Evaluating the Padres 2017 25-Man Roster

The Opening Day roster 2017 Padres has been set- and boy, is it....... unique?

I don't know how I would describe it. I mean, for starters, all three Rule Five draft picks made the team, and Christian Bethancourt is a pitcher now.

So that happened. Anyways, let's take a look (via rostersource.com):

Starting Lineup

1. Travis Jankowski, LF
2. Manuel Margot, CF
3. Wil Myers, 1B
4. Yangervis Solarte, 2B
5. Hunter Renfroe, RF
6. Ryan Schimpf, 3B
7. Austin Hedges, C
8. Erick Aybar, SS

The starting lineup is undoubtedly the most exciting part of this roster. After all, they'll be very proficient at the two most exciting things in baseball: hitting home runs and stealing bases.

Everyone in the middle of the lineup- Myers, Solarte, Renfroe, and Schimpf, (maybe even Hedges too!!!)- has demonstrated an ability to hit the long ball- this could be one of the Padres most powerful offenses in recent memory. The top of the lineup (Jankowski, Margot, and Myers) will also be very fun to watch on the basepaths- all three could very reasonably eclipse 30 stolen bases on the year.

Interestingly, Schimpf and Solarte have swapped positions, with Schimpf at the hot corner and Solarte manning the keystone. I don't mind the move- a shift to second will boost Solarte's overall value in a crowded 3B landscape, and Scimpf's absurd power is a much better fit for a corner infield position.

The starting lineup is also fraught with players who will very likely also be members of the next winning Padres starting lineup: the quintet of Jankowski, Margot, Myers, Renfroe, and Hedges will in all likelihood, be the initial core that AJ Preller & Co. build the team around for the next decade- and this is just year 1 of them all playing together. Once prospects like Cal Quantril, Adrian Morejon, Anderson Espinoza, and Fernando Tatis Jr. reach the major leagues (not to mention the legions of international talent AJ signed in 2016, as well as whomever the Padres select at #3 overall in the 2017 draft), things could come together in a hurry.

But until then...... we'll have to put up with inferior, negative WAR players like Erick Aybar, whose career has gone by completely the wayside since making the All Star Team in 2014. He'll join the exclusive club of past-their-prime shortstops the Padres have trotted out in the post-Kahlil Greene era, including Miguel Tejada, Jason Bartlett, and Alexi Ramirez. 

Bench

• Hector Sanchez, C
• Luis Torrens, C
• Allen Cordoba, IF
• Luis Sardinas, IF

Well, this is interesting- and by interesting, I mean "this-is-really-bad-but-it's-Opening-Day-and-I'm-trying-to-be-optimistic". This is bad. For the record, I'm not calling it "bad" in the way that kids say it these days when they actually mean "good". This bench is not good either.

How many major league benches do you see with just two catchers and two infielders? How many major league benches do you see that are 50% comprised of Rule Five picks? That was a rhetorical question, folks.

Presumably, one half of the light-hitting Sanchez/Sardinas dyad will be DFA'd/optioned upon the return of Alex Dickerson from the DL- having Christian Bethancourt (who, as mentioned, is listed as a pitcher) as the fourth outfielder is clearly an untenable long-term situation.

The fact that both Torrens and Cordoba- the latter having never played above rookie-league ball and the former having having played above single A- indicates that (like their forerunners Luis Perdomo and Jabari Blash) the two, along with Miguel Diaz, are likely to remain on the roster for the entire season so the Padres can acquire their rights permanently. As Keith Law notes on Twitter, Rule 5 picks have low rates of historical success and force teams to keep players underserving of a big league roster spot for an entire season. But hey, it's the Padres we're talking about! We're nationally renowned for doing these kind of things, after all.

Starting Rotation

1. Jhoulys Chacin
2. Clayton Richard
3. Trevor Cahill
4. Jered Weaver
5. Luis Perdomo

You know how I was trying to be optimistic about the bench? I'm not even going to try with the rotation. The rotation is AWFUL- it's almost offensively bad. "Mediocre" is probably almost two standard deviations away from the mean in the distribution (towards the 99th percentile, of course) of adjectives one can use to describe this team.

In brief:

• Chacin is probably a number 3/4 starter on most teams, yet he'll be taking the mound on Opening Day as our best starting pitcher. A bounce-back season from him could make him a viable trade candidate later in the season, though.
•  I saw a Padres banner advertising Clayton Richard by ballpark the other day and I briefly thought I had traveled back in time to 2010, so that's all I have to say about him.  
• Cahill is probably better off in the bullpen like he was with the Cubs, but like Chacin, he used to be good at one point (an All Star in 2010), so maybe he can be flipped for prospects if he experiences a renaissance of sorts.
• Jered Weaver, whose necrotized right arm apparently hasn't disqualified him from pitching in the Majors, has seen his fastball slowly decrease to 83 MPH over the course of the last three years. For reference, his fastball is closer in speed to 13-year old Mo'ne Davis (70 MPH) than Aroldis Chapman (101 MPH), and is also slower than Jhoulys Chacin's changeup (84 MPH).
• Luis Perdomo is likely the only pitcher in the rotation that has any sort of long-term future with the Padres- he displayed significant improvement in the second half of the season after a rough start. However, the front office's decision to include him on the Opening Day roster means the team will lose (for now) the opportunity to gain an extra year of club control on Perdomo had they had kept him in the minors for a few weeks to start the season.

Bullpen

• Miguel Diaz, RP
• Christian Bethancourt, RP
• Jose Torres, RP
• Jarred Cosart, RP
• Craig Stammen, RP
• Brad Hand, SU
• Ryan Buchter, SU
• Brandon Mauer, CL

There's not really a whole lot to say about this group. Aside from the inclusion of Bethancourt, they're remarkably unremarkable. They're essentially bullpen equivalent of vanilla ice cream. The thing is, though, vanilla ice cream is super tasty. And this bullpen will be tast-, er-.....

*sighs*

(I don't know where I was going with that one.)

Okay, how about this: Vanilla ice cream is reliably tasty, if unspectacularly so. Considering Petco Park/Darren Balsley's historical successes in churning out relief pitchers at an astounding pace, pieces like Torres, Hand, Buchter, and Mauer have a chance to be quietly effective members of the bullpen this season. 

Or, this bullpen could totally end up being a group of sub-zero WAR players, because relievers can be extremely volatile and hard to judge due to their small sample sizes. But, you know, optimism, right!?!?

Speaking of the ice cream analogy, once Carter Capps (and his incredible delivery) is activated from the disabled list, this bullpen could very well go from vanilla to Banana Chocolate Avocado (which is totally a real ice cream flavor). Capps could even conceivably push Mauer from the closer role if he returns to his pre-Tommy John surgery form.

Overall Impressions

I mean, the roster in it's current state isn't going to win the division. But that's to be expected.

However, we are witnessing our San Diego Padres, known for their history of complete and utter mediocrity, pioneer what could totally be a new way to win the game of baseball: by not being expected to win and doing the unexpected. 

This unexpectedness is what makes the Padres genuinely compelling in a "lovable-losers" type of way- just look at Christian Bethancourt. We have never seen a hyperutility player of his ilk- one that can pitch AND hit AND play the outfield - since Babe Ruth! Bethancourt, in fact, one-ups the Great Bambino himself, as he can also catch! 

That's what makes it okay for Andy Green to consider doing odd things like using a rotation of six starting pitchers for four innings every outing, and for AJ Preller, Ron Folwer, and Peter Seidler to spend obscene amounts of money on talented youngsters who essentially amount to lottery tickets that have no guarantee of success. That's even what makes it okay for those aforementioned four executives to allow this team to carry three Rule Five draft picks, even though the last team that did it were the 119-loss Detroit Tigers in 2003!

But despite all the unorthodoxy going on here, make no mistake- the preliminary results seem to be working. 

There is undeniable talent on this roster- as I mentioned earlier, we are watching the core form of the next winning Padres baseball team, and if players like Renfroe, Myers, Hedges, Margot, and Perdomo preform up to their potential, this could potentially be a very fun group to watch- and it's only just the beginning.

Go Padres.