Guys, remember when I said at the beginning of the season that the Padres would win 78 games?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
I was miserably, miserably wrong. This team sucks.
Honestly though, it's probably in our best interests to really, really, really nosedive this year. The Padres are currently on pace to receive the fourth overall pick in the 2019 draft, and while it might be hard to catch the truly awful Orioles and Royals, there's still hope yet that we might overtake the White Sox for the 3rd overall pick.
So, at least we have that to look forward to. The most reasonable course of action would be to embrace the hell out of the tank, improve what is already the best farm system in baseball, and trust the process for at least one more year, right?
WRONG!
The Padres were seriously considering acquiring Chris Archer from the Rays for a king's ransom, for some reason. Fortunately, those talks have cooled for now- AJ decided against breaking the piggy bank to get a guy who more-or-less will be a #3 starter going forward. The Pirates were left to make that mistake instead!
However, what if Padres ownership decided to say "screw it", throw caution to the wind, and try to pry the contention window open early? (Sound familiar?)
Let's try to get the Padres to a place where they could, at least in theory, contend in 2019. I built this team through wildly bold trades/signings and even more wildly unrealistic projections of performance for players on the current roster.
Player value is expressed in Wins Above Replacement- an sabermetric statistic that assesses how good a player is relative to a scrub. For the purposes of this article, all you need to know is that 2 WAR is roughly average for a starter.
The Lineup
C- Hedges- 2 WAR
1B- Hosmer- 4 WAR
2B- Urais- 2 WAR
SS- Tatis Jr- 4 WAR
3B- Villanueva- 1.5 WAR
LF- Jankowski/Renfroe - 1 WAR
CF- Margot- 3 WAR
RF- Myers- 4 WAR
The core of this lineup revolves around three players that need to have great seasons for the Padres to resemble anything like a contender in 2019: Eric Hosmer, Fernando Tatis Jr.. and Wil Myers.
First, Wil Myers needs to stay healthy and maintain the torrid pace he's been on since returning from injury. Secondly, Fernando Tatis Jr. needs to have a Rookie-of-the-Year caliber season, which actually is pretty plausible. He's poised to be the newest member of the Über-Shortstop club, joining the likes of Corey Seager, Francisco Lindor, Manny Machado, and Carlos Correa. All of the aforementioned players had strong rookie seasons, and I actually don't think it's a major stretch to think the same of FTJ.
Finally, this brings us to the most unrealistic of the three: Eric Hosmer has to rebound to his 2017 self. Trying to forecast Hosmer's future performance is a thankless task, and I can take solace in the fact that indeed, stranger things have happened before- like Eric Hosmer signing with the Padres.
Hedges needs to be a gold glove-caliber catcher (like he already has been), and so long as he's simply mediocre with the bat and not absolutely atrocious, I'll take it. Margot needs to continue his offensive improvement and stellar defense. If he can get there, he's a starter on a playoff team. In my wildest dreams- er, projections, I could actually see Urais being even better than 2 WAR- but so long as he gets on base at a reasonable pace while adjusting to the MLB learning curve, that's enough for me.
Villanueva isn't going to strike out less, but if he figures out a way to hit 25 to 30 home runs, he'll be useful. If there was a way to combine the defense, contact ability, and speed of Travis Jankowski with the elite power of Hunter Renfroe, we'd have a borderline hall-of-famer. Unfortunately, that technology doesn't exist yet, so I'll take a platoon between the two in left field.
These projections sound wild? That's because they are. But you haven't seen anything yet.
This could, in theory, be a playoff lineup- but none of that means anything without a pitching staff. Shockingly, the rotation as is needs a total renovation. Does that mean "wait for our young arms to come through the system?" Hell no! Brace yourself.
The Rotation
1. NOAH SYNDERGAARD- 7 WAR
2. JACOB DEGROM- 6 WAR
3. DALLAS KUECHEL - 4 WAR
4. Joey Lucchesi- 2 WAR
5. Clayton Richard- 1.5 WAR
Yeah, you read that right. In this bizzaro-world, the Padres acquire Syndergaard, Keuchel, and DeGrom in the same offseason.
Syndergaard and DeGrom come to the Padres through a package headlined by Mackenzie Gore and Francisco Mejia. But that's not all folks: AJ Preller trades a total of ten (10!!!!!) of our top 30 prospects to the Mets for the duo- Michel Baez, Anderson Espinoza, Gabriel Arias, Chris Paddack, Luis Patino, Tirso Ornelas, Buddy Reed, and Estury Ruiz all go to the Big Apple as well. To sweeten the deal for the Mets, the Padres also take on the entirety of Yoenis Cespedes' contract and his calcified heels.
The Mets said they would't move on from Thor or DeGrom- but as Walter White said: everything has a price. Is this trade absolutely insane? Yep. But who cares! 2019 or bust, amirite???
Finally, because Padres investors are enthused about the new acquisitions, Ron Folwer gets the shareholders on the phone and convinces them to pump the team's books with enough cash to sign 2015 Cy Young Award winner Dallas Keuchel to a 5 year, 175 million dollar contract.
The top of this rotation is absolutely monstrous. In this scenario, Syndergaard, DeGrom, and Kuechel each have all-star caliber seasons, and Thor runs away with the Cy Young. Lucchesi and Richard round out the back of the group with solid seasons as well.
Is this team actually any good?
Well, I hope so. Given that a team filled with replacement level players can win about 48 games, and if you assume the bullpen is solid (contributing about 3 WAR total) and the bench is roughly replacement level, this team is capable of about 91 wins. Is that enough to win the division? Maybe.
Despite being unanimously considered favorites to win the NL West, the Dodgers have seemingly regressed- per Fangraphs they're on pace for roughly 91 wins this year. The Dodgers are certainly more talented than 91 wins, so I'd expect them to probably be better next year.
A wild card berth might be the most realistic outcome for this Padres team. But hey, after all these years of losing- I'd take it!
Thankfully though, it MIGHT just be a better idea to stay patient and keep waiting for a couple more years. If we keep all of those young players that I just wrote about trading, we could conceivably dominate the NL West for the next decade. So with that in mind.... to hell with 2019. Trust the process!
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