Hey Padres Fans ! How are you all feeling about the upcoming 2013 Season? At the start of Spring Training, things were looking bright for the Padres. The off season promotional slogan was all based on the strong finish of the 2012 Padres season. So much for that, since then the Padres have suffered some major setbacks during the last portion of Spring Training. I am not known to be a pessimistic person, I am a realist though not many care to know the truth. With that being said, here are my thoughts for the upcoming 2013 National League West Predictions.
- San Francisco Giants (95-67)
- Arizona Diamondbacks (89-73)
- Los Angeles Dodgers (88-74)
- Colorado Rockies (80-82)
- San Diego Padres (70-92)
In this division, it’s all about pitching and that will dictate where each team will finish in the standings. It is well know the Giants have one of the best pitching staffs in the Major Leagues. Plus, the two-time World Series Champions out of the last three years, Giants Manager Bochy certainly has the horses to pull them through. The Diamondbacks have also bolstered their pitching and with the Gunslinger D’backs General Manager Kevin Towers, you always know pitching will be their strength. In Lala town, this is the year when Dodgers Manager Don Mattingly must prove that he can take the ballclub to the next level. Otherwise, Dodgers’ Ownership will be bringing in their guy to run the club on the field. Unfortunately, I have a strong intuition that by July Mattingly may be joining many Californians for unemployment. In the high plains, many Rockies fans will be thankful that Coors Brewery in Golden, Colorado is within driving distance to the ballpark. It’s going to be a long painful season and their goal is to finish ahead of the Padres for the cellar. Down in what people term “America’s Finest City”, San Diego Padres will continue to become the major league’s farm system. The lack of personnel movement during the off-season will definitely come back to haunt them if it hasn’t already. The question in San Diego will be, how many games with attendance below 18,000 will occur.
Off-season training programs
It’s really ironic the Padres organization has faced 6 major surgeries within the past 10 months. In this day in age, too much attention has been place on the athletes being in top condition prior to reporting to spring training. The injuries on the team certainly is barking very loud against that philosophy. It’s time to go back to the basics and stop over-analyzing ways to beat mother nature. It’s time to re-adjust and focus on off-season non-athletic activities then report to spring training to get into top shape. It had always worked before in the past with less major injuries. Successful organizations always make bold changes and re-adjusts their internal business processes.
Does Spring Training Performances Truly Count ?
Year in and Year out, during Spring training camps around in Arizona and Florida we hear so and so must have a great camp in order to make the team. This is especially true when it comes down to a certain faction of players, most notably the pitchers. So, I will ask this question and challenge those so called baseball operations staffs members. If a player who has a history of getting injured during spring training or another player can not even play more than 10% spring training games. Are you telling me, that performance is not a critical data point of assessment ? But, if another player performance far succeeds those of his peers, those statistics do not count as well ? In our industry, non-baseball mind you, we follow trends and if so and so has a history of getting hurt, we tend to move on and re-adjust our staff to the related trends to come out well financially. I will assure you, we will never hedge our faith on that same person again, our motto is “Time is Money, Don’t Waste My Time. You’ll Waste My Money”
Padres Quote of the Week
You have to laugh at this “Quote of the Week”, it kind of reminds me of Fed’s Chairman of the Board Ben “Helicopter” Bernanke when faced about the Economy that we are prospering and the ship is operating at optimum speed. When in fact, we know the ship is being guided by large ice sheets waiting to plunge into the sideboard and…….You get the point now. Well back to baseball, listen to this quote by Padres Manager Bud Black on why Kyle Blanks was sent down to the minors despite keeping two players on the Opening Day roster that have combined to participate in less than 10% of all the Spring Training games. Isn’t this a performance based Industry ? COUGHS COUGHS Blanks had one of the best performances of the spring, hitting .354 in 65 at-bats. He had three home runs and 14 RBIs.
“In Kyle’s situation, he’s got to establish himself again as a durable player, and he’s got to play,” said Padres manager Bud Black.
“His seasons have been interrupted due to injury. But he’s very capable of being a good Major League player.”
Okay Buddy ! I agree Kyle needs to establish himself as a durable player. Let me pose you a question how about Logan Forsythe and Carlos Quentin ? Are they the most durable players ? Hmmm, two players who have participate in less than 10% of the past TWO years of Spring Training games. Ummm, okay Buddy !
Okay, I have said enough and here’s a wicked blues video featuring Albert Castiglia song titled “Loan Me a Dime” Yup, the Padres are surely running this organization on a Dime. I would hate to be the general manager, as it’s hard enough to perform miracles when you are given two chopsticks and a penny.