Sunday April 8th, 2012

Sam Evans: From what I’ve heard around baseball about the Padres rotation, the Padres have no chance of contending in 2012. This was surprising to me, when actually the Padres slim chance of contending this year is due to their abysmal offense. The Padres rotation is fairly average compared to the rest of baseball. Obviously, losing your ace would hurt any MLB pitching staff. But I believe that the 2012 Padres rotation is almost criminally underrated.

At the forefront of the Padres rotation is newly acquired right-handed pitcher from the Reds, Edinson Volquez. Volquez was one of the players included in the Mat Latos trade in December. He was always a highly esteemed pitching prospect coming up in the Rangers minor league system, the problem always being his command. After being traded to the Reds following two average seasons with the Rangers, Volquez had a breakout year with the 2008 Reds. He threw 196 innings with 206 strikeouts, a 3.21 ERA, and a 4.3 BB/9. Due to his ridiculous first half of the season, Volquez made the 2008 National League All-Star team. The next year, Volquez got off to a decent start, but then was forced to miss the rest of the year with Tommy John surgery. Coming back from Tommy John surgery is not an easy thing, but multiple MLB pitchers have come back from the surgery, pitching just as good (if  not better) than they did when they were healthy before. Read the rest of this entry →