Padres Off-Day Thoughts: April 10, 2025

Each time the San Diego Padres have an off day, especially on a weekday, I'm going to dig through some of the stats and give you some of my thoughts about the team. It's probably going to be long. Let's dive right in.

Catching platoon

The catching platoon hasn't been a nightmare yet. Part of that is because Martín Maldonado is, to this point, having the best hitting season of his entire career (OPS+ of 127). At 38 years old. Not sure if that one is going to hold up over the long season.

It's been something close to a 50/50 split in playing time between Maldonado and Díaz to this point, but I found this chart (stolen from Kevin Acee's newsletter this morning) particularly interesting about which catcher is attached to which pitcher:

I would love to know how those pairings were made and I'll be keeping up with the performance of Díaz's guys against Maldonado's guys, but it's too early in the season to say anything about the starting pitching other than it's been inconsistent (everyone that's not Vasquez) or head-scratching (Vasquez).

More on Vasquez in a minute...

The injuries / The new guys

The chances of all of the Padres' stars making it through the entire season healthy were slim, at best, and now the team will get a test of its depth early in the season.

Jackson Merrill is already on the 10-day IL with a hamstring injury. Luckily, it seems like Fernando Tatis Jr. (shoulder) and Jake Cronenworth (ribs) won't be joining him there, but they did both miss time in Sacramento with hopes of playing tomorrow against the Rockies.

The good news is that this does open up opportunity for some other guys...

OF Brandon Lockridge already has more than twice as many plate-appearances in 2025 than he had in 2024.

Meanwhile, big boy Oscar Gonzalez came right off the plane and into the game on Tuesday night to sub in for the injury Cronenworth. If he can hit, his size will undoubtedly make him a fan favorite in the template of Kyle Blanks and Franmil Reyes.

Gonazlez's 2022 season (OPS+ of 125) says that he can do it but his defense could certainly be a problem. Maybe he could, some day, replace Yuli Gurriel as the platoon partner with current DH Gavin Sheets, who also has a long track record of poor outfield defense.

Speaking of...

A diamond in the rough?

I said on an episode of the podcast this week that I thought Gavin Sheets might've been a top prospect with the White Sox and that's only sort of true. He was one of the top 10 prospects within the White Sox system but was held back otherwise because of his limitations.

Sheets' potential is that of a power-hitting smooth-fielding first baseman. But he's never hit more than 15 HRs in a season and, as a result, he's mostly been used as right fielder and backup first baseman.

Right now, his ISO numbers (.152, lower than Luke Voit on the Padres) and BABIP (.375) say that he's been more lucky than actually improving at hitting. I hope I'm wrong about that, because it would be a hell of a story for the Padres to find the player the White Sox thought Sheets could be, but don't hold your breath.

X marks the spot but is only half the story

Many years ago, I spent a couple of weeks in Aruba. It was beautiful and all of my memories are very pleasant, but by the end of it I couldn't wait to get off the tiny island.

Aruba is only 75 square miles. For comparison's sake, Maui is 727 square miles. The city of San Diego is 372 square miles, and the county of San Diego is about 4,300 square miles. Aruba is very small. It doesn't take long to see every part of the island and it's incredible to me that the Padres have now had at least two players (hi, Gene Kingsale!) that grew up there and were discovered there as baseball amateurs.

Anyway, that's besides the point. Xander Bogaerts has been good! His hitting, so far, can be described as "Red Sox Xander without the power" or "Red Sox Xander playing half of his games at Petco Park instead of Fenway Park", but either is a pretty dramatic improvement from what we saw from him last season.

Both his exit velocity and his walk rate have seen a jump from last year and 2023. He looks kind of like the guy the Padres were trying to sign in free agency. Unfortunately, he's been awful at shortstop. He is basically a replacement-level player right now because his offense is being zeroed out by poor defense.

Pitching questions

I saved the pitching for last.

The bullpen has been incredible. As we discussed towards the end of today's podcast, Robert Suarez has yet to give up a hit or a run in six appearances. The bullpen, as a whole, has an ERA of 1.65.

The team can close the door on anyone right now with Adrian Morejon (6th) -> Jeremiah Estrada (7th) -> Jason Adam (8th) -> Robert Suarez (9th). Asking starters for five good innings makes things easier on them and easier on Mike Shildt. If the bullpen stays healthy, the team will stay towards the top of the standings.

However, the starting pitching has been shaky. Everyone has had at least one bad outing with the exception of Randy Vasquez, so let's stop to talk about him for a moment...

Vasquez's results have been stellar (hello, 1.72 ERA) but the underlying numbers are either outliers or require some explanation. If you dig into his StatCast metrics, you can either point to his curveball (which has a ton more spin and break this season) or to dumb luck for what has gone right for him. If it's the curveball, it'll be interesting to see how long he can continue to surprise opposing hitters with it.

Now, the rest of the guys.

Dylan Cease was a nightmare in Sacramento against the A's and everyone will be watching on Monday when he takes the mound against the Cubs at Petco Park. If he's fine, we can all forget about the last game and assume he has sorted out whatever issue he had.

Nick Pivetta was outstanding against the Braves but struggled with his command against the Cubs. He's been about average in terms of handing out walks in his career, so it might be a blip or him getting used to a new catcher. His walk rate has dropped just about every year he's been in the majors, so safe to assume it will be better going forward than it was at Wrigley.

Michael King still throws super nasty stuff but has yet to really find a rhythm. He went 2.2 innings on Opening Day and hasn't made it out of the 6th inning in either of the starts since. All of his pitches have seen a small tick up in spin rate and his walk rate is up, so I'm going with my theory from game 1, that his stuff is so nasty right now that he's having a hard time keeping it in the zone. Those are good problems to have. I think he'll be fine and I stand by my assessment that he's the most Blake Snell-like of all of these gentlemen.

Kyle Hart...I don't know. It's just too early to know if he will figure it out or not. What's obvious is that he's not a power pitcher and needs to rely on fooling hitters and getting good movement on his pitches. We'll see.

But Yu Darvish is supposedly on his way back, according to Kevin Acee:

Starting pitcher Yu Darvish has reached 150 feet in his catch play at Petco Park and could make a move to the mound in the coming days.

His elbow continues to feel strong and pain free, according to people in the organization. Darvish was shut down in mid-March and began the season on the injured list.

If Darvish can return and look like the guy he was at the end of last season, that would be a major boost to this pitching staff.