You gotta feel for the guy.

Today, it was announced that the San Diego Padres released center fielder Jim Edmonds. The team had stumbled out of the gate in 2008 to a thus-far-disappointing 12-23 record and felt that they needed to make a change.

Prior to the season, we had speculated that Edmonds would be a “boom-or-bust” addition to the Pads, and clearly, the organization already labeled him the latter. Edmonds was batting an abysmal .178/.265/.233 line prior to today. Admittedly, I am yet to see a San Diego game this year, but the article (linked above) mentions how it wasn’t just poor offense that did him in:

While Edmonds once made spectacular catches while with the Cardinals and Angels, he clearly lost a step or two and simply couldn’t catch up to fly balls.

Again, not having seen Edmonds play, it’s difficult for me to comment much on this, except to say that I’m sure his decline on defense is made far more visible by the very spacious outfield at Petco Park.

For those of you now wondering if your team should sign Jim, there are things to note:

PRO: Edmonds has a .227 BABiP this year, which is well below his career norm (more in the .300 area). So there’s room for improvement.
CON: His BABiP has been decreasing annually since 2004, so it might not be much of a fluke.
PRO: His line-drive rate is as good, if not better than, his prime, so when he makes contact, it’s been solid a good portion of the time.
CON: He’s also making contact on fewer occasions. His strikeout rate is at 23.3%, which is higher than his career norm. And he always was very strike-out prone to begin with. Combine this with a BABiP trending down, and it’s a big warning sign.
PRO: But he’s back to seeing 4.2 pitchers per plate appearance! The old, more patient Jim is back!
CON: Despite this, he’s still not walking as often as he used to. Besides, when you’re batting .178, it doesn’t matter much anyway. You’re still an offensive liability.
PRO: But the glove! THE GLOVE! In a smaller outfield, he can still be a good defensive player, right?
CON: Probably not. At least not in center field. Even last year, playing in Busch Stadium which has much less space in center towards the corners, it was becoming clear that those Gold Gloves were a thing of the past.

So is this it for Jim? Knowing what I mentioned above, would you still take a chance on him?

Oh my God. It’s Friday! Finally! To give you a sense of where things stand at UmpBump HQ, en route to the office this morning I took a sharp left turn with my cup o’ Joe not properly secured in the cup holder (evidently). Now I have no coffee to drink, and altogether too much coffee soaked into my pants. Never have I needed some TGIF action so badly, and I trust you, loyal readers, feel the same. And here at UmpBump, “action” = “links.”

Rumors and Rants presents the ten worst contracts in baseball today. Guess who Number 1 is?

We didn’t talk about the John Bale story (pitcher on DL frustrated with how rehab is going, punches door with pitching hand, breaks hand) here on UmpBump because we were satisfied with the level of snark at Can’t Stop the Bleeding. Obviously, he didn’t have the Crash Davis tutorial on not hitting doors with your pitching hand. (I can’t keep giving you these free lessons!)

Rob Parker of the Detroit News says “like him or not, the Tigers need Bonds.” I disagree, given that the Tigers are actually third in the AL in runs scored and in the top five in every important offensive category. The problem for Detroit is that they’ve allowed the most runs of any AL Team—yes, even more than the Rangers. I fail to see how signing Barry Bonds is going to change that. But I guess we have to have thirty different versions of the article, “Team X needs to sign Barry Bonds,” no matter how silly some of those are.

Speaking of Bonds, he helped start this recent trend of using maple bats, which can be dangerous when they shatter (see photo). I’m an ash bat purist, so I was glad to see Jeff Passan’s article calling for the end of maple bats at Yahoo! Sports. (Hat tip to ShysterBall.)

Brawl! Since bench-clearing brawls are officially one of the reasons baseball is awesome, Babes Love Baseball has the video (in slo mo!) of Richie Sexson going after Kason Gabbard for throwing a high pitch. When I saw Sexson fling the helmet at Gabbard, and Gabbard promptly curl up in the fetal position on the pitcher’s mound, I knew I was watching an instant classic. The rest of the brawl is just gravy.

Ladies… has the goods on Carlos Gomez in the wake of his hitting-for-the-cycle performance. How you doin’?

Bill Plaschke tries to clarify whether Vin Scully is retiring or not. I came away with a new determination to watch all the Dodgers games this year on MLB.TV, just in case.

And Pinstripe Alley and River Ave Blues would both like to know why all the fuss about Joba’s fist pump. Seriously, a fist-pump controversy? That seems a bit much, even to this Boston fan. Try getting yourselves a shortstop on pace for 45 errors on the season, then tell me about controversy. I would love to hear the ululating in New York if Julio Lugo played for the Yankees. (Mostly because that would mean Julio Lugo was playing for the Yankees.)

And to wrap it up, Soxaholix presents: Youkalicious!

Know something I should be reading? Let me know!