The Padres' Rise has Only Begun

The San Diego Padres finished the 2023 season with an average record of 82W-80. Throughout the following offseason, the Padres lost their best hitter, Juan Soto, their best starting pitcher, Blake Snell, and their closer, Josh Hader. In accordance, I expected the Padres to have a worse season than their 2023 campaign and miss the playoffs. Nonetheless, on Tuesday, September 24th, the Padres defeated the Dodgers 4-2 and with that win, San Diego clinched a WildCard spot. Let’s take a deeper look at how they got to such a desperate situation, and how they turned it around. 

Digging the Hole:

During the 2020 shortened season, Fernando Tatis Jr. and the “Slam Diego Padres” burst onto the scene. Alongside recently acquired superstar, Manny Machado, the 21-year-old Tatis made the Padres one of the most fun teams to watch. Unfortunately, the Padres didn’t have the pitching to make a run and were swept in the NLDS by the Los Angeles Dodgers, the eventual World Series Champions. The Padres’ front office understood what had happened, and addressed the issue. In the following offseason, the Padres brought in 3 elite starting pitchers. They gave Yu Darvish a 6-year 108-million-dollar deal, gave Joe Musgrove a 5-year 100-million-dollar contract, and traded 4 prospects to acquire Blake Snell. To their demise, between injuries and other issues, things didn’t click. In 2021, the Padres won fewer than 80 games and missed the playoffs. However, in 2022 the ball began to roll. To strengthen their odds, the Padres sent a king’s ransom of prospects to the nation’s capital at the trade deadline, in return for Juan Soto. Initially, it seemed to be working out, as the Padres took down the Mets in the NLWC and got their revenge on the Dodgers in the NLDS. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough and San Diego was sent home by the Phillies in the NLCS. The Padres understood that they were close, knocking on the doorstep. To ensure they seal the deal in 2023, the Padres signed Xander Bogaerts to an 11-year 280-million-dollar deal and handed Manny Machado an 11-year 350-million-dollar contract extension. 

That’s when they crashed. Despite having the 3rd-highest payroll in the MLB, the Padres put up the 15th-best record in the MLB and missed the playoffs. The issue with the 2023 season was that when the Padres gave out all of those large contracts, they had assumed they would be a good team. They counted on revenue from ticket sales and TV deals in September and October, along with fans buying merchandise. Since the Padres were so disappointing, they were unwatchable and made far less money than they had anticipated. They reached a point where they had to take out loans to afford the money they owed their players. Hence, this past offseason, they couldn’t afford to keep Soto, Snell, or Bader, in San Diego. The worst part was that they couldn’t trade everyone and hit the reset button because their big contracts were all incredibly long deals. They couldn’t rely on youth either, because they had traded away all of their top prospects to get Snell and Soto. There was nowhere to go for the San Diego Padres. 

Righting the Ship;

After letting Snell and Bader walk and trading Soto, the Padres did a weird thing. The top prospect they received in the Soto deal was right-hander pitcher, Drew Thorpe. Instead of developing Thorpe into a franchise player, they traded him to the White Sox for Dylan Cease. Cease is a great pitcher, but he’ll become an unrestricted free agent after the 2025 season, and the Padres obviously cannot afford to renew his contract. Maybe they’re going all-in on these years? Then they signed veteran utility player, Jurickson Profar, and called up their top prospect, Jackson Merrill. The Profar and Merrill moves implied that 2024 would be a rebuilding year. A few weeks into the season, they did another weird thing. The Padres sent a reliever and 3 prospects to the Marlins, to acquire generational contact hitter, Luis Arraez. Arraez will become an unrestricted free agent after the 2025 season, and the Padres obviously cannot afford to renew his contract. Maybe they’re going all-in on these years? It is also worth noting that after making these moves, all 7 of the Padres starting position players had begun their careers as shortstops and converted to different positions. What is happening?

Matching their roster moves, for the first four months of the 2024 season, the Padres were in no man’s land. After their first 100 games, San Diego’s record was exactly 50W-50L. Then, something magical began to happen. All of their weird moves began to sync up. Dylan Cease began to dominate on the mound, Luis Arraez became a base hit machine, and Jurickson Profar and Jackson Merrill became the two most clutch hitters in baseball. San Diego won 16 of their next 18 games. Between this hot streak and the Braves collapsing, the Padres found themselves right back in the middle of the playoff race. A few weeks later, in September, the Padres went on another magical run. So far, the Padres have won 14 of their 19 games in September. With the second run, the Padres solidified themselves as a playoff team. The only question left is whether or not they’ll be successful in the playoffs.

Meanwhile, their financial troubles have been fixing themselves. While teams are always doing business and can up their prices as inflation rises, contracts are set in stone. Hence, the more the dollar drops throughout the contract, the less the team has to pay the player in the remaining years of the deal. Over the past few years, the dollar has dropped at an incredible rate. Looking back at the deals the Padres gave Darvish, Musgrove, Machado, and Bogaert, the Padres are off the hook for 7% of Musgrove’s deal, 8% of Darvish’s deal, 6.5% of Machado’s and Bogaert’s deals. In addition, if Harris wins the election, the dollar will likely drop even further.

The Playoffs:

In the 2023 playoffs, we saw two WildCard teams faceoff in the fall classic. This confirmed what we had already suspected, the best team in the regular season usually isn’t the best team in the playoffs. That is because of the amount of off-days. The pitching rotation turns over every 5 days. In the regular season, teams play 5 games in 5 days. Therefore, in the regular season, your entire pitching staff matters. However, in the playoffs, teams only play 3 games every 5 days. In accordance, in the playoffs, only the best 60% of your pitching staff matters. This makes it so that teams with top-heavy pitching staffs, can be inconsistent in the regular seasons and then “magically: become unbeatable in the playoffs. 

But that’s not it. There are different starting pitchers and different pitchers available out of the pen in each game. When the pitcher and batter have the same strong arm, it gives the pitcher a slight advantage, and vice versa. Hence, different lineups match up differently against different pitchers. An example is a series from late June between the Baltimore Orioles and New York Yankees. The Orioles have a .752 OPS against right-handed pitchers and are one of the most challenging opponents for righties. However, they are slightly less dangerous against left-handed pitchers. Nestor Cortes started the first game of the series for the Yankees. The left-handed Cortes has a 1.15 WHIP, 1.22 against righties, and 0.97 against lefties (WHIP - walks & hits allowed per innings pitched - lower is better). Cortes pitched well and the Yankees won 4-2. Luis Gil started the final game of the series for the Yankees. The right-handed Gil has a 1.17 WHIP which is almost identical to Cortes’s 1.15. However, Gil’s WHIP against lefties is 1.32 and 1.06 against righties. Due to the Orioles’ splits lining up with Gil’s splits, the Orioles destroyed Gil and won the game 17-5. When a team’s rotation is changed due to the off-days, the way they handle splits changes as well. 

The San Diego Padres’ roster, plays perfectly to these two factors. Their rotation for the playoffs will be Dylan Cease, Michael King, and Martin Perez. When Cease, King, or Perez start the game, the Padres win 63% of the time, when a different pitcher starts, the Padres only win 55% of the time. In addition, their lineup works perfectly against the other NL rotations. San Diego ranks 18th against left-handed pitching, with a collective OPS of .689. On the other hand, the Padres are dominant against right-handed pitching, ranking 4th in the MLB with a collective OPS of .769! The major competition in the NL is the Dodgers, Brewers, Diamondbacks, and Phillies. The Dodgers’ top two pitchers, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Walker Buehler, are both right-handed. The Brewers’ top three pitchers, Freddy Peralta, Colin Rea, and Tobias Myers, are all right-handed. The Diamondbacks’ duo of starters who allowed them to reach the 2023 World Series, Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly, are both right-handed. The Phillies’ duo of starters who allowed them to reach the 2022 World Series, Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola, are both right-handed. The Padres are tailored to beat the competition in the NL playoffs.

In a matter of 10 months, not only have the Padres returned from the dead, but they might also win it all. The Padres are my pick to be this year’s “Cinderella” team. Their 7-shortstop strategy worked out. I must give credit to GM Mike Shildt and owner AJ Preller, because I didn’t think this was possible, and definitely not so soon.