The years of the Padres being locks to win the AAAA Lest are over. Due partly to the fact that they don’t have the talent they used to have and partly to the fact that the rest of the division is catching up.
Gone is G.M. Kevin Towers and his replacement Jed Hoyer (used to work for Theo) had a busy off-season signing a few new players, trading a few loved Padres away and hiring some front office staff.
Manager: Bud Black is an adequate manager who seems well respected in most baseball circles. He endured the drama of a team losing money because of its owners divorce, he should get a shot at managing a decent team. I thin the hardest thing to do is determine how many wins or losses a manager gets for his team. Black seems adequate.
Key Departures:
Kevin Kouzmanoff is the only real “loss” from last years roster of names nobody really recognized. A lot of Padres fans blogs seem as though they are really going to miss “Kouz” in a Padres uniform.
Key Additions:
Adding Jon Garland could be extremely helpful to this team that will be experiencing some pressure to improve on their 75 wins from a year ago. Garland is an innings eater. Petco is a stadium that is extremely pitcher friendly and Hoyer is attempting to build a team around speed and solid pitching.
Outfield
Quick, name the starting outfield for this team. Unless you live out in the West Coast you probably can’t. Tony Gwynn will “anchor” this group and Scott Hairston will probably offer some flexibility but all in all this outfield is so/so when it comes to production. Defensively they’re ok: Grades: C- for production, C for defense.
Infield
Kouz has been gone so Chase Headly will probably be the starting third baseman making the move from the outfield. Defensively the Padres are extremely strong up the middle but again the productions numbers leave one wanting. Headly drove in 64 runs last season and Eckstein drove in 51. That’s not enough to get it done. Both will have to do better this year. Grades: C- for production, B+ for offense
Catcher: Nick Hundly looks to be the guy here. I’m not sure if that is a good thing or not, his arm and injury status are questions that still loom. Grade: C
Starting Pitchers: The addition of Garland is a plus but the question is can he add wins to his inning eating? With this line up I doubt it. Every pitcher after Garland has their own questions. Will Chris Young be durable? Who will be the #4 and #5 pitchers? Can they win 10-12 games? Grade: C
Bullpen:
Obviously Heath Bell is the man here. 42 out of 48 last year, he is a stopper that ends games when he walks on the field. Getting to Bell will be the biggest issue. To say that the bullpen is a work in progress is like saying that my 4 year olds finger paintings are abstract. Grade: B-
Key to 2010: Allow fewer runs per game. They gave up almost 5 runs a game last year and they simply are not going to be able to overcome that with this lineup.
Overall Grade: C-
Come back later today for the Diamondbacks and our saying a fond farewell to Aaron Boone.
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Yeah, you know I can’t believe I left that out. Doh!
Nice read. The other major key to the Padres is what they are planning on with Adrian Gonzalez. That could be the big story of the summer for this team.