Padres Players Are Concerned About A Guy From New Zealand Spying On Them
The dismal and befuddling drama that is the San Diego Padres’ 2023 season has taken another twist. Typically, when a team is having a bad season, the concerns originate from management or a lack of clubhouse togetherness, as has occurred here. However, espionage within a company is rarely discussed.
Padres Players Are Concerned About A Guy From New Zealand Spying On Them
Despite overwhelming the hapless Oakland A’s and Colorado Rockies in recent weeks, the Padres are only a couple of results away from being formally eliminated from playoff contention. Finishing above 500 also appears to be impossible, considering that the squad may lose only two more games to end with an 82-80 record.
The Miami Marlins AND Chicago Cubs lost tonight……
Your San Diego Padres are 4.5 games back of a Playoff spot pic.twitter.com/CRkhbPIfrp
— Devine Sports Gospel (@DevineGospel) September 21, 2023
The causes for the dismal, season-long collapse have been widely analyzed, with theories ranging from bad performance in the past to an abysmal clubhouse culture.
Don Tricker is the new director of player health and performance for the San Diego Padres. Tricker is a former softball player and the New Zealand Academy of Sport’s senior adviser of high-performance coaching. However, according to certain players in the San Diego club, he can add espionage to his resume.
The Padres playoff odds increase to 0.4% 📈 pic.twitter.com/LM0rtGbFRM
— Al Scott (@AlScott1998) September 21, 2023
The Athletic recently spoke with a number of current and former Padres players, coaches, and front-office personnel about what went wrong. And several of them proposed a perplexing, odd explanation for the divide between gamers and staff.
According to prominent podcaster and commentator James O’Brien, popularly known as Jomboy, San Diego players are wary of Tricker. Jomboy delved into the subject recently, writing, “Players on the Padres believe a man from New Zealand is spying on them.”
The Padres are 12-5 (.706) since signing Jurickson Profar #ProfarSoGood pic.twitter.com/9k6CHoyw8Z
— Al Scott (@AlScott1998) September 20, 2023
Tricker’s experience for his new post was largely based on his time spent in the sports world of New Zealand. Most notably, he was the All Blacks rugby team’s high-performance manager for numerous years. Preller, on the other hand, appears to have hired him to head the medical, training, and analytics personnel. Major League Baseball (MLB).
Tricker had no medical expertise and just a basic understanding of baseball, thus he was quickly removed from overseeing analytics.
"At the beginning there was all the expectation…the hype…people were excited. We put a little bit of pressure on ourselves too much trying to make it happen instead of letting it come to us…we feel like we learned our lesson in the end."
-Fernando Tatis Jr. on 2023 #padres pic.twitter.com/H9cQuyqRrs— Allison Edmonds (@aedmondstv) September 20, 2023
While this claim may appear ridiculous, considering the nature of San Diego’s season and the volatility within the locker room, it would not be shocking if Don Tricker was spying on the players and staff.
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