Mailbag: It's not the bullpen (it's the offense)

Let's answer some questions about the San Diego Padres and pretend we can think about things other than Juan Soto.

Time for a mailbag before the Padres kick off their series against the Minnesota Twins tonight. I only got a couple of questions, so I’m going to steal some of the questions that I wasn’t able to answer from the Padres Hot Tub audience this week, as well…

What would you give up to get rid of Hosmer? Would you swap bad contracts with a team?

I hate to be this guy, but this question is not phrased correctly. It’s not about getting rid of Hosmer, that part is easy. The team can just DFA him. It’s about getting rid of Hosmer’s contract so that they can spend that money on other things.

Would I swap bad contracts with another team? Depends on the player and the contract. A lot of players on bad contracts don’t even play anymore, they just cash checks. That wouldn’t help.

Would I attach a prospect to get someone to take Hosmer’s contract? Sure, if the price was right. “Here, take Eguy Rosario and like 75% of Hosmer’s remaining owed salary.” That would be sweet! It’s also probably not realistic.

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John, how much do you worry that Preller's heavy pursuit of Juan Soto may cause us to miss out on other key needs and deadline targets and come up empty-handed at the deadline, similar to what happened to us last year as we were looking for starting pitching that we eventually got out-bid on?

I don’t. At all. For two reasons.

One, I think Preller can multi-task. I don’t think Preller was only talking to the Nationals and nobody else at the deadline last year after trading for Adam Frazier. We know he was shopping Hosmer around and working on a Gallo deal with the Rangers that fell apart as well. Just because most of his efforts last year fell apart doesn’t mean that he was laser-focused on Scherzer to his detriment.

Two, if he did want to spend most of his time trying to make the Juan Soto deal work, that’s fine. Soto isn’t just a guy that’s available for trade. Soto is a unicorn. He is 23 years old and already one of the 3 best players in baseball. He’s basically another Tatis, but with a better track record. Opportunities to get guys like this just do not happen and they can change the direction of a team, a league and all of baseball. It’s okay if there is some opportunity lost as a result of pursuing that.

Based on Roger's comments last night, and Hosmer and his usual ones; are the inmates running the asylum? Is there any accountability for this team? Are they thinking "hey! If Tatis broke his wrist while riding a bike and got off with no issue, surely my 7 blown saves will not affecting my closer role." Finally, has Melvin seen that his are hands tied with this clubhouse or is he biting off more than he can chew with this job/team?

God, I hope not. Similar to Juan Soto, guys like Bob Melvin don’t just come available. The Padres stealing him away from Oakland is up there with Preller trading James Shields for Fernando Tatis Jr. If he feels that his hands are tied, the team needs to do whatever he asks to get him in a position where he can most influence and impact the clubhouse.

One thing about Melvin being manager is that it should get easier over time. Right now, basically the entire team has been here longer than him. He’s the new guy. But, as he outlasts most of them, his influence will naturally get bigger.

Also, let’s not overstate the Tatis thing. He got injured during a lockout. We didn’t even know if there would be a season and contracts weren’t enforceable. The team can’t complain about where he was and what he was doing because he literally wasn’t allowed at the team facilities (lockouts are extra stupid because there’s literally no reason for them to tell the players to stay away).

Anyway, no. This is just baseball players. The mentality of baseball players is to not let anything rattle their long-term thinking. Oh, this week sucked? We’ll have a good one later to make up for it. Superstar hurt? Next man up. Can’t find the strike zone? What are you gonna do, cry about it? Nah, get back to work. You’ll either figure it out or you won’t but the work is the same. The only thing that’ll really screw you up is losing your confidence, so don’t ever do that.

I do think that, as long as he’s been here, there’s been a bit of a power struggle between Eric Hosmer (and Manny Machado, a little bit) and whoever the Padres manager is. It’s one of the reasons I would love to see Hosmer on another team. But I am not concerned about Bob Melvin’s ability to right this ship and I doubt he is, either.

The team is 27th in SLG and 25th in OPS. That's 2016-2018 Padres numbers when we were trotting out Cory Spangenberg and Jose Pirela. The only reason the bullpen can be attributed with so many losses is that we're playing in way too many close games for a winning team.

There are reinforcements coming internally in some form for the bullpen. No one is coming for the offense.

It's the offense, stupid. We need to be committing ALL our trade capital to offensive improvements. And no, I don't think going out and spending valuable prospects for a closer is a wise use of our somewhat limited farm potential. Do you agree?

Yes. Yes! YES! This is what I was trying to get at in yesterday’s post. At some point, the 5th highest payroll in baseball has to look better than the teams that are have a lower-than-league-average payroll. At some point, spending that much money on your roster should equal a lineup (or a bullpen) that makes other teams scared.

I actually get a little worried every time I see a trade rumor that implies the Padres are hunting around for starting pitching. Why the hell would they do that?? Any move they make to bring in anything but more hitters takes away from the offensive reinforcements they could’ve added.

The offense is the biggest problem, by a mile, and don’t let anyone tell you that the offense doesn’t matter because the bullpen will just blow those leads. The Padres’ bullpen, similar to last year (although not quite as bad), is exhausted.

Let’s use Taylor Rogers as an example. Yes, he still leads baseball with 28 saves and, yes, he’s still tied with Josh Hader for that number. He’s also pitched 41.1 innings this season to Hader’s 33.0. That’s about 20% more workload on the season and (GASP) Rogers has blown about 20% of his save opportunities.

The main reason the Padres’ bullpen got worn out last year is that they didn’t have enough starting pitchers. The main reason this season is the incredible amount of small leads in low-scoring games that they’re trying to protect, giving them zero margin for error.

Improve the offense and you’ll take weight off the bullpen, the whole team will look and perform better as a result.