CRAIG’S COMMENTS: Gillaspie to Start Friday’s Spring Opener; Thoughts on Six-Man Rotation, Cronenworth, Johnson, Song
Padres’ manager Craig Stammen opened Wednesday morning’s media session by naming right-hander Logan Gillaspie the starting pitcher for Friday afternoon’s opening spring training game against Seattle.
“He’s going to be a jack-of-all-trades,” Stammen said of Gillaspie. “He can do anything. We’re going to stretch him out just to give him some length to give us somebody that we can rely on to do a bunch of different things. If we stretch him out, we can put him in the bullpen and he can be a long reliever. We could put him in the back end of a game. He’s closed games before at Triple-A. He’s helped us in the big leagues. He can pitch a lot of innings and save some of our big guys. He’s just somebody who can kind of do it all.”
With Joe Musgrove and Michael King returning from injuries, Stammen discussed the Padres opening the season with a six-man rotation to give starters extra early rest:
“Everything is on the table,” said Stammen. “I want to do what’s best for them and best for the team. How we marry those two things is yet to be determined. I think we might consider the six-man rotation. We’ll see how these guys progress. The №1 thing is are they capable of being their best when we put them on the mound. Whatever that scenario looks like, that is what we’re going to do.
“We haven’t made any decisions yet. We’ll see how spring training goes … see how they handle all the live bullpens, simulated games, the backfield games and then see how they are recovering. If they can do it every five days or if they need that extra day, we’ll kind of map it out around off days and all that as best we can.
“We go back to the offseason when we talked about some of the relievers being starters. It’s just things that we talk about and evaluate before making decisions.”
Stammen discussed bullpen candidates Alek Jacob and Ron Marinaccio pitching for Team Italy in the World Baseball Classic and how that could affect their Padres hopes:
“We talked a lot about that internally and I’ve talked with them also,” said Stammen. “We all felt that going to the WBC and pitching for Team Italy was something that they really wanted to do. It was an opportunity that we couldn’t take away from them. We also know they are going to be playing good competition in the WBC. They’ll be pitching similar type of innings that they would be if they were pitching spring training games with us. So, it’s a good experience for them. Jacob’s grandfather was born in Italy and he can honor him by playing for Italy.
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“We’ll be able to watch their games on TV. And they might be pitching against Team USA and some other high-quality teams. We’ll know where they are in spring training. It will be the middle of March, so they won’t be a finished product. It’s a good point of evaluation. They know that, too. They want to show what they’ve got. I think that’s what we’re excited about. We know they are going to do well there.”
Stammen talked about Manny Machado and Fernando Tatis Jr. appearing in early spring training games before they depart for the WBC:
“You’re probably going to see Manny and Tatis early because they have to get ready for the WBC,” said Stammen. “We don’t want them playing a nine-inning game on March 6 when they haven’t played a game leading up to it. You have to get them ready. They want to play and they want to get at-bats. So, you’ll see quite a bit of them early.”
Stammen discussed the progress of Sung-Mung Song:
“Sung-Mon has been progressing really well,” Stammen began. “He’s been doing a lot of stuff on the field. He’s taking Wednesday off from hitting. He’s on a normal progression of getting ready. He’s getting full days of practice where he’s full go. When we check those boxes, he’ll get into a spring training game and we’ll get a good look at him.
“Right now we’ve been working him out at second base and third base. He feels really comfortable in those two spots. We’ll get him really comfortable and feeling good about where he is right now and then he’ll move around. For right now, second base and third base feel really good for him.”
Stammen discussed backup shortstop options behind Xander Bogaerts, including Jake Cronenworth:
“Jake is definitely one of our backup shortstops,” said Stammen. “We kind of put him over there last season (when Bogaerts was hurt) and he made some great plays. And we’re kind of like, ‘Alright, Jake can play shortstop.’ He knew it all along. Maybe it was us being stubborn and not putting him over there. Jake will definitely be one of those guys. Song might be another guy we try at shortstop. We have Mason McCoy. We have a few guys who can sneak over there and play a little shortstop. We’ll see how the roster shakes out with who we put on the bench and what they can possibly do.”
Stammen on versatile reserve outfielder Bryce Johnson:
“Bryce is a guy who does a lot of things really well.” said Stammen. “Is he going to be your middle of the order bat, probably not. We have enough of those guys. He’s going to be able to be that puzzle piece that fits in coming in and being a quicker guy on the bases, who can steal a base and run the bases really well. Plus, he’s a guy who we can put in the outfield and feel really good about it defensively. He’s probably our next-best center fielder behind Jackson (Merrill). All those little different pieces that he brings to the table are really good attributes that we’re going to need on this team. We feel really good about Bryce competing for a spot this spring but also being a part of this team.”
