Division by Division Preview: NL West

out there and start to look to the future, the window in San Diego has, in my opinion, shut.

The rotation is as good as it gets featuring two legitimate aces in Peavy and Young. In addition to these two frontline starters are returnee Greg Maddux and my annual ‘tease of the year’ Randy Wolf. In addition to these four quality starters is the hope that this year will be the year that Mark Prior is able to come back healthy and be the pitcher everyone thought he was going to be. Worst case scenario is that the Padres are again boosted by playing at PETCO and boast one of the leagues top rotations.

Despite not having a terribly deep nor overpowering bullpen, the Padres seem to get by just fine. Bell and Hoffman are as good as it gets in the 8^th/9^th innings, and the rest of the bullpen is filled with quality complimentary arms. Like the rotation, the bullpen is aided by PETCO Park only needing to be great for 40 games or so when they are winning on the road.

Offensively this can be a nice youthful core. Between Bard, Gonzalez, Kouzmanoff, Greene and potentially Headley, they have a young core that in any other ball park would be feared while playing at home. Consider that this team slugged a fearsome .378 at PETCO in 2007 (good for second last in all of baseball) and .440 on the road (6^th in the majors). Traditionally teams are supposed to hit worse on the road then at home, but when you are playing 81 games at PETCO, one can be excused for the giant discrepancy (without doing the calculations, it’s the largest in baseball!).

Breakout Candidate: Kevin Kouzmanoff – Simply put, what Kouz did in the second half of 2007 he is capable of doing for the entire season. He is a guy whom I would argue as one of the best pure hitters in all of baseball. I think his 2008 season will go a long way to backing my opinion of that.

Major Addition: Tadahito Iguchi – One of few hitters whom I think will not be incredibly hurt by hitting in PETCO given his line drive abilities. That said his biggest asset will be in the fact that he is filling one of the Padres biggest holes from a year ago.

Major Subtraction: Milton Bradley

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