State of the Padres (End of Spring Training)

Over on the old site, I've done a couple of these "State of the Padres" posts. They're mostly meant as big picture mile markers, so don't expect more than a couple throughout the upcoming season. But the San Diego Padres have made most of their roster decisions ahead of Thursday's opening day game, so let's mark it with the first State of the Padres for Section 1904.

Infield

3B Manny Machado
SS Xander Bogaerts
2B Jake Cronenworth
1B Luis Arraez

This group is actually funny to me. You have four veterans, meaning you can probably come close to predicting what their production is going to be, but three of them are playing "new" positions.

I put "new" in quotes there because there's some old mixed in with the new....

• Xander Bogaerts is moving back to SS after a year at 2B
• Jake Cronenworth is moving back to starting 2B for the first time since 2022
• Luis Arraez has never started more than 69 games at 1B

So, it's not like anything will look drastically out of place, but it might take a minute for everyone to get comfortable. Still, nothing to complain about here.

Outfield

LF Jason Heyward
CF Jackson Merrill
RF Fernando Tatis Jr.

For the first time in a long time, the Padres are heading into a season with an understanding that their outfield is their strength.

Merrill and Tatis are either superstars or potential superstars, depending on where you want to draw the line.

Left field is still a bit of a question mark, but that might not be a bad thing. It does appear to be one of the easiest positions for the Padres to fill (see: Jurickson Profar's entire career with the San Diego Padres) and they're not locked into anything that can't be moved around or off of, so there's potential here. That being said, I've long been a Jason Heyward fan and I'm hopeful that he can be a net-positive for San Diego.

We'll get to the non-starters in a minute, because my personal opinion on the fourth outfielder is different than what I've been seeing from others.

Catcher

Elias Díaz
Martín Maldonado

Right off the bat, I hate this. I despise this. This feels like the old days when sicko Padres fans would fight for who should be the starter between Austin Hedges and Francisco Mejía except without the potential for either of them to get better.

Díaz is 34 years old and the only thing that made his hitting "below average" instead of "unplayable" was that he spent five years playing half of his games at Coors Field. Opponents are already circling his spot in the lineup because they're going to use it to get out of jams.

Maldonado is a different thing. He might actually be Austin Hedges. I remember Astros fans ripping their hair out trying to get him out of the lineup because he hasn't hit above .200 in a full season since before COVID and the Astros players and coaches saying that he was the leader of the team that had to be out there. I look forward to living through that specific brand of hell again.

If I had to guess, I would put money on neither of these guys being the Padres' starting catcher by June.

Designated Hitter

LHB Gavin Sheets
RHB Yuli Gurriel

Since the National League decided to join the American League and add a DH spot, I've noticed that pretty much all teams fall into one of two categories.

1. Has an every day Designated Hitter who is regarded as one of the best hitters on the team.
2. Uses the DH spot to give guys a day off from fielding, as a sort of "half rest day"

I assumed the Padres would fall into the latter category after Luis Arraez was moved to 1B, but it appears that they're going to make a go at creating a platoon at DH.

I like Sheets, I think there's something there, and him posting a 1.041 OPS in Spring Training was him taking advantage of the opportunity to prove that he's better than the player we saw on the White Sox.

I don't care for Yuli Gurriel, but it's obvious that this team likes to give one more chance to veterans that are otherwise thought to be washed up. I have my doubts that Gurriel will hit well enough to hold down the DH spot against left-handed pitching all year long but, if he does, his experience at playing 1B gives the team a lot more flexibility on the infield.

Bench

IF Jose Iglesias
OF Connor Joe

Every other name above is locked into the roster, in one way or another, but Connor Joe is a bit of a guess from me. It also would not surprise me if another person (Eguy? Gonzalez?) were kept here and the team rode with a 7-man bullpen until the schedule gets tighter (late May).

Joe allows Heyward to sit against lefties and, in the predictable scenario where Yuli Gurriel can't hit enough to keep his roster spot, potentially gives Mike Shildt another option at 1B.

For now, let's assume it's 13 pitchers and 13 position players and go from there...

Starting Pitching

RHP Michael King
RHP Dylan Cease
RHP Nick Pivetta
???
???

We know the Padres will eventually have five starting pitchers in their rotation. We assume that Yu Darvish will eventually be healthy enough to be one of them, but that is uncertain right now, so let's leave him off. Joe Musgrove is unlikely to play a role this season, so we're leaving him off as well.

This top three is fine. No issues with any of them. I think I heard that the Padres are laying out the schedule so that Pivetta is actually the 4th starter, which makes me think that they're trying to get a lefty in there. That would seem to put Kyle Hart in that spot, despite a poor performance in Spring Training games. (Not a criticism! They probably shouldn't be making decisions based on Spring Training results!)

The last spot is really anyone's guess to start the season. It could be Matt Waldron, Stephen Kolek or Randy Vásquez. Kolek pitches later today, and he seems to be the favorite to make that transition from bullpen arm to fifth starter. Whoever it is, all of these guys are going to get a shot to start at some point this season.

Bullpen

RHP Robert Suarez
RHP Jason Adam
RHP Jeremiah Estrada
LHP Adrian Morejon
LHP Yuki Matsui
LHP Wandy Peralta
RHP Alek Jacob

That's a good bullpen! I mean, I know my eyes will glaze over when Peralta comes trotting in, but the back end of this bullpen certainly feels like more of a strength than a weakness.

That's 25 roster spots so far, and MLB allows for 26. Assuming Yu Darvish is on the Injured List, the Padres will have one more guy that they can either add to the end of their bench or to the back of the bullpen.

I know I said earlier that I wouldn't be surprised if they went with 12 pitchers and 14 position players until the schedule got tighter, but after going through this exercise, I think I have a different perspective:

If two spots in the rotation are going to be question marks, and you don't want to risk burning out your bullpen to start the season, it would probably makes sense to keep a swing man / mop-up guy in the bullpen to solve for that. So, let's add one last name to this roster.

RHP Randy Vásquez

Assuming Hart and Kolek are the last two starters, I would take Vásquez and park him in the bullpen. He can take a shot at starting if either of those guys implode and, more importantly, he can keep the initial implosion from taking out the bullpen. If he doesn't succeed in his opportunities, Waldron can get a chance at this spot when he's back from his injury.