Alan Trammell‘s a nice guy who knows baseball and probably did well teaching young Padres the fundamentals of the games.
But when Davy Lopes was the Padres first place coach, the team seemed to play with more fire. Of course, we had Rickey Henderson then, and for a time the likes of Ken Caminiti and Steve Finley overlapped with Lopes’ tenure. But I always felt that Lopes brought a fire to the coaching staff that Bruce Bochy and Tim Flannery lacked.
So to me, it’s good news that Trammell is leaving (to become manager of the Tigers) and Flannery has been fired (though I loved Flannery as a player and was once convinced he was a good coach, I think his heart hasn’t been in it recently), and Lopes is probably returning to the Padres.