For this week’s edition of Friars Row, I have decided to put the main focus on last year’s National League Manager of the Year and current Padres manager Bud Black. Not enough can be said about the hard work that Black has put into the organization since he was named manger back in 2006.

            After the 2006 season, the Padres were coming off of another disappointing first round playoff loss to the St. Louis Cardinals for the second straight season. This was a very good time to be a Padres fan however because the team had just won back to back Western Division Championships which were the teams first since going to the World Series in 1998.

            After the Padres were unable to reach an agreement with Bruce Bochy at the end of the 2006 season, Bochy was unhappy and wanted out of San Diego. So he took his managerial talents to San Francisco to manage the Giants. Since making the move up north, Bochy’s time in San Francisco has been very successful especially after last season when the Giants won the Western Division and went on to win the World Series.

            Despite Bochy’s success, Bud Black has had success in his own right which has gone unnoticed. Unfortunately the Padres do not play is a very big sports market which means that the team has below average payroll, especially last year when the Padres were second to last in payroll. Low payroll makes it extremely difficult to attract good players because the baseball players of today are going after the biggest possible contracts that they can get. Because of this the Padres tend to get stuck with the below average major league players. I am not trying to say that these players are bad because they are not, if they were bad players they would not be playing in the big leagues.          

            Every player has talent, but it is the job of the coach to find out what the best talents of each player are and try to put them in the best position possible to be successful. I think that this is what Bud Black has perfected since becoming a manager. He knows all of his players so well and he knows how to get the best out of them. Since 2007, the Padres have missed out on the going to the post season on the last day of the season on two separate occasions. It might not be this year but I think that Black is going to have this team in the playoffs in the near future.