It ain’t over til it's over I guess

September 27th, 2023

The San Diego Padres just might have a shot to grab a wildcard spot. They just took two games out of three in their series against the Dodgers, and followed that by sweeping the Athletics and the Rockies. There are just four games left in the season and the Padres will be facing the Cardinals, Giants, and White Sox. These are all winnable series for the Padres, and with Blake Snell pitching as good as he has been, the hopes of Padres fans have seemed to turn around. In his last five starts, Snell has given up just two earned runs over 38 innings pitched. He is making an extremely strong case for winning the NL Cy Young Award. The Padres have also been getting a bang for their buck on Juan Soto, who is posting a .909 OPS and is leading the entire league in walks.

Besides Snell and Soto, there isn’t much of a show that the Padres are putting on. Yes, they have a chance to snag a wild card spot, but realistically I’d say they have no shot of advancing in the playoffs if they get in. They have arguably one of the most talented teams in all of baseball but just have not been able to get it done. I believe it may be a cultural issue within the organization, and on monday night Josh Hader really seemed to back up that point for me. He refused to go into pitch in the late stages of a very important game against the Giants. Why? In sum, he claims that it was with the intent to finish the season healthy, and he hit reporters with the question “are we in the playoff race?”. Statistically Josh, yes. The Padres have to win out and hope for competing teams to lose some games. It may be considered a reach for the Padres, but it is still a very real possibility for them to make the playoffs. It is pretty disappointing to see an electric all-star take his name out of the competitive hat, especially when he is using workload as a scapegoat despite only pitching 53.1 innings this entire season. I do understand the frustration there, as the Padres were one of the most disappointing teams in the league. They have the 3rd highest payroll this year, which is just north of $250 million. They went out and got all these crazy talented players, paid them crazy money, and are likely going to finish the year under .500. It hasn’t been as big of a disaster as the Yankees or the White Sox seasons, but it’s in the same arena. Spending a fortune on players is not working. I think going forward, teams will start to use the template that teams like Baltimore and Cleveland use, which is building from within. I see it as a big accomplishment to successfully develop a player within your organization rather than just going out and buying one.