What fascinates me is how quickly it all happened. The Padres lost their 99th game of the season on September 28, and a little more than four months later, everything had changed.
Sure, Petco Park is still here, as are Kevin Towers and Bud Black. Adrian Gonzalez hasn’t left, nor has Jake Peavy (though not for lack of effort).
Here is a brief recap of key figures that have left since the end of the ’08 season:
| Date | Name | Role | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 3 | Matt Vasgersian | TV voice of Padres since 2002 | Left to become first studio host at MLB Network |
| Dec 4 | Khalil Greene | Best shortstop in club history | Traded to Cardinals for minor-league reliever Mark Worrell |
| Jan 13 | Trevor Hoffman | Best reliever in club history (and one of best in baseball history); face of franchise since Tony Gwynn retired | Signed as free agent with Brewers |
| Feb 3 | John Moores | Majority owner since December 1994; target of fans who felt he owed them more than he was willing/able to give | Sold team to Jeff Moorad |
| Feb 3 | Sandy Alderson | CEO since May 2005; architect of plan that worked pretty well for three years out of four | Announced he would leave team once transition to Moorad’s group is complete |
| Feb 5 | Matt Bush | Former first pick overall who couldn’t hit, became a pitcher, blew out his arm, got into off-field trouble, and generally represented organization’s failure to implement a sound draft process | Designated for assignment to make room for Cliff Floyd |
This is called swift and decisive action. Heck, I can’t clean house that fast, and I’ve only got about 1200 square feet.
Hope the new owner takes a lesson from the new Angel owner, make going to petco fun again, family friendly, less expensive. And please, if nothing else, improve the excitement of Padres baseball with a good lead off man who can steal a base and create some offensive excitement.
You forgot about Philly Billy….The Friar Wire is no more!
Matty is the biggest loss.
I can live with all of the losses, losing Matty V does hurt. I hope the new guy mixes better with Mud’s personality than Steve Quis.
I think Alderson did some really good things here, but the man will never be appreciated by this fan base, so for my own sanity, I’m glad that I won’t have to read another gripey post about Alderson again. As long as Fuson continues to head up our amateur drafts, I will be happy.
+1 on the loss of Matt Vasgersian being the biggest loss for next season. I am a recent transplant (2004) and can attribute the beginning of my padres fandom to the fun of the ch 4 telecast.
The sad thing is that neither Matt nor Mud are as interesting apart. There was something in the chemistry that they had that made even bad games fun to watch. (e.g. the 22 inning colorado game would be impossible to watch with standard broadcasters)
Sandy Alderson leaving would seem like a hit if not for the seeming similarity of the Moorad philosophy. San Diego needs to understand how to build good teams on a small budget. SD metro is relatively small and unless we occupy more of mexico, that will never change. So we have to have an owner that will not bend to the UT commenters “Manny! Manny! Manny!” chants, and try to use the money that we have wisely. I just hope that the new ownership does a better job of selling this philosophy. (hard to do with the napoleonic complex that SD seems to have)
I think Alderson is more of a loss than Vasgersian, and I like Vasgersian.
Jeff Moorad represented Matt Bush when he was an agent.