Published in · 6 min read · Feb 17, 2025
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Position players reported to the Padres spring training camp Monday, Feb. 17. The Padres also announced the official signing of right-handed Nick Pivetta. Padres’ manager Mike Shildt opened Monday’s media session addressing both subjects.
“One of the best days of the year is when pitchers and catchers report,” said Shildt. “That first day is really exciting. But now we have all the dudes here … everybody is in full camp. It’s another great day. We’re excited to finish some business.”
Then he turned to Pivetta, who celebrated his 32nd birthday last Friday by signing a four-year contract with the Padres.
“We’re excited to have Nick here,” said Shildt. “Internally, I again applaud our front office for getting Nick on board with us. It means a lot to our team. I had a really easy, honest, open conversation with Nick prior to his signing.”
“Clearly, this helps strengthen a group that we feel was already strong. But you can’t have enough quality starting pitching. He comes in as an experienced guy. I think this is a sweet spot for his career. He has experience. He clearly has stuff. He’s a talented guy and now he has his head around how he’s going to come in here and help us win.”
Shildt on Jason Heyward’s value to younger players.
“It’s interesting,” said Shildt. “We hadn’t even been on the field when we had our first hitters’ meeting this morning. We had a ball-talk session as well and Heyward’s ability to speak up amongst the group was there. He’s a respected guy in the clubhouse. He’s had a lot of time in the game.”
“Also, he’s won. He’s won a World Series and he’s been in the playoffs in virtually every year of his career. So, today, we had our main guys speak up. Manny (Machado), (Xander) Bogaerts, (Jake) Cronenworth, Luis (Arraez) … we have a lot of them that speak up and discuss how we operate including Jackson (Merrill) and (Tyler) Wade.”
“But it was good to see Heyward speak up and share his thoughts about it. He’s already started the process.”
Shildt on this season’s spring training mindset and tone:
“The best part of this year is that from last year we have a core group that has gone through this together and understands how we all want to operate, prepare and compete. So, there doesn’t need to be as much said. That being said, we do have newer guys on the club and we clearly have a big camp with players who have signed to come in along with players who have come through the player development side. We do want to make sure that we message appropriately how we operate and how we think. The good news, again, is that we’re already conducive to doing that.”
“But the other part of that, and Manny did a good job of stating that this morning and I echoed it — is that we start at zero. We built off last year. We feel like we know that we did some things very well last year. And we did a lot of things that were considered to be successes that we feel really strong about and want to reflect on and build confidence with. Like I’ve alluded to, we have some unfinished business.”
“So, we’re going to start at zero. We are going to go faster. But we want to go deeper and even wider to make sure that on every aspect of the game we’re pretty clear about where we are when we start the season on March 27 against Atlanta.”
Shildt on having local players in camp like Joe Musgrove and Connor Joe:
“I think it’s great, although I never had that experience … being a hometown guy and being able to appreciate being able to play for the home team. It’s exciting for them to be able to come home and compete for their local team.”
“Connor’s going to move around and work with the infielders and outfielders. We have a couple other guys who are going to move around. Of course, Wade from last year. We’ll work with them and get them the proper work.”
“It’s also good to know that Connor Joe can catch. It’s something that we definitely have our radar up for. We’ll see as it goes. But he’s a candidate for sure to be the emergency catcher.”
Shildt on the battle for the fifth spot in the rotation between Matt Waldron, Stephen Kolek, Kyle Hart, Jhony Brito and Randy Vásquez:
“It’s a healthy competition. One spot effectively between five pitchers and more guys could potentially step up and take the lead on it. Vásquez did a great job for us. Waldron carried us for part of the season … we don’t make the playoffs without Waldron last year. Hart comes in off a tremendous year in Korea. Brito is a guy we like and is going to get stretched out so we can evaluate him early in camp as a starter.”
“Kolek has four weapons. (Martín) Maldonado caught him yesterday and said: ‘Wow, this guy has some real weapons.’ We’ll see how that looks and we’re excited about the competition.”
Shildt on the Padres’ off-season:
“I don’t pay a lot of attention to external noise,” said Shildt. “I know there were thoughts that it wasn’t very productive. I understand and like the fact that we have a passionate fan base. I care for the fact that their interest is incredibly high.”
“I will say this that doesn’t get represented and shouldn’t be represented. People are worried about what we do outside the clubhouse. I can tell you this, we had a really good year inside the clubhouse. We had a really good year with our staff and our players creating real clarity about off-season plans. I’m really confident we won our off-season individually and as a group.”
“We have people who rightfully can understand what the team looks like and what the additions or subtractions are. I can tell you we really controlled the off-season with our players to make sure we’re in a good spot today to go execute and have a good spring training and a great season.”
Shildt on the Padres’ diverse bullpen of pitching types, angles and stuff:
“Pitching is the disruption of a hitter’s timing,” said Shildt. “We have a lot of different guys with a lot of different looks. That’s how we compete and that’s important. It starts with the back end with (Robert) Suarez. On the right, we have Suarez, (Jeremiah) Estrada, Bryan (Hoeing), (Sean) Reynolds and (Alex) Jacob just to mention a few. There are real depth pieces there and they bring different looks.”
“And then on the left side, we’ve talked about (Adrian) Morejon taking the next step. He looks great. We’re really excited about Wandy Peralta. I really feel like Wandy is going to have a good year. Yuki (Matsui) the same way in getting more familiar with everything. I’m excited about him. Tommy Cosgrove is an under the radar guy that we haven’t spoken about a lot, but two years ago he was a big part of that club. He’s back, healthy and feeling good.”
“So there are a lot of different looks and depth beyond that. The bullpen is a strength.”
