The Padres Might Actually Pull This Off

It’s been a good week for the Padres. As usual, president of baseball operations A.J. Preller was busy ahead of the trade deadline, and while this year’s additions weren’t as eye-catching as the 2022 trade for Juan Soto — what on earth possibly could be? — Preller greatly improved a middling bullpen and additionally fortified a thin rotation, damn the cost of the prospects dealt along the way. Meanwhile, the Padres increased their chances of reaching the playoffs by taking a pair of games from the Dodgers in San Diego, wins that not only pulled them closer to first place than they’ve been since early May, but also clinched them the season series between the two teams, giving them the potential tiebreaker if they were to finish with the same record as Los Angeles. All of this, along with the fact that the Padres have one of the league’s easiest remaining schedules, gives them their best shot at pulling off an NL West upset since Preller took the reins late in the 2014 season.

On Tuesday, hours after the team added relievers Tanner Scott and Bryan Hoeing from the Marlins and starter Martín Pérez from the Pirates, the Padres rallied to overcome the five first-inning runs that the Dodgers hung on starter Matt Waldron. Down 5-3 entering the bottom of the ninth, Manny Machado and Jackson Merrill both homered off Blake Treinen, and after Robert Suarez buzzsawed through the Dodgers on 10 pitches in the top of the 10th, Donovan Solano’s bases-loaded single plated the winning run. On Wednesday, the Padres tagged Clayton Kershaw for seven runs (three earned) in his second start since returning from shoulder surgery; San Diego even snapped Kershaw’s major league record of 423 consecutive starts with a strikeout.

The wins gave the Padres a 9-1 record over their last 10 games; they strung together a season-high seven-game winning streak against the Guardians, Nationals, and Orioles from July 20–27, a span that included Dylan Cease’s no-hitter on July 25. With a 13-9 record for July on the heels of a 16-11 May and 15-13 June, San Diego has now put together winning records in three straight months, something it failed to do last year. (That team couldn’t even manage back-to-back winning months.) What’s more, the Padres sent the Dodgers to their first losing month (11-13) since April 2018 and trimmed the division lead to 4.5 games, the smallest it’s been since May 4, which coincidentally was the day they traded for Luis Arraez.

So, are the Padres for real? They entered Friday with a 59-51 record, one game behind the Braves (59-49) for the NL’s top Wild Card spot but only a half-game ahead of the Diamondbacks (58-51) and a game ahead of the Mets (57-51). Yet it’s necessary to point out that this has been a streaky team all season, one that’s struggled to escape the gravitational pull of .500. Cherrypicking a few dates, the Padres were 9-9 on April 14, 18-18 on May 4, 28-28 on May 26, 35-35 on June 10, 40-40 on June 21, and 50-50 on July 19 before going on their current jag. They even hid another 9-1 run in that forest of .500 records, from June 19–29; that lifted them from 37-40 to 46-41. Compare their trajectory to this point to that of the Braves:

The take-home point is that the Braves have been comfortably above .500 all season long, whereas the Padres rarely have been. Prior to June 26, their 85th game of the season, they finished the day further than two games away from .500 in either direction just five times, then slipped back in that zone from July 10–21.

I do think there are reasons to be optimistic about the Padres going forward. They’ve spent most of the season underperforming their projected winning percentages, sometimes by about 30 points, but their current .536 mark is just four points shy of their .540 Pythagenpat and seven points shy of their .543 BaseRuns mark. While they’ve been without Fernando Tatis Jr. since June 21 due to a stress reaction in his right femur, the rest of their lineup has rounded into shape. For the first four weeks of the season, Machado was confined to designated hitter duty while he continued to recover from October surgery to repair the extensor tendon in his right elbow. Manager Mike Shildt primarily used light-hitting Tyler Wade as his third baseman, with Graham Pauley and the more productive Eguy Rosario getting time as well. The group hit just .228/.291/.316 (79 wRC+) in that span, and Machado himself hit just .241/.293/.361 (89 wRC+) through the end of May, but he’s raked at a more representative .298/.347/.517 (141 wRC+) clip since, with 11 of his 16 home runs coming in the past two months, including two on Tuesday night.

Meanwhile, Xander Bogaerts hit just .212/.265/.316 (68 wRC+) before suffering a fracture in his left shoulder while diving for a ball on May 24. Since returning to the lineup on July 12, he’s been absolutely on fire (.453/.464/.623, 206 wRC+), collecting multiple hits in eight out of 13 games and going hitless just once; the spree has lifted his season wRC+ to 99. Arraez has hit for a 109 wRC+ while splitting time between first and DH, Donovan Solano, another early-May addition, has hit for a 121 wRC+ since joining the team, and both Ha-Seong Kim (102 wRC+) and Jake Cronenworth (109 wRC+) have been above average as well.

The only place where the Padres are not getting better-than-average production of late is the David Peralta/Bryce Johnson platoon in right field. Tatis has been cleared for light baseball activity but has no timeline yet for his return, and while Preller couldn’t offer one on Tuesday, he did say, “Every report I’ve gotten has been really positive.”

Preller’s big focus ahead of the deadline was in fortifying a bullpen that currently ranks 10th in the NL with a 4.07 ERA and fifth with a 3.74 FIP. Scott, arguably the best closer and best lefty available at the deadline, posted a 1.18 ERA and 3.25 FIP with a 29.1% strikeout rate in 45.2 innings for the Marlins, while righty Jason Adam, acquired from the Rays on Monday, put up a 2.49 ERA and 3.36 FIP with a 27.8% strikeout rate in 47 innings before the trade. With Suaraz doing just fine as the closer, Scott and Adam have slotted into setup roles, bumping the rest of the team’s relievers down in the pecking order, with Hoeing (2.70 ERA and 3.26 FIP in 30 innings for the Marlins) taking over as the long man. As ESPN’s Alden Gonzalez noted, Scott, Adam, Suarez, and the previous pair of setup men, Jeremiah Estrada and Adrian Morejon, have combined to hold hitters to a .183/.260/.285 slash line. To make room for the newcomers, Stephen Kolek was placed on the IL with elbow tendinitis, Logan Gillaspie was optioned to Triple-A El Paso, Enyel De Los Santos was traded to the Yankees, and Austin Davis (the lone lefty of the group) was designated for assignment; those four pitchers had combined for -0.2 WAR over 112.1 innings, with Kolek the only one in the black. So that’s a significant upgrade.

If there’s a criticism to be made of Preller’s deadline performance — beyond the usual I-can’t-believe-he-traded-all-those-prospects ones and his not making hypothetical deals for players who proved out of reach for every team (hello, Luis Robert Jr.) — it’s that he didn’t do more for the rotation. Cease has been excellent, as has Michael King following a rough first month, and Waldron has shown that he and his knuckleball are more than a novelty act. Still, the current starting five has been without both Yu Darvish and Joe Musgrove since both landed on the IL on June 1. Pérez, an All-Star two years ago for the Rangers, has reverted to his journeyman form, pitching to a 5.20 ERA and 4.95 FIP in 83 innings for the Pirates. He can turn in five innings every fifth day, which is something Adam Mazur — who was traded to the Marlins in the Scott deal — wasn’t doing; the 23-year-old rookie totaled 33.2 innings with a 7.49 ERA and 6.22 FIP over eight starts, only two of which lasted longer than 4.2 innings. For the short term, Pérez raises the floor, but he’s not somebody who should take the ball in October.

Darvish, who posted a 3.20 ERA and 3.52 FIP through his first 11 starts, was initially sidelined by a groin strain and hasn’t pitched since. His return was slowed by a bout of elbow inflammation in late June, and then on July 6 he was placed on the restricted list as he left the Padres for what the team explained was “a personal matter involving his family.” The Padres hope he’ll return this season but currently there’s no timetable; Shildt said at the time that Darvish’s absence would be indefinite and offered little more in the way of details. “Clearly we want to respect his privacy. He wants to make sure everybody knows he’s physically in a good spot. He’s still working on his craft,” said Shildt, adding, “The primary thing… that we want to do is just make sure Yu feels loved and supported by his Padre family.”

Musgrove was sidelined by right elbow and triceps discomfort, but unlike Darvish, he was not pitching well, as his 5.66 ERA and 5.35 FIP attest. It was his second time on the IL in as many months, as he missed about half of May due to elbow inflammation; soon enough, the underlying cause — a bone spur and a bone bruise in his right elbow — was discovered, and he received injections of cortisone and platelet-rich plasma. He’s scheduled to go out on a rehab assignment on Sunday, but it’s an open question as to whether he’ll resemble the top-of-the-rotation version of himself when he returns to the Padres.

For as flimsy as the rotation has looked on paper without Darvish and Musgrove, and with Randy Vásquez filling in one of the other spots while averaging less than five innings per turn himself, San Diego starters have posted the NL’s second-lowest ERA (3.89) and fourth-lowest FIP (3.83) since the start of June; their 4.6 WAR is second in that span, a pretty impressive feat. Preller reportedly explored trades for Garrett Crochet, Jack Flaherty, Yusei Kikuchi, and even old friend Blake Snell, but with top prospects Ethan Salas and Leodalis De Vries said to be off-limits, it doesn’t sound as though discussions went deep, and anyway, from that group only Flaherty and Kikuchi were dealt.

That the former went to the Dodgers and rated as the rare impact move this deadline is a potential problem for the Padres. Indeed, the Dodgers didn’t sit still, additionally adding Tommy Edman, Amed Rosario, and Michael Kopech, all of whom at least help the team shore up depth that’s been compromised by a slew of injuries and underperformances. In Dan Szymborski’s post-deadline ZiPS check-in, the Padres increased their odds of making the playoffs by 3.2% (from 59.7% to 62.9%), but the Dodgers did so by 2.7% (from 93.6% to 96.3%). Considering that the Dodgers are the ones in first place and have an easier potential path through the postseason should they hang on to the division lead, their odds of winning the World Series went up by 2.4% while those of San Diego fell by 0.1%. Meanwhile, the Mets and Braves outgained the Padres by both measures.

As for the players Preller did trade, 2022 first-round pick Dylan Lesko, a 20-year-old righty who was sent to Tampa Bay in the Adam deal, was one of just four 50 FV prospects dealt by Eric Longenhagen’s reckoning, while the 23-year-old Mazur and 20-year-old Robby Snelling, who both went to Miami, are 40+ FV prospects. Lesko and Snelling are too far from the majors to help this year’s squad, and Mazur fell short in his opportunity. Preller, who has a contract through 2026, is still regarded as being on the hot seat given last year’s crash and burn, so he wasn’t in a position to wait. Besides, he’s not one given to prospect-hugging anyway. Via Gonzalez:

“One thing we’ve never been scared of — we’re going to trade players,” Preller said. “I don’t know philosophically if it’s right, wrong — we’re going to trade players, they’re going to show up in the big leagues… and are going to do really good things. But if we get what we’re looking to do, and it works for us this year and over the next three to five years, we’re content with that.

“Billy Beane… would always tell me, ‘I’ve traded All-Stars, MVPs, Cy Young winners, and 20 years later we’ve done a lot of winning and we’re still in this spot.’ We take it like we’re going to trade talented players; that’s a compliment to our scouting group, honestly, and our development group.”

It may work out for Preller this year. Per our Playoff Odds, the Padres’ 71.6% chance at reaching the postseason and 14.4% chance of winning the division are both higher than they’ve been since mid-May 2023, and a quick perusal of our historical graphs shows that they haven’t had division odds this high this late in the season since Preller took over in August 2014. Sure, last year’s loaded squad might have been more eye-catching thanks to Soto and Snell, but this one has a real chance to make good on all of that wheeling and dealing.