Padres Day 2022
THIS Is What a World Series Contender Looks Like
On August 2nd, 2022 the Padres made the biggest trade in baseball history. Then they made another, and another. They also played two games. The first game they won in blowout fashion notching the most hits in a game all season, dismantling their opponent. The second game was a gritty affair, tied going into the bottom of the 9th before a laser beam walk off homerun electrified the crowd and completed the double header sweep. Sometime during the night a private jet landed in San Diego carrying the best hitter in baseball ready to join a surging team on a stretch run with World Series ambitions. This was Padres Day 2022.
Secret Knowledge and Bygone Eras
Large market teams ‘suffer’ publicly. The Cubs and Red Sox struggles were chronicled with endless ‘woe is me’ features, the baseball world fawning over these ‘unfortunate’ franchises even as limitless resources were poured into the efforts that virtually guaranteed an eventual World Series Championship, breaking the ‘curse’. The Padres' suffering is different. It is secret. Not secret due to the Padres withholding information, but due to the greater baseball world’s indifference to knowing. The darkest moments of the franchise lost to history but for Padres fans holding this special fund of knowledge:
Losing two of your top three pitchers a week before the playoffs,
The intrusive thought “when does the regression start?” with each new top prospect debut,
The special dread that comes with purchasing a favorite player’s jersey: “will he be a Padre for much longer?”
This is knowledge lost to a baseball world overcome with indifference.
But on Padres Day all any of the big networks could talk about was the Padres.
Something has changed
The Padres were previously an irrelevant franchise. They didn’t suffer any less than the Red Sox or Cubs, but the baseball world was indifferent to the Padres suffering because there was no hope, no sense that interest and attention would eventually be rewarded with the payoff of ‘breaking the curse’. That era is ending thanks to Peter Seidler and the introduction of hope to the equation.
A New Hope
The Padres traded for Juan Soto. Fernando Tatis is coming back. Eric Hosmer is replaced by Josh Bell. The sad departure of Luke Voit salved by the arrival of Brandon Drury. The foibles of Taylor Rogers replaced by Darth Hader.
This is the best Padres team since 1998. The Padres are solidly in the top 10 in pitching, offense, and defense. Teams this good have won World Series in the very recent past:
The Padres so far have put up a 0.41 Run Differential with a bottom half offense. They are now adding two offensive MVP candidates, and two borderline offensive all-stars. This is how the projected lineup after the trade deadline compares to the best offense in the National League:
You can split hairs about which of the two is more potent, but there should be agreement that the Padres now have a top tier offensive lineup, patching the biggest hole the team has faced all year.
This blog was started in part to lay out the case for trading for Juan Soto, and why this trade opportunity was so different than any that had faced the Padres, or any team, before. Also, hard hitting interviews and allegorical Padres fiction. But mostly to try to draw attention to how special the opportunity to trade for Juan Soto is. A.J. seems to have agreed, and the Padres are entering a new era. The letters worked. We’re over the moon.
Gone but not forgotten. But also not gone
We’re also sensitive to the fact that our favorite prospects are largely no longer Padres, and this has some fans reeling. We did manage to keep Merrill, Morejon, Campusano, Mears, and of course Lesko, but saying goodbye to Abrams, Gore, Wood, Hassell III, and Susana hurts. But as we argued, the future value of these prospects is not gone, it’s just been transferred to the Padres here and now. If you purchase a gold bar for $1000, you aren’t really out $1000, that value is retained in the gold bar. The value of our beloved prospects has been exchanged for the value of Soto and Bell. The WAR Abrams et al. would have accrued in 2025-2029 is going to start accruing the Padres now in the form of Soto and Bell, just when the Padres could use it most. If everything goes sideways, we can trade Soto a year from now and claim another team’s Abrams et al. The Soto trade was a must do deal for A.J., if for no other reason than that he can have his cake and eat it too. The Padres are World Series contenders, yet they still have an asset that can be traded for an entire farm system should that ever become the strategically correct move in the future.
It’s Time to Move On
Hosmer is gone. The prospects are gone. Soto is here. This team is much better than it was a week ago. It will be much better a week from now when Tatis returns. Whether that makes the Padres the best team in baseball is academic. The best team in baseball does not always win the World Series. Nothing is guaranteed. But to win you have to be a contender. These Padres are a World Series contender.
LFGSD