The 2021 Padres offense has arrived
The San Diego Padres finally have all of their bats working at the same time and seem primed to put up a ton of runs in the near future.
The magical thing about the 2020 San Diego Padres (mini) season wasn’t that Manny Machado and Fernando Tatis Jr. were really good. We already knew that. It was that somehow, someway, the changes in coaches or culture or expectations led to Wil Myers and Eric Hosmer playing better than they ever had as San Diego Padres.
Those Padres were also able to find hidden gems in Trent Grisham and Jake Cronenworth, sending at least six terrific batters to the plate each time through the lineup. That’s how good offenses work, and it’s the biggest reason the Padres were such an offensive force.
In 2021, the Padres offense has been a bit less consistent than it was last year. A small chunk of that has been due to injuries to Machado and Tatis (and Grisham), but a much bigger reason for it has been the regression of Wil Myers and Eric Hosmer.
Now, with both of those guys swinging the bat well again, the Padres offense has begun to resemble what it was last season.
Wil Myers
I wrote about Wil two weeks ago and came to two conclusions:
Historically, June and July are his best months as a hitter.
He might (still) be fixed, and the only thing that slowed him down may have been Covid.
Myers has posted an OPS of 1.109 since I wrote that article, which means he is an absolute stud right now. Myers has a higher ceiling than Hosmer and can be one of the three best hitters in this lineup when he’s right.
He’s also been terrible in August, historically, so we’ll know soon if this is just a blip or the real thing.
Eric Hosmer
The other “albatross contract” on this roster, Hosmer also started heating up in the weeks leading up to the trade deadline. His .949 OPS over the last four weeks is just a large enough sample size to think that he’s figured something out with his swing, instead of it being dumb luck.
And, in case you thought the all-star break would cool him off, he posted a 1.843 OPS against the Nationals. There’s literally tons of evidence that says that this is just a hot streak and Hos will cool off soon enough, but it’s nice to see what the offense can do when he’s not killing rallies.
Jake Cronenworth
I don’t need to say a lot here. Jake should’ve won Rookie of the Year last year and didn’t. Some (including myself) were worried that he’d take a step back after slowing down in the second month of the 2020 season.
2020 season: .831 OPS, 130 OPS+
2021 season: .831 OPS, 133 OPS+
Same guy. This is just who he is. He should win a Gold Glove at 2B, could maybe win Gold Glove at 1B if he ever had to play there, and he’s a good enough hitter to be an offensive plus at either position.
Oh, and he can give you an inning out of the bullpen if you feel like gambling with his arm. What a fun baseball player!
Tommy Pham
I did this a couple of weeks ago with Wil to show how consistent he had been in his career, so let’s look at Pham’s OPS by season to see what an outlier last year was for him.
.824
.764
.931
.830
.818
.624
.813
As you can see, Pham is right back to being the player he was before Preller traded for him. Last year, with his bevy of issues trying to overcome a wrist injury, was the true outlier.
Having a hitter of this caliber in left field, which the offense didn’t last season, makes one of the league’s best lineups even more dangerous.
Machado and Tatis
You never have to worry about these guys. These are the ones that the team build around rather than worrying about.
Machado has an OPS of 1.092 over the last four weeks, which leads me to believe that both he and Tatis will be again be getting MVP votes this season.
And, despite slumping right before the all-star break, Tatis is still putting up a .980 OPS over the last four weeks. I’ll probably write more about this tomorrow, but right now Tatis is the favorite to win the NL MVP Award this season. The two players that were closest to him (Ronald Acuña Jr. and Jacob deGrom) went down with injuries recently. Now all he just has to do is continue playing at an insane pace.
(Trivia: Tatis would not be the youngest MVP in MLB or even NL history, that would be Johnny Bench.)
Winning takes everything
I’ve written about this a few times this season, as I still genuinely consider the 2021 San Diego Padres to be legitimate World Series contenders, but teams need everything to go right (and not necessarily at the same time) to be the best in baseball.
Sometimes, the pitching staff and bullpen will have to carry the team, as the Padres’ did in the early part of the season.
Sometimes, when the pitching staff and bullpen look like they’re on the verge of collapse, the offense will show up and carry the team to a few series wins.
Sometimes, it’s the fielding. Sometimes, it’s dumb luck. Sometimes, it’s a relief pitcher hitting a grand slam for his first major-league hit.
Championship runs involve dozens of little stories that carry the team through different stretches of the season. Right now, the story of the Padres is that all of their offensive pieces are clicking at the same time (with Austin Nola due to arrive any day now).
For fans of the Padres that lived through years, nay decades, of offensive droughts at Petco Park, it is definitely a sight to behold and something to get excited about.