APRIL 6, 1969:
NL PREVIEW: PADRES by Phil Collier (San Diego Union)
SAN DIEGO - The people connected with San Diego's National League expansion team are confident the Padres can win 60 of their 162 games this season. That would be 20 games more than the New York Mets won in 1962, their first season in the league.
"We have a lot more talent than the Mets had then," said Roger Craig, the San Diego pitching coach who won a fourth of New York's 40 victories in '62.
Preston Gomez, the San Diego manager, predicted the Padres would outhit the Los Angeles Dodgers, the team he coached for the past several years. And catcher Jesse Gonder, the ex-Met who was with San Diego on a tryout, said no National League expansion team ever had as much power as the Padres.
But ex-Dodger General Manager Buzzie Bavasi, San Diego's President and co-owner, said he was thinking about four years from now when he went predominantly with youth in last year's expansion draft.
Pitching and weak fielding at first base and third are San Diego's most serious problems.
The Padres' five starting pitchers - Dick Kelley, Al McBean, Dick Selma, Tommie Sisk and John Podres - combined to win only 25 games in the National League last season. Podres, in fact, was out of baseball, but the former Dodger World Series hero appears to have enough stuff to stick with his near namesakes.
Billy McCool, counted upon to be a strong help in relief, has had arms trouble this spring. The other members of the staff - Tom Dukes, Frank Reberger, and Clay Kirby - are woefully inexperienced.
The Padres didn't have a catcher with major-league experience until they traded recently for Pittsburgh's Chris Cannizzaro, a weak hitter.
However, outfielders Tony Gonzalez, Clarence Gaston and Ollie Brown; first baseman Bill Davis and third baseman Ed Spiezio all figure to hit with power. The outfield is deep in substitutes who can hit - Al Ferrara, Larry Stahl and Ivan Murrell - and Roberto Pena led National League shortstops in hitting last year, when he averaged .260 at Philadelphia.
Most of the Padres are resigned to finishing sixth and last this year in the National League's Western Division. However, ex-Met Selma made an interesting observation.
"I hope I'm still here three or four years from now," he said, "to see what happens when all these good-looking kids grow up."
The Padres have had several tempting offers for Gonzalez and Brown. But Gonzalez is one of only three lefthanded batters on the San Diego roster and the Padres believe he will feast on the steady diet of righthanders they are likely to face. Gonzalez is the lone Padre ever to hit .300 in the majors.
JOHNNY PODRES