Padres believe ’23 disaster taught a lesson
PEORIA, Ariz. – The horde of fans that swarmed outside the San Diego Padres gates for autographs a year ago have shrunk to about a dozen these days.
The Padres clubhouse, packed full of reporters last spring, has been reduced to less than a handful if not for the Japanese and Korean media.
The braggadocio and anticipation of the Padres winning their first World Series championship in franchise history has vanished.
If you want to find all the fans, the hype and the surreal expectations, you must drive past the Padres complex and keep on going another 11 miles. This is where you’ll find the Los Angeles Dodgers, Shohei Ohtani and company.
The Padres are old news, a team that had all of the build-up of the Dodgers a year ago, only to underachieve.
They looked ridiculously powerful on paper with their franchise-record $291 million competitive balance tax payroll, only to look dreadfully mediocre the entire season, needing a 14-2 finish just to climb over .500.
“The biggest thing was disappointment because of the people we had in that room,” says general manager A.J. Preller. “We thought this team was very, very capable of winning a World Series. Even if things went wrong, we felt we should be in a position where we have as much ability as anyone. I know guys feel like we’ve left a lot on the table.
Now, a year later, they’re slashing their payroll by nearly $100 million, trading away their most productive player (Juan Soto), letting their Cy Young winner (Blake Snell) walk away, saying goodbye to their All-Star closer (Josh Hader) and parting with their two-time Gold Glove center fielder (Trent Grisham) as well as three veteran pitchers (Michael Wacha, Seth Lugo and Nick Martinez).
“We believe in the guys that we have,” All-Star third baseman Manny Machado says, “[but] obviously no one can replace Soto. He’s the top player in the game. He’s irreplaceable. … We lost some big, key pieces. But I think we have the right group of guys out there to go out and compete every single day.”
The Padres say they still expect to win, but the refrain is dramatically different. Instead of talking about their parade
route once they win the World Series, they’re talking about survival in the rugged National League West.
“There was a lot of high expectations,” first baseman Jake Cronenworth said. “I think we tried to live up to that too much instead of just going out and being that team we were.”
The only title they earned was being baseball’s biggest enigma.
They had no problem getting on base with walks, ranking seventh in on-base percentage, but failed miserably trying to drive those runners in, with only four teams having a worse (.241) batting average with runners in scoring position.
Their ineptitude hitting in the clutch was reflected by their major leagueworst 9-23 record in one-run games and 2-12 in extra-inning games.
“It was insane,” Cronenworth said. “I don’t think that could ever happen again.”
It was just bad fundamental baseball. “We didn’t do the little things right, like moving runners over, or our approach,” co-ace Joe Musgrove told USA
TODAY Sports. “You look at our numbers throughout the season with runners in scoring position. We had plenty of opportunities, but we didn’t cash them in.
“That’s why you saw us lose so many close games because we weren’t doing the little things right. We weren’t far off from being a completely different team. We were right there in most of those games. We were just one swing from changing a lot of those games.
“But obviously you can get close as you want, but if you don’t win, what difference does it make?”
There were underlying factors that also may have played a part. There were whispers of clubhouse unrest. There was constant strife between manager Bob Melvin and Preller. It finally ended when the Padres permitted Melvin to interview for the San Francisco Giants after the season and didn’t bother to ask for compensation when he was hired.
Now, the job belongs to Mike Shildt, who has been on Melvin’s coaching staff the past two seasons after being fired as the St. Louis Cardinals manager. He plans to preach fundamentals, togetherness and making sure that the nightmare of a year ago never happens again.
“I can tell you that group wasn’t pleased with the underperformance of what took place and how it went down,” Shildt said. “Without getting into greater specifics, I can tell you the group that’s going to help lead this ’24 campaign is coming in hungry. …
“We’ve had a lot of good discussion with our leadership in the clubhouse and with our leadership in the front office to make sure everybody’s synced up, and going in the right direction and pulling on the same rope. You know, the teams that are more functional and work as one living organism are the ones that ultimately get the most out of what they have.”
They may not have nearly the talent of a year ago. They have just three outfielders on their 40-man roster while trying to convert prized shortstop prospect Jackson Merrill into an outfielder. They have three uncertainties in the starting rotation. They have a thin bullpen. And a weak bench, too.
Yet, if nothing else, they believe last year taught them a valuable lesson.
“I think we need to do a better job of identifying what our identity is as a team from the get-go of spring training,” Musgrove said. “It felt like we had expectations of ourselves as a group and it wasn’t talked openly and out loud enough for everybody to understand what that was. So we found ourselves in a hole early on, and trying to find your identity when your backs are against the wall is a little difficult.”
It’s also essential, management says, for the players to start showing urgency. They spent virtually the entire season telling everyone that it’s still early, everything will be just fine, and that there’s no reason to panic.
They never had a division lead, were 43-47 at the All-Star break, sat 22 games out of first place entering September, and by the time they closed out the season on a 14-2 run, it was too late.
“You can always say it’s too early, we got time,” Cronenworth said, “but we just never got to a point where we turned it around. Obviously, we never played great.”
It left the Padres in agonizing pain all winter knowing the golden opportunity they had, failing to bring home a parade while owner Peter Seidler was alive.
“I think it was devastating,” Machado said. “We could have been a lot better last year and we fell short. … Sometimes, you let yourself down. You want to play at the highest level, you want to make it to the World Series, and sometimes it just doesn’t happen. …
“I think a lot of guys are hungry. They’ve been hungry all offseason. We’ve been communicating. It’s definitely going to be different.”
It was a painful lesson, but the Padres believe they’ll be better for it.
“We have to understand every game is basically a playoff game,” Preller said. “I felt like last year, for the most part, there was a lot of, ‘Hey, we’re going to be all right. We’re going to be OK. We got a lot of guys with a lot of ability. We’ve got a lot of guys that have been there, done that.’ Well, it doesn’t work like that, you know.
For the group, a lot of our conversation this offseason has been doing the best we can every single day and understand that all 162 games have equal importance. I think it’s going to serve the group well going into this season.”
Still, as much as the Padres would love to believe that a change in leadership, open communication, clubhouse camaraderie and adjusted approach could change their fate, they must face the harsh, cruel facts. While their talent pool took a hit, their neighbors up north in Los Angeles got a whole lot better with their $1.2 billion shopping spree.
Co-ace Yu Darvish, who was promised that his six-year, $108 million contract extension wouldn’t inhibit the Padres from hitting the free agent market again, was hoping to be teammates with Ohtani or Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
“Frankly speaking, it would have been nice if they came here and they were my teammates,” Darvish said.
Did he even bother to try recruiting them to the Padres? “No,” he said. “Obviously, we were in a situation we were in as an organization financially, and stuff like that, so we never got to that point.”
So now he’ll be facing them 65 times in the regular season the next five years.
The Padres still have wiggle room in the budget, Preller says, to add more outfielders and pitchers.
The Padres, even with many questions, still have plenty of star power to be competitive. They are led by Machado, Fernando Tatis Jr. and Xander Bogaerts, along with Darvish and Musgrove to lead the starting rotation. They believe they can create ripples in the NL West without the hype and fanfare.
Besides, as Machado points out, they now have an angel looking out for them from the heavens in Seidler, their eternal optimist, who died from cancer at 63 in November.
“He’s looking over us now,” Machado said. “He wanted us to be great, and preach his dream, which is to bring a championship to the city of San Diego, and continue to make the city great.”
The dream continues, just without the hype.