It just so happens that the Clayton Kershaw Youth Jersey Padres have one of the sport's most coveted relievers in left-hander
Brad Hand. And it certainly sounds as though he's available this winter
for the right price.
At the Trade Deadline, Hand was one of the most highly sought-after
arms, but when no one met the asking price of general manager A.J.
Preller, the Padres opted to hold onto Hand, who still has two years of
team control remaining.
That decision was just fine with Hand.
"I like everything about it here -- the players, the coaches, the city,
everything," Hand said at the end of the regular season. "I'm hoping I'm
back here, and I'm hoping I'm a part of it when we're winning here."
That said, Hand is astute enough to Corey Seager Youth Jersey understand the business aspect of the game. With the Trade Deadline
approaching this summer, Hand answered daily questions about his status
with the Padres. Yet, his performance never wavered. In fact, he posted a
24 2/3-inning scoreless streak at the same time.
"I felt like I did a pretty good job of not worrying about that," Hand
said. "It's just a part of baseball, and you can't control any of it.
You just have to come in, do your job every day. ... It's the offseason.
It might be harder to be in-season getting traded. Like I said, I'm
just not really going to worry about it that much. I probably won't pay
attention to it. I'll just wait and find out what happens."
Preller expects there to be plenty of interest. Cody Bellinger Youth Jersey And given Hand's numbers, why wouldn't there be? He posted a 2.16 ERA
with 104 strikeouts in 79 1/3 innings this year. Since he joined the
Padres at the start of the 2016 season, only Dellin Betances and Andrew
Miller have more strikeouts in relief.
In his end-of-season meeting with the media, Preller compared Hand's
situation to that of Craig Kimbrel in 2015. Kimbrel drew interest at the
Deadline, but no one met Preller's asking price. Sure enough, teams
came calling again that offseason, and Preller turned Kimbrel into four
prospects, two of whom -- Manuel Margot and Carlos Asuaje -- were
regular contributors this year.
"We get into that offseason, we had a Justin Turner Youth Jersey couple teams reach out early, said, 'We're still interested,'" Preller
said earlier this month. "I would expect that to probably be the case
[with Hand]. When you're talented and you're good, teams are always in
the market for good relievers."
The 2017 season was unquestionably a career year for Hand, who made his
first All-Star appearance and set career bests in ERA, WHIP and
strikeout rate. In Hand's eyes, the most important progress he made was
his control. He walked only 20 hitters in 79 1/3 innings -- easily the
best rate of his career.
Hand struck out 5.20 hitters per walk in 2017 -- more than doubling his
career average. Much of that can be attributed to his elite command of
his slider, one of the game's best out ptches.
He'll be looking to build on that success in 2018. And if it's in San
Diego, he's perfectly content with that.
"It's a good young group of guys," Hand said. "I really don't think
we're too far off from where we're trying to get to. When some of these
younger guys got a little bit more time, got comfortable, we saw a lot
of strides that hopefully we can carry over." ?
