FanHouse Tony Gwynn Jr.

Footprints in the Snow is FanHouse's look at the paths to be forged by MLB teams this winter as they look ahead to 2010.

About halfway through the 2009 season, the San Diego Padres looked poised to be among the worst teams in baseball. They were 38-62 and being outscored at an alarming rate. All of a sudden, though, they seemed to put some things together. In their last 62 games, they won 37 (a .597 winning percentage). There seems to be a foundation of youth in place, though they aren't yet ready to compete with the Dodgers, Giants or Rockies in the NL West.

The biggest issue is their offense. It's been well-documented it's tough to score runs in their home park because it sucks the power out of anyone. True to form, the Padres were last in the NL in slugging percentage and 13th in home runs. Still, it's not just the ballpark. Their .321 OBP was 12th in the NL, which was a major they scored fewer runs than everyone in the NL except the Pirates.

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The Padres have acquired Tony Gwynn Jr. from the Brewers in exchange for Jody Gerut, a major league source told FanHouse on Thursday.

Gwynn, 26, was hitting .309 with the Brewers Triple-A affiliate in Nashville. The son of the Hall of Famer and Padres icon, Gwynn Jr. is a .248 hitter in parts of the past three seasons in the majors with the Brewers.

Gerut, 31, has bounced around the majors, playing with the Indians, Cubs, Pirates and Padres. He is hitting .233 in 36 games with San Diego this year.

Hey, what do Prince Fielder and American macrobrews have in common? They ain't got no hops.

Hey, what do routine grounders and Alcoholics Anonymous members have in common? They tend to miss Weeks.

Hey, what do the Milwaukee Brewers and beer jokes have in common? They're relevant, but disappointing. Your Brewers Dugout is after the jump.

I'll be honest, I could write up another post about the Brewers sliding, the NL Central sucking, and how Milwaukee seems more and more likely to take the division by the two most beautiful words in the english language (DEE FAULT! DEE FAULT!), but I kind of think that's getting a little stale and frankly, I'm a little bored of writing about it. So instead, let's look at the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel article about the other son of a major leaguer on the Brewers, Tony Gwynn Jr.

Entering play Saturday night, Gwynn was batting .350 in 60 at-bats with eight runs batted in, six stolen bases and a .418 on-base percentage. He also has been productive off the bench, batting .357 (5 for 14) as a pinch-hitter with four RBI.

Gwynn has not resembled the same hitter who struggled last September when given an audition in center field. He batted only .210 that month, making club officials too nervous to commit to him for 2007. Instead, Bill Hall was moved from shortstop to center.

While his numbers have dipped a bit since last night (he's now at .333/.400/.397), it's worth talking about whether or not the Brewers need to find young Tony a spot in the lineup. The real question is, how can they do it? Hall is in his natural position of center field. Can't bench him. Hall can't move back to shortstop because JJ Hardy is tearing the cover off the ball. I suppose Hall could try third, but the Brewers just called Ryan Braun up to fill that position. Corey Hart is struggling in right field, but Gabe Gross is putting up a good line with much more power than Gwynn can supply. Given Gwynn's minor league numbers (he was a career .271/.351/.343 hitter in the minors) he's probably not more than a fourth outfielder, now or ever.

As if a 25-11 record and an 8-game division lead on Mother's Day wasn't proof enough, yesterday afternoon gave us even further proof that every single thing possible is going right for the Milwaukee Brewers. In their 12-3 romp over the Mets yesterday, the Brewers scored two runs on a sac-fly double-play pop-up to shallow right field. Confused? Let me attempt to clarify.

With the bases loaded and one out in the fourth inning, Prince Fielder hit a shallow pop-up to right field. Since the ball was caught by second baseman Ruben Gotay, who was backing up into the outfield, Craig Counsell scored from third. On Gotay's throw to the plate, JJ Hardy broke for second while Tony Gwynn Jr. broke for third. Paul LoDuca threw to second and got Hardy in a rundown, but during the rundown the Mets forgot about Gwynn, who took off for home. Hardy had enough baseball sense to stay in the rundown long enough for Gwynn to score before he was tagged out. Since Hardy wasn't a force out, the run counted. It was a great play by Hardy to stay in the rundown, knowing Gwynn was trying to score. In fact, yesterday was a great day for Hardy, who also hit a grand slam and drove in one other run with a sac fly. Ned Yost was rather pleased with his team's baseball awareness:

"Smart, aggressive baserunning is what that is," Yost said. " 'Couns' read it perfectly and took off; J.J. got in the rundown. It just worked perfect.

"It's good baserunning. What we've worked on since the beginning of spring training is trying to help ourselves offensively with our baserunning. That was a good example of it."

The Brewers will send the 5-0 Chris Capuano to the mound today to try and win the series from the Mets while the Mets will counter with Oliver Perez, whom the Brewers have a pretty decent track record against from his time with the Pirates.