Quite unsurprisingly... the Padres are not in that chase. Which is fine and expected. The Padres finished the first half of the season at 38-50 and ya know what?
We aren't in last place! How exciting is that?
Even better is the fact that last place is instead occupied the despicable Giants, who unlike the Padres, came in to the season with high expectations. Mediocrity looks good on you, Giants fans!
Besides the win-loss column, how is the 2017 actually going for the Padres? Let's take a look at the good and the bad.
The Good: Brad Hand
Raise your hand if you thought Brad Hand would be the Padres All Star this year.
*waits*
Okay then! Brad Hand has been very good this year as Padres' 8th inning option- you really got to give him a...... hand for the job he's done. I really hand to get that pun off my chest. But I digress.
Anyways, Hand has been an absolute workhorse in the bullpen this year, pitching the sixth most innings of any reliever this year with 47 and owns a solid 11.49 K/9 and 2.30 ERA. He also made the Padres look really good by registering a perfect inning in the Midsummer Classic, striking out All Star Game MVP Robinson Cano. Considering the thin relief market, the Padres will likely be able to get a pretty solid haul for him before the trade deadline- on an interview with 1090, Keith Law speculated that a minor leaguer ranked #51-100 on a top prospect list would constitute fair value for Hand- and you really can't have too many of those in a minor league system.
Brad Hand is as good as gone, but it's been nice to see him revive his career in San Diego. Hopefully he can get a ring, or something.
The Bad: The Rotation
At the start of the season, I wrote this about the Padres pitching staff:
I mean, they haven't been that bad. That doesn't mean they're good. By team WAR, the Padres starting rotation is ranked 22nd, with 3.6. Not as bad as I thought they would be, but still pretty far from where they need to be to compete with a team like the Dodgers, who have a team WAR of 11.3, which leads the league.
Also, Jared Weaver was even worse than expected, with an 0-5 record, 7.44 ERA, and a 8.11 FIP. By Fangraphs WAR, he was the worst starting pitcher in baseball. Fortunately, we've probably seen the last of him in a Padres uniform.
Jhoulys Chacin, Trevor Cahill, Clayton Richard, and Luis Perdomo have all been eh. They've each been worth about 1 WAR each. Not great, or even above average, but fortunately not Weaver-esque either. None of the first three have any substantial future with the Padres, so I guess it'll be nice if the Padres can recoup some value for them to a contending team needy for starting pitching at the deadline.
The Good: The Home Run
I also said in my preview that the Padres would be good at hitting the home run. To that end, they aren't very high in the overall team home run leaderboard, coming in at 21st overall with 102 home runs.
But they do have three guys- Austin Hedges, Hunter Renfroe, and Wil Myers- who are all on pace for 20+ home runs this year. These are all guys who are part of the future core of the next winning Padres team going forward. Most excitingly, the onset of Hedges' power at the major league level, when combined with his already All-Star caliber defensive/pitch-framing skills, could make him one of the best catchers in baseball going forward.
Also, Ryan Schimpf got sent down to Triple A because he really can't do anything besides strikeout and hit the home run. But once he's back (and he will be back), he'll also surely eclipse the 20 home run threshold again. Jumbo Scrimpf for all!
The Bad: The Home Run
As mentioned, besides the aforementioned four players, the Padres as a team haven't really hit a ton of home runs. They also might be a little too reliant on the homer as well. As Fangraphs' Travis Sawchik notes, the Padres lead the NL in the percentage of their runs scored by the home run at 46.2%. The Padres are also last in the league in terms of runs scored with 312.
You might be able to see how this is problematic when you consider the fact the Padres home run percentage is 3.2%- in other words, Padres batters hit a home run in about 3 of every 100 at-bats. Essentially, almost half of their entire offensive comes from these three at-bats out of 100, which to say the least, is a somewhat suboptimal way to play baseball.
So yeah, that's definitely not a good thing. At least knowing the fact that when the Padres are trailing, they'll probably come back via a spectacular go-ahead home run, still makes the games pretty fun to watch, though.
The Bad: Anderson Espinoza's Forearm
Anderson Espinoza, the Padres #1 rated prospect going into the season by virtually every major publication, has not pitched at all this season- having been shut down by forearm tightness.
I mean, the kid is 19 years old, so I can understand why the Padres are being hyper-cautious with his development. There's no need to risk the possibility of your top prospect suffering a serious injury by rushing him back to the mound.
Any kind of injury is always worrisome, though. Remember the last top prospect the Padres acquired from the Red Sox who had an injury history? Yeah, I don't really want to remember Casey Kelly either. After Tommy John surgery, that guy totally SUCKED. I'm probably doing myself no mental favors by comparing two totally different pitchers just on the basis that they were both former Red Sox farmhands... but it still makes me (and the rest of the Padres fanbase) pretty uneasy.
The Good: The Rest of the Farm System
Well, aside from Espinoza's struggles with injuries this season, the rest of the top prospects in the system have been doing really, really well.
Franchy Cordero, Carlos Asuaje, and Dinelson Lamet have all made contributions to the big league club. Particularly, Lamet looks to be a rotation stalwart for the next few years, provided he can improve his command.
The trio of pitchers the Padres drafted in 2016- Eric Lauer, Cal Quantril, and @JoeyFuego44- er, I mean Joey Lucchesi- all had strong seasons in Advanced Single A, and all earned promotions to Double A at the All Star Break. I'd bet that at least one of them will debut in Petco before the season ends, and all three of them will likely challenge for the MLB rotation in Spring Training next year.
Particularly impressive has been Quantril, who was named to the Futures Game in Miami and shot up to 21 on Baseball America's midseason Top Prospect list- he's now the second highest ranked player from his draft. It's pretty safe to say AJ Preller got a great value with Quantril- even though many evaluators believed he had been overdrafted.
Speaking of great value... how about getting Fernando Tatis, Jr. for James Shields? Tatis, Jr. has absolutely DESTROYED Single A pitching. As Baseball Prospectus notes, his speed/power combo is tantalizing. My God, how on earth did AJ convince the White Sox to give us this guy?
Overall
I mean, this Padres team has been more or less what we expected them to be: not very good. But that's fine. Everything we need to go right more or less has; we've watched most of our top prospects at lower levels develop properly, Brad Hand will net us a pretty good player in return, and Austin Hedges is turning into the Padres' best catcher since Benito Santiago. And the Giants are in last place too.
So yeah, record aside, maybe things are going pretty good.
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