Leading Men Player Team R XBH Avg. OBP Todd Walker Cubs 22 12 .344 .450 Juan Pierre Marlins 20 7 .353 .415 Shannon Stewart Twins 15 8 .279 .404 Michael Young Rangers 31 17 .364 .399 Sean Burroughs Padres 19 7 .347 .391 Craig Biggio Astros 25 18 .331 .388 Dave Roberts Dodgers 16 5 .265 .382 Willie Harris White Sox 13 7 .323 .374 Brian Roberts Orioles 26 12 .305 .366 Scott Podsednik Brewers 26 12 .287 .364

A good manager has to do a lot right, just about every day, to remain a good manager. Keep peace in the clubhouse. Make out a lineup card correctly. Figure out when to pull the starter. Argue without getting spit on. Talk to reporters without saying anything you don't want to say.

It's a tough job, and the toughest part sometimes is making do with what you have. No skipper has everything -- no one not wearing pinstripes and residing in the Bronx, that is. Everybody else has to scramble. Everybody else has to try to make chicken soup out of something less than prime stock.

Take the Padres, for instance, and their manager, Bruce Bochy.

If Bochy could wiggle his mustache and magically enhance his team, he would wish for a scrappy little base stealer as his No. 1 hitter.

"I think everyone would. That's the ideal," Bochy said. "They get a hit, they create havoc when they're on base. If I had a choice, I'd go that way. But ..."

Instead, he's got Sean Burroughs, who may be scrappy but he's neither little nor much of a base stealer.

Bochy and the Padres, like nearly every team in the big leagues, have to work with what they have. The Padres don't have fast. They don't have base stealers.

What the Padres have is this: a 23-year-old, 200-pound contact hitter who doesn't walk that much. That's Burroughs. He's their leadoff man. The best they have.

And, wouldn't you know it, so far he's working out just fine. The Padres are the surprise of the National League West, sitting in second place behind the Dodgers. They are the team to watch in a division that seems ripe for the picking.

No team in baseball is doing more with less than San Diego, which has a little bit of a lot but not a lot of anything. The Padres have promising young pitching (Adam Eaton, Jake Peavy, Akinori Otsuka). They have solid, veteran pitching (David Wells, Trevor Hoffman). They have power hitters (Brian Giles, Ryan Klesko, Phil Nevin), young position players (rookie shortstop Khalil Greene) and high-average hitters (Mark Loretta and Burroughs).

But the Padres don't have a particularly deep rotation, and the bullpen besides Hoffman is questionable. That speed is a huge problem, and they haven't had a true leadoff man for some time now.

Last August, as another lost season wound down, Bochy decided to try Burroughs at the top of the lineup. Burroughs played almost 400 games as a minor leaguer and had a .411 on-base percentage, excellent by any measure.

He was excited about the job, too, and he did so well in garbage time last season that he started 2004 as the team's leadoff man.

He doesn't figure to go anywhere anytime soon.

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Burroughs is in the Top 10 in on-base percentage (.391), and his .347 batting average is behind only Michael Young of the Rangers (.364) and Juan Pierre of the Marlins (.353) among leadoff men. Burroughs doesn't walk (he has only eight this season) and he doesn't hit for much power (he has only seven extra-base hits, with no homers). But he's tied for eighth in runs scored, and scoring runs is what being a leadoff guy is all about.

"Obviously, he's not Willie McGee or Vince Coleman," said Loretta, who hits behind Burroughs. "The biggest thing is, he gets on base and he puts the ball in play. He doesn't strike out much." Pierre and Anaheim's David Eckstein are the only leadoff hitters who have struck out fewer times than Burroughs (minimum 100 plate appearances), who has punched out nine times.

No, Burroughs isn't going to steal many bases (three in four tries this season), so he's not going to disrupt many pitchers with his speed. And he's not going to go from first to third on a single very often.

But you can count on one hand the number of players who get on base regularly and steal bases with regularity. There are only four players who have an on-base percentage of .300 or better and 10 or more steals: L.A.'s Dave Roberts (.382, 15), Milwaukee's Scott Podsednik (.364, 19), Baltimore's Brian Roberts (.366, 15) and Tampa Bay's Carl Crawford (.343, 17).

For what the Padres need right now, for what they have, Burroughs works.

"He's done a great job," Bochy said. "You know, there are different ways to skin a cat."

Yes there are. The best managers -- guys like Bochy -- know every way to do it, too.

John Donovan is a senior writer for SI.com.