Identities

What do we see reflected?

Cover Photo Credit: @Padres

The start to the 2024 season was tailor-made to disguise the Padres true identity. They’re 12-12. Neither good nor bad. They’re only one game back of the Dodgers for the division lead, but they’re out of wild card contention by a game and a half. They have a winning record against the Cubs, Dodgers, and Brewers, three teams with excellent run differentials and winning records that look poised for postseason contention. But they have a losing record to the Cardinals, Giants, and Blue Jays, three teams with abysmal run differentials who are near or at the bottom of their respective divisions. They’re top 10 in both runs scored and runs allowed per game. These facts can be rearranged to create almost any narrative imaginable. The best case that seems remotely realistic for the rest of the season would be the team trending towards elite in the run prevention department while managing to stay around top ten in run creation. How likely are either of those outcomes?

Run Prevention

The Padres starting pitching took a hit when Yu Darvish was placed on the 15-day IL. This will mean at least three starts missed. That’s survivable over a 162 game season. We can presume until we hear otherwise that Darvish will be back in two weeks. Michael King was dominant against the Brewers in his last start, perhaps the best of his career. Dylan Cease has been excellent. The fifth spot in the rotation is currently occupied by Matt Waldron. Waldron is not likely to produce much better than the 4.74 ERA he’s put up so far. But a single weak spot in the rotation doesn’t preclude the unit as a whole being one of the strongest in the league. A lot depends on what the team will get from Joe Musgrove. Musgrove’s latest outing Sunday against the Blue Jays was his most interesting of the season for several reasons. He pitched seven innings giving up three runs. There were some encouraging signs about his underlying stuff with his measured spin rates up across the board:

But what really stood out in his performance was his seventh inning, and specifically the team’s decision making around his usage. With the Padres leading 4-2 going into the seventh they elected to let Musgrove face the heart of the Blue Jays order a third time through. One would presume that the strategy would be to try to get one extra inning from him, but to pull him at the first sign of trouble since notoriously pitchers are vulnerable to big innings the third time through the order. Musgrove got the first out, but then he hit Justin Turner and gave up a ground rule double to Dalton Varsho putting runners on second and third. With right hander Davis Schneider, who had already homered off Musgrove earlier in the game, coming up, calling in a bullpen arm seemed the obvious thing to do. The team had Enyel De Los Santos and, interestingly, Robert Suarez warming up in the seventh. But instead the Padres let Musgrove keep pitching. He managed to induce Schneider into an RBI groundout followed by an lineout from Danny Jansen to end the inning with the Padres clinging to a 4-3 lead. Overall it was a pretty successful outing for Musgrove, his second quality start in a row. The Padres brass put an awful lot of faith into Musgrove’s ability to execute in a tight spot in a very close game. We can hope that is because the team feels his conditioning and stuff warranted the faith. We can presume that they understood how big the moment was since they had Suarez warming up in the pen. To be transparently honest, though, it’s hard to understand exactly what the Padres seventh inning calculus hinged upon. It sure was fascinating to watch. And if the takeaway is that Musgrove’s rounding into shape, there is reason to believe the starting rotation could be among the upper echelon of the league.

Bullets and Bull Cases

The bullpen appears to have some bright spots, the most notable being the dominance of Robert Suarez. His fastball has been one of the best in baseball not just because of velocity but because of elite pitch shape. This offering clocked in 99.3 mph with 20.4” of induced vertical break and 8.4” of horizontal break, dotting the low outside corner:

Source: @TJStats

That is a nightmare for a hitter. It graded out as one of the best fastballs thrown in 2024. Bobby Bullets is back.

The remainder of the bullpen has a lot of intrigue. We already discussed Yuki Matsui and Tom Cosgrove’s value propositions. Wandy Peralta hasn’t been as good as his 0.82 ERA might suggest, but he projects to be an above average arm who can be very effective against lefties. Enyel De Los Santos projects to be a very similar performer against righties. Stephen Kolek is a complete wild card but has struck out 13 hitters in his first 11 IP. Adrian Morejon has maintained elite velocity and had a 50% Whiff% in his last outing. Jhony Brito and Randy Vasquez both offer long relief options which will be needed. There is a lot of good substrate here. Making a bull case for the Padres bullpen is not entirely crazy.

Defensive Wows and Woes

The defensive talent on the team is undeniable:

Source: @TalkingFriars

Source: @MLB

Yet despite many moments of brilliance they’ve allowed 17 unearned runs in 24 games. Some of this is definitely due to being unable to field their best defensive alignments with Manny Machado relegated to DH while recovering from offseason surgery, and his replacements at 3B making some costly early season errors. But if you’ve watched the games you’ve also seen plenty of defensive misplays that likely aren’t representative of the underlying skill of the players on the team:

Source: @TalkinBaseball_

Source: @MLBONFOX

There’s a fun obscure statistic developed by Bill James and John Dewan’s Sports Info Solutions (née Baseball Info Solutions) called Good Play/Misplay Runs Above Average (abbreviated Rgood). Rgood tracks 54 separate types of Defensive Misplays (including some effort based outcomes such as “Giving up on play”) and 28 types of Good Fielding Plays and translates the outcomes into runs saved/allowed above average. The Padres are the worst in the MLB in this category at -3 so far.

Rgood is a cumulative stat that will undoubtedly fluctuate as the year goes by but it’s revealing that the Padres both have the worst mark in MLB, and one that would have placed ninth worst for the entire 2023 season. They’ve had an enormous amount of defensive miscues in the early season. They share the worst overall mark with the Red Sox who are on pace to give up an unthinkable 183 unearned runs this season. The Red Sox were historically bad defensively in 2023 and are believed by some to be worse in 2024. Certainly some flukey Padres misplays are weighing heavily here. Our money is on the Padres not being near the league leaders in defensive misplays when the season is over, but it’s unquestionably been a big part of their performance so far.

Nothing discussed above suggests that the Padres can’t be a top 10 run prevention team all year, and the door is open to creep up into that very elite air if a few things break right. There’s probably a relatively high floor if things break the wrong way.

Run Creation

The 2024 Padres were expected to take a step backwards offensively with the loss of Juan Soto after finishing 13th last season with 4.64 runs scored/game. They’re currently 10th in the league with 4.92 runs scored/game which is somewhat surprising:

But should it really be that surprising? The 2023 Padres lit almost 1,000 plate appearances on fire by giving them to Austin Nola, Matt Carpenter, and Trent Grisham. Among the three, Grisham had the most salvageable wRC+ at a piddling 91. For an above average offense the 2023 Padres had an uncommon amount of futility interspersed with its high performers. An interesting Fangraphs article recently noted that the 2024 Padres do not have any full time hitters projected to be at a wRC+ of <96:

There is quite a lot of projection here. Donovan Solano hasn’t officially even debuted for the team, and Xander Bogaerts has been mired in an awful slump (though some signs of life were seen Sunday!). Still, this projection is reasonable, and if it came to pass, the Padres likely would have an above average offense. It’s been popular to say the team is one bat away. That bat could be Bogaerts regressing to his mean performance. Let’s hope.

Reflections

The collection of evidence above is a mirror that can reflect back different identities based on what the viewer projects onto the team. Nothing has been foreclosed upon and nothing is clear. An optimistic outlook is that the winning thesis of elite run prevention paired with a good-enough offense remains a possibility. But it’s fair to say that identity hasn’t emerged as yet. And that’s troubling.

At L2AJ we have a specific compass we’ll sometimes look to for guidance: the record against the dregs. Even the very best teams cannot be expected to dominate other good teams. But very good teams should dominate the dregs of the league. And this is why the series against Colorado starting on Monday seems to carry outweighed importance. Though the season is only 15% complete, the Rockies have entrenched themselves amongst the dregs of the league. They have the worst record and worst run differential in the National League. They trail only the hopeless White Sox in these categories for worst in MLB. And they are depleted, having had to play a grueling double header Sunday against the Mariners which included an extra innings game. The Padres are facing as favorable conditions as could be hoped for, save the fact that the games will be played in Colorado. Strange things happen in Colorado. Nonetheless, as we gaze into the funhouse mirror that is Coors Field, we’re eager to see what’s reflected back.