3 Padres set to have bounce-back seasons

Three Padres that had their 2021 seasons derailed, in one way or another, by injury could see bounce-back performances now that they've had time to get healthy.

Good morning! There’s a lot going on in the world of the San Diego Padres these days, but it can probably all be summed up this way:

1. The roster is unbalanced with some pretty major holes BUT

2. C.J. Abrams looks incredible in spring training games, so maybe that fills one of the holes in a big way BUT

3. It’s spring training and the results hardly matter at all because the pitchers aren’t really trying to get guys out as much as they’re just getting their body/pitches ready

So, what’s an unpaid daily Padres blogger to do with this information? Ignore it, of course!

Today, I want to explain some of the other guys on the roster that I’m optimistic about and why I’m optimistic about them. (I promise it’s not because of their spring training stats.)

Trent Grisham

I feel like I wrote the definitive Trent Grisham hype piece last year, but then things fell apart for Grisham.

When I wrote that post, the Padres CF had a slashline of .309/.385/.506. He finished with it being .242/.327/.413. The path to get there wasn’t exactly a direct line.

Grisham missed time with a heel bruise that took longer to heal than was expected, and then he proceeded to come back and stink up the joint.

Pre-injury: .302/.383/.515
Post-injury: .218/.304/.371

I still believe that Grisham is a superstar in the making when healthy, assuming he can stay healthy. To be putting up a .900 OPS while playing great defense at a difficult position at 25 years old seems like a monumental task, but he also seems up for it. He just needs his body to cooperate.

Ryan Weathers

This is going to sound similar to what I just wrote about Trent Grisham, so let’s skip right to the injury splits.

Pre-injury: 4-2 (1 save), 2.91 ERA, 4.53 FIP, .692 OPS against, Padres 9-8 in his starts
Post-injury: 0-5, 9.25 ERA, 6.92 FIP, 1.039 OPS against, Padres 0-15 in his starts

A normal team under normal circumstances would’ve shelved Weathers after he broke his ankle in a mid-July game until he could heal. The Padres gave him less than two weeks before they needed him back out there on the mound.

We talk a lot about Jayce Tingler losing the clubhouse, and how that led to the late-season slide for the Padres last season, but just as important was that the Padres literally ran out of healthy arms and started pitching unhealthy arms to fill innings.

The Padres roster still has a lot of weirdness built in, so I can’t exactly say they’re past the phase of “play the hurt guy because there’s nobody else” at CF or pitcher or anywhere else, but I won’t let guys like Grisham or Weathers doing what was asked of them by the team hurt my perception of what they’re capable of going forward.

Dinelson Lamet

This is a bit of wishcasting, I think because I have a hard time believing that reasonable people could behave in this way with different information, but I’m starting to believe that Dinelson Lamet is going to be healthy enough to positively impact the 2022 San Diego Padres.

The Padres and Lamet agreed on a one-year deal yesterday to avoid arbitration, which is probably something the team wouldn’t have done if they didn’t think he was healthy enough to pitch, and last year he did manage to throw 47 innings without requiring surgery.

Now, there’s good news and bad news here. First, the good news:

• Opponents seeing Lamet for the first time in a game had an OPS of .584 against him.

• Opponents seeing Lamet for the second time in a game had an OPS of 1.019 against him in their second plate appearance.

Lamet really struggled to maintain his effectiveness after an inning or two, and the common thought was that the cooling down while the Padres were hitting was what was throwing him off.

If the hope is that Lamet could slide into a bullpen role, the numbers above would lend credence to the idea that it can be successful. Unfortunately…

• As a starter: 1-3, 3.99 ERA, 1.432 WHIP

• As a reliever: 1-1, 5.09 ERA, 1.585 WHIP

Okay, those are close enough that you can probably assign some of the difference to luck. Still, it would’ve been nice to see him dominate coming out of the bullpen if he’s expected to be in contention to be the team’s closer this year.

I still think, or hope, that the year of babying his arm has helped it to heal and has helped him to avoid another Tommy John surgery. At least we can hope that it’s healed enough to handle single-inning outings as a relief pitcher.

We already know what a healthy Lamet can do against MLB hitters. The only question is whether or not he’s healthy.