The San Diego Padres have now just lost six straight games in a row with the third highest payroll in all of Major League Baseball. With $246,523,152 of payroll, the San Diego Padres are 4th in the National League West sitting at an underwhelming 37-45 record.
The San Diego Padres roster on paper looks like they should be competing for a world series with star players scattered all throughout the roster, with guys like Fernando Tatis Jr, Manny Machado, Juan Soto, Yu Darvish, Blake Snell, Josh Hader, and Xander Boagerts. From looks alone this team looks like an all star roster but so far in 2023, the Padres have been one of the biggest disappointments in the league. San Diego is paying seven players at least $10 million this year with the top guys in Soto, Tatis, Machado, and Boegarts getting upwards of $23 million. To be paying that kind of money to these guys while having a losing record and pretty horrid season, does not bode well for the future of the Padres.
So, what has been going on in San Diego? What is the reason for the poor performance all season long? One of the biggest reasons for the Padres’ struggles has been the terrible play from the San Diego catchers. Austin Nola and Gary Sanchez have been abysmal this season with Nola hitting .138 with one homerun and just seven RBI’s (runs batted in) and Sanchez hitting .211 with seven homeruns and 21 RBI’s. Most championship teams in baseball rely on their catchers to produce for them offensively yet the Padres have gotten little to no production from Sanchez and Nola which has really been hurting them. What’s Wrong With The San Diego Padres? - LWOSports. The catchers are one part of the problem but another is the Padres lack of depth production. Players like Jake Cronenworth, Ha-Seong Kim, Matt Carpenter, Trent Grisham, and Roughned Odor make up the rest of this roster and last year most of these players were viable depth pieces that had good if not great years, but in 2023 they’ve struggled. Four of those five players are hitting below .214 which is just awful. With the rest of the team struggling to get on base, that puts more pressure on the star players like Machado, Tatis, Soto, and Boegarts and with Soto and Boagerts have career lows this year things are getting ugly.
The question that other MLB teams are wondering is, will the San Diego Padres blow it up at the trade deadline and start dealing some of these star players? Both Josh Hader the ace pitcher and Juan Soto the two time all star both only have one year left on their contracts so these two seem like the obvious choices to get traded out. Another possible player who could be on his way out: Blake Snell the 26 year old starting pitcher. If the Padres decide things aren’t clicking and want to get some value back on these stud players, they could recoup some nice value in a trade back. Almost every playoff team would be calling San Diego if any of these three became availabe in trade talks, especially Hader and Snell as they aren’t many star pitchers out on the market currently. 3 trade targets for the Mets if the Padres decide to blow it up first.
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