Lost in the Bruce Bochy drama, the Padres have signed right-hander Scott Strickland to a 1-year deal worth $550k if he makes the Opening Day roster in 2007. It’s a typical low-risk signing by Kevin Towers that could help next year’s bullpen in the way that Rudy Seanez did in 2005 or, to a lesser degree, Antonio Osuna did in 2004.
Strickland has missed most of the past three seasons due to injury, but has been very effective at the big-league level when healthy, posting a 3.34 ERA over 240 innings with the Montreal Expos, New York Mets, and Houston Astros. Among his most similar pitchers as listed at Baseball Reference are some pretty intriguing names, including current big leaguers Rafael Betancourt, Justin Duchscherer, and Chad Fox, as well as ex-Padre Luis DeLeon.
It’s important to set the level of expectation with a guy like Strickland: Quite possibly he won’t help the Padres at all. But there’s some upside here and the cost is minimal. In other words, it’s a typical Towers bullpen signing — there’s not much to lose and potentially much to gain.
Speaking of Drama, Do the Padres Have a New Manager Yet?
No, but according to the San Diego Union-Tribune, they have some leads. Cardinals’ third base Jose Oquendo is scheduled for an interview on Tuesday, with Angels’ pitching coach Bud Black following on Wednesday, and Nippon Ham Fighters’ manager Trey Hillman on Thursday.
Former big-league infielders Ron Wotus and now Tim Wallach also are mentioned as potential candidates for the vacancy in San Diego. Brian Hiro at the North County Times informs us that Wotus is set to interview on Friday, with Wallach scheduled for Saturday. The Padres expect to have a decision made by the time GM meetings begin November 13.
Also at the NC Times, Shaun O’Neill notes that Towers and the Padres are looking for “somebody who’s open-minded to new ways of doing things.” Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa has some nice words for Oquendo:
I’m not just talking about smart, but instinctively, he’s got great insights. I think he communicates real well. He loves to work. He’s a great teacher. … The guy is a great third-base coach, and you’ve got to manage when you coach so that you have a feel for the game.
O’Neill’s article also addresses the Padres’ interest in statistical analysis, noting Sandy Alderson’s role as mentor to Moneyball subject Billy Beane. According to Towers, former Dodgers GM and current Padres staffer Paul DePodesta will be involved in the decision making process. What do Towers and the Padres mean by “open-minded”? Quoth Alderson:
I’m not looking to hire Bill James or anything like that. But somebody has got to be open to new ideas — and that does not mean my ideas. It may be anybody’s ideas. That’s part of a collaborative process.
For all the heat Alderson is taking in some circles, this sounds like a remarkably rational plan. So it is that we continue to find ourselves in one of the most fascinating (and optimistic — when else would there have been grumbling about an 88-win season?) periods in franchise history.
I can’t wait to see what happens next…
23 Comments
This morning SignOnSanDiegohad an interesting article up that talked a lot about the same stuff Geoff quoted, but there are some interesting tidbits in there as well…
http://www.signonsandiego.com/sports/padres/20061031-9999-1s31padres.html
Towers said he will tell the next manager that all of Bochy’s former coaches are worthy, but said the incoming manager will have leeway to hire one or two coaches.
I said here last week that we were keeping Balsely. It looks like that might not be a done deal.
(that 2nd paragraph is a quote)
So Piazza and Klesko are free agents and Branyan and Cameron were retained.
Chris Dial has an interesting article up on NL fielders over at http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org.
Where he ranks the Padres, around the diamond:
C – Piazza was the worst catcher in the NL
1B – Adrian Gonzalez was #2
2B – Barfield was a little better than average
SS – Khalil was in the upper portion
3B – no qualifiers
LF – Doc was the best in the league
CF – Cameron was in the upper portion
RF – Giles was the best in the league
also interesting from the UT article, it mentions Tim Flannery as a possible candidate for Bochy’s third base coach. If Bochy likes Flann so much that he would bring him back now that hes out of San Diego it makes me wonder if the FO and Bochy disagreed on his firing a few years back. If Flann were to take the job in SF there would be a gap in the broadcast booth. I just cant see Flann back as a third base coach, especially for the Giants, but then again i couldnt see Bochy in a Giants uni either.
Let’s get the Nippon Ham Fighters’ manager Trey Hillman.
Anybody who can manage a team with a name like Ham Fighters has got to be open to new ideas.
Plus, maybe this will help the Padres land Iwamura.
My guess would be that the new manager will bring in his own guys as bench coach and possibly base coaches. I doubt they’ll let him bring in an outsider to work with the pitchers or hitters. With Bochy and Muser gone we’ll certainly see a difference with the in-game moves. Hopefully it will be for the better.
Only in baseball is it considered unusual for upper management to expect “middle management” to listen to ideas from the rest of the management team. In the real world that’s just a given, you don’t have to go around stating it like that.
You know you’re getting old when guys you rooted for as rookies (Bud Black) are now in line for management jobs.
Hoffman is under contract so i dont think they will let the new manager bring in a new 3B coach.
You don’t remember Wells huffing towards home and coming up gimpy? Getting rid of Glen Hoffman wouldn’t surprise me at all…
IMHO, Hoffman, G stays to placate Hoffman, T. Wells gimpiness was an event outside of the control of the 3rd base coach in that situation. I guess you could say that Well’s was “gout” at the plate.
6: No kidding. There’s a lot of room for improvement in the way baseball organizations are run.
http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=phillies&id=4655715
Great story, Didi. Thanks for sharing.
Awesome, thanks Didi.
On another note, Chris Young is keeping a blog about his travels to Japan representing MLB and the Padres.
#11
Olbermann made mention of that on Countdown last night.
I always like reading about the IBA … the Internet Baseball Awards at Baseball Prospectus … http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=5670
Enjoyed reading the B-Law-Hensley discussion. I was definitely thinking of B-Law of the past year to two years. Perhaps unfair to him as the decline we saw appears to be injury related. At any rate, I like the sound of a rotation with Hensley at the back end of Peavy, Young, perhaps a nice FA pickup and Carrillo.
::orders ‘Strickland’ Padres Majestic Tshirt::
Baseball Prospectus today ranked their top 2006 NL starters, by SNLVAR (look it up) and Padres ranked number 6, 12 and 13th in the league (Young, Peavy and Hensley, respectively). Not bad for a rotation. Add Zito or, even better, Matzusaka to that, and this is a strong group, regardless of who holds down the 5th slot.
Is anyone else more then a little uneasy about handing the #5 spot to Carillo after he missed a full year due to injury?
I’d much rather them spend 1-2M on an innings eater(like Estes) to fill that spot and let Carillo get 50 IP out of the bullpen to start his career if they are determined to have him on the ML roster.
If not, let him get half a season in AAA…..which would help financially down the line as well.
Mark
#19
No way Carillo makes the rotation next year. At best he gets a few innings post-ASB. But Estes, coming off TJ, won’t be an innings eater, and he’s a free-agent besides. Rather have Astacio or even Williams as the #5/4 starter. I’d be very happy if the rotation at the beginning of 20076 was:
Peavy, Young, Matsuzaka/Zito, Hensley and Williams/Thompson/Stauffer. That’s a 90-win roatation, I think.
NO WAY w/ Matsuzka; injured last year plus threw like a 250 pitch game in HS, dude is a catastrophic injury waiting to happen. Also, Carrillo won’t make the rotation out of spring training. He may be ready around the All Star break or so, but not yet.
David (#20) minus Stauffer. I don’t care how good he looked in that one game, he was awful in the minors. I highly doubt the Padres will trust him as more than a spot-starter…
21: Really? Matsuzka threw 186 innings last year. He’s 26, 8 years removed from his high school days. By that standard just about any pitcher is a catastrophic injury waiting to happen. That’s probably true, but he’s not any more prone to catastrophe than anybody else. So then you make the judgment based on his ability, which is off the charts.
He’s universally regarded as the best available arm, better than Zito or Schmidt. Any of them would be worth pursuing, Matsuzka most of all.