Xanthan did a write-up on Rowand and compared him to Kouzmanoff. It is pretty ugly. Two Rowands? No thanks.
http://www.baycityball.com/2009/10/14/curse-you-slider/

I   Split   G  GS  PA  AB   R   H 2B 3B HR RBI BB  SO   BA  OBP  SLG  OPS

     Home 226 210 876 805  78 190 37  5 25 106 42 188 .236 .287 .388 .674

     Away 230 221 960 888 104 252 57  2 37 151 45 163 .284 .328 .477 .805

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 11/7/2009.

I’ll admit, that’s more severe than I thought it would be. I wouldn’t trade much for him, but I’d take a flier on a cheap Uribe-sized deal.

Plus defense at third + legit home run power is nice… it’s just the poor plate discipline that really concerns me.

Wait… that does sound like Pedro Feliz

By park-adjusted wOBA, he doesn’t look as bad either.

I am not sure why the Pad’s would no tender him. The team is only obligated to pay $12.25MM next year with no one in arbitration. But if they didn’t tender him the next questions is how much for how long? I doubt he would be cheap. The talent pool for available 3rd basemen is really slim and a lot of teams Twins, Tigers, Phillies and possibly the Red Sox would like to upgrade there. And those are just the teams that played meaningful games in October.

His ISO is .189, which is not bad considering his home park. His OPS+ for his career (101) calls him a league-average hitter, though, and he is never going to be good at getting on-base. His UZR (7.9 last year) is much better than I expected, though. He is already in his prime, though, and is unlikely to get much better. He’d be okay if we got a more complete power bat (you know, one that gets on base), but I’d be really opposed to trying to build the offense around him.

I do think this is something worth exploring, though, and definitely a good job of thinking outside the box.

I still can’t stop thinking about Jeff Baker.

You know, my knee jerk reaction to this was “why do we need another hacker?!?!!?”

Upon further review, this could make sense based on the cost. Fangraphs actually really likes him, calling his defense above-average, and valuing him at $10-12 mil per year each of the last three years. Getting him out of Petco might give him a boost.

It all depends on the cost. If we could get him for, say, Fred Lewis and a reliever, I’d jump at that. Lewis could be attractive to them, due to his lack of arb status. I’d be open to giving them more, as well. The Padres could move Headley back to 3B.

I don’t think I’d be ready to embrace him and go along with all the KOOOOOOUUUUUUUZ chants.

Pass.

this poll needs a David Wright option

Why do I remember him playing the OF along with 3rd?

While I would take a flier on him I guess if he could play LF but im in the same boat as rxmeister. I’d rather get a legit upgrade at 1B like Nick Johnson and keep Pablo at 3rd.

I swear we are going to get to a point that pitchers are only going to need sliders against us. I really will break my TV if I have to live through IM POOPIN’s plate discipline twice.

He’s basically been a dead-average hitter if you look at his park-adjusted numbers on BP. I wonder whether the scout-y types think he has offensive upside beyond that.

They ran a special on Bud Light drafts tied to Kevin Kouzmanoff’s batting average all summer.

Can’t beat cheap beer at $2.30 a pint as it was for most of the year.

So as a SD resident and happy hour aficionado, I hope he returns to the Padres. As a Giants fan, meh.

Kouz could help the Giants with Gold Glove Defense and good power but he’s not worth a good prospect.

Also worth noting: at AT&T Park the last three years, he’s .266/.304/.376 in 109 ABs. That’s not a ridiculously small sample size.

I’m sorry, I can’t see Nick Johnson as a ‘real’ upgrade. No one has convinced me that he’ll be anything other than a year-after-year injury risk who hasn’t had double-digit home runs since 2006.

When Nick Johnson is on the field, he’s an upgrade…but he’s not on the field often enough.

I’d investigate the option if he’d non-tendered, but I doubt I’d trade for Kouz. It’s worth looking.

Pass… I’m sorry, but I fail to see how we wouldn’t be better off finding a league average 1B somewhere and keeping Panda at 3rd.

Smoke is right. This is just a bad idea. Kouz is — at best — an average hitter and an average overall ballplayer. Watch him play (I have) and look at the stats (see above). We have plenty of those types already. Leave Pablo at third (a very hard position to fill with quality). Let’s stop trying to upgrade our team with other teams’ garage sales castoffs. We need a legitimate #4 and #5 hitter, not another #7. What we SHOULD have done was worked to get JJ Hardy but Sabean was asleep, again.

Look there stats are similar they both hit hrs, are good fielders ,and hit for low average
He just happens to strike out more

he’s also the same guy who struck out on a jonathan sanchez pitch that hit his ankle, a la nate schierholtz

getting him for very little.

Don’t know if that can happen, but if it can… What are you waiting for Sabes!?

The Padres aren’t going to non-tender him and presumably wouldn’t give him away for free. And I’d have a hard time justifying giving anything of value for the pleasure of making our offense noticeably worse.

Kouzmanoff is a useful player but he’s a much worse hitter than Garko (career wOBA of .321 compared to .347) and similar to Ishikawa (career wOBA of .320). Obviously he’s had to hit in a tough park but he’s still a pretty poor hitter and we’d be much better off looking to acquire a 1B.