Why are the Padres bad this year?
Bad relative to expectations and talent, not relative to the Royals or A's
For the 78th consecutive season, the Padres were supposed to be fearsome this year. They had a full year of Juan Soto, and another year of Manny Machado, and Fernando Tatis Jr was coming back healthy, and they signed Xander Bogaerts, and they still had their strong pitching, and they beat the Dodgers in the NLDS last year, and it was going to happen, this year it was finally going to happen and they’d take that next step. 2023: Year of the Padre. Book it!
Anyone who booked it has now unbooked it. It is significantly less booked than it was a couple of months ago.
The Padres currently sit at 29-33, 8 games back in the division and 3.5 games back of the last wild card spot, with 4 teams between them and that spot. I don’t want to oversell this — they’re just 4 games under .500 and they have 100 games left this year, so there’s plenty of season left for them to make a run — but so far, it hasn’t been the year they expected or wanted in San Diego.
Why? What’s been going on?
The first thing you notice when you look at team stats on Fangraphs is that the Padres offense has been bad this year. They’re 20th in the league in offense, which is shockingly low, considering all those names I listed in the opening paragraph in order to use star power to draw in readers. The Giants, by contrast, are 8th in the league in offense, and they’ve scored 23 more runs than the Padres in one fewer game.
So who’s been the problem? Not Juan Soto, who is hitting .265/.422/.483 this year. His early struggles got a lot of press, but he is still Juan Soto, a phenomenal baseball talent in line to easily surpass $400 million when he hits free agency in a couple of years. And Tatis hasn’t been otherworldly — his average and, especially, OBP are too low — but he’s shown a lot of power and is hitting pretty well for someone who missed all of last year due to injury and then steroid suspension. And Ha-Seong Kim! He’s been fine offensively, which is about what you can expect from him.
But since the offense has been underachieving, you know that means there have been disappointments. Xander Bogaerts is one; when you give a guy $280 million, you want his OPS to be better than .725, no matter how strong his glove is. Jake Cronenworth and Trent Grisham haven’t been particularly good either. Sometimes you expect young players to take the next step, and they just don’t. And Nelson Cruz, signed to DH, has given off every sign possible of being finished as a major league-caliber hitter.
And then there have been the guys who have just fallen on their faces. In 156 PAs, Matt Carpenter is hitting .192/.303/.362 with 4 homers. Austin Nola has had an absolutely miserable year, with a slash line of .130/.248/.176 in 128 PAs. He’s been so bad that the Padres have arrived at the “throw shit at the wall and see what sticks” phase of finding a catcher, and to his credit, so far Gary Sanchez has stuck, with 4 homers in 9 games. Still, it would be a surprise if that production lasted, and when the hot streak is over, the Padres will be back in trouble behind the dish.
And then there’s Manny Machado. Machado is currently sporting a line of .235/.287/.363, a far cry from the .298/.366/.531 that earned him a second place MVP finish and a sparkling new contract last year. Machado was the engine that drove the Padres offense last year, but this year — say it with me, everyone — the engine has stalled.
Did you say it with me? I hope you did. I want this to be a group activity that everyone can enjoy.
I don’t want to make it seem like the Padres are great on the pitching side, by the way. Their starting pitching depth is questionable, and no on in the rotation is having the great year that you’d hope for. But because they have so many good arms in the bullpen, the Padres team ERA is actually lower than it was last year, when they were a playoff team.
No, it’s the offense that’s been hurting San Diego, and, as much as you can point to one guy not getting it done, that guy is Manny Machado. They miss some other sources of production too, admittedly — Luke Void and Wil Myers were nice hitters last year in DH/bench roles, and Matt Carpenter and the motley crew on the bench just can’t compare this year. They could use more production from basically everyone not named Juan Soto, but they desperately need the production from Machado, who is paid and treated like a star, and last year he hit like one. If he doesn’t do that this year too, his team is in trouble.
Or they could just keep being bad all season. Works for me!