Fit pitching unit the way forward for the San Diego Padres- MLB News
The San Diego Padres arrived at the Winter Meetings in Nashville this week for what they described as filling holes. There were no plans of dramatic changes and those plans were followed well by the ball club.
The club made a tremendous turnaround in the lateral half of the 2012 season, posting a 49-37 record in the last 86 games.
Josh Byrnes, the Padres’ general manager, arrived at the Winter Meetings with clear intentions. The team was doing well and needed players are that competitive. "We're not far away from being a pretty good team," Byrnes says. "We've got the players we need
to be competitive."
The club is aware of its needs in the starting pitching department and trade is the route the team intended to use rather than the free agency to achieve that goal.
"Right now, we could use a durable starter who we can count on," Byrnes says. "We have focused most of our energy on trades rather than free agency."
Manager Bud Black, on whom the Padres recently exercised their club option for in 2013-14, seems extremely concerned with the injury trouble faced by the Padres’ pitching rotation and said that the team cannot perform well unless the problem was solved.
"I don't care what kind of talent you might have, you cannot have the devastating series of injuries that we had in the rotation this season and be successful," Black says. "Starting pitching is the heartbeat of any team. Even our minor league reinforcements
went down."
The batting unit had a decent time in the 2012 season with Chase Headley coming of an age and transforming himself into the most sought after hit in the Major League. There were teams interested but the Padres simply did not budge.
The dimensions of the Petco Park have been recently changed and the stadium may not be as pitcher friendly as it used to be. The philosophy behind the change is simple, if someone gets hold of the ball, he should get the value for the effort rather than
get out. Quite obviously that does not go to well with the crowds either as they like to see some long balls too.
Bud Black summed up the situation quite well. "I think the talent is starting to flow through the system," he said. "There's a lot of upside and potential. The talent, we're getting to the point where we feel good about."
The San Diego Padres and fans can take heart from the overall team effort after the All-Star break in 2012 and especially by the good work done by Chase Headley. They will, however, need good pitchers as the team can suffer a lot with poor pitching, even
if they have a strong batting line. One hopes that Padres will live up to the promise and perform well in 2013 season.
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