September 29, 2008
Back in Black
Bud Black remains the manager of the Padres:
The Padres announced late Monday afternoon that Black and most of his staff will return in 2008. The Padres finished 63-99, 21 games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers.
The Padres say they won't renew the contract of bench coach Craig Colbert. Last week, hitting coach Wally Joyner resigned with six games left due to philosophical differences with the front office, which favors statistical analysis.
I believe they mean 2009 in the quote above. Black has one year left on his contract. The failure of the Padres this year was more about the front office failing to put a decent team on the field. Black, however, didn't manage to extract anything extra out of them. And while 2007 was a good year in terms of wins, San Diego did collapse at the end, allowing the Rockies to win the wild card. Next season could be Bud's last if there isn't an improvement.
Posted by David Pinto at
11:28 PM
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There was the whole matter of losing Milton Bradley to injury down the stretch in 2007, who was easily their best player. Oh, and the umps giving Matt Holliday the benefit of the doubt, too :-)
The failure of the Padres this year was also about guys like Josh Bard, Khalil Greene, Jake Peavy, and Chris Young missing large chunks of the season due to injury and, in the case of all but Peavy, severely underperforming when healthy. The fact that Jim Edmonds decided to stop sucking only *after* he'd left San Diego didn't help either, although at least that allowed Jody Gerut and Will Venable to emerge.
As for Black's future, given that the Padres won 26 fewer games this year than last, next season *should* be his last if there isn't an improvement.
