![]() ![]() Much of the problem stems from a disastrous run of injury luck. From that point on, the graph showing their daily playoff probability is a horror story. As late as July 27, a day after the team attempted to bolster its lineup by trading for All-Star Adam Frazier, the Padres’ playoff odds still touched 90 percent. Only the Phillies-who rank fourth with their top trio and 20th with everyone else-have a comparable split, so it’s fitting that Philadelphia is close to San Diego in the standings, just with the benefit of playing in the division with the weakest first-place team rather than the strongest.Įven with that imbalance, however, San Diego had cruised through a majority of the season in playoff position. On the other end of the spectrum, the Pirates and Orioles are special: Their non-top-three players have combined for negative WAR.Īnd for the Padres, the stars have set a brisk pace the rest of the roster hasn’t maintained. ![]() Teams like the Giants and Rays don’t have superstars anchoring their lineups, but their red bars rise high because those league-leading rosters are predicated on depth. The Blue Jays and Astros pair exceptional cores with strong supporting casts there’s a reason they rank third and first, respectively, in overall position player WAR. ![]() This graph illustrates a number of team-specific trends from this season. But every other Padres position player has combined for just 5.0 WAR, which ranks 21st among teams’ combined WARs outside their top three players. ![]() Put another way, only the top position player trios for the Blue Jays (Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Marcus Semien, and Teoscar Hernández) and Astros (Carlos Correa, José Altuve, and Kyle Tucker) have been more valuable than the Padres’, as Tatis, Machado, and Cronenworth have combined for 14.6 WAR, per FanGraphs. Granted, six members of that group are pitchers, who aren’t expected to hit-but that still leaves almost a dozen prospective depth pieces, from Jurickson Profar to Víctor Caratini to Ha-Seong Kim, who didn’t give the lineup any depth. But none of the other 17 Padres with at least 10 trips to the plate has been above average. More broadly, the seven Padres with the most plate appearances all boast above-average batting lines. Each member of that trio ranks among the five most valuable players at his position, according to FanGraphs. The starters have been fine-especially a phenomenal infield core of Jake Cronenworth, Machado, and Tatis, who leads the NL with 41 home runs. The first problem is that the lineup hasn’t mashed like it did last season, dropping from third in runs per game to 14th. During that time, San Diego has won fewer games than the Rockies and Royals and ranks just 21st in ERA. Yet since that final divisional peak in late May, the Padres hold a 44-58 record-24.5 games worse than the Giants and Dodgers over that span. They boasted the majors’ best ERA (2.69) by nearly half a run. At 34-20, they were tied for the majors’ best record. On the morning of May 31, after taking two of three in a weekend series against Houston, the Padres led the NL West by half a game. With remaining series against the Dodgers and Giants, more losses are likely on the way.Ī final losing record would add copious insult to injury-and San Diego sure has suffered from injuries over the last few months. The Padres are 78-78 after losing three straight to Atlanta over the weekend, officially eliminating them from playoff contention. Now, rather than asking whether the Padres will compete for the franchise’s first title, or win 100 games for the first time, or at least make the Dodgers sweat, the most pertinent question is whether San Diego will even finish with a winning record. I predicted San Diego would win the World Series. We at The Ringer celebrated with a whole week of Dodgers-Padres material as part of our season preview. The arms race between the Padres and Dodgers invited comparisons to the Yankees–Red Sox arms race from the early aughts. There was sufficient reason for excitement: a stirring rise in 2020 Fernando Tatis Jr.’s ascension to superstardom Manny Machado’s third-place finish in National League MVP voting and an offseason that featured trades for Yu Darvish, Blake Snell, and Joe Musgrove. The 2021 season brought the most hype for any campaign in San Diego Padres history. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |