manager that let’s you change the hook setting or has a much more favorable, un-changeable setting. Relationships with players can be a bit more of a challenge, but there’s usually a few available managers that will fit well with your current players.

2. Waive/DFA MR Jose Corona, if he won’t just go to AAA outright.

   1. He’s got OK ratings and a great leadership personality, but he has a 5.49 ERA in over 80 innings and there’s a ton of relievers available in AAA and even free agency that would be an upgrade. With a new manager, a 13th pitcher wouldn’t be necessary, so no pitching replacement would be needed anyway.

3. Demote CF Tim Nunemacher to AAA to let him reset his struggles.

   1. With Del Goldsworth and Joey Trojanowski nearing their returns, Nunemacher needs to be sent to AAA at some point. Personally, I would demote Nunemacher now and just go with Flenniken or Juan Perez in CF until Trojanowski’s injury rehab is over. I’d also make sure Troj only spends 6-8 days in AAA on his rehab stint before being called back up, no need for a full 20 days with his injury rating being durable.

4. Promote RF/IF Joe Palmiere from AAA.

   1. He’s got great ratings. Promoting him now or on opening day next year makes no difference for his service time, so there’s no need to delay that. He’s hitting .373/.421/.583 in 428 plate appearances. He could learn CF as well, but that’s probably best done in spring training since it will take too long now.

   2. Start him immediately at 2B, moving Chris Mattera to a bench spot. Palmiere’s best position right now is 2B, and Mattera’s .654 OPS should be an easy upgrade with Palmiere.

5. Promote 1B Lonnie Melotte from AA to the big leagues.

   1. Hector Castro and Sam Deyton have been solid at 1B, playing good defense and hitting well. But the Dawgs badly need an upgrade at DH, where Nacho Diaz and Randy Robbins are currently platooning and offering almost no power. Johnny Mayton is about to start a rehab assigment as well, but he’s also really struggled hitting just .189/.264/.335.

   2. Melotte just got promoted from A+ to AA, but there’s no doubt his ratings are CBL ready right now. He would likely contend for the league’s highest on base percentage almost immediately. He hit .382 in High A and is hitting .500 through his first 3 AA games. He’s better than almost every hitter on the Dawgs roster right now.

   3. If Melotte hits well, Mayton can simply replace Nacho Diaz on the active roster.

These slight tweaks wouldn’t guarantee anything, but they would only help the team in the future and would, in my opinion, give them a better chance to catch the surging Erie Fighting Troj’s for the final wild card spot.