Padres Not Contenders Yet

Since the beginning of August, the best baseball team in the NL West has not been the presumptive titlist Dodgers or the likely wildcard Rockies, but the San Diego Padres. The now sustained success of nearly two months resulted in a Union-Tribune article in which General Manager Kevin Towers says his ballclub is ready to contend in 2010.

Puh and leeze. Give me a break.

There has certainly been turnover since an extremely poor first three months of this season left the Friars buried behind everyone but Arizona. A bunch of new players have been called up and have played well in their first few months in the big leagues. If it remains intact, the infield absolutely has the defense of a contender, with strong Gold Glove candidates at all four positions.

Two questions remain to be answered before the young Padres can be anointed division contenders:

1. How will the young players perform in their sophomore seasons? For whatever reason, the jinx is real. There's tremendous pressure to "do it again," and opponents will be spending many hours examining tape to find holes in the swings of Will Venable and Kyle Blanks. They will be found. How long will it take them to adjust? The five months it took Chase Headley, which will leave them out of contention again? Or sooner, which might put the Padres over .500?

2. How will the young players perform when the games are for real? The Padres have had no pressure on them whatsoever since the All-Star Break. They could try out whichever players they wanted. The kids were in a position where failure was accepted as part of a learning process, and in such a relaxed atmosphere were able to learn and flourish. The opponents seemed to overlook them because of their poor won-loss mark. In April 2010, when every team's record is 0-0, how will they do?

Don't get me wrong, the Padres are on the right track. I like a lot of these young players and think they have the building blocks for a solid major league roster. I just think there are too many questions to label them a contender.

Towers doesn't have far to go, in my opinion. The infield is solid, most of the outfield is intriguing. They need one more dependable power bat and a front-line pitcher, either via free agency or a trade. Then I'd say you have a contender. Those are the hardest to acquire, of course, but the Padres have an excess right now at third base and in back-of-the-rotation hurlers and relievers. A package deal could bring a quality player. I don't see them going for a free agent of any stature, but it would be great if they did. Towers' hint in the newspaper article that he might stand pat in the off-season gives me pause.