Padres Bring Back the Band: Entire Coaching Staff Returns for 2025 Season
We already knew Ruben Niebla and Victor Rodriguez were returning but it’s nice to see it’s official as of this afternoon.
While the offense went quiet to end their season, they collectively as a group were an improved situational team compared to the year before. On the pitching side, there are already a number of pitchers who have had career years when they’ve come to the Padres to work with Ruben Niebla and Ben Fritz.
Brian Esposito, Ben Fritz, Tim Leiper, David Macias, Mike McCoy, Pat O’Sullivan, Peter Summerville, Heberto Andrade and Morgan Burkhart are also all returning.
Allen Craig, A.J. Ellis and Craig Stammen have already been in the organization but it appears they’ll be more involved on the coaching side than just front office this coming season.
Two coaches who most probably haven’t heard of are Scott Stroud (coaching assistant) and Chris Apecechea (pitching coaching assistant).
Below is some info from the Padres on them:
“Stroud, 37, returns for his third season on the Major League coaching staff as coaching assistant. Stroud played two years collegiately at East Los Angeles College, and previously coached at Servite High School (CA) from 2013-14 and 2020-23 and Orange Lutheran High School (Calif.) from 2015-19.
Apecechea, 26, returns for his fourth season with the Padres organization and his second on the Major League staff as coaching assistant, pitching. He joined the Padres minor league system as a pitching performance analyst in 2022 after pitching four seasons at the University of Hawaii and High Point University. After his collegiate career, Apecechea worked as a solutions contributor and coach at Tread Athletics pitching facility in North Carolina.”
