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Hacksaw’s Great Sports Weekend Podcast
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“BASEBALL NOTEBOOK”
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Here-There-Everywhere from Spring Training with Padres.

PADRES…AJ Preller uses the word ‘opportunities’ alot.  Give him his space and see if the acquisitions he made in the Juan Soto trade step into all the open slots in the Friars rotation.  They better.  A year ago, the Padres have 9-potential starters with major league starting experience.  Injuries hit them, and they did not have enough by the time August rolled around.

EX YANKEES..There is praise heaped upon the major league stuff that pitcher Michael King brings to the rotation.  He is slated to the 3rd spot in the rotation.  After that who knows who to trust.  Jhonny Brito and Randy Vasquez were more bullpen that starters in New York and both had ERA’s north of 4.00.  After that is Adrian Morejon, who has yet to establish himself in any role, Matt Waldron-more of a 4A pitcher than an established MLB starter.  The rotation is really thin beyond that and top prospect Robbie Snelling has yet to pitch above AA.

THE NEWCOMERS..The Padres have acquired 21-new players in the off season.  The 4-pitchers in the Soto-Yankees trade led by the highly regarded Drew Thorpe-who was in Class A-last year.  The big money relievers Yuki Matsui and Woo Suk-Go come from Japan-Korea and instantly go into the bullpen.  San Diego also traded for Enyel DeLos Santos, getting him back from Cleveland, as a setup guy.  And then there is the late signing of free agent reliever Wandy Peralta.

ON THE FENCE..Of the others signed, none seems ready to be a key guy in the rotation, Logan Gillaspie was let go by Boston;   Ryan Carpenter is an unknown who was in Japan last yar; Austin Davis was in Seattle; Luis Patino, has gone from San Diego to Tampa Bay to the White Sox, then broke down.

OTHER QUESTIONS..Jurickson Profar comes back a 3rd time in San Diego, but do you really think a (.236) hitter makes the Padres a pennant contender?

Is Jackson Merrill ready to be an outfielder?

If the Padres trade soon to be free agent Ha Seong-Kim, isn’t that a blow to their credibility?

How comes the Padres did not bring back Garrett Cooper to be DH-1B considering he was productive in Miami and San Diego?

No thought of giving Jake Cronenworth a glove and tell him to move to the outfield?  He’s played well all the other positions he has been at.

PADRES TV…So you can subscribe to Padres TV for 19.99 a month…and for 99.99 for the season.  So much for MLBs streaming packages.

No mention of Mike Pomeranz returning to host Padres-pre-post.  We know Mark Sweeney and Annie Heilbrunn were removed in budget streamlining.

The loss of the 60M per year with the collapse of Bally Sports will have a catastrophic impact on the Padres payroll.

USA TODAY…Quite a critical column as spring training by the paper, saying ‘Padres are old news…The excitement has vanished…The Fans are gone’.   Shall to be interesting to see if this is the roster they open the season with against the Dodgers, and if the criticism levelled the first week of camp is right on.

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