Padres 2009: Headed For Disaster?

It is a shame that Padre fans cannot look forward to the major league baseball season.

Gone are the days where Padre fans could hope to win the division and possibly make a dent in the playoffs.

Gone are the good times. Here to stay is a return of the late '80s and early '90s Padre teams that were the laughing stock of baseball.

The team's principal owner, John Moores, has been embattled in a long and nasty divorce, which has caused him to devalue the team to ensure his wife (who owns 50 percent of his share of the team) gets less in the divorce proceedings.

Moores has accomplished this by significantly reducing the payroll of the team.

In 2008, the Padres had the 19th highest payroll in MLB at around $73 million, and this year's club will have a payroll in the $40 million range.

This has significantly hindered general manager Kevin Towers' efforts to sign mid- to lower-market veteran free agents to fill holes on the roster. Now, he searches for cannon fodder.

Overall, the roster from the offensive and defensive side of the ball is actually adequate, with a budding superstar first baseman in Adrian Gonzalez, a potential 25-home run, 100-RBI player in Kevin Kousmanoff, and a player with very good potential in Chase Headly.

This, coupled with the veteran leadership of Brian Giles, should provide a decent offensive punch for a team looking to win with great pitching, an outstanding bullpen, a solid bench, and a marginal offense.

The Padres' blueprint mentioned above has been the team model of the past six to 10 years and has netted them two division championships in the past four seasons while just missing a third consecutive division title by a few pitches in 2007.

The dismal 2008 season was looked at as an aberration due to freakish player injuries (see Chris Young, Michael Barrett) and a poor bench that was a strength in previous years, and it was believed the Padres would return to championship form in 2009.

Unfortunately, the strong pitching that has been the strength of the Padres is their weakness today, and will force Padre fans to sigh themselves into oblivion in 2009.

The vigorous attempts to trade one of baseball's most dominant pitchers, Jake Peavy, has shown the true colors of the Padres management, a group trying to offload contracts in order to fit the team within a new operating scheme.

This operating scheme is in flux, due to the ongoing sale and acquisition of the team by former Diamonbacks CEO, (and current Padres CEO) Jeff Moorad.

To be frank, the Padres pitching situation has been left in shambles.

Towers simply does not have the offseason operating capital to sign starting pitching for the back end of the rotation like he once did.

And while the No. 1 and No. 2 starters in Peavy and Young can be as dominanat as any 1-2 combo in the league, its 3-4-5 starters are a joke.

Cha-Seung Baek was claimed off waivers late last season from the Mariners and pitched just like he did for Seattle: dominant for one start and rocked in the next three.

These kinds of performances lead to his ousting in Seattle, but have landed him the No. 3 starting spot in the Padres starting rotation.

The No. 4 and No. 5 starters are a bunch of recycled waste, and it seems unlikely that the back 60 percent of the rotation will be settled at any time during the year.

The bullpen, one of the team's hallowed trademarks that would have led all playoff teams in 2007 with a 3.05 ERA, has been turned over like pineapple upside-down cake, without the pineapple.

That pinapple was Trevor Hoffmann, who was one of the top five closers in the NL last year, although his ERA was the highest of his career at 3.87.

Hoffman was not only seen as great player, but a team captain, motivator, mentor, and teacher to the team's developing pitchers.

After an ugly divorce of sorts, Hoffman decided to take his all-time major league-leading 554 saves to the Millwakee Brewers.

The closing duties have been left to Heath Bell, who has shown he can be dominant, with the sometimes-dominant Cla Merideth as the set-up man.

In regards to the rest of the bullpen, there have been some pleasant surprises in Cactus League play, but it remains to be seen who will produce during the regular season.

All in all, the Pades have big problems in their starting rotation and in this business, if you don't have a rotation that is solid all the way through, the likelihood of having a successful season is poor at best.

This, paired with losing your closer and attempting to trade your star No. 1 pitcher in Peavy, Padre fans are in for one of the longest baseball seasons of their lives.