Brendan Dentino

The San Diego Padres played to an 18-7 record in April, but it was probably inevitable that the Friars would fall to earth in May. Their starting rotation was ravaged by injuries and the offensive production was downright anemic, as they went 13-15 during the month and limped into June 5.5 games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League West. There was one aspect of the team that remained great, though, and that was the bullpen. Last year, the Padres became the first team ever to send three relievers to an All-Star Game. They could easily match that feat or even exceed it this year. Mason Miller, Jason Adam, Bradgley Rodriguez, Adrian Morejon, and Yuki Matsui all have stat lines that could send them to Philadelphia this summer for the Midsummer Classic. Among the five-headed monster, who were the Padres three best pitchers in May? Spoiler alert: Number one isn't Mason Miller. Ranking Padres' Best Pitchers in May #3. Yuki Matsui, RP “Dad, what’s a LOOGY?” my future child will ask. “Lefty one-out guy,” I’ll say, lifting my chain contemplatively, then nodding with tears in my eyes. “They got paid a lot of money to do one specific thing. And they were the weirdest people on the planet.” I have no idea if Yuki Matsui is weird behind the scenes, but I do know that he is a dyed-in-the-wool LOOGY, even if he does have to occasionally face a righty thanks to rule changes instituted in 2020 that require pitchers to have a minimum number of batters. Matsui's average pitch velocity is 86.8 miles per hour, and yet lefties are batting .111 against him this year. Their OPS is .398. Matsui came back from injury on May 8, so his 0.60 ERA in last month tells the story of the season so far. The LOOGY is not extinct, for Yuki Matsui exists. #2. Mason Miller, RP Much has been said about Mason Miller’s historically dominant season, although in May he came down from his lofty heights. This is to say he allowed one unearned run and his FIP on the season is no longer negative. It’s true Miller is probably reverting to the mean. His strikeouts dropped and his walks went up, as did his batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage against. But the mean he’s reverting to is so obscenely great it almost doesn’t matter. He pitched worse in May and had a 0.00 ERA in 9.2 innings, and he went 7-for-7 in save opportunities. He’s not our top option here, but only because there’s another Padres reliever with a 0.00 ERA in the last month. #1. Jason Adam, RP In July 2024, the Padres traded highly-rated prospects in pitcher Dylan Lesko, outfielder Homer Bush Jr., and catcher J.D. Gonzalez to the Tampa Rays for reliever Jason Adam. Lesko pitched to a 6.96 ERA in the minors in 2024 and a 10.50 ERA in 2025. He is in Single-A this season. Bush Jr. is approaching his 25th birthday and he’s still in the minors. Gonzalez has a .482 OPS in three minor league seasons. Adam, on the other hand, has accrued 4.8 bWAR as a Padre and was an All-Star last year. This year, he’s been even better, and May was the best month of his career. In 12 innings pitched across 13 games, Adam allowed zero runs. Miller has all those saves because Adam held leads. The only blemish was Adam’s WHIP, which reached 1.08. He gets the edge over Miller in this list because he faced more batters and had the same ultimate outcome as Miller: no one scored on either pitcher. Acquiring Adam should go down as one of A.J. Preller’s best trades ever. It’s just a shame Adam can’t hit. View full article

The May 18 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers is indicative of the 2026 Padres. Designated hitter Miguel Andujar hit a first-inning solo home run. Michael King, a potential first-time All-Star, pitched seven shutout innings, allowing just four hits and striking out nine. All-world reliever Jason Adam set up all-world closer Mason Miller and: ballgame. Friars win 1-0. It’s another instance of elite pitching and unsung veterans carrying the team, with the Padres “Big 3” of Fernando Tatis Jr., Manny Machado, and Jackson Merrill contributing little. They went a combined 1-9 with one walk. It’s another instance of wondering what’s going on with the Padres trio of stars. As of that win, their combined OPS this season was .592—an OPS lower than .700, let alone .600, is considered below average—and between them they’ve hit all of ten home runs. Tatis accounts for none of them. The explanation of “It’s early” becomes less convincing and satisfactory the closer we get to June, so it’s worth diving into what, exactly, is the problem. Looming over their performances, with nearly $700 million owed to them over the course of their contracts, is a disheartening question. Are they having down seasons, or is this who they are? More importantly, it’s hard to see how the Padres keep pace in a stacked National League without their best players producing a combined -0.1 bWAR. But there's hope. Fernando Tatis JR., RF Of the Padres' underperforming stars, Tatis' case is the most perplexing. How can someone in the top 1% in all of baseball in hard-hit percentage not have a home run? How does someone with elite exit velocity, good barrel rate, and consistent bat speed have only six extra-base hits? How does someone who batted .400 with two home runs and 11 RBI in March’s World Baseball Classic forget how to hit in April and May? The internet abounds with swing and stats analyses, hot takes, and conspiracy theories, with the more incisive commentators pointing to his batted ball profile and his chase rate. The latter is straightforward. He’s chasing more balls out of the zone and he’s hitting those pitches less, meaning his power goes untapped. I’m sure many a San Diegan have yelled at Tatis through their TVs this season to stop swinging at everything. It’s far easier said than done, but for a hitter as talented as Tatis this should be a relatively simple in-season adjustment. His batted ball profile is the true head-scratcher. His pull-air percentage is almost half of what it was last year and nearly a fourth of what it was in 2021, when he hit 42 home runs and was arguably the best young player in baseball. Concomitantly, his groundball rates are way up and his average launch angle is way down. It’s a bizarre profile. This year, Tatis may be the most powerful slap hitter in baseball history. The YouTube channel Made the Cut attributes this to a drastic change in Tatis’ batting stance. Beginning the season, his feet were are wider apart, and he also closed his stance, which made pulling the ball much more difficult. It appears that Tatis used this new, closed stance in the WBC, when he launched a dramatic grand slam to left field against Venezuela, but perhaps the lower quality of pitching in that tournament didn’t expose this weakness. Interestingly and encouragingly, Tatis used his old, open stance against the Dodgers on Monday night. In his first at-bat against Dodgers ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tatis smoked a 111.3-mph line drive to the pull side, albeit right at shortstop Mookie Betts. He was also the only one of the Big 3 with a hit. Tatis remains one of, if not the best defensive right fielder in baseball. With his reverting to a familiar stance, the dynamic and elite Tatis might be right around the corner. Manny Machado, 3B Tatis is in his age-27 season, typically a player’s peak, which makes his fall off so frustrating. Machado, on the other hand, turns 34 this summer and has played in the bigs since he was 19 years old. There are a lot of miles on his odometer, although it’d be unfair to say at this point that Machado is suffering age-related regression. Last year, he played 159 games and produced 4.1 bWAR. It was his best season since 2022. The intervening years weren’t bad, either. The last time Machado produced less than 2.7 bWAR was in 2018. In a piece for Padres Mission last month, N.B. Lindberg pinpointed Machado’s shortcomings this season. "Machado is walking at an incredible clip to start the season. His 15.5% BB% is almost double his career figure of 8.2% and ranks 19th in the league. The spike in walks isn’t a fluke either. He is currently sporting a 22.9% out-of-zone swing rate and a 66.8% in-zone swing rate. For a player whose career figures in those categories are 29.1% and 66.9%, respectively, Machado’s newfound patience suggests an overhaul in approach. In a vacuum, swinging at fewer balls is almost always a good thing. Walks are good. As are favorable counts. And it’s much easier to drive a strike past an outfielder than a pitch a few inches off the plate. However, baseball is not played in a vacuum, and what is usually a good development may be robbing Machado of what made him a special hitter in the first place." Unlike with Tatis, though, Machado’s defensive prowess has degraded, and there aren't many recent glimmers of hope offensively. In the last five games up that 1-0 victory over the Dodgers, Machado recorded just two hits, one of them a double. As Lindberg summarized, “it appears that Machado’s decision to rein in chase has inadvertently reined in his power stroke.” Like Tatis, Machado may want and the Padres may need him to return to a familiar approach. Jackson Merrill, CF Last year, a family filed into the row in front of me at a San Diego Wave game. Even though we were at a women’s soccer game, the little boy in the family wore a Jackson Merrill jersey. I got chatting with his parents, and at some point I asked the boy what he wants to be when he grows up. “Jackson Merrill!” he said, jumping up and down. Such was the effect of Merrill's revelatory 2024 rookie season, when he improbably won down-ballot MVP votes at a demanding position he had never played before. Injuries diminished his sophomore campaign, though his struggles persist this season. On the surface, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly why. “The issue with Merrill's early performance this year isn't even in the performance itself,” writes Randy Holt in a recent piece for Padres Mission. “It's the absence of an obvious explanation for why he's underperforming. Generally, one can look at a player's underlying trends and find a catalyst that speaks to the origins of the struggle. Matters of the approach are a particularly notable factor in performance variance. Merrill's case isn't so apparent, however.” Holt goes on to explain that Merrill is both swinging harder and attacking pitches at a steeper angle, which may explain why his quantity and quality contact have diminished. It reminds me of Michael Scott's description of himself as a manager: "I work too hard, I care too much, and sometimes I can be too invested in my job." Merrill is still a good player. After all, he is the most valuable of the Big 3 right now. But there's an even better player waiting to be unlocked with the right adjustments. Following the conclusion of their series with the Dodgers, the Padres now sit 1.5 games back in the NL West. Considering the Big 3's combined performance, that is an astonishing accomplishment, and it shows that the Pads aren't going anywhere in the playoff race. But the Atlanta Braves are on pace for 108 wins, the Philadelphia Phillies have woken up, the NL Central doesn't have a team under .500, and the Dodgers are the Dodgers. In Monday night's win, the Padres batted Miguel Andujar in the two-hole. He's on his fifth team in his career and has accumulated a career 2.8 bWAR. A big chuck of it has come this season. Behind him batted Gavin Sheets and his -1.7 career bWAR. The Padres have excellent pitching, particularly in the bullpen, but that's not the lineup that will get the Padres through the National League and back to the World Series. To do so, they'll need their most recognizable stars to live up their billing. View full article

Even though he’s a closer, San Diego Padres' Mason Miller has a case to be the National League’s starting pitcher in the 2026 MLB All-Star Game in Philadelphia. His 1.4 fWAR this season is better than all but five starters, and his 0.86 ERA is worse than only Shohei Ohtani’s. Years from now, baseball nerds will ask their friends, “Remember when Mason Miller had a negative FIP?” They’ll referring to the halcyon days of May 2026. But Miller should not be the Padres' lone pitching representative at the All-Star Game, not when the staff is the reason the team is keeping pace with the Dodgers in the NL West. Below are three Padres pitchers who, so far this season, are worthy of their first All-Star nod. Michael King, SP The Padres have no less than five starting pitchers on the injured list, including Nick Pivetta and Joe Musgrove. It’s why the team took a flier on free agent starting pitcher Lucas Giolito, and it’s why they’re considering bringing Jake Peavy out of retirement. (Just kidding. I think.) Michael King has always been good, pitching to a career 3.18 ERA, but this year he has been a savior. Through nine starts, King has posted a 2.63 ERA, a 155 ERA+, and 0.9 fWAR, making him one of twenty most valuable pitchers in the National League. By any metric, he is on pace to have a career year, and as a just-short-of-elite veteran on a reasonable contract, he’s emblematic of the post-Peter Seidler era. The predictive stats indicate he’s been a little lucky this season. His expected batting average against is higher than the actual number, and his FIP is a full point higher than his ERA. Not everyone can be Mason Miller. But luck hardly explains King’s performance this season. He has an elite off-speed repertoire, which keeps hitters off balance, allowing him to avoid getting hit hard. Despite an average fastball velocity of 93.2 mph, just 13.3% of batted balls off King are pulled in the air, and his hard-hit percentage is in the 86th percentile, according to Baseball Savant. King is simply a great pitcher, and he’s worthy of his first All-Star selection. Randy Vásquez, SP Along with King, starting pitcher Randy Vásquez was one of the key pieces in the trade that sent Juan Soto from the Padres to the New York Yankees after the 2023 season. Back then, he was the Yankees' No. 13 prospect, a 24-year-old with promise. After a pretty poor 2024 season and a merely decent season last year, Vásquez’s career began indicating more hope than anything else. Heading into 2026, Vásquez was the question mark of the rotation behind King, Pivetta, and Musgrove. “With a lack of better options at this point, Vasquez is pretty well set to be part of the rotation this year, whether it be at the No. 4 or 5 spot,” Padres Mission’s Steve Drumwright wrote in February. Fast forward to May, and he’s indisputably the Padres' second-best starting pitcher. In fact, Vásquez has produced 1.0 fWAR, practically aligning him in value with King, and the two share nearly identical stat lines. If King is deserving of an All-Star nod, then so is Vásquez. Bradgley Rodriguez, RP Purely on historical precedent, Bradgley Rodriguez is unlikely to make the All-Star Game. No more than a couple non-closer relievers get selected every year. It’s rarer still for non-setup guys to get recognition. The fact that, last year, the Padres became the first team ever to send three relievers to the All-Star Game—Robert Suarez, Jason Adam, and Adrian Morejon—speaks to the difficulty for relievers to get their just due. Although, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the Padres repeat that feat, what with Miller, Morejon, Adam, and now Rodriguez in the fold. It’s difficult to know where to start with Rodriguez, for he has been a revelation across the board. Traditional stats? Sure: 22.2 inning pitched, a 1.59 ERA, no home runs allowed, and just five walks. Advanced stats? Why not: An expected ERA in the 99th-percentile, to go along with 0.5 fWAR. Statcast? He throws hard, his off-speed pitches are elite, and nothing he throws is hit hard. It's not a stretch to say the right-hander is one of the best middle relievers in baseball, which may just get him some love as a potential injury replacement around the Midsummer Classic. View full article

Despite a very good career, Nick Castellanos will be remembered for a drive into deep left field and for cracking a beer mid-game in his manager’s face. The 2026 San Diego Padres don’t care about that. They just need their unlikely utility man to hit for power. By one metric, he’s doing exactly that. An astounding 39.6% of his batted balls are lifted in the air. If he had enough at-bats, then Castellanos would comfortably be the leader in all of baseball in air pull rate. This is significant because, according to data by MLB Data Warehouse, batted balls pulled in the air are the most likely to be home runs, and it’s not particularly close. Nearly 38% of pulled fly balls are home runs. The percentages are in the single digits to center and to the opposite field. Colorado Rockies outfielder Mickey Moniak, for example, is ninth in baseball in air pull rate and is tied for sixth, with none other than Byron Buxton, Kyle Schwarber, and Mike Trout, in home runs. Castellanos’ air pull rate is a salve for the Padres’ offense, which ranks among the worst in team OPS. Or rather, it should be a salve. Castellanos has but one home run on the season, and he is, by almost any other metric, one of the least productive players in baseball. Over just 69 plate appearances, he has accrued -0.9 bWAR. His .172/.217/.281 slash line is brutal. His 35 wRC+ even more so. The extent of Castellanos' value so far this season has been that another team, the Philadelphia Phillies, is paying almost all of his salary. Castellanos' stat line this season continues his decline in production. From 2016-2021, hes was one of the best, most consistent hitters in baseball. Only in the Covid-shortened 2020 season did he post an OPS+ lower than 112, and even then it was a bang-on average 100. After a 2021 season with the Cincinnati Reds, in which he slashed an incredible .309/.362/.576, Castellanos signed a five-year, $100 million deal with the Phillies. He was disappointing in 2022 and solid in 2023. Factoring in his defense, he has since been more or less unplayable. That is what makes his air pull rate so fascinating and so tantalizing. Castellanos’ career-high air pull rate is accompanied by groundball rates to left and center and air rates to center that are consistent with his career. His K% is slightly down, his BB% slightly up. Castellanos, who never saw a down-and-away slider he didn’t like, even has a lower Chase % than three of his latter seasons. What has changed is his batted balls to the opposite field, which on the ground literally don’t exist. His opposite-field groundball rate is 0.0%. (His career rate is 3.3%.) The air rate to the opposite field is nearly 16 points off his career average. All the while, his average exit velocity is highest since 2023. It feels like Castellanos is an uncle at a backyard whiffle ball game trying to put every pitch onto the roof of the garage. The veteran's stat line is tantalizing because, statistically, it's inevitable that the outcomes will turn around. For the first time since 2019, his expected home runs exceed his actual home run total. After all, the Padres don’t play every game in Petco Park, one of the hardest ballparks in which to hit. And like teammate Jake Cronenworth, Castellanos’ expected batting average is almost 100 points better than his actual batting average. When it comes to Castellanos, the Padres desperately need the law of averages to win out, because their punchless offense is weighing on the club. After an 18-8 start, the Friars are 4-6 since April 26. Of course, baseball doesn’t always comply with theory and it isn’t played on computers. It’s played on the grass, where Castellanos has done little good besides swing for the fences. Like an uncle at a barbecue, he can only keep swinging, hoping past glories are around the corner. View full article

Jake Cronenworth’s career highlight is, undoubtedly, from Game 4 of the 2022 National League Division Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers. Though they were up 2-1 on the series, the San Diego Padres faced a 3-0 deficit going into the bottom of the 7th inning of Game 4. A loss would have meant trudging back up the 5 for a winner-takes-all showdown in Los Angeles, but the clear night sky delivered a madcap rally that evened the score. Cronenworth stepped to the plate with two on and two out, and in a 2-2 count, he stayed on a breaking ball tumbling to the very outside edge of the plate. He served it into center field. Both runners would score, and the Padres would close out the series two innings later in what is probably the most rapturous night in Petco Park history. It feels like yesterday, but that occurred four years ago this October. Since then, Cronenworth has been a confounding player, especially this season. His slash line is an incomprehensible .149/.275/.207, and his 51 wRC+ pegs him as one of the least productive regulars in baseball. Least fun of all, we’ve entered the Crone Zone just once this season. His lone homer came over three weeks ago on April 8. There are two obvious questions when it comes to Jake Cronenworth the player: What’s wrong with him, and how do we fix him? These are worthy questions, indeed, but it’s helpful to start from the beginning. Jake Cronenworth was a late bloomer, having spent three years at Michigan and parts of five seasons in the Tampa Bay Rays minor league system. It wasn’t until that fifth season that he forced people to notice him. Over 97 games, he batted .329 and recorded a .933 OPS. With double digit steals and home runs, he proved that he could be a complete offensive player. It’s why the Padres traded for him (and Tommy Pham) ahead of the 2020 season, and it’s how Cronenworth made an impact immediately. He registered a 129 OPS+ in the Covid season, which earned him second place in NL Rookie of the Year voting. Over the next two full seasons, including the Padres’ run to the 2022 NLCS, Cronenworth produced 7.3 fWAR. He averaged 155 games, a 116 OPS+, and 113 wRC+. He adequately defended three infield positions. It’s little wonder why the Padres gave Cronenworth a seven-year, $80 million extension as the 2023 season was getting started. Over his first three years with the team, Cronenworth was simply one of the most productive and versatile infielders in baseball. "He definitely was not the ‘throw-in’ player in the [2019 trade]," Padres general manager A.J. Preller told MLB.com after Cronenworth’s contract extension was announced. "But he's clearly worked his way from a player that we were excited to acquire to a core member of our nucleus. He's the epitome of what we're looking for from a Padre." Not three years later, Cronenworth was subject to trade rumors. That’s because of a 2023 season in which he was limited to 127 games and was for the first time a below-average hitter, and because of solid, if unspectacular, seasons in 2024 and 2025. If only the rumormongers knew what was in store for 2026. Though he's been downright bad this year, Cronenworth’s is a peculiar case to diagnose. Is his average exit velocity down? Not really. It is down this season, but it's not at career-low levels and exit velocity has never been a strength. How about hard-hit percentage? It’s basically flat for his career, and again, it’s never been a strength. Okay, then his chase, whiff, and strikeout percentages must have increased? Nope, nope, and nope. He’s long excelled here (though this year they have taken a dip). In fact, his walk percentage has only increased throughout his career, and his bat speed is faster than ever. So, he must be unlucky this season? Kind of. His xBA this season is .246, almost 100 points better than his actual batting average, and his xwOBA is a not-that-awful .320. That’s balanced out by luck earlier in his career. He's experiencing the vagaries of a career in baseball. One problem I can pinpoint is his batted ball direction. Cronenworth’s line drive percentage has decreased every year since 2023, and his launch angle has plummeted this season. Consequently, batted ground balls are at a career high. That is not helpful for someone who doesn’t hit the ball hard and, in a 162-game season, has never finished better than the 89th-fastest player. Cronenworth may have dug himself into too deep a hole to be a league average hitter this season, but the advanced statistics indicate he’ll bounce back to be a perfectly adequate hitter. This indicates that his “problem” is actually one of perspective, not performance. Cronenworth’s minor-league breakout occurred during his age-25 season. Three great seasons ensued in the major leagues, encompassing his peak seasons by age. The Padres extended his contract then, banking on his durability, defensive versatility, and, most of all, his good eye and ability to make contact. Three good-or-worse seasons ensued, and this season has been an (unlucky) disaster. Fans have grown frustrated with their $80 million man, and they may be worrying about how a 36-year-old Cronenworth affects the 2030 Padres (assuming he’s still on the roster). But so far, the Padres have paid Cronenworth about $3.7 million per fWAR produced as part of that $80 million extension. According to a FanGraphs analysis, teams are paying over $12 million per WAR in free agency for players who produce two or more WAR, as Cronenworth has done in all but one of his 162-game seasons. This not to suggest Cronenworth is underpaid. It’s to say the Padres knew full well about age-related regression, the cost of wins on the open market, and their place in a relatively small media market. So, what’s wrong with Cronenworth? Nothing, really, besides being human. And what’s the “fix”? To just keep swinging (though lifting the ball in the air a little bit more wouldn't hurt). View full article

If the baseball season was compressed into the NFL’s, then it would be Week 3 in MLB. That’s plenty of time to get excited (Cincinnati Reds fans), panic (New York Mets fans), and look to next year (every AL West fan). How, then, should San Diego Padres fans feel about their team? Well, not to sound hyperbolic, but they should be lighting candles in their shrines to president of baseball operations A.J. Preller. At 15-7, the Pads possess the third-best record in baseball, behind only the surprising Atlanta Braves and the familiar Los Angeles Dodgers. In fact, the Padres sit just one game behind the Dodgers, MLB’s best team, in the National League West standings. That’s because the Padres have had little interest in losing lately. They’re 9-1 in their last ten games, and have lost just three times in April. You can thank an elite pitching staff for that. The Padres are fifth in MLB in team earned run average, and Mason Miller alone gives them arguably the best bullpen in baseball. His ERA is 0.00, which, if you round down to the nearest whole number, comes out to being pretty good. The Friars’ staff is outside the top-five in strikeouts, walks, and WHIP, but they’re tied for the fewest home runs allowed. They let runners on base, but deny the big hit. The rotation, especially, has been a revelation, given that, among Joe Musgrove, Nick Pivetta, and Yu Darvish, $52 million in starting pitching is either injured or mulling retirement. Consequently, the Padres are not only demolishing their preseason ZiPS projection of 83 wins, but they are also on pace to win 110 games, which would far exceed the franchise record of 98, set in the magical 1998 World Series year. That almost certainly won’t happen. Teams have won 110 games just six times in the modern era, and the Padres' middling offense is why five teams in the National League have a better run differential so far this season. Their current performance indicates a team that should be two losses worse. Baseball Reference gives the Pads an 85% chance at making the playoffs, which would likely come through a Wild Card spot, given the Dodgers’ NL West dominance. Wasn’t that always the realistic goal for this team? The Padres’ payroll has regressed every year since late owner Peter Seidler’s death in 2023, and Preller has had to balance expensive, high-end talent with inexpensive young players and journeymen. He’s seemed to crack that code yet again this season. The advanced statistics indicate that San Diego will come down to earth, but Preller's roster machinations have established a high floor for the team. The problem, if there is one, is that they play in the wrong league. The Dodgers are the Dodgers, the NL Central doesn’t have a losing team, and surely, the Philadelphia Phillies and Mets can’t be bad as they have been playing. (They’re a combined 2-18 in their last twenty. Oof.) The competition for the NL’s three Wild Card spots will be vicious. Just to fill out the roster, let alone to compete, the Padres need a starting pitcher or two. They also need their best, most expensive hitters—Fernando Tatis Jr., Manny Machado, et al.—to hit a little more frequently. But other teams have their own issues, no other team has lost fewer games this month, and, as the trade deadline gets closer and closer, no other team has the mad scientist that is A.J. Preller. View full article

José E. Feliciano, the San Diego Padres’ next owner, isn’t an AI-generated billionaire. He only sounds like one. “As I recently discussed at Bloomberg Invest, this inflection point will generate significant investment opportunities for disciplined investors…” read a recent LinkedIn post. “The power grid is the backbone of the modern economy, and it’s about to undergo its most significant transformation yet,” declared another. “I studied at Princeton U to be a power engineer [sic] so this is a full circle moment for me!” Indeed, Feliciano’s LinkedIn profile, which is as exquisitely maintained and expertly pruned as a French garden, goes back that far. Princeton, ‘94. Stanford Business School, ‘99. “Did he cut his teeth as a financial analyst at a big investment firm?” you wonder. Of course: Goldman Sachs, 1994-97. “Then where did he make partner?” That would be at Tennenbaum Capital Partners, 2001-05. “Mere employees don’t make billions, though. How did he earn his fortune?” He co-founded Clearlake Capital Group, 2006. The Santa Monica-based Clearlake Capital is now a $90 billion, private equity behemoth. For their part, Feliciano and his wife Kwanza Jones are now worth an estimated $4 billion. But don’t worry. He found time through the years for five volunteer positions and to serve on the board at some 33 organizations. “Chairman, San Diego Padres” will soon be the next entry on his LinkedIn, after the reported $3.9 billion purchase from the Seidler family is approved by MLB owners. The organization on José’s résumé that would interest Padres fans the most is England’s Chelsea Football Club. In 2022, a consortium led by Clearlake Capital purchased the legendary club for an astounding $5.24 billion. The good: That amount didn’t stop Feliciano as “Co-Controlling Owner” from shoveling cash into Chelsea’s furnace. According to the BBC, the club under Clearlake’s leadership has spent no less than $2 billion on player acquisitions. The bad: That spending has resulted in the club winning only the 2024-25 Conference League and the 2025 Club World Cup, which, to elite European clubs, are two trophies that barely matter. And the ugly: Feliciano sounded like an unedited ChatGPT response when asked at a conference “Was this harder than you anticipated, owning a football club?” Within the six minutes of private equity gobbledygook—and sandwiched between complaints about scrutiny from sports media—Feliciano said something that should make Padres fans’ ears perk up: “The best way to make our club more valuable is to win.” Now, Chelsea operates in a uniquely challenging business environment in that the club competes for players in an international market, one that doesn’t offer the same economizing advantages of the U.S. market, and the efficiencies in a fluid game like soccer are... well, you get the idea. That point is Feliciano knows how to turn a profit. One does not become a multi-billionaire and a sports power broker without ruthlessly wringing out every cent from every Excel spreadsheet. But he also seems to respect the spiritual connection between club and supporter (or, perhaps, product and customer). “Earning the trust and confidence of our supporters—Please know that everyone at the club is relentlessly focused on delivering that,” Feliciano wrote last summer on LinkedIn about his Chelsea Lions. As of this writing, Feliciano and Jones have yet to release a statement about their buying the Padres, but it’s doubtless that José is relishing the opportunity to buy into Major League Baseball’s legal monopoly. In the Premier League, Chelsea is subject to relegation, and the club must compete (i.e. spend) and constantly improve in all aspects of their operation to maintain their place in the world’s most watched football league. They also have to compete for fans in their own city. London has seven teams in the Premier League this season. None of that is a concern in the States. The Padres own the San Diego market in perpetuity, and no matter how bad the Padres are, they will remain in the world's most watched baseball league. Chelsea is bigger. The Padres are safer. To be sure, Feliciano is bringing more to San Diego than mere business acumen. They are major philanthropists. The Kwanza Jones & José E. Feliciano Initiative has committed $250 million to various charitable efforts, and they contributed the largest gift by Black and Latino donors in Princeton University history. And both are only in their 50s. Padres fans are getting young, dynamic owners that could change not just the team but also the region for decades to come. The Padres, long a small-market minnow, will soon be, above all, a major private equity asset. Is that a good thing? It remains to seen—no one posts about their flaws or failures on LinkedIn. View full article

The year is 2020. Olivia Rodrigo is working on a new album. The Trump administration is trying to figure out what to do with Iran. And San Diego Padres catcher Luis Campusano is primed for a breakout. It seems the more things change, the more they stay the same. It was that Covid year when Padres fans became aware of Campusano. After slashing .325/.396/.509 with Single-A Lake Elsinore in 2019, he became a top-100 prospect in every ranking that mattered, and in a Padres system stocked with talent, he was the catcher of the future. (Remember when MacKenzie Gore, CJ Abrams, and Luis Patiño were going to change the trajectory of the franchise?) Campusano got a cup of coffee in 2020, hitting a home run in his lone game in the bigs, and the Padres would end up winning their first playoff series in 22 years. The future looked bright. We’re still waiting for that future. Now 27 years old, Campusano is in his seventh season with the Padres, yet he has accrued -0.7 bWAR. Fangraphs is kinder to him, with 0.1 wins above replacement, but in any case, the numbers tell the same story: Campusano hasn’t really excelled at anything. The power he displays in the minors—79 homers with an .882 OPS in 504 games—disappears in the bigs. He owns a .668 OPS in San Diego, and has just 18 home runs to his name. His career on-base percentage is below .300. Per Statcast, he’s never hit the ball particularly hard or run particularly fast or fielded particularly well. That makes his start to the 2026 season encouraging, if a little confusing. Heading into their weekend series against the Colorado Rockies, Campusano was sporting a 103 OPS+, making him one of the more productive catchers in baseball, but he had neither walked nor hit a home run. His performance on April 5 against the Red Sox is illustrative: A single, a run, and two strikeouts, and he was lifted late in the game for a pinch hitter and replaced defensively by Freddy Fermin. Is that what the Padres had in mind for their top catching prospect back in 2020? But in a world in which Austin Hedges and his lifetime 53 OPS+ can have a 12-year MLB career, being a league-average hitter at the catcher position is incredibly valuable. Catchers are OPS-ing .673 this season, a number Campusano comfortably exceeds, and his underlying stats point to sustainability. His hard-hit percentage is up from last season, and so are his launch angle and barrel rate. He’s swinging more overall—and his chase rate remains abysmal—but at least he’s swinging more at good pitches and less at bad pitches. This means his strikeout rate is down (albeit marginally and from a lofty 41%). There’s potential there! And that’s always been the book on Campusano. He played in only one game in 2020 because of a wrist injury. He had an elite campaign in the minors in 2021, and got some more MLB experience, but he couldn’t get regular time with the 2022 squad, which was the most talented Padres team ever. On a rate basis, 2023 was Campusano’s best major-league season. An OPS+ of 131 is nothing to sneeze at, but he played in only 49 games because of a shoulder injury. He split time in 2024 with a resurgent Kyle Higashioka, and in 2025, Campusano had an obscene 1.036 OPS… in Triple-A. The Padres have long had one of the best farm systems in baseball, but it’s curious that the Mount Rushmore of Padres catchers would feature only three faces: Benito Santiago, Terry Kennedy, and Gene Tenace. The most recent that any of them have played for the Padres is 1992. Since the 1998 World Series year, there have been 18 different Opening Day starters at catcher, and in the current era, there’s a curious cycle of fading veterans becoming fan favorites—Jorge Alfaro, Gary Sanchez, et al.—only to quickly disappear amid more roster shuffling. In one way or another, the catcher position has been a black hole for the Padres for almost three decades. (Shoutout to Hedges, who did come up through the Padres system, but couldn’t hit water if he fell out of a boat.) As always, it’s tempting to get excited about the next catcher of the future. Ethan Salas is the Friars' highest-ranked position player in the minors, but he’s only nineteen years old. Campusano is the Padres’ best option behind the dish right now, at least in a world where Fermin has forgotten how to hit a baseball. No other catcher in the organization and no unsigned veteran have his hit tool. No other catcher in the organization and no unsigned veteran are in their prime age-27 season. This opportunity is something Campusano and the club have aspired to for years, and he finally has a chance to be a homegrown success story. But first, he might want to stop swinging at everything. View full article