Bochy Extension Botched?

I wasn’t going to talk about it. I didn’t want to. I didn’t feel it was worth wasting bandwidth for…

But then the story didn’t go away…

Tuesday (the 29th) I was driving home from work and I heard one of the Mighty 1090 radio hosts hyperventilating about how ‘John Moores is evil’ because he put Bruce Bochy’s contract extension on hold.

I think Moores is being prudent. You should NEVER be eager to sign a player (or coach/manager) to an extension unless that person has proven to be a winning difference-maker (Phil Jackson, Joe Torres, guys like that).

In baseball the team’s General Manger is much more important than the team’s Manager. For the most part I like Towers (and Bochy for that matter), but if you’ve been reading my ‘blog since its inception, I can be critical of Towers. I think there are better GMs (quite a few in fact). I was a bit put off by the length of Towers’ extension back in 2002 (through the 2007 season).

All in all, I think the kerfuffle is a bit over-rated. If Bochy has a good season the Padres will reward him. If he doesn’t they’ll consider looking elsewhere.

One thing to remember, it’s cliché, but it’s true: the only constant in life, is change. After a 2003 trip to the ALCS Boston players were trying to save Grady Little’s job as manager. After last year’s Curse-ending World Series win the question is, “Grady who?”

Let’s not get so wrapped around ‘keeping’ Bochy until we do see what the team does this year.

In other news the Padres beat San Diego State tonight 6-0 – as they should.