Tagged: Wil Myers
10 Things I’m Watching I’m In 2015: The San Diego Padres
Spring Training is finally here and with that, here’s the tenth and final installment of my ’10 Things I’m Watching In 2015′ series. Today’s topic: the San Diego Padres.
A.J. Preller made sure all baseball discussions revolved around the Padres in December as the new GM made a plethora of trades and stole the show at the Winter Meetings.
The Dodgers and Giants (although that whole win the World Series, then struggle the next year thing still applies) seem to be the teams to beat in the NL West, but the Padres certainly aren’t messing around.
During the heat of the Hot Stove season, Preller acquired Brandon Maurer from Seattle, Will Middlebrooks from Boston, Justin Upton from Atlanta, Wil Myers from Tampa Bay, Derek Norris from Oakland and Matt Kemp from Los Angeles.
But apparently that wasn’t enough as Preller went out and finished the off season with the acquisition of James Shields.
Shields, who went 14-8 with a 3.21 ERA last season, was one of the premier free agent pitchers on the market and will be very valuable in the Padres rotation and pitching in Petco Park will likely improve Shields’ numbers. The right-hander has thrown 200 or more innings in eight straight seasons, so he is certainly someone reliable that the Padres can count on to take the ball every fifth day.
The Padres have had a losing record in six of the past seven seasons, but if this new group of players is able to develop chemistry early, that could easily change in 2015.
San Diego has a lot of new pieces and will be a team to watch out West. While it will be fun to watch all the newcomers, it will also be intriguing to see what the team does with some of the old players.
The new outfielders are exciting, but what will San Diego do with Cameron Maybin, Will Venable and Carlos Quentin? The Padres traded Seth Smith early in the off season, but even so they have tremendous depth in the outfield. It’s hard to imagine scenarios where all six of the players receive enough playing time to stay content, so the team may need to make another move before it’s all said and done.
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