San Diego Padres: Baseball’s Next Great Team or Great Tease?
It’s another beautiful San Diego night in what has become tradition at Petco Park: a sellout for the Padres. Ever since the Chargers left, the Friars have been the only team in town, but their recent success has helped the city move on from what is now Los Angeles’s sixth most popular sports team. Winning for the Padres hasn’t come without a cost: for nearly two decades the team has missed out on postseason baseball, leaving San Diego citizens to face the grim reality of a winter surrounded by beaches, palm trees, and year-round temperature in the 70s. But tonight, for the first time since Trevor Hoffman trotted out to ‘Hell’s Bells”, the team in brown and yellow is poised to clinch the NL West with one more victory. A youth movement, led by tonight’s battery mates, ace starting pitcher Mackenzie Gore and slugging catcher Francisco Mejia, as well as star shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr., has given the team an athletic collection of young talent straight from the farm. They have created a roster comprised almost entirely of players just entering their prime, and have their sights set on contending for the National League pennant for years to come. With Gore getting ready to toss the first pitch tonight against the Dodgers, it appears that the years of despair are finally gone, thanks to the 2021 Padres….
And then A.J. Preller woke up. But here’s the thing: his dreams may soon become a reality.
Preller, San Diego’s President of Baseball Operations, has always dreamt big. He showed as much when he went out in the winter of 2015 and acquired All-Stars Matt Kemp, James Shields, Justin Upton, and Craig Kimbrel in his first offseason, as well as making a move to snag former AL Rookie of the Year Wil Myers from Tampa. Preller was soon being praised as a young up and comer, even being called a “rockstar” by Kemp in the former (and now current) Dodger’s first press conference as a Padre.
However, the team proved to be both poorly constructed and expensive, leading to a disappointing fourth-place finish and immediate roster teardown. By the end of the following season, only Myers remained in San Diego.
While the club remained fairly quiet in offseason talks in subsequent years, the team was back at it this winter, signing first baseman Eric Hosmer away from Kansas City with a massive 8-year, $144 million contract, a franchise record. Many (including us) saw the deal as a questionable overpay for a one-time All-Star, but Preller and others in the front office sought after the 28-year-old for his consistency and presence in the clubhouse for one of baseball’s youngest teams.
Despite the Hosmer move signaling the Padres were ready to build a competitive team, it quickly became apparent that a winner won’t be taking the field any time soon in San Diego. With the team stuck in last place nearing the July 31st trade deadline, management made the long-anticipated move to get rid of All Star closer Brad Hand, shipping him off -along with fellow reliever Adam Climber- to the Indians. But in return, the team got back the game’s premier catching prospect, Francisco Mejia.
Mejia, who wore out his welcome in Cleveland partially due to his insistence on remaining a backstop despite mediocre defense, wields one of the deadliest young bats in the entire league. Over six seasons in the minors, he slashed .291/.345/.444, earning him the no. 21 spot in Baseball America’s Top 100 prospects. He showed Padres fans his potential in person by mashing two homers in his team debut against the Reds, giving the team hope that they will have another slugger to pair with Myers in the heart of the lineup.
The Mejia trade also made headlines because it displayed the slew of young talent assembled by the San Diego front office since Preller’s arrival. The Padres boast the largest number of players currently in the Top 100 prospects list, with an astounding nine players scattered throughout the ranks of the game’s elite youth talent.
The list is headlined by the farm system’s number one prospect (and the second best in all of baseball), shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr. The son of 11-year veteran Fernando Tatis, Tatis Jr., who is still just 19 years old, is tall and lanky, giving many evaluators hope that he is just beginning to scratch the surface of his considerable potential. An already enviable mix of contact and power (he hit .286 with 16 homers in only 88 games for Double-A San Antonio) has team scouts drooling, and he looks poised to be a perennial All-Star despite a season-ending thumb surgery this year.
Following Tatis Jr. on the prospects list is pitcher Mackenzie Gore, another immensely talented 19 year old. Drafted with the number three overall pick in 2017 based off of terrific high school stats (11-0 with a 0.19 ERA and a 158-to-5 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 74 1/3 innings his senior year), Gore has all the makings of a frontline starter. Despite the absence of a blazing fastball, something frequently found in today’s young arms, his off-speed stuff is filthy, headlined by a nasty mid-70’s curveball that induces plenty of strikeouts, according to MLB.com Prospect Watch. His deception on the mound and pinpoint control gives many in the San Diego front office hope he can anchor the staff for years to come, all while throwing in the pitcher-friendly confines of Petco Park.
What may be the most impressive about the San Diego system, more so than star power, is the amount of pitching depth. The Pads boast six pitchers in the Top 100, with ten of the team’s top fifteen prospects making a living on the mound. In a game constantly in need of strong starters, the Padres appear stacked. If the team chooses to supplement the roster with outside additions to the lineup, they should have enough payroll freed up by the young talent to make a deal happen. In addition, their deep farm system can be leveraged to trade for a controllable young star in the coming offseasons, if the front office chooses to expedite the rebuilding process. By possessing so many options in terms of roster construction, it appears difficult for even the Padres to mess this up.
Although the depth looks great on paper right now, San Diego fans have seen promising teams falter before. To build a winner, Preller’s goal should be to stay patient; he should only go after players heading into their prime this offseason, players who can help them for years to come.
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Midseason talk even had the Padres as potential buyers at the trade deadline thanks to their depth. There were even rumors linking them to then-Rays pitcher Chris Archer. Luckily for them, San Diego stayed out of the Archer sweepstakes, avoiding a risky and potentially steep prospect cost.
Michael Fulmer, Detroit’s young ace, could be a solid addition this winter, but the team should only strike when they can truly get a steal. It makes no sense for a team that is still years away from competing to get into a bidding war with the game’s elite. Big signings should also be met with caution, as moves like the Hosmer contract already look questionable and costly for a low-budget team. By remaining patient, management can instead see what they have, filling in the gaps on a mediocre roster with cheap young talent. The rest of the squad can be supplied with outside additions meant to build on, not carry, a promising young core. It appears that the days of the Padres being a doormat could soon be over.
For now, they should remain a laughing stock for at least another year. But the National League can laugh at its own risk; before they know it, they might be looking up at San Diego in the standings for years to come.
-Bryan Armetta
