Randy Holt

In a number of respects, Manny Machado is the best he's been in years. But the power side isn't one of them. The total body of work indicates an essential component of the San Diego Padres' lineup. Machado's line includes a .295 average, .360 on-base percentage, 16.9% strikeout rate, and a 9.6% walk rate. It all culminates in a 131 wRC+. The K% is his best since 2021, and everything else represents his best work since '22. But despite combining for 91 home runs over the three years prior to 2025, that element of his game has been almost entirely absent thus far. Machado has just three home runs to his credit this season and a .164 ISO. The latter figure represents a decline in each year since the aforementioned '22 campaign, but it also stands as his lowest since 2014, when he appeared in only 82 games and posted a .153 mark. What's weird, though, is that it doesn't entirely jive with what his outcomes should be, given batted ball data. As of this writing, Machado's hard hit rate sits in the 96th percentile (57.0 percent). His 12.0 Barrel% is in the 70th percentile and is a percentage point higher than last season. And it's not as if he's making different swing decisions. His swing rates and contact rates are within a point of last year's output. Pitch types haven't changed in any meaningful way as far as the power discussion goes, either. There's a notable change, but not one that we'd expect to impact him: That's a steep drop in the swing rate vs. off-speed pitches (41.1 percent). It's roughly a 10 percent drop off of what was roughly a six percent drop between '23 and '24. At no point has off-speed represented a source of launch angle. In only one season was it the pitch responsible for his highest fly ball rate. That was in 2014. So while it's the only notable change, it's also not responsible for the waning power output from Machado. His presence within the zone might give us some sense of where the power has gone, though. Here's Machado's fly ball distribution within the zone thus far in 2025: And here's his career: You could make an argument that there's some meat being left on the bone on the inner part of the plate. Especially up and in. It's a case. But much of his career ISO has come from middle-middle and middle-up. So while he might be able to derive more power from attacking that portion of the zone a bit more frequently, it's difficult to say with any certainty what such an increase would look like. If we're still looking for a case, could we blame bat speed? Machado's is on its third consecutive season of decline. He was at a 76.7 MPH average in 2023 and sits at 74.5 MPH this year. His rate of fast swings (over 75 MPH) is also significantly lower over that stretch, dropping from 66.3 percent two years ago to 43.5 percent now. Is it possible that even with solid plate discipline metrics and a steady rate of barrel contact that Machado's bat just doesn't have the same strength that it used to? That feels like an oversimplification. At the same time, it might not be too far off. He's only 32, but that body has been through plenty (including a surgery within the last two years). We'll keep an eye on both dynamics moving forward. Perhaps it's simply the portion of the zone where Machado is operating. Maybe it is age. Either way, it's a concerning development. While the team will get Jackson Merrill & Jake Cronenworth back in the coming days, additional pop from Machado would go a long way toward stabilizing the team's top-heavy offense. View full article

Almost nobody threw more fastballs in 2024 than Robert Suárez. The San Diego Padres' closer rode that pitch and its 99th percentile velocity to 36 saves and a 2.77 ERA. Fine outcomes at the back of the bullpen, to be sure. Ideally, you'd like at least a little variety out of your relief arms. Such variety has manifested in 2025 with the (re)introduction of a changeup. It's not a new pitch for Suárez in the traditional sense, though. As recently as 2023, he was a pitcher who demonstrated much more mix in his usage than we became accustomed to last year. Such mix included three pitches. The fastball was still his most utilized pitch that year (38.3 percent), but it was a narrow gap before we got to the change (33.6). The sinker came in at roughly 22 percent of the time. That Suárez became so fastball-heavy in '24 carries some logic. By Stuff+, it's represented his best offering since 2022 and checked in as one of the 10 best pitches of that variety last year. While that component remains (and is perhaps even better given a 120 Stuff+ thus far), Suárez has spent the early part of 2025 reintegrating the offspeed: That's a pretty tremendous narrowing of the gap in such a short time. The fastball and change account for over 85 percent of the pitches this year. The outcomes reflect the benefits of such variety. And don't. On the positive side, the massive increase in changeup usage has been a boon to Suárez thus far. It carries a 113 Stuff+. He's generating more chase on that pitch than anything else, which accounts for his highest Whiff% on any individual pitch by a wide margin (41.4 vs. 19.7 for the hard stuff). A primary goal of a reliever is to keep hitters off balance. A fastball bringing roughly 100 MPH cheddar combined with a change bringing a velo dip over 10 percent is enough to do just that. But it hasn't been perfect. Suárez allows more barrel contact (7.5 percent barrel rate) and a higher average exit velocity (93.7) than last year. Beyond that, the change isn't doing a whole lot for him overall. The overall whiff rate remains nearly identical to 2024. As does the contact rate. But to say such an evolution in usage is futile would also be an oversimplification. With the spike in changeup usage, Suárez has been able to drive up his strikeout rate (30.2 percent). The xBA on the change is only .133 against .255 with the fastball. While rising in a big picture sense, the exit velocity is a few MPH lower against the offspeed than with the fastball. The negative side is that hitters are able to key in on the fastball a little bit more. Instead of expecting it all the time and being overmatched, hitters can hunt fastball and strike for quality contact. They're not making a ton of it, but it's been a little bit more impactful compared to last year when they do. At least against last year, when they were looking at virtually one pitch type that had a bit more variety in location. Given the rise in punchouts and the limiting of overall baserunners, it at least appears to be a worthy change. Whether Suárez can continue to work through some of the negative components and peripherals associated with it, however, remains to be seen. View full article

At present, the San Diego Padres are a team starved for offense. Even with the return of Luis Arráez, there's a level of impact that will remain absent from the lineup for the foreseeable future, given that they are still without Jackson Merrill and Jake Cronenworth indefinitely. That's left the team struggling to drum up any level of run production outside of what Fernando Tatis Jr. provides. Manny Machado isn't hitting for a lot of power; Gavin Sheets is striking out too much to be a consistent threat (despite his overall improvement). There simply aren't a lot of avenues for supplementary offense when you're missing key starters, especially when Xander Bogaerts is playing the way he is. Bogaerts' line includes an average of just .243 and a strikeout rate at its highest point since 2014. There are some positives mixed in (he's working a career-best 11.0 percent walk rate), but it's all culminated in a wRC+ of just 90. Coming off a season in which he produced a mark of 95, the last two seasons have seen below average production from a player with another eight years on his contract. The most concerning factor regarding Bogaerts' underwhelming production, though, lies in the lack of any real impact (read: power). While only occasionally a 20+ home run guy, Bogaerts has yet to get one ball over the fence as the calendar turns to May. [Note: This piece was written ahead of Bogaerts' first home run on Tuesday night. The homer came vs. a slider, which is notable considering the points made from here.] His isolated slugging checks in at a mere .084. So, while he's been able to get on base and swipe the occasional bag (four steals as of this writing), there isn't a lot of contribution to the run production game from a player who spends a good deal of time in the middle of the order. It's somewhat paradoxical, too. Bogaerts' bat speed is actually up. His average speed sits at 71.9 MPH and in the 53rd percentile. Last year, he was more than a mile per hour slower (and in the 28th percentile). When you combine a guy who's swinging a faster bat with a guy that has one of the better approaches in matters of chase and whiff, it would seem like a logical formula for success. Especially in the "driving the ball" department. That's not the case with Bogaerts, however. While he's maintaining a keen approach in not expanding the zone and not striking out a bunch with that faster bat, he's also making less overall contact — his overall Contact% is down three percent, at 80.3 for the year. It's become especially egregious outside the strike zone. Despite being more choose-y on such pitches, his contact rate on pitches outside of the zone has plummeted by more than 10 percent (50.0). The trend itself exists as a paradox. He's a patient hitter with quicker bat somehow can't generate quality contact. It then becomes much more real when looking at the type of pitch for which Bogaerts is most likely to expand the zone: That's a steep jump in the chase rate against off-speed pitches, in particular. At 53.3 percent, it also stands as the pitch type he's whiffing at the most on those out-of-zone swings. Unsurprisingly, the off-speed pitch is responsible for his lowest average exit velocity in six of his last seven seasons. There just aren't a lot of ways to win for Bogaerts when he's pursuing the off-speed pitch, especially when it's not within the strike zone. Which leaves us looking at these swing speed figures and making easy sense out of them. Yes, the swing is faster. But his squared-up rate on percentage of contact is down almost five percent (32.3). It presents a frustrating trend given the strides made in the speed itself and in the approach. There's clearly a re-evaluation of said approach needed here in matters of pitch type. Even last year's iteration of Bogaerts didn't include much power. But he was able to derive some out of the fact that he put some separation between fastballs and off-speed pitches in the way he attacked each pitch type. Fastballs were the priority. And while he didn't entirely avoid the off-speed stuff, he was able to swing at a higher frequency against the hard stuff, out of which he was able to salvage some of the power that hasn't been super present since, like, 2021. That's not happening this year, and this is the result you find. Should Bogaerts find some discipline in matters of pitch types, the newfound bat speed should help him to generate a bit more impact for a Padres team that desperately needs it. In the interim, though, the Padres are getting a guy that they have no shortage of on this roster: someone who can get on base, but can't drive in the players already there. View full article

Unlike the hitting side of things, there's a number of arms we can acknowledge as the March/April Pitcher of the Month for the San Diego Padres. While the positional side has been decimated by injuries, the pitching staff has held it together. It hasn't been perfect (given some struggles in the rotation), but it's been a top 10 staff in all of baseball by most measures. With those aforementioned rotation issues in mind — the optioning of Kyle Hart, Michael King's efficiency, and Dylan Cease's start-to-start variance as examples — the key to the staff has been the Padres' late-inning combination of Jeremiah Estrada, Jason Adam, and Robert Suárez. Estrada is off to the best start of his career (1.32 ERA) largely thanks to the flip in his second offering from last year's slider to this year's "chitter." He's generating chase at a rate in the 95th percentile (37.0 percent) and getting punchouts in the 89th (31.4). Adam has been only slightly worse less excellent in the whiff game, but he's off to a 0.60 ERA start in which he hasn't allowed a single barrel. Suárez has been Suárez, incorporating the changeup quite a bit more in order to gain a rise in strikeout rate. They're hardly the only examples from the San Diego 'pen, however. Alek Jacob has been quite good across 15 innings of work. Adrian Morejón continues to look like one of the game's best middle relievers, with an arsenal that leaves him capable of being dropped into any given situation over the course of nine innings. The team not only has the chops to close out games efficiently, but a bridge to get them there. Our Pitcher of the Month for March & April, though, comes out of the rotation. And even though he signed on at the end of February, Nick Pivetta has been the team's most important pitcher through the first month-or-so of the 2025 season. Following a 2023 as a swingman and a 2024 that featured a 4.14 ERA as a full-time starter in Boston, Pivetta came in as one of the team's only Major League signings from this past winter. And while there are no shortage of reasons to believe that the regression monster could creep up behind him at any second, the efficiency and stability Pivetta has provided in the rotation thus far has been paramount for the Padres. The surface numbers are outstanding. Pivetta's pitched to a 1.20 ERA & 2.20 FIP through his first five starts, averaging six innings per start. He's gone seven innings in three of those five outings. The strikeout rate is down a touch (27.0 percent), but the walk rate has remained just about the same (the 6.3 percent rate is actually down on a per-inning basis). I mentioned regression. Pivetta has allowed a .205 BABIP and is stranding roughly 88 percent of runners. His barrel rate is living in just the 36th percentile (9.5 percent), and his groundball rate remains low (around 35 percent). His spike in sinker usage (and subsequent outcomes) should help him to remain largely efficient, but we have every reason to think that there's at least some level of regression on the horizon. Luckily, the team has the horses behind him to minimize the effects. That's a concern for another day, though. The Padres have needed every bit of the efficiency he's provided out of the rotation thus far. Dylan Cease has only worked past the fifth inning twice. Michael King has lacked a certain efficiency throughout his starts, despite the overall quality (which remains high). Dylan Cease has only worked past the fifth inning twice. Kyle Hart's already in El Paso. Yu Darvish and Matt Waldron remain on the IL. Regression — and the excellence of the relief corps — be damned, Nick Pivetta has been the team's most important pitcher through a month-and-change of 2025. View full article

Is this even a question? With the month of April coming to a close, it's time to examine the San Diego Padres' most impressive player on the positional side. Given the rash of injuries the team has experienced in recent weeks, however, it leaves us with fairly slim pickings. Jackson Merrill has been out for nearly three weeks. Jake Cronenworth for only slightly less. Luis Arráez missed a week. In between Injured List stints, the Padres are still waiting for Manny Machado to find a power stroke, hoping that Gavin Sheets will get his strikeout rate a little clearer of 30 percent, and praying that Xander Bogaerts will provide any offensive value that doesn't involve a walk. Which leaves us with only one option: Fernando Tatis Jr. Don't get it twisted, though. That Fernando Tatis Jr. is our March & April Hitter of the Month by default is hardly the result of the context permeating the rest of the roster. He's been legitimately excellent. Only two players have been more valuable this season than Tatis by fWAR: Aaron Judge & Corbin Carroll. And while Judge has the edge on the rest of the league by a wide margin, Carroll's 2.1 figure as of this writing only narrowly beats out Tatis' 2.0. Assuming his new role in the leadoff spot, he's thrived in virtually every aspect through the season's first month-plus. Some adjustments to the swing have allowed Tatis to lean into the pull side a bit more, resulting in more power, especially at home. His line thus far includes an average of .346, an on-base percentage of .415, and an OPS of 1.040. Each of those figures is in the league's top seven. He also carries an ISO of .279 and a wRC+ of 188. That latter figure has him as the league's fourth-best hitter. The rediscovery of the power stroke is an important component as Tatis reestablishes his status among the game's brightest stars. His average exit velocity (95.1) sits in the 97th percentile, and his 19.3 Barrel% checks in at the 95th. The approach hasn't changed, but he's making more contact (particularly inside the strike zone). When you combine those factors, the uptick in power output is hardly surprising. But he's also reclaiming some activity on the basepaths. Tatis' seven steals rank 12th in the league. His Baserunning Runs (BsR) from FanGraphs (0.9) has him in the league's top 30. While it's been a bit more in vain given the absence of consistent offense behind him (wrought by the team's injury woes), he's simply provided value in every possible area of offense. It's a crucial tone to set, both for Tatis Jr, the player, and the Padres at large. Coming off a season in which he was quite good, but held back by the stress fracture, there hadn't yet been a stretch since the 2022 debacle where we felt like he was on his way back to the player he was in the three years prior. It appears that's changed. For the San Diego Padres, nobody was better to start the year. And it's not particularly close. View full article

Turns out, it's a lot harder to score runs when roughly half your lineup is on the injured list. Even home cookin' isn't enough for the San Diego Padres these days. The team that started 12-1 at the friendly confines of Petco Park endured their first sweep of the season over the weekend, stinging even more because it came upon their return home from a six-game road swing. They scored just three runs across three games against the Tampa Bay Rays, giving way to larger concerns about the offense's ability to produce runs. At the same time, several key players remain out with various injuries. Jackson Merrill was placed on the IL on April 8th with a hamstring injury. Three days later, on April 11th, Jake Cronenworth followed with a rib injury. Luis Arráez went on the 7-day concussion IL exactly a week ago on Monday, following a scary collision in Houston. Those benchmarks are important in examining the Padres' offensive woes in recent games. Through April 7th, the Padres were a top 10 team in terms of run production. They'd scored 51 runs across 11 games, with a collective 120 wRC+ that ranked seventh among all teams in Major League Baseball. Even when Merrill went down, they stayed the course. Their wRC+ with an extra three days came in at 117 (sixth), and they were 10th in runs scored. Since that point, though, the injuries have started to wear on the Padres' offensive attack. They rank just 26th in runs (49) and 23rd in wRC+ (91). Their on-base percentage, a hallmark of early success, has also fallen to 23rd (.303). The last week without Arráez, in particular, has been a massive struggle. They've scored only nine runs in the past week (six games) and are 28th in OBP (.237). Their 41 collective wRC+ is just a single notch above last-place Toronto and Los Angeles (the Angels, obviously). There is, of course, a caveat to that in that they've gone against quality pitching. Houston (3.18) and Detroit (2.80) each rank in the top four staffs in cumulative ERA. Tampa Bay's just a little bit farther down the list in seventh (3.46). But it's not like things get easier this week. They'll welcome San Francisco's ninth-ranked (3.47) staff to town before heading to Pittsburgh & New York, each of which features staffs in the top half of the league in overall production. It's obviously very bad timing for a team just trying to scrape any offense they can find in the absence of several key players. Relying on the likes of Jose Iglesias, Tyler Wade, Yuli Gurriel, Tirso Ornelas, and Connor Joe likely isn't what the front office envisioned, even on a team starved for actual depth. And while, for their money, the likes of Iglesias and Wade have been fine, they're hardly impact bats in the lineup. At best, you're getting quality on-base skills for the rest of the lineup to knock in. Except most of the rest of the lineup is hanging out in IL city. But there is, at least, some reason for optimism on the horizon. Arráez appears set to be activated on Tuesday after spending the minimum on the concussion IL. Jason Heyward could join him. Jackson Merrill is taking live batting practice, and Jake Cronenworth is getting some fielding work in. While the latter has yet to begin diving as part of his on-field ramp-up, there are some encouraging signs that the health of the lineup is finally starting to tilt in the Padres' favor. They're not there yet, though. While a couple of off days this week will buy additional time, the lack of offense remains concerning. Difficult as it may be to pin recent losses on guys pressed into far more duty than expected, the team is going to have to find ways to generate at least some offense to support what has continued to be a high-quality pitching staff or risk falling behind quickly in the exceptionally competitive National League West. View full article

A four-man rotation it is, apparently. On Friday, the San Diego Padres announced that they've optioned starting pitcher Kyle Hart to Triple-A. Hart will ply his trade with the El Paso Chihuahuas for at least the next few weeks. With a rash of injuries limiting the team's ability to replace him directly from the 40-man, Hart will be replaced on the active roster by reliever Ryan Bergert. It's not an entirely unusual situation that the Padres optioned a player who is essentially their fifth starter—maybe their fourth. But the impact on the roster presents a couple of different layers of intrigue. First is just Hart's direct optioning. While he wasn't guaranteed a roster spot in his return from the KBO, Hart was able to grab the job largely due to Yu Darvish's elbow inflammation. His spring wasn't terrific (9.39 ERA), so there was a sort of "by default" factor given that he'd, ideally, be able to eat up some innings. Through his first five starts, though, Hart was leaving a lot on his plate. He went five innings in his first start but couldn't escape the first in his second. While he was able to turn in six shutout innings in the third start, it came against a brutal Colorado squad. His subsequent two starts saw him surrender five runs in five innings against Houston before working through just 4.1 innings of two-run ball in Detroit. It's left some pretty shoddy numbers on the books for him to date. Hart's line includes 21 innings, a 6.00 ERA (6.07 FIP), a 17.8 K%, and a 6.7 BB%. The walk rate looks pretty good. The issue is that virtually nothing else does: That's a lot of hard contact, a lot of barrels, and not much compensating for a relatively high overall contact rate (82.1 percent). He'll head to El Paso to work on some things. Ideally, he returns with a more stable foundation from which to work. His usage has been messy in terms of the usage itself and subsequent outcomes. With pressure already on the bullpen, given some injuries there, it was simply necessary. In a more pressing concern for the roster at large, though, you'll note the word "reliever" in the above regarding Ryan Bergert. The aforementioned slate of injuries — the team's Injured List currently features 11 different names — is problematic not only because of the direct impact of said injuries, but also the lack of flexibility wrought by them. Most of them are relatively short-term; almost none require a trip to the 60-day IL, which would provide a bit more flexibility on the 40-man roster. As such, the Padres are largely left to work with what they have. Moving out a position player or pitcher isn't going to happen with the team scraping the bottom of the barrel for personnel. While Bergert is not a starter, he can go multiple innings at a time if needed, so even a bullpen game should be manageable. That means, however, that with Hart's demotion, the team is set to roll with a four-man rotation for the time being. That could (?) be fine. The team has a day off on Monday and another on Thursday. The schedule could play out reasonably for them, permitting a short-handed starting group to remain roughly on time. There's also the possibility that Yu Darvish nears a return by the time a five-man rotation becomes a necessity again. He's begun ramping up more recently, with live BP appearing on the horizon. Such impeccable timing would be uncharacteristic of the massive bout of poor luck the Padres have experienced this year, but it does remain a possibility. Otherwise, you hope they get healthy elsewhere on the roster to open up more 40-man flexibility. It's a new situation for the Padres in 2025 to option out a player; their roster has performed so well to date, despite the injuries that have been the primary culprits of forcing players out. But subtracting Kyle Hart from the mix indefinitely is still an all-too-familiar problem for the team to confront as they move into the month of May. View full article

Home is where the heart is bats are. The San Diego Padres remain off to a scorching first-place start. As of 4/23, they sit at 17-7 to start the season with a +35 run differential that comes in as the second-best in the league. They're ahead of the Los Angeles Dodgers, San Francisco Giants, and Arizona Diamondbacks to pace what is, objectively, baseball's toughest division. Just imagine where they'd be if they played all of their games in America's Finest City™. The Padres feature a 12-1 record at home, with only a single loss on the books that came against the Chicago Cubs in extra innings back on Jackie Robinson Day. The road, however, has not proven to be as kind to the Friars through their first dozen or so games. At 5-6 away from Petco Park, it's clear that there's a few things working in their own friendly confines against when they're in a less welcoming environment. It starts on the offensive side: At home, the they're averaging 5.2 runs per game. On the road, that average drops to 3.3. Across the board, San Diego is getting more out of their hitters at Petco than at any other ballpark. You could complete such an exercise with a few individual hitters, as well. Gavin Sheets is has a 224 wRC+ through his first 35 plate appearances at home. Jose Iglesias has a 156 figure through 32 PA. From there, you get into your usual suspects. Fernando Tatis Jr (210) and Manny Machado (169) pace the group among healthy regulars. Of course, when you flip it to a road perspective, things tail off. With the exception of Tatis Jr, who still sits at a 166 wRC+ away from home, everyone else devolves into a below-average hitter. Machado's at 93, Sheets is at 73, and Iglesias plummets all the way to 39. Overall, the collective lineup features a 128 wRC+ at home against 98 on the road. Interestingly, there are a couple of Padres who are performing better away from the home park than they are in San Diego. Through 38 road plate appearances, for example, Luis Arráez is leading the roster with a 197 wRC+ vs. just 61 at home. Xander Bogaerts carries a 76 wRC+ at home against a 137 wRC+ on the road. We'll dive into some of the particulars of that later this week. While it's not a terribly pleasant picture which to paint from an offensive standpoint, the pitching side of things gets quite a bit worse: The starting rotation, in particular, has thrived at home. Each of Michael King (1.62 ERA), Nick Pivetta (0.45), Randy Vásquez (0.82), Kyle Hart (1.82), and Dylan Cease (3.32) have been stellar. When you flip the perspective, though, things get quite ugly quite fast, especially as it relates to three of the current starting group. Vásquez (6.94), Cease (11.00), and Hart (15.88) have been absolutely brutal away from home. Even King (3.97) can't match his home production in quite the same way. Because of the overall dominance of the team's relief corps, there isn't a discernible difference between bullpen production home or away. You could observe that Adrian Morejón or Wandy Peralta haven't allowed a run in any of their road appearances, but each also carries a sub-1.50 ERA at home as well. It's the starting group that is of concern at this point. While the home-road splits themselves are quite obvious, it's also not something we need to express too much concern over at this juncture, for a couple of different reasons. For one, the road environments in which the Padres have landed in thus far are not the most ideal of circumstances, especially for hitters. While Sacramento has been the second-friendliest ballpark for hitters this year, Statcast's Park Factors has Wrigley Field at 16th and Houston at 21st. For right-handed hitters in particular (the team's primary source of offense given injuries), the two parks check in at 21 and 22, respectively. Detroit's at 15th overall and 17th for righties. Once the team is through a quick homestand, though, they'll get a bit of relief in their next road environments. Starting in Pittsburgh (18th) won't quite be that, but trips to the Bronx (seventh) and Colorado (fourth) certainly will. They'll also hit Toronto (third) and Atlanta (ninth) before the month of May is out. So, the road parks themselves will lighten up a little bit in terms of offensive viability. That's also to say nothing of the fact that, at some point, the Padres are going to have Jackson Merrill and Jake Cronenworth back in the mix. Each represents a source of balance for the lineup while also providing the team with a bat that has started out quite well on the road. The primary concern moving forward is in the starting pitching. Those splits are vast. And while the healthier, upcoming environments for hitters will play well for them, we do have to express some apprehension about what it could mean for the rotation. Each is still working through some individual components at this stage in the game, but they'll be the ones tasked with getting the Padres back to even on the road. View full article

Whether it's a bug or a feature, we're about to test how far a lack of power to supplement an offense can take an otherwise formidable club. The San Diego Padres do a lot of things well at the plate. As of this writing, they lead the league in batting average (.276) and on-base percentage (.346), and sit third in wRC+ (119). They walk at the league's ninth-highest clip (9.4 percent) and strike out at the league's lowest (17.2 percent). Their 25 steals are ninth in the league. Again, they do a lot of things well. There are also things they do... less well. And those things happen to be just as crucial to an offense as the above indicators. Their 6.5 Barrel% is 28th, and their 38.4 Hard-Hit% ranks 25th. Their .147 ISO comes in at 14th. It's these factors that have the Padres with only the 14th-most runs (97) in the league through roughly a month, despite a record that has them as one of the best handful of clubs. In fact, the Padres' power output is doing less for them than most other clubs. During Saturday's broadcast, there was a graphic regarding the lowest percentage of runs scored via home run. The Padres' 22 homers sit 18th in the league, with the volume accounting for only 27 runs. That means that home runs are responsible for only 28 percent of the team's run total this season. For some additional context, this doesn't even look like the teams around them in the run production game. Baltimore (98 runs) has had 46 percent of their production generated by home runs. Seattle (98) has had 45 percent of their runs come via the longball. The Athletics (95 runs) have had home runs coming in at 44 percent responsible, the Rays (94) have had 35 percent, and the Marlins (also 94) have had 31 percent. Even teams with less overall power, like Tampa Bay or Miami, have derived more meaning out of it. There's a certain degree of objectivity in noting that a team needs power in the long-term. Ten of the 12 playoff teams from last year ranked in the top half of the league in runs scored; six of those teams sat in the top 10 in the league in ISO. Three of the top seven reached the Championship Series stage of the postseason, with two of the top three reaching the World Series. You can survive, to an extent, without it, but it sure does make your life a whole lot easier. Which brings us to two questions are far as the San Diego Padres are concerned: Is this absence of impactful home run power something temporary or a permanent fixture of their offense? Can they survive without a high volume of home runs contributing to the larger context of their offense? In terms of the first one, it does appear to be something at least mildly temporary. Of the team's top ISO hitters, each of Jackson Merrill (.297) and Jake Cronenworth (.229) remain out. They combined for five homers and 15 runs knocked in prior to their respective injuries. Their imminent returns should help drive up the rate of runs wrought by the longball at least a little bit. One also imagines there's a bit more power in Manny Machado's bat than we've seen to this point. He started off slow in the ISO game last year too before heating up in the summer. But, at the same time, we knew this Padres offense would be top heavy. Luis Arráez is a key component of the lineup. Xander Bogaerts hasn't hit for power since, like, 2019. It's a group supplemented by the likes of Jose Iglesias, Jason Heyward (when healthy), and a combination of Martín Maldonado & Elías Díaz behind the plate. There just isn't a lot of power to speak of. What doesn't help is that because of that dearth of offensive impact in the bottom half of the lineup, the team's most powerful hitter isn't able to generate run production as part of his power displays. Fernando Tatis Jr has a .333 ISO and eight home runs already, but only 16 runs knocked in. He's led off an inning (whether to begin a game or otherwise) with a home run in four of those eight instances. That's the downside to having him in the leadoff spot. But with how effective the Padres are protecting leads, getting Tatis an extra opportunity to create one rather than wishing for baserunners in front of him seems like the more practical strategy at this point. Ultimately, though, it's not as if this is anything to express an active concern about. The Padres are not a healthy team. It's going to hurt their ability to produce runs. But even a fully healthy San Diego squad needs to be present and efficient on the basepaths in order to generate runs, more so than on the power side. While power makes your life easier, it's not the only way to generate offense. The Padres should remain a fairly solid case study of that. View full article

If it's a tightrope with so many injuries, the San Diego Padres' late-inning trio are Philippe Petit. I won't pretend I knew Philippe Petit's name offhand. I've seen The Walk (2015). I've heard of Man on Wire (2008). Regardless of your choice of media regarding the famed walk between the Twin Towers in 1974, the combination of walking and performing across a wire over 1,300 feet above the ground draws a (rather absurd) comparison to what the San Diego Padres are currently faced with as it relates to winning baseball games. The Padres are not healthy. They're currently rolling without Jackson Merrill, Jake Cronenworth, and Luis Arráez (among others) on the positional side and Yu Darvish, Bryan Hoeing, Matt Waldron, and Sean Reynolds on the mound. Despite a start that has them positioned as one of the best teams in Major League Baseball, it's not getting any easier considering the volume of IL placements. And yet, if the team can muster just enough offense, the late innings feel like the easy part. In the same way, Petit was able to traverse the length of the Towers with relative ease only after the arduous process of reaching the top; the late-inning combination of Jeremiah Estrada, Jason Adam, and Robert Suárez brings the same level of confidence in stepping out on the wire once they're there. Estrada & Adam rank in the top 30 in usage out of 215 qualifying relief pitchers. Estrada has thrown 11.2 innings while Adam has tossed an even dozen. Estrada has pitched to a 1.54 ERA and a 32.6 K% while stranding 90.9 percent of baserunners. His change in usage has been imperfect, but he's emerged clean in nine of his 11 appearances. Adam has been even better. His 37.0 K% is his best since limited work with the Chicago Cubs in 2021, with whiff, barrel, and hard-hit rates that all sit above the 90th percentile. Perhaps the most important part of this is a return to form for Suárez. Through just 10 innings of work, he's already two-thirds of the way to his 2024 fWAR total (0.9) thanks to a jump in usage on his change, allowing for more variety against opposing hitters. With that, he's experienced an uptick in punchouts (34.3 K%) and a decline in walks (5.7 BB%). He has yet to allow a run. No team in baseball has a better relief corps than San Diego at the moment. Their collective 1.57 ERA and 4.5 percent barrel rate are pacing the league by a wide margin, with each of their K% (26.6) & Hard-Hit% (35.1) sitting in the top five. The Estrada-Adam-Suárez trio has accounted for roughly 40 percent of innings in relief for the Padres thus far. While Alek Jacob & Adrián Morejón have each been important factors in the middle innings, the late-inning group is the most important component of the team's roster at present. The next couple of weeks will bring matchups against a Detroit Tigers roster that is in the top 10 in runs scored, a San Francisco Giants team that ranks sixth, and the No. 2 offense in the New York Yankees. They'll mix in tilts with the Tampa Bay Rays and Pittsburgh Pirates in between. Each of those teams also features the distinction of sitting in the top half of the league in ERA. Which means, again, that runs aren't going to be easy. This means that on those occasions when the Padres are able to secure a lead, they'll need the pitching staff to shoulder the load in keeping it. Getting out on that wire with a lead is going to be the challenge, but keeping it appears to be the easy part. View full article

Is the Padres' worst starter from 2024 now their secret weapon? It feels like there's a dash of cruelty in labeling a pitcher as the "worst" on a team that made a playoff run in 2024. But it fits rather inarguably in the case of Randy Vásquez. Vásquez's first year with the San Diego Padres saw him finish at the bottom of those who threw at least 50 innings for the Friars last year in most categories. He sat at the bottom in fWAR (0.8), strikeout rate (14.4%), and whiff rate (8.1%), while permitting more contact than anyone else in the starting group (83.7%). His 39.5% hard-hit rate checked in behind Joe Musgrove and Yu Darvish. Unlike those two, however, he didn't have an additional element — groundballs in Musgrove's case and strikeouts for Darvish — to compensate for quality contact against. It wasn't a tremendously big sample, of course. Vásquez threw 98 innings with the big club for a staff that was deeper (and healthier) in 2024. However, he looked even worse in El Paso, pitching to a 8.21 ERA and stranding only 58.7% of baserunners. If this year's staff could expect a full season from Musgrove, any clarity on Darvish's health, or a sense of when Matt Waldron might be effective again, Vásquez's story might be different. As it is, a lack of depth combined with a decent-enough exhibition slate in the spring to afford him another shot. And while he's been imperfect, Vásquez has been every bit as important to the Padres' strong start as counterparts like Michael King or Dylan Cease. Perhaps even more so, given his role. Vásquez's early-season numbers are wildly interesting. He's allowed just four earned runs through four starts and 20 2/3 innings. That he's pitched to a 1.74 ERA through four starts, though, is deceiving; he's also at a low 9.3% strikeout rate, a ballooned 16.3% walk rate, and a 4.28 FIP, with a .219 batting average allowed on balls in play. His Baseball Savant percentile distribution is doing its best impression of Arnold Schwarzenegger's Mr. Freeze in Batman & Robin: You can't argue with results, but you also have to wonder just how long before regression hits Vásquez in the hardest fashion possible. At the same time, that hard-hit rate stands out. Not only because it's the only strong component of his game thus far, but because of how he's managed to stifle quality contact in the face of everything else happening right now. There's some potentially interesting stuff happening with his arm angle & release point, but we'll wait until the sample expands before believing too much in it. For now, let's talk about the pitch mix: The steep decline in four-seam usage is notable, as it appears to have made way for the cutter. It's a logical move for Vásquez; his four-seam was barreled at an 11.7% rate last year. Only his changeup (also experiencing a heavy decline of its own) was hit harder (12.5%). It was also elevated (flyballs and line drives) at a 61.1% rate last year. Not an ideal combination for a guy who finished in the front half of the home run per fly ball leaderboard and who doesn't compensate with any other elite area of a skill set. The leaning on the cutter and sweeper this year (they account for 50.4% of his pitches) has been effective. Opposing hitters are swinging at nearly half of his cutters and whiffing at a high volume against the sweeper (21.4%). They aren't elite pitches, but there's a balance issue for opposing hitters. When you throw in the other four pitches he's utilizing regularly, you're going to get a contact quality distribution like the one Vásquez features (29.7% Topped, 35.9% Under). Command remains an issue, even more so than last year. Perhaps there's an adjustment to the usage being made. That's something to keep an eye on. But if you're a pitcher like Vásquez, without elite strikeout stuff, avoiding the barrel is the next best thing. For the Padres, it's an invaluable quality. There isn't a lot of depth here. Getting roughly five innings of minimal-run ball from Vásquez could end up being an invaluable component given the strength of their bullpen and overall offensive output. We'll continue to monitor some intricacies here, but we've already learned early on that Vásquez doesn't have to be perfect. He just has to avoid the barrel. View full article

No Jackson Merrill. Not even a Brandon Lockridge. Where do the San Diego Padres go from here? You wouldn't know it by their historic start, but the Padres are kind of going through it on the health side these last couple of weeks. It started when they lost Jackson Merrill to a hamstring injury. Jake Cronenworth followed with what turned out to be a rib fracture. They avoided further woes when Fernando Tatis Jr. bounced back quickly to only miss one game after tweaking his surgically-repaired shoulder. Now, though, the team is set to be without Brandon Lockridge for an indeterminate amount of time. Lockridge sustained a hamstring injury of his own on Sunday and was placed on the injured list on Monday. At first blush, it's understandable to wonder why losing a guy with limited name recognition and a wRC+ of 58 would spell concern for the Friars. Given Merrill's absence, however, Lockridge represented the team's last bit of depth on the outfield grass as far as the current roster is concerned. The team recalled utilityman Connor Joe to replace Lockridge on the active roster. The move is more about having a body on the roster than anything. Joe has flashed some upside with the bat in the past, but hasn't appeared in center for even a third of an inning in his big league career. Which leaves the Padres with very few options. Jason Heyward seems most likely to handle duties until Merrill (or Lockridge) returns. He's handled over 1,500 innings there in his career, topping out with a shade over 600 of them back in 2019 with the Chicago Cubs. He's 35 and has seen his defensive quality slip a bit as far as the metrics go, but there's something to be said about instincts carrying him in the short-term, given that he's one of the better defensive players of his generation. From there, it gets into the likes of Tyler Wade. Selected back to the active roster following Cronenworth's injury, Wade has exactly 52.2 innings of service out in center. Eleven of those came with the Padres last year and 11 more in the year prior with the Los Angeles Angels. It's a big step down from Heyward in terms of experience, but versatility is embedded enough in Wade's skill set that he could make it work for a spell. The possibility exists that Tatis gets a few extra reps in center. He logged over 50 innings there in 2021 and another 30 in 2023. He's expressed interest in sliding to his right with more frequency, but whether or not the Padres are willing to put him in a less health-assured situation remains to be seen. There isn't any doubt that he has the defensive chops, given his excellence in right. It seems like an organizational call; it'd be hard to see them being too aggressive, though, if Merrill projects to be back in short order. Ultimately, though, this represents a problematic situation for San Diego. An infield injury to someone like Cronenworth, while not ideal, is something they can handle given the presence of Jose Iglesias and Wade on the roster (to say nothing of Luis Arráez, who is technically still listed as a second baseman). Their bench consists of two extra first basemen, after all. But in centerfield, there really isn't any puzzle to be solved. The depth is gone. It's an abstract concept. One hopes the rest of the roster continues holding it together. View full article

Part of being Fernando Tatis Jr. is that you're always going to be under a microscope. So you make mechanical changes, the world is going to notice. Baseball Savant's new batting stance data gives us insight into more mechanics for hitters than ever before. So now, instead of simply noticing that the San Diego Padres right fielder dropped his hands, added more of a crouch, and opened up his stance, we can put concrete numbers to what our eyes are telling us. And concrete terms are important when you're off to the kind of start both Tatis and the Padres currently are. Heading into Sunday, only three players ranked higher in FanGraphs fWAR than Tatis's 1.1 through his first 14 games. Since assuming the leadoff spot, all he's done is posted a .365/.433/.615/1.049 line with a .250 isolated slugging, six steals, and seven walks against only eight strikeouts. Factor in the defense (already 1 FRV), and there isn't a single component of his game that isn't firing at an upper-tier level right now. And that's with a midweek scare after he tweaked his shoulder in Sacramento. One of the more noteworthy components of his hot start has been in the swing. Such a statement applies both to the setup and what manifests on contact. The following is Tatis Jr's stance from 2024: And here's 2025: There are a handful of things to note here. First, obviously, is the front foot. The stance angle has opened up dramatically, from 29 degrees in 2024 to 49 degrees this year. He's also backed up from the plate in general, standing nearly a full inch more off the plate this year against last year. The intercept point is notable, too, as he's catching the ball just a tick later. What does Tatis get out of this? Well, for one, he's opening himself up to more pull-side contact. His pull rate as of Sunday was 44.4%. His 2024 setup had him just slightly closed by the time the swing was over, leading to more middle-of-the-field contact than we've seen this year. Especially given his 86th percentile bat speed (74.7 MPH). This year's, however, allows him to remain balanced through the swing. When done in conjunction with a swing that is slightly slower (73.5 MPH) — and, thus, likely why he's catching the ball just a little bit later — he's opening up the left side of the field to a higher rate of balls in play off his bat. The bat speed becomes somewhat less important given the setup. You could even make the argument that slower is better given the open position of his feet (slower being used relatively here, as even a slower swing from Tatis Jr is still considered a "fast" swing, on average). Ultimately, though, it really leaves us with no surprise that this year's heatmap on extra base contact looks like this: There's obviously plenty of middle-middle contact. That isn't a new component for Tatis, or any hitter hoping to generate any extra-base contact. But in years prior, we've seen plenty of extra-base contact spread more horizontally throughout the zone. Obviously, there's a sample size consideration there and why the above visual is more concentrated. But those inner areas of the zone were nary to be found in previous years for Tatis. But the increase to the pull side is actually stellar news for Tatis given this: Those represent Tatis' overall balls in play to the pull side throughout his career. Those numbers, down the line, are either really similar to his work up the middle or outright better than, depending on the year. He's able to achieve a level of consistency on the left side of the field despite a higher rate of quality contact. He's just found more success from a cumulative standpoint there than any other area of the field. That's not to say that Fernando Tatis Jr is abandoning the other parts of the field. Nor should he. The nature of being an elite hitter is that you can make an impact in all areas of the field. But there's something to be said about making yourself a threat on the inner portion of the zone. Tatis has done that thus far, given the new setup. And when pitchers can't throw inside they have to go outside. And when they go outside, it's very likely that the still-above-average bat speed won't have a problem making an adjustment in getting the barrel to the baseball. View full article