TomCent

Ethan SalasKash MayfieldMiguel MendezRyan WidemanKruz SchoolcraftJorge QuintanaTy HarveyKale FountainBraedon KarpathiosLamar King JrJagger HaynesTucker MusgroveTruitt MadonnaAlex McCoyJesus CastroColeman BorthwickRosman VerdugoElliot LascellesGarrett HawkinsEric Yost

Ethan SalasKash MayfieldMiguel MendezRyan WidemanKruz SchoolcraftTy HarveyJorge QuintanaKale FountainBraedon KarpathiosLamar King JrTruitt MadonnaJagger HaynesRosman VerdugoEric YostJesus CastroLuis GutierrezKavares TearsRomeo SanabriaTucker MusgroveAlex McCoy

Freddy Fermin was the San Diego Padres’ offense over the weekend. His performance exposed just how low the hitting group has fallen in 2026. The light-hitting catcher drove in five of the club's six runs in a three-game set against the New York Mets. He clubbed a pair of two-run home runs and hit an RBI double — all after being asked to lay down sacrifice bunts each of his first two times up Saturday. Only one other Padre collected an extra-base hit in the series: Fernando Tatis Jr., who doubled in the finale on Sunday. The inability to slug is one of the biggest things killing this team. The Padres entered their series against the Reds last in the majors with a .644 OPS and .355 slugging percentage and tied with the Colorado Rockies for 29th with an 85 wRC+. They were last in total bases by a wide margin — 63 behind the 29th-place Tampa Bay Rays and 64 behind the 28th-place Mets. This is not a raw power issue, even though it might seem that way now that Fermin has twice as many homers as Tatis. The Padres entered this week's play 20th in the league with 65 home runs, but they were also 29th with 83 doubles and tied for 17th with seven triples. That comes out to 155 extra-base hits. Only the Rays (150) had hit fewer. The club's league-worst 6.9 hits per game would be forgivable if more of them did damage. San Diego was 23rd with a .141 ISO. How can this situation be, specifically the lack of doubles and triples, when Petco Park's outfield is spacious in the gaps and the lineup is led by accomplished veterans? The simplest explanation is that the hitters just aren't good enough as a group. Their 40.6 percent hard-hit rate was tied for eighth in MLB entering Monday, but their 18.3 percent line-drive rate was 26th and their 45.3 percent ground-ball rate was tied for the second-worst. Maybe that's a consequence of being bad against all pitches; they rank in the bottom 10 in Statcast's pitch run value (via Fangraphs) against all types of fastballs and breaking balls. Their best ranking is 18th against changeups. On top of that, they’re hitting in some bad luck. According to Baseball Savant, the Padres’ xSLG through 64 games was .392, 19th:-best in the league and almost 40 points better than the real-life production. And luck bit the Friars hard last weekend. Twice on Sunday, Mets outfielders robbed Padres hitters of extra bases. First, left fielder MJ Melendez laid out in to snag a second-inning Miguel Andujar liner that was heading toward the corner. Later, center fielder A.J. Ewing ran down a Xander Bogaerts drive in the eighth that likely would have scored two runs and given the Padres a legitimate chance at a comeback. But, luck or no luck, the fact is the lineup is packing the weakest punch in baseball and is canceling out the team's strong defense and bullpen. The Padres have a huge opportunity this week to muscle up. They have three games each against the Cincinnati Reds (home).and Baltimore Orioles (away), clubs that entered Monday's play ranked in the bottom five in runs allowed. If they get shut down against those staffs, then this group surely will be beyond help. Everything will need to be on the table — benchings, demotions, panic trades. The time for trust and patience will be over. View full article

The San Diego Padres are a handful of games past the one-third mark through the 2026 season -- a big enough sample size for the front office to know what it has with the club and what it needs to do to ensure a National League playoff berth. The players have made it easy for the evaluators because they've played mostly to preseason expectations. The strengths and weaknesses have not changed much, although some of the weaknesses have been more glaring than feared. The bullpen, led by closer Mason Miller, is strong overall but it doesn't look as formidable as last year's group. Jeremiah Estrada and Adrian Morejon have regressed; in Estrada's case, health has played a role. Miller was the primary reason the bullpen's ERA was the third-lowest in MLB entering Tuesday's action. The rotation has been subpar. It ranked 23rd in the majors in starter ERA through Monday. Depth signings Walker Buehler, Griffin Canning and Lucas Giolito have done little to compensate for Nick Pivetta’s early-season injury and Joe Musgrove's spring setback. The latter two may return after the All-Star Break, but the group could still use an ace for the stretch run. The offense is lacking. Manny Machado slashing .174/.267/.353 and Fernando Tatis Jr. hitting one home run in the team's first 58 games have a lot to do with the club being 29th in the majors in OPS through June 1, but no one has picked up the slack, either. Gavin Sheets has come the closest. The simplest way to fix these problems is to be aggressive ahead of the Aug. 3 MLB trade deadline. President of baseball operations A.J. Preller doesn't need an invitation to wheel and deal, but a flawed roster gives him an excuse to go big. How big he goes may depend on his intestinal fortitude, but we know he has the guts. Adding these three players, each filling one of the needs mentioned above, would be huge... and extremely costly. 3 Padres Trade Targets Who Could Restore Friars' World Series Identity Bullpen: Aroldis Chapman The Boston Red Sox's closer would be a dynamic setup man in San Diego, a second triple-digit left-handed reliever to complement Morejon. Like Miller at last year's deadline, adding Chapman would deepen the relief corps and keep the starters from being exposed. There is one thing to note, however: he will not be a pure rental. His contract includes a $13 million mutual option for 2027 that becomes guaranteed if he pitches 40 innings and passes an offseason physical in 2026, per Cot's Contracts. He's already halfway to that mark, and his usage certainly wouldn't decrease in San Diego. Rotation: Tarik Skubal The Detroit Tigers' ace will be the main character in this year's deadline drama if he comes back strong from elbow surgery and his team waves the white flag. ESPN's Buster Olney predicted last week that the Padres will acquire the left-hander because that's what Preller does, but so much has to line up for it to happen. Will Tigers president Scott Harris insist on a huge prospect return for a rental? Will he also insist that Preller pick up all or most of the $10 million-plus that Skubal will be owed over the season's final two months? Can Preller convince new principal owners Jose E. Feliciano and Kwanza Jones to add that much payroll? Cheaper, but not necessarily better, alternatives should emerge as more teams become sellers. Miami Marlins ace Sandy Alcantara and New York Mets No. 1 starter Freddy Peralta come to mind. Offense: Christian Walker The list of available hitters will grow as more clubs raise the white flag, but Preller can't afford to be patient. The Padres (33-30) trailed the Los Angeles Dodgers by eight games in the NL West during the weekend, and the wild-card race will be bruising. This team needs a bat, ASAP. Walker is off to a strong start this season (16 home runs, .835 OPS through June 1) for the Houston Astros. That's the type of slug the Padres need. Machado leads the club with 10 homers, followed by Sheets with nine. But there are downsides to adding Walker. First, he is exclusively a first baseman. He would push Sheets to the outfield, which, in turn, could cost France, Ramon Laureano and even Jake Cronenworth playing time (if Tatis has to play more second base). That would be bad for the defense, one of the club's strengths. Second, Walker is signed through 2027 and is making $20 million a year. How much of that money would the Astros include in a trade? And would the Padres want to add a large average annual value (AAV) to the payroll while there is massive uncertainty surrounding what's ahead for baseball's salary structure? These are the types of concessions the team will have to make to add another expensive star to their already-expensive core. View full article

The San Diego Padres’ decision in April to make Fernando Tatis Jr. their backup second baseman bordered on bizarre. The club was putting a Platinum Glove outfielder back in the middle of the infield after moving him off it three years ago, and onto the opposite side of the bag, at that. The move resembled the Boston Red Sox's shuttling of Ceddanne Rafaela between the outfield and infield to solve a roster crunch problem. In other words, the Padres appeared to be admitting their 2026 roster was constructed poorly. They chose DH/corner players Nick Castellanos and Ty France over a true middle-infield backup. In April, the club kept offseason acquisition Sung Mun Song at Triple-A El Paso after his rehab from a spring training side injury was complete. Tatis' early games at the keystone made the skeptics look right. His footwork was poor and he made bad decisions. In early May, the objections grew louder after he passed on turning a routine 5-4-3 double play against the Chicago White Sox to try to throw Chase Meidroth out at home. The ball sailed high and wide toward the backstop. In the month since that play, a lot has changed. France is now a valuable platoon first baseman, Castellanos is out of the picture, Song is glued to the bench, and Tatis has become the everyday second baseman with Jake Cronenworth on the seven-day concussion injured list. Tatis started 13 consecutive games at second before starting in right field for the Padres’ series finale against the Washington Nationals last weekend. Overall, he has made 25 starts at second and 33 in right. He still isn't a smooth infielder, but his athletic ability allows him to get the job done, similar to when he played shortstop. In fact, he's the club's best second baseman based on metrics. Suffice it to say, his bosses are impressed. “He's definitely turning into one of the best second basemen in all of baseball,” Padres manager Craig Stammen said last week after Tatis handled all 10 of his chances (two putouts, eight assists) cleanly in the team's 3-0 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies. “I think he's taken something that looked normal to him and (is) making it look spectacular, just like he does about everything else,." A first-year manager gushing about a club leader should be taken with a large grain of salt, but the stats and even the hated eye test do back up Stammen's claims. Tatis had played 200 innings at second base. He had been charged with zero errors, but that stat hasn't been an acceptable fielding measure for years. The metrics matter most now, and the primary ones were largely positive. Among second basemen with at least 200 innings played at the position, Tatis was tied for fourth in the majors with a plus-4 fielding run value (FRV), tied for fifth with five outs above average (OAA) and tied for 15th with one defensive run saved (DRS). Three of the four FRV runs came from his range, also tied for sixth. (FRV and OAA figures per Baseball Savant, DRS figure per Fangraphs.) Those numbers put him well ahead of Cronenworth and Song: Player Inn FRV OAA DRS Fernando Tatis Jr. 200 4 5 1 Jake Cronenworth 254 1 0 -1 Sung Mun Song 62 -1 -1 -1 And here is another comparison: Tatis has been much better by the metrics than Rafaela was at second last year. Rafaela posted a zero FRV, zero OAA and one DRS in 165 innings. So, how is Tatis putting up these numbers if his movements aren't the most sure? An athletic play in the seventh inning of that Wednesday game helps to provide the answer. He used his outfield savvy and speed to range into shallow right, make an over-the-shoulder catch and rob the Phillies’ Alec Bohm of a single. His lateral range is expansive, too. Twice against the Phillies, he charged in and to his right, ending up on the shortstop side of the bag, to field a slow bouncer. He threw accurately on the move to get the out. Twice, he ranged far to his left to flag down a grounder in the hole before making an accurate throw to first to complete the out. He was quick in starting a pair.of 4-6-3 double plays. While Tatis is helping the club when he's on the infield, there is a tradeoff: the outfield defense suffers badly when he's not out there. Tatis is still a high-end right fielder, while Castellanos and Ramon Laureano, his most frequent fill-ins up to this point, are below average: Player Inn FRV OAA DRS Fernando Tatis Jr. 298 3 3 -1 Nick Castellanos 147 -3 -2 -3 Ramon Laureano 43 -1 -1 1 Bryce Johnson 28 0 0 0 Now that the club trusts Tatis with second base, what should it do with Cronenworth once he returns from the IL? He's in the third year of a seven-year, $80 million contract extension, but he’s coming off two seasons of negative defensive metrics and hasn't hit (47 wRC+) this season. He also has made a start each at short and third in 2026. The negatives point to him potentially losing playing time. Making him an $11 million utility player would be more bad roster management, but the Padres might need to do it if they want to give France and Song (by moving him to the outfield) more opportunities to improve one of baseball's worst offenses. At the very least, Tatis' infield defense has opened that avenue. View full article

Miguel Andujar has been one of the San Diego Padres’ most aggressive, but also one of their most valuable, hitters this season. He has drawn exactly three walks in 122 plate appearances and was sporting one of the highest chase rates of his career as the club opened a weekend series Friday in Seattle against the Mariners. His patience at the plate was really short during the club's previous series, against the Brewers in Milwaukee. He swung at 26 of the 43 pitches he saw in the three games. That's a 60 percent rate. And yet, after all that swinging, he was second on the club with a 126 wRC+, trailing only Luis Campusano. How is Andujar able to maintain a high level of production when he seems to be swinging at everything? It comes down to the fact that this is who Andujar is and it works for him. Start with his swing. He attacks the ball at a 7-degree angle, one of the most shallow on the club, according to Baseball Savant. The bat is mostly level as it enters the zone. That's one reason why his squared-up rate was in the 81st percentile entering Friday. But level doesn't necessarily mean all fields with Andujar. His 46.2 percent pull rate through May 15 was three points higher than the full-season career high he set during his breakout 2019 campaign with the New York Yankees. His 24.2 percent pull air rate was a fraction below his career best, which he also set in 2019. His attack direction was five degrees to the pull side, trailing just Campusano and Nick Castellanos among the club's pull-heavy hitters. A 10-degree average helps explain why he had just three home runs, one of which came off a hanging breaking ball by the Brewers' Brandon Sproat on Tuesday. The pull approach makes him vulnerable off the plate and, indeed, Andujar will expand the zone. His 38.2 percent chase rate through that Brewers series put him in the 10th percentile league-wide. But he can get to those pitches. He entered Friday's game second on the club with a 67.9 chase contact rate, trailing only Gavin Sheets. He was batting .412 against sinkers and .357 against sweepers. (On the other hand, he was batting .222 against four-seamers.) That level of plate coverage helps explain his 19.5 percent strikeout rate (61st percentile) and 19.6 percent whiff rate (79th percentile). All of that is the long way of saying that Andujar knows how to succeed as a free swinger and “bad ball” hitter. Expect him to stay on the attack, even if it means passing up a free trip to first base every now and again. View full article

Ethan SalasKash MayfieldMiguel MendezKruz SchoolcraftRyan WidemanTy HarveyKale FountainJorge QuintanaLamar King JrFrancis PenaAlex McCoyBraedon KarpathiosTruitt MadonnaRosman VerdugoEric YostBryan BalzerJagger HaynesGarrett HawkinsTucker Musgrove

The Padres are home this.week after completing a challenging road trip of three days each in Denver and Mexico City. A series at a mile-high elevation was followed by a series at almost a mile-and-a-half elevation. Players didn't have much time to readjust to being at sea level, either. The club opened a three-game series against the Chicago Cubs on Monday night after playing at Estadio Alfedo Harp Helu in Mexico City on Sunday afternoon. There are reams of data on the challenges of playing in Denver -- the ball flies, pitches move differently than elsewhere, bodies wear down more. It's reasonable to assume that Mexico City presents similar issues even though MLB plays just two games a year there. The thinner air has to have some effect. The Padres' opponent in Mexico City, the Arizona Diamondbacks, believed that to be the case. They kept starting pitchers Eduardo Rodriguez and Michael Soroka away rather than expose them to the elements. Those two were scheduled to pitch Wednesday and Thursday in Milwaukee, respectively. Did the handful of Mexico City games justify the trepidation? Is there a major short-term effect on starting pitchers who throw there? And. because this is a Padres site, should fans expect German Marquez and Michael King, the team's starters in Mexico City, to struggle this weekend when they face the Chicago White Sox at Petco Park? We can use the 2023 and 2024 Mexico City series -- Padres vs. San Francisco Giants, Houston Astros vs. Colorado Rockies -- as rough guides. This is how the eight starters in those four games pitched in their next outing: 2023, Padres vs. Giants Pitcher IP H R ER BB SO NP/ST Joe Musgrove 5 2 1 0 3 5 81/49 Yu Darvish 6.2 4 2 1 1 6 94/68 Alex Cobb 7 5 0 0 2 5 107/68 Sean Manaea 5 6 4 3 2 6 94/63 2024, Astros vs. Rockies Pitcher IP H R ER BB SO NP/ST Ronel Blanco 6 5 3 3 2 6 94/60 Framber Valdez 5.1 9 5 5 1 3 91/58 Cal Quantrill 7.2 3 0 0 0 9 99/66 Austin Gomber 6 4 0 0 2 3 88/56 Only Valdez had a bad follow-up start. Everyone else was mediocre to excellent. One reason might be that the majority of these pitchers got an extra day of rest and recovery. Only Darvish and Manaea made their next start on four days' rest. Five pitchers went on five days' rest. Musgrove pitched on seven days' rest, in his third start following a toe fracture. Marquez and King will be working on five days' rest as well, thanks to the team's off-day Thursday. (The Padres lost two of three to the Cubs and were outscored in the series 20-16.) Another encouraging sign on Marquez is that he threw just 75 pitches (52 strikes) over six innings Saturday. Most importantly, he has a decade of experience adjusting to changes in altitude as a member of the Rockies' staff. King is the more interesting case. First, he altered his pitch mix Sunday. He threw his four-seamer, changeup and slider more than usual, his sinker a lot less than usual, and his sweeper the same as usual. (All percentages via Baseball Savant.) Pitch Season% Sunday% Sinker 27.8 11.3 Changeup 27.4 30.2 Sweeper 19.9 19.8 Four-seamer 19.8 28.3 Slider 5.5 10.4 Second, he threw a season-high 106 pitches in his six innings. That effort followed a 105-pitch start his previous time out. That is a heavy workload in today's baseball. This weekend, he'll face a young White Sox lineup that came into April 30 tied for seventh in the majors in home runs but fourth in strikeouts. The matchup can mask the negative effects from Mexico City and/or the high pitch counts. View full article

In isolation, the record-shattering sale of the San Diego Padres is a head-scratcher. Why would Jose E. Feliciano's group pay $3.9 billion for the franchise? That price is more than 60 percent higher than the $2.42 billion Steve Cohen paid for the New York Mets in 2020, and it's 25 percent more than the $3,1 billion Forbes magazine estimated the club to be worth last month. But if you look at Forbes' estimates of the top-tier clubs -- and the Padres are in that upper echelon -- you'll notice that it's not an outrageous overpay and Feliciano sees value. For example, Cohen's investment has appreciated nicely over the past six years. The Mets are now worth $3.5 billion in Forbes' estimation. That's sixth-highest in MLB. There's no sign Cohen wants to flip the club, but business is business -- and the baseball business is booming. Robust league revenues fueled by surging fan and sponsor interest is a tide lifting all yachts. The teams ahead of the Mets are all well ahead: the New York Yankees ($8.5 billion), Los Angeles Dodgers ($7.8 billion), Boston Red Sox ($5.75 billion), Chicago Cubs ($5 billion) and San Francisco Giants ($4.05 billion). Seventh through ninth are the Philadelphia Phillies ($3.4 billion), Atlanta Braves ($3.35 billion) and Houston Astros ($3.2 billion). The mid-market Padres, with their gem of a stadium, ideal weather, and huge payroll, are 10th. To put the franchise inflation into greater focus: The Baltimore Orioles were sold for $1.73 billion in August 2024 to a group led by billionaire David Rubenstein. A year and a half later, Forbes pegged the franchise as being worth $2.1.billion. There's a good chance, then, that the Penner Sports Group had a lot more than civic pride in mind when it bought 40 percent of the Colorado Rockies from the Monfort brothers this month. Forbes estimated the Rox at $1.68 billion, 25th in the league. If the cash infusion gets the club out of the mud -- and if the 30 team owners can avoid a damaging labor dispute next year -- then everyone would stand to benefit. Contrast that transaction with the Penner group buying the NFL's Denver Broncos for $4.65 billion, then a record for a North American pro sports franchise in 2022. (The Washington Commanders sped past the Broncos a year later when a group led by Josh Harris bought them for $6.05 billion. Then, the NBA's Los Angeles Lakers changed hands for a $10 billion valuation in 2025.).Last November, Forbes estimated the Broncos' franchise value at $6.8 billion, 13th-highest in the NFL. If one of the NFL's marquee franchises were to go on the market, the bar would be reset much higher. The Dallas Cowboys topped Forbes' rankings last year at $13 billion, followed by the Los Angeles Rams ($10.5 billion) and New York Giants ($10.1 billion). Just a reminder that MLB represents a desirable neighborhood but isn't the exclusive community the NFL is. Buying into an MLB franchise now practically guarantees a strong positive return on investment within a few years' time. The Padres are getting a wealthy owner who shelled out a gobsmacking total for them, but don't expect their record sale price to stand for long. View full article