A Look Back and a Look Forward – The Padres Starting Pitchers

December 24, 2008

A Position by Position Look at the 2008 Padres and My Thoughts about 2009.

This is the second part of a three part post.

Part Two – The Starting Pitchers

The Starting Rotation is a mess.

More than half of the players on the roster to start last year are gone.

A large portion of the players on the roster to END the season are gone.

The Starting Rotation as of today looks like:
Peavy - 2.85/1.18/.229 with 166 SO in 173.2 innings
– Had an off year in 2008 on the road and the trade rumors this off season had to have been draining, but Peavy is a true ACE and should bounce back with another sub 3 era, double digit win season in 2009

CY - 3.96/1.29/.221 with 93 SO in 102.1 innings
– Hit in face by batted ball and missed 17+ starts. Dropped his era from 4.91 to 3.96 in last 4 starts of season when he was awesome. Health is all he needs to have another double digit win season.

Baek - 4.62/1.33/.273 in 20 starts
– In his first year as a regular starter, Baek was an enigma. One game he would be brilliant, going 7 and giving up only 3 or 4 hits. The next he would give up 7 runs in 3 innings. You never seemed to know what you were going to get. If he is going to be holding down the #3-#4 slot in the rotation in 2009, let’s hope that we see more of the dominating pitcher he was in about half his 21 starts in 2008.

Reineke – 5.00/1.44/.219 in 3 appearances and 2 starts
- Reineke was on the DL with a stress fracture of his scapula to end the 2008 season and I have not heard yet if he will be available for the 2009 season. Let’s hope Reineke does not end up being a part of the rotation to start the 2009 season. To paraphrase an old saying, he is a jack of many pitches, master of none.

Geer - 2.67/1.41/.269 /LeBlanc - 8.02/2.06/.330/Inman
– Geer looked good in his 5 starts, LeBlanc looked bad 3 of his 4 starts, and Inman has never pitched above AA. At this point I would have to give the nod to Geer until his results say he not the one.

I can only hope someone is brought in as a middle of the rotation inning eater.

Would have loved to see the Padres sign Daniel Cabrera, but he signed a one year deal with the Nationals so he could stay in the DC/Maryland area.

Maybe Brad Penny can be convinced to take a one year deal with lots of incentives like the one Wolf signed last year, just to get a chance to kick the Dodgers behind a few times in 2009?

KT, if you read this:
1) Trade Kouzmanoff and a prospect for starting pitching. Someone who can fill that #3 slot behind CY and throw 200 innings. The Padres need an inning eater. The Twins seem to have the young starting pitchers the Padres need and they need a 3rd baseman.
2) Sign Kevin Corriea, Shawn Estes and Mark Prior to minor league deals just in case. The rotation needs the depth.