San Diego Padres: Why We Hate Them
By Tony Frye
Yep. We’re even going to hate on the San Diego Padres. Why? Because we’re hating on everyone this off season.
The Padres have had only four winning seasons since 2000 and very rarely cross paths with the Oakland Athletics but as luck would have it, we’ll see them four times in June this year and they’re probably going to be pretty good.
The Padres, like the Athletics and the Dodgers, have undergone some dramatic retooling in this off season with a mere 19 players from the 2014 roster remaining for the 2015 roster thus far. A major addition to their system is a catcher by the name of Derek Norris who provides a fair amount of power at the plate. Of course, we can steal all the bases we want when we face the Padres now but we’re now pitching to a .270 batter with home run potential who knows our pitchers better than almost anybody in baseball. That’s not great for us.
They also picked up Matt Kemp from the Dodgers who is a constant and imposing home run threat and has a career batting average of .322 in Petco Park, his new home field. When coupled with the 25+ home run hitter that is Justin Upton, who has a .291 lifetime Petco batting average, you’re looking at a fairly threatening lineup.
These are not the Padres of 2014. This team is set up to compete this year and now have the power at the plate to do so.
The Derek Norris trade sent a young pitcher named Jesse Hahn to Oakland. Hahn ended the 2014 season with the team’s sole winning percentage (Ian Kennedy had a .500) but threw the fewest games of their starting rotation. With all of this new power at the plate, it’s fair to assume that those numbers are going to go up across the board as run support stops being an issue for the Padres pitching staff. Kennedy is unlikely to ever match his 21-4 campaign from 2011 but at 30 years of age he should be better than .500, too.
It’s very possible that the Padres aren’t done dealing and trading to enhance their lineup but it is very clear that they are vastly better than they were in 2014 and could be an imposing four games in the middle of a season where every single win is going to be crucial.