If there’s a defining feature of AJ Preller’s team building it’s his ability to craft a tantalizing best case scenario. And it’s the failure of the best case scenario to materialize that has informed many opinions of Preller. The reasons why the best case scenario never seems to materialize are many, but undoubtedly injury is one of them, and it’s maybe not talked about enough.
The 2020 Padres finished with the highest winning percentage in team history going 37-23 in the shortened season, a 100 win pace. That season saw the emergence of Dinelson Lamet into a true ace. A late season trade for Cleveland’s ace Mike Clevinger gave the Padres the type of one-two punch that has carried teams very deep in the post season. But devastation found the starting rotation when Lamet and Clevinger went down with serious elbow injuries just weeks before the postseason started. These injuries had spillover effects into 2021 with Clevinger missing the entire year after Tommy John surgery, and Lamet becoming largely ineffective in an attempt at nonsurgical recovery. The Padres couldn’t find adequate replacements in Chris Paddack and Ryan Weathers who came unraveled as the season wore on. Ultimately the 2021 Padres, who were 18 games over .500 on August 10th, couldn’t land the plane. Injury was only part of that story, but not an insignificant part. 2022 started with Fernando Tatis Jr recovering from surgery after going to 12 O’Clock1. Tatis would end up missing the entire 2022 season after testing positive for clostebol during the injury recovery period. Mike Clevinger returned in 2022 but was a shell of his former self and was dismantled in his only NLCS appearance, a disastrous game 4 start in which he failed to get a single out. Tatis would end up undergoing a second wrist surgery that October as the team fought through the playoffs without him. Even the star-crossed 2023 season had under the radar injury woes. It’s impossible not to wonder what might have been had Tatis started the season healthy and Robert Suarez not missed nearly four months of the season. Suarez’ availability when Josh Hader needed beauty sleep might well have led to the two additional wins that team needed to make it to the post-season where they were built to matchup well in a short series...
Many things have defined the Preller era Padres, and the otherworldly injury luck is an underappreciated patron of failure for the Preller regime. This is not to cast blame, or make excuses, or even try to identify the cause, it’s simply to note that much of the unfulfilled promise of the tantalizing best case scenario has been due to unexpected injury. And that thread continues this season. There’s an argument to be made that injury is the most important story from the first half of 2024. And it’s remarkable that despite IL stints for Yu Darvish, Joe Musgrove, Xander Bogaerts, Luis Campusano, and walking wounded status for Manny Machado, Fernando Tatis Jr, Jurickson Profar, and Luis Arraez, the Padres have remained firmly in the playoff hunt through the first half of the season. They couldn’t have done so without contributions from multiple players who were afterthoughts when the season began.
Wins Above Replacement
The 2024 Padres have needed major contributions from Donovan Solano, Tyler Wade, and Kyle Higashioka. All three have turned in positive WAR seasons to date. All three are interesting players. Last year Solano turned in his fifth straight season hitting over .280 and had an OPS+ of 112 while playing three positions across 134 games for the Twins. It’s telling about how devalued contact hitting has become that Solano was available to sign a minor league deal at the start of the season. Since 2019 the major league leader in line drive percentage is Donovan Solano, and he was available essentially for free.
The 2024 leader in line drive percentage (min. 100 plate appearances) is Tyler Wade. Wade is the definition of a floor raiser. He can play any position on the field, including serving as the Padres emergency catcher. And he’s a nuclear athlete:
Make no mistake, Wade is not the player you want to be the starting shortstop on a team with championship aspirations. But he’s absolutely a player you’re happy to have on the bench ready to pinch run, play emergency defense at any position, and take a professional at bat, albeit one with a low ceiling. You need those things across 162 games.
No one would mistake Kyle Higashioka for a contact hitter. That’s not something he can do well. Neither can he provide value on the basepaths. He’s attempted one stolen base in his career, hilariously an attempt to take second base with Aaron Judge at the plate, against catcher Kevin Plawicki who at that point had allowed 16 straight runners to steal safely:
Higashioka rarely does things like this. He gets the most out of his talents by understanding what he can do well, and avoiding what he cannot. He’s a very good pitch framer and has great footwork when throwing out runners:
He doesn’t have great bat to ball skills or a great eye at the plate. But he’s got adequate bat speed and he understands this is the one area he can get significant value from. He has a very narrow distribution of bat speed:
This is because he always tries to get to his A-swing. His career 162 game average includes a .207 batting average, 22 home runs, 26 walks, 131 strikeouts, and 0 stolen bases. He’s baseball’s equivalent of a 3-and-D guy. And his power at the bottom of the order has helped win some games:
Solano, Wade, and Higashioka are floor raisers. They are capable of playing above replacement level. And their contributions have helped keep the Padres afloat. They should be part of the Padres plans in the second half. You can win a few extra games across the full season with end of bench contributors that can perform above replacement level.
But if the Padres want to reach their ultimate goal it will have to be the stars that carry them, and it’s been a bumpy road across the first half.
Failure To Launch
None of the Padres stars has been under the microscope more than Manny Machado. In an uncommon moment of candor Machado articulated what many had speculated about his struggles at the plate. Speaking to Kevin Acee this week Machado said:
My swing is not there. My elbow is not letting me do the things I’m normally capable of doing. So I gotta tweak things here and there. I’ve had to do a lot. I wish I could feel like I did last year or two years ago and feel that way. And obviously right now, it’s not.
His Statcast data shows exactly what the issue has been in terms of performance:
In 2024 there has been nothing wrong with his exit velocities, indeed his 2024 average exit velocity has been higher than that of his splendid 2022 campaign. But he’s been in a launch angle slump. His average launch angle is by far the lowest of his career since Statcast started keeping track of the statistic. And this would be no big deal if launch angles were generated randomly, it would simply be a matter of continuing to hit the ball hard and wait until luck starts normalizing and the ball starts leaving the bat at favorable launch angles. But there’s a lot of evidence that launch angles are not randomly generated. In fact the ability to consistently get to favorable launch angles appears to be one of the key skills that has allowed Luis Arraez to consistently translate low exit velocities into high batting averages year after year. And Machado commented on this exact struggle:
I just can’t get into my slot to launch the ball,” he said. “You want to be able to get into your slot to drive the ball. I’ve had a pretty decent career on being able to be consistent with hitting the ball to right field and hitting the ball all over the place. But it’s by being consistent with getting that back elbow (in the right spot). My bat path is not where it needs to be right now.
When a player can’t get to favorable launch angles it’s slugging that is affected the most, because 100 MPH groundballs rarely go for more than singles. And sure enough here we can see that Machado is putting up career low extra base hits as a percentage of both total plate appearances and total hits:
This doesn’t mean Machado can’t be successful. Despite the failure to launch Machado has been finding success in terms of raw batting average. Machado was 11 for 28 against the Phillies and Brewers this week, a .393 average. He had a double and a homerun, and nine singles. Yet you can see that this terrific outcome came even as the same pattern that has defined his season persisted:
He hit 10 balls hard across the week. And while five of the hard hits were in the launch angle “sweet spot” (defined as a launch angle between 8 and 32 degrees in which hits are most likely), they were in the lower range, and none were higher than 16 degrees off the bat. His home run came on an opposite field fly ball down the line at a 35 degree launch angle. The other four hard hits were driven right into the ground. For the week he averaged a launch angle of 12.1 degrees, higher than his season average, but still lower than any prior season.
We finally have a clear understanding of Machado’s struggles at the plate, but also reason to think that even as his batting average improves, the slugging that has defined his career may not come with it unless he can more consistently get to favorable launch angles. And that might be really difficult for him until he’s healthy.
Fundamentally the challenge Machado is facing is that taking the same approach at the plate as he has in years past is yielding different results because of the physical impact of his injury. It can be thought of like this: A hitter has about a tenth of a second to make a swing decision. This means there’s no time for planning, it’s all reaction. It’s muscle memory; A certain reaction yields a certain result. Hitters train their reaction on thousands of swings and the brain develops neural pathways that are triggered to get the bat to the ball. But when there’s a physical injury and the same trained reaction leads to marginally fewer gigapascals of tensile strength across the muscles, that same reaction will produce a swing where the bat head may be meeting the ball a millimeter or so off of it’s typical trajectory. That’s all it takes. It’s so subtle that it can be nearly impossible to tell the difference:
One of these was a 104.5 MPH single, the other was a weakly hit double play ball, there was an 18 degree difference in launch angle between the two. Can you tell which was which from the still frame2? Each of these swings looks like he’s right on time and has squared it up, just like in years past. But he’s ever so slightly off, a millimeter or two. And this is what explains quotes like this:
“He threw me two (pitches) right down the middle,” Machado said of (Mets starter Tylor) Megill. “And I freaking fouled them off, and I’m like, ‘(Expletive)! What the (expletive)?’ I don’t even know how I’m missing those pitches. It’s right there. It’s right where I want it, right where I’m looking and yeah, I just, I can’t connect with it.”
This is a problem without an easy solution. But the surest way to guarantee a problem will persist is to deny that a problem even exists. This week Machado went on record publicly noting that he’s identified a problem. This is professionalism. And although a solution is going to be difficult, and perhaps truly not available until he regains his health, he’s acknowledged that the problem exists, and that portends well for the prospects of finding a solution, presuming that too exists.
There’s risk here too. A baseball swing is a delicate thing, too heavy handed an adjustment may have unintended consequences. What might start out as an adaptive change may turn out to be maladaptive if there are knock on effects. If Machado alters his mechanics too much seeking better launch, might that set him up poorly as his injury heals? It’s a scary prospect for a hitter.
Despite his injury he’s still making plays in the field like this:
Solid defense and an OPS hovering near the league average is a winning player overall. It really looks like the elbow injury is what’s leading to his launch angle slump and if that heals as the season goes on there is very real reason to think Manny Machado the complete player will reemerge. This will be something to watch in the second half of the season.
Not Alone
Machado and Tatis have been banged up, and as a result haven’t been able to carry the team the way they have in the past. But this week provided a lot of evidence that there’s help on the way, perhaps already here. Jackson Merrill has already shown himself to be a precocious contact hitter, and well above average center fielder with good speed on the basepaths. Against the Brewers he got a chance to show off outstanding arm strength:
Courtesy: Joseph Kim
And he’s been getting to his power:
That’s 440 feet to dead center. Thunderous power. That’s a slugger announcing himself. Paired with the defense, speed, arm, and contact ability that’s a five tool player.
What’s particularly notable about the home run above is the approach. This at bat came after a 13 pitch at bat in which Merrill saw every one of Carlos Rodriguez’ offerings. Jeff Sanders captured this quote:
“I was just trying to get him, get him down,” Merrill said. “He didn’t really have a pitch that was straight. All of it was kind of moving one way or the other. So just trying to see everything. I did see every pitch in the first AB I think”
When asked about his approach in the next at bat Merrill answered:
“I’m just learning when to take my shots and when not to. We got two guys on … and it was either one or (no outs). In that situation … you’re trying to drive somebody in. I’m not trying to just get a little single.
Statcast tracked Merrill’s bat speed at 75.7 MPH on the home run, a very fast swing speed, and well above his season average of 72.0 MPH. He saw runners on base and a pitcher who wasn’t going to fool him after he saw all his offerings earlier in the game. He chose his spot and he let it rip. That’s elite situational decision making.
But something else stood out both this week and the week before:
Merrill has four home runs off left handed pitchers, including that last home run of Ranger Suarez, perhaps the best lefty in the league. It was only the third home run Suarez had allowed to a left handed hitter. The one omnipresent struggle through the first half of the season was the inability for the Padres to win games against left handed starters. Merrill’s emergence chips away at that weakness.
Beyond the five physical tools there’s another factor that scouts covet though it’s more difficult to quantify: makeup. It should be noted that Merrill’s 440 foot three run home run came in Saturday’s game when the roster was terribly depleted:
Randy Vasquez pitching with this lineup behind him felt to some3 like a ‘scheduled loss’. But here’s what Merrill said to the fantastic Sammy Levitt about his approach going into that game:
Merrill is establishing himself as a five tool player with leadership qualities. It can’t be overstated what a big development this is. He’s young, and the league always makes adjustments after getting a look at up and coming stars. But it’s not crazy to project what he might become for the Padres. He may be a star in this league. One that can share the burden with Tatis and Machado. The third head of the dragon.
The Best Case Scenario
The slow drip feed of injuries across this season has obscured the magnitude of strain put upon the Padres roster. You get a sense of the enormity of the 2024 injury problem by looking at the salary committed to players with injury woes this season:
That’s nearly equivalent to the Baltimore Orioles entire payroll ($97 million) Essentially all of the Padres star power has been hit by significant injury in the first half of the season. The injuries to Yu Darvish and Joe Musgrove are why Randy Vasquez was called on to make his 10th start of the season Saturday. Xander Bogaerts’ injury has forced Luis Arraez to continue to play the field despite his own ailing shoulder. Jake Cronenworth has not been able to take a night off against unfavorable platoon matchups as a result. Manny Machado has been in a launch angle slump. Campusano’s absence has forced the recall of Brett Sullivan who may not be a major league quality player. And the effects of Profar’s knee tendinitis and Tatis’ quad and elbow injuries remain to be seen.
But if you really squint you can just make out a faint silver lining. The injury woes that befell the teams from 2020-2023 were severe, drawn out, often season ending, sometimes amounting to mortal wounds to postseason hope. But despite the enormous volume of injuries in 2024, none has proven to be season ending. There remains the possibility, albeit one that’s probably at least a standard deviation from the mean outcome, that these injuries heal as the season goes by, and healthy Padres are drip fed back onto the roster such that by season’s end we may, for the first time, actually get to see what a Preller best case scenario looks like… That’s a farfetched outcome, but it’s not farfetched to think the franchise is overdue for some type of good fortune on the injury front. We can hope. It’s all we can do really.
High-wire Act
The Padres remain a high-wire act. They are 41-41, exactly .500 at the start of the second half of the season. Playoff hopes alive. Aerialists at vertiginous heights, halfway across the tightrope, clinging to precarious balance. The white knuckle ride continues.
Or maybe it was just a routine traffic accident while on a motorcycle, the details were never made clear with the Padres unable to comment due to the player lockout of that offseason
Left side: EV: 104.5, LA: 2, single
Right side: EV: 86, LA: -16, GIDP
Us!
Doing it the hard way. What do we expect?
Interested that you say they have suffered a huge amount of injuries since Preller has tried to win. Compared to other teams is this backed up buy the numbers? For once you didnt go in depth there lol.