TEMPE, Ariz. -- Bryan Mitchell arrived in Padres camp two weeks early this spring, sporting long hair and a well-trimmed beard. His new look told a story of opportunity.
Mitchell spent the first eight years of his professional career with the Yankees, an organization notorious for its strict grooming policies. More importantly, he toiled the last four seasons in a sort of limbo -- between the rotation and the bullpen, between Triple-A and the Majors.
Three thousand miles away, the Padres' front office schemed different ways to acquire the right-handed North Carolina native.