San Diego Padres Have a Very Experienced Coaching Staff

The San Diego Padres have an up-and-coming manager in Andy Green, that’s well-known by now. But the coaching staff that he’s surrounded himself with is something that could set this team apart this year.

There have been some mainstays in San Diego Padres’ manager Andy Green‘s staff over his tenure here. Guys like Mark McGwire, Darren Balsley, Glenn Hoffman, and Doug Bochtler have been here since Green was hired before the 2015 season.

Johnny Washington was brought onto Green’s staff last season, as the Padres’ first base coach. This season Washington moves over into a general coaching role and former major-leaguer, Skip Schumaker, will take over in the coaches’ box behind first.

Also new to the Friars’ coaching staff is one of my favorite “professional hitters” of all-time, Matt Stairs. He comes to San Diego after spending two seasons as the hitting coach of the Philadelphia Phillies.

Fun with San Diego Padres’ coaches stats

Between McGwire (1,874), Schumaker (1,149), and Stairs (1,895), that’s nearly 5,000 combined MLB games played between them. Just for kicks, their combined slash line (combined at-bats, averaged, um, averages) is a quite-impressive .267/.375/.476.

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Of course, Big Mac’s offensive exploits increase that slugging percentage. On a fun note, Matt Stairs actually had a career SLG% of .477, for whatever that’s worth.

The three of these players have a combined 3,897 MLB-hits combined and bring a book of experience and knowledge with them about as thick as a brick, or three actually. What goes on behind closed doors is, and will remain, unknown to us.

But I would imagine that the Olympic-sized pool of experience that which this coaching staff can draw upon to help bring these young San Diego Padres along will be coming from a place of wisdom and have been built upon these coaches’ individual failures as players.

Next: Padres Send Tatis & Urias to Minors Camp

All lessons, in life and in baseball, are learned by making mistakes. One of the wonderful things about having three coaches in this clubhouse with the MLB-service time that they have between them is that these young Friars will be able to learn from guys who have made plenty of mistakes themselves and are here to pass their learned-lessons along.