Padres bring back Bud Black and Wil Myers
That's (2015 San Diego Padres) baseball.
I was having a conversation with someone recently about Craig Stammen. I think it was an extension of the conversation that I had with The Kept Faith guys last week.
I was going through my spiel about Craig Stammen being a Pandora’s box, and pointing out that there is just as much evidence that says he can be the greatest manager of all time as there it that says he can be the worst manager of all time. That might be an over-exaggeration or an oversimplification, but not by much!
And then I got onto Craig Stammen’s staff. Here it is in full (before today), thanks to AJ Cassavell:
Steven Souza Jr., now the San Diego Padres hitting coach, was briefly teammates with Craig Stammen in Washington with the Nationals in 2014. He’s never been a hitting coach before at any level.
Randy Knorr was the bullpen and bench coach during Stammen’s time with the Nationals from 2009 to 2015.
This, I argued, made me at least a little apprehensive. Any time a new boss comes in and brings all of his old colleagues/friends from the last place he was, I start getting nervous.
Today, the Padres added a couple of faces that will be more familiar around San Diego:
To tie these two stories together in hilarious fashion, Steven Souza Jr. was a part of the three-team trade in 2015 that brought Wil Myers to the San Diego Padres (in what would turn out to be Buddy Black’s final season as the team’s manager).
I’m not going to tell you that I enjoyed the 2015 Padres, I don’t think anyone really did, but it’s still fun to now feel like Stammen is mixing together guys from his time (as a player) in Washington with guys from his time (as a player) in San Diego to go with the guys from his time (as a special assistant) with the Padres before being named manager.
As for what Myers and Black will actually be doing, I have no idea. One time I talked to a former Padres coach that was still on the team’s payroll with some sort of “senior advisor” title and his response when I asked what his actual job responsibilities were was “Trying to stay busy.”
That being said, I do think that Buddy’s experience as an MLB pitching coach and manager can be useful for a team that has an inexperienced manager and a pitching coach maybe looking to get a job elsewhere after the upcoming season.
And, let’s be honest, nobody is ever mad when Wil Myers shows up to the party.
