San Diego Padres Spring Training Tickets - Preseason Outlook

With the weather in San Diego expected to once again be mild and sunny this March, it's hard to sell San Diego Padres spring training tickets based on the climate in the Arizona desert alone. Luckily for the ticket sellers, there are plenty of baseball-related reasons to head out to the Peoria Sports Complex in Peoria Arizona this springtime to catch the Padres in preseason action.

There's no getting around the fact that the Padres are due for a spring awakening. After four seasons in a row of over .500 baseball, the San Diego Padres hit a major slide in 2008. The offense sputtered, the pitching blew a flat, and the Pads wobbled to the bottom of the NL West, eventually coming to a stop with a 63-99 overall record. The plan is to make a major rebound in 2009, and you can see the first steps of the comeback in spring training if you make the trip. Let's look at a few of the areas where the Padres did well and a few where they need to improve this next season.

2008 Highlights
In 2008 the Padres were once again blessed to have Jake Peavy as the centerpiece of their rotation. Peavy had another stellar individual season, highlighted by a 2.85 ERA (third lowest in the National League) and 166 Ks. Jake gave up only 7.57 hits per nine innings, the second fewest in the NL. If he hadn't missed some time to injury, he'd have probably added considerably better totals.

While he was in top form, Peavy was certainly one of the top five pitchers in the National League. Although he was coming off a Cy Young year, he still managed to live up to some lofty expectations. Before getting traded Greg Maddux put together another solid body of work, despite his advanced age, and Chris Young, while healthy, was an elite starting pitcher. On offense Adrian Gonzalez was an All-Star and collected 172 hits, while achieving career highs in home runs (36), RBIs (119) and slugging percentage (.510).

2008 Lowlights
Offense was a constant struggle. Players like Khalil Greene had unusually down performances, which led to some painful team statistics. The Padres scored the fewest runs in the National League and had the second lowest team batting average. The relief department didn't live up to its usual standards, either.

The Future
Trevor Hoffman will be in a Milwaukee Brewers uniform next season, which is bad news for Padres fans who used to love his intro music and the novelty of having the career saves leader coming out of the bullpen when the game was on the line. But it's clear Hoffman isn't the old Hoff anymore, so the Padres are going to get another closer in there to give it a shot. Khalil Greene, a local shortstop, won't be around either. It remains to be seen if Greene will be missed much considering the season he had last year. Catcher Josh Bard signed with Boston. The Padres are still considering dealing ace Jake Peavy, and if they do you can truly say the Pads are in the middle of a drastic overhaul, especially considering the recent change in team ownership. One of the only major-name players the Padres picked up was David Eckstein, who will immediately fill in the infield.

You shouldn't expect the Padres to stay still before the season gets too far in, especially if you've seen the bargains teams are getting for quality players these days. Some exciting deals are bound to go down, so stay turned into the Padres with some San Diego Padres spring training tickets.

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