Padres News: Darren Balsley to Remain as Pitching Coach

The pitchers of the San Diego Padres can at least breathe a sigh of relief: Darren Balsley is coming back. With the Padres coaches contracts expiring last Saturday and rumors that Balsley might follow long-time colleague Bud Black to Washington DC, Balsley instead chose to stay with the Padres and start his fourteenth season with the team for 2016 as reported by Dennis Lin. He will begin working with his fourth manager and third within 7 months in newly hired manager Andy Green.

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Green of course is the second youngest manager in the major leagues and will certainly appreciate the helping hand that Balsley will provide, who has overseen the development of Padres aces like Jake Peavy, Mat Latos and revived a few other careers along the way in the likes of Ian Kennedy, Jason Marquis, and Aaron Harang.

It was an early goal of Green to retain many of the previous Padres coaches, though I  still wouldn’t be surprised to see hitting coach Mark Kotsay and bench coach Dave Roberts leave for other opportunities. As he said at his opening press conference:

"“We’re going to do everything we can possibly think of to be the best we can be, and if that doesn’t resonate, I don’t think this is the best place for some of them, but what I hear about most of them is they want to be a part of that, and I want to talk to them before I talk about them individually. Overall, collectively, I’ve heard so many tremendous things about them.”"

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As a first year major league manager what Green doesn’t want is anyone trying to challenge his authority. Whether the fact that Roberts interviewed for the open Seattle Mariners job and Kotsay for the Padres position will hurt them as they attempt to integrate with Green’s style remains to be seen. Glenn Hoffman‘s third base coaching job and first-base coach Jose Valentin‘s jobs seem safe, as well as bullpen coach Willie Blair.

It is a new era (again) for the Padres. Certainly Bruce Bochy and Bud Black have set a nice tradition of long tenure – here’s hoping that Green can bring a winning tradition which will help him stay with the Padres for a long time as well.