2008 San Diego Padres

February 25, 2008

The Padres were so close to the playoffs last year, as they lost a one game playoff to the Rockies who went on to make it all the way to the World Series. The team looked as though they had the Rockies beat but they were unable to finish them off late in the game as the Rockies came back to win 9-8. Manager Bud Black who will have to get his team over the way the season ended in 2007 leads the team. The team lost OF Milton Bradley, but added veteran Jim Edmonds to the mix along with pitchers Randy Wolf and Mark Prior. The team will have to out due last year as the other top teams in the West have all upgraded making the already competitive division even more of a challenge in 2008.

Pitching:

The team has a very solid group of pitchers led by ace and Cy Young winner Jake Peavy who was 19-6 with a 2.54 ERA. Next in line is Chris Young who didn’t have the best numbers last year, but was hurt by a lack of run support. The ageless Greg Maddux didn’t win his usual 15 games, but was only one shy with 14 wins. The team is hoping that the bottom 2 spots can be filled by once promising starters Wolf and Prior. Prior isn’t expected to be able to pitch till the middle of the season so until then Justin Germano will fill in the 5th spot. If the Padres can get them pitching anything like they once did they will have hands down the best rotation in baseball. The bullpen is led by closer Trevor Hoffman who has over 500 career saves with 42 of them coming last season. Hoffman has some good backup in setup men Heath Bell and Cla Meredith.

Offense:

The team is hoping a change of scenery will bring life back to CF Edmonds bat. Edmonds will join the big bats of 1B Adrian Gonzalez and SS Khalil Greene. Gonzalez led the team with 30 HRs last season while hitting .282. Greene didn’t have the best average at .254 but was able to go deep for 27 HRs. Last year Kevin Kouzmanoff had a very solid rookie season hitting .275 with 18 HRs. Kouzmanoff will likely improve on those numbers as he continued to get better as the season went along. The team is hoping that leadoff man Brian Giles will be better in 2008 as he had offseason surgery on his knee that bothered him most of 2007.

Defense:

The team was pretty solid on the defense as they won most of their games with pitching and defense. If Edmonds is healthy he will bring gold glove ability to centerfield. When pitcher Greg Maddux is on the mound the defense gets even better as Maddux is a long time Gold Glove winner at his position. The one category that must improve in 2008 is the ability to not let teams run all over them. They gave up a staggering 189 stolen bases while only throwing out 20. They were so poor at throwing out base runners that they next closest team gave up over 50 less and the league leading Cardinals gave up over 130 less extra bases.

Prediction:

While we are predicting them to finish 4th in their division they are much better than a 4th place team. They are just in a division with a lot of really good teams. While the pitching should be excellent the offense will struggle to produce them enough runs to win games. Until they quit letting teams steal at will on them, they will be looking up in the division.

2008 San Diego Padres Odds to Win World Series 25-1

For every team’s odds head over to Sportsbook.com and check them out. You can also go to Sportsbook.com to look at the odds for teams to win their division or league pennant. Feel free to leave any comments in the comment section.

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2008 San Diego Padres

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