Posted on March 14 at 2:30 PM EST. Odds subject to change.

Pinnacle N/A -110 BET365 u83½ -110 Sportsinteraction  888Sport N/A

MLB Season win total - Posted March 26

San Diego under 83½ -105

We’re always suspicious when Pinnacle Sports isn’t offering up a wager. The fact that Pinny has the Padres season win total off the board prompted us to look a little bit closer on them and we’re glad we did. This total is being offered at Bet365 among other joints and we suggest you get on board. 

The baseball version of “if you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball,” is “if you can play shortstop, you can play anywhere.” It holds some truth insomuch as shortstops tend to have the most complete package of athletic tools, so they can theoretically learn other positions more easily (aside from catcher).

With that in mind, here’s a Padres lineup that you’ll probably see a handful of times this year including each player’s predominant position when they were in the minors (or the KBO in Ha-Seong Kim’s case):

C Luis Campusano (C)

1B Jake Cronenworth (SS)

2B Xander Bogaerts (SS)

3B Manny Machado (SS)

SS Ha-Seong Kim (SS)

LF Jurickson Profar (SS)

CF Jackson Merrill (SS)

RF Fernando Tatis Jr. (SS)

DH Matthew Batten (SS)

Interesting, no? It’s admittedly fault-finding to list Profar as a former shortstop at this point in his career. The same is true for Machado to a lesser extent, but the point stands that San Diego has a type when it comes to defense, and let’s just say guys like Wil Myers don’t meet the standard.

The best way to coach a dodgeball team isn’t to throw wrenches at their heads. Will it make them better at evading projectiles? Maybe so—if the players aren’t hospitalized—but other objects that won’t cause fractures and concussions will probably be just as effective. Will a team full of current and former shortstops succeed defensively? Probably, but there’s a tax on player value by moving them down the defensive spectrum and refraining from using more powerful hitters at corner spots.

Before we begin, we’ll note that the Padres won 82 games last year and this year they’ll have to surpass that for us to rip up this ticket. They traded Juan Soto to slash payroll and let five pitchers walk away who accrued 627 innings and 9.4 WARP last season, including the reigning Cy Young winner. All of that notwithstanding, the unbalanced team they brought to the Cactus League forces key players out of their natural positions and risks squandering one of the game’s brightest prospects. Even if those players succeed, that imposes a glass ceiling on their production—unless some of those shortstops also know how to pitch. 

Catchers

It feels like the Padres have had a top catching prospect just around the bend for a dozen years now. Before Luis Campusano, it was Luis Torrens, before him Francisco Mejía, and before him Christian Bethancourt, but none of them ever seemed to arrive. Campusano is 25 now and exceeded prospect eligibility at last after increasingly larger sips of the majors in each of the last three seasons. He rarely walks because he can get his bat to just about anything—as shown by his excellent 12.1% strikeout rate and 18.1% whiff rate—with tantalizing underlying power potential. Nothing is stopping him from becoming the first in the long line of catching prospects to finally seize the starting gig—at least until the next prodigal catcher (Ethan Salas) arrives.

Kyle Higashioka was the one and only position player who came over from the Yankees in the Soto trade. San Diego needed a backup catcher and New York had too many to roster. He’s an excellent framer with a career .253 on-base percentage who will run into exactly one multi-homer game each season. Brett Sullivan was a 29-year-old rookie last year who learned how to play catcher in the minors. You’ll never guess what position he played in college.

Infield

For as many years and dollars as the club committed to all four starting infielders, there darn well ought to be a lot green on their WARP bars but there’s not. Welcome to Year One of Cronenworth’s seven-year extension…Yay. His batting numbers have declined in each of his four seasons, coinciding with his shift further to the right on the infield through no fault of his own. At this point, he’s a punchless, jumped-up utility infielder whose underwater contract makes him untradeable.

The rest of the infield looks much better. Bogaerts’ move to second base is a sigh of relief. He’s arguably the fourth-best shortstop in their starting infield, and his 80.9 mph average arm strength was in the 24th percentile. He’s a consistently excellent hitter with underrated durability who easily surpassed the plate appearance threshold to qualify for the batting title in every season since his rookie year.

In 1969—the Padres’ inaugural season—Nate Colbert led the team in home runs, and he has remained the franchise’s all-time leader ever since. Every time a player approached his seemingly undaunting mark of 163, they came up just short. Adrián González missed it by two, Phil Nevin by seven, and Dave Winfield by nine. Machado has 138 with the team entering the 2024 campaign and has belted at least 28 in every season since 2015 (other than 2020). The Curse of Colbert should finally meet its end this year.

Kim is the shortstop on a team full of shortstops, so you know he must be able to pick it. He won the multiposition Gold Glove last year and amassed 2.4 WARP. His power and walk rate have increased in each of his three MLB seasons. Switching spots with Bogaerts should help him make the most of his talents—albeit at Merrill’s expense.

Outfield

For years, we’ve been hearing about what an excellent contact hitter Jackson Merrill will be for a shortstop. He has elite bat-to-ball skills and above-average raw power, but hasn’t mastered the art of hitting the ball in the air and rarely drew walks in the minors. That’s fine for a shortstop, but if the club moves him to the outfield as planned for no other reason than team need, it’s a disservice to his potential. It looks like they’re bringing him with them on Opening Day in a hybrid infield/outfield/DH role. We’ll see.

J. Profar and José Azocar are the reasons why they’ve got room for Merrill in the outfield. Profar hit well in a statistically insignificant 14-game sample in San Diego after the Rockies released him, but that shouldn’t overshadow the fact that he got cut by a club that finished 59-103. Azocar is a speedy, slap-hitting outfielder who doesn’t hit enough to be an everyday player.

Tatis’ return from literal and metaphorical self-inflicted wounds was an unqualified success. His bat didn’t come all the way back, but he still clobbered 25 home runs and projections see further improvements in his future. He won the Platinum Glove and Fielding Bible awards in his first full year as a right fielder.

It’ll be DH-by-committee this year as shown by the projection bars that look like a bowl of Fruity Pebbles that’s been sitting in milk for 10 minutes. The leading candidates to soak up DH at bats are Campusano, when they want his bat in the lineup at the same time as Higashioka’s superior defense, Machado, who had offseason elbow surgery, and Batten, who raked against left-handed pitching last year.

Starters/Pitching

How does a ballclub fill the void left by Blake Snell, Seth Lugo, Nick Martinez, and Michael Wacha? All at once, apparently, by trading a 25-year-old superstar for four controllable starting pitchers. The biggest fish in the return package is Michael King, who excelled for the last two-and-a-half years as a multi-inning reliever. When the Yankees finally gave him the chance to start down the stretch, he allowed just 10 runs (eight earned) over eight starts and 38 ? innings with a 31.4% strikeout rate.

The other three former Yankee arms don’t have as much pedigree. Randy Vásquez threw six different pitches last year as a rookie, highlighted by a sweeper and a curve that both averaged more than 3,000 rpm but generated unexceptional whiff rates. Jhony Brito also debuted last season, relying on two different fastballs and a nice-looking changeup. Like a lot of fastball-changeup pitchers without a go-to breaking pitch, he struggled facing batters more than once, and performed much better out of the bullpen. Speaking of great changeups, Drew Thorpe’s might be the best in the minors. He ranked 45th on the Top 101, but he just reached Double-A at the end of last season and isn’t on the 40-man yet.

If those four hurlers don’t fill you with confidence, the Padres still have two venerable veterans at the front of their rotation. Yu Darvish posted decent numbers last year but his 24.6% strikeout rate and 25.1% whiff rate were both career-lows—a foreboding sign for a pitcher who will turn 38 in August. Joe Musgrove has consistently performed like a number-two starter in his three years in San Diego. His 35.5% chase rate was the best in MLB by a starting pitcher, but shoulder inflammation ended his season in July.

The rest of the starts will be filled by holdovers and also-rans who haven’t established themselves in any role. Matt Waldron seems more likely to replicate his nine home runs allowed in 41 ? innings than his .248 BABIP against. Pedro Avila will get some significant usage because he’s out of options. So is Luis Patiño, who was claimed on waivers by the franchise where he was once among the best pitching prospects in baseball. For that matter, Jay Groome is also a flamed-out former prospect. Life comes at you fast when you’re a pitcher.

We don’t discuss relievers much because it’s the most unpredictable and unstable position in the game. Relievers are all former starters that couldn’t make it as such and bullpen performances fluctuate from year to year. 

With a lineup full of shortstops, a dearth of a slugging first baseman or left fielder/DH, and so much uncertainty in a makeshift pitching staff full of fringey former Yankees, the Padres haven’t made the best use of their resources. They have too many duplicates in some areas and too many empty slots in others. The Padres play in the same division as the Dodgers, Giants and D-Backs, two potential playoff teams and a powerhouse and it is not reasonable to expect them to win more games than they did last year. Man, is this not the best under on the board? Damn straight it is.

Sherwood

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