On any given day, Padres manager Andy Green can rattle off numbers his organization’s prospects are putting up with perhaps as much confidence as any big league manager in the game. Michael Gettys, Green knows, has surged to the top of the system lead in home runs with 22. Ty France, the corner infielder who spent roughly six weeks in the majors, is right behind him with 19 in essentially “half of a half-season” at Triple-A El Paso, where a convergence of factors add up to arguably the most favorable hitting environments outside of Coors Field.
That’s why the crooked numbers that go up in bunches — in favor of a hitter and at the expense of a pitcher — don’t mean nearly as much as what the coaching staff and scouts combing the Pacific Coast League say about the players they are seeing.