San Diego Padres: One Of The Worst Offensive Seasons In Team History

The San Diego Padres are putting up some of the worst offensive numbers in franchise history.

I have a routine that I carry out every single morning during the work week. I get to my office at around 9 am, check my email, wander around the office kitchen for a little while, and then take a quick scroll through last night’s MLB box scores, look at that night’s pitching matchups, and then check out what the San Diego Padres beat staff released the night before.

I always get a little more excited when I look at the matchup for the Padres game. They may be a bad team, but they are our bad team and I love ending my day with the San Diego Padres on my tv. However, a weird feeling has taken over. I don’t get as excited anymore. I’m exhausted and drained, when it comes to Padres baseball.

There are only nine games left (at the time of this writing) and you would think that “oh crap, baseball season is almost over” feeling would be taking over, but alas, it’s not.

The call-ups of Luis Urias and Francisco Mejia provided a sudden burst of energy, unfortunately, Urias went down with a season-ending hamstring injury and Francisco Mejia‘s reward for mashing rockets into space are more bench time (don’t worry though, Austin Hedges has a .270 OBP over the last month).

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With all that being said, I decided to look up just how bad these 2018 offensive numbers have been for the San Diego Padres. In an era of juiced baseballs and high-powered offenses, the Padres offense has been the exact opposite of “high-powered.”

As of Friday afternoon, here are their league ranks in a few offensive categories:

• Batting average: .235 (30th)
• OBP: .297 (30th)
• Slugging: .381 (28th)
• OPS: .678 (28th)
• Runs scored: 587 (27th)
• Strikeouts: 1,430 (2nd highest)

We all knew the numbers were bad, they have been for many years. But just how bad are they? Well, thanks to Baseball Reference and their Plan Index, we can find out.

I put in the current Padres slash line (..235/.297/.381/.678) and looked at how many times in franchise history San Diego has had seasons with these numbers or lower over the course of a full season.

Sorted by OPS+, three of the worst offensive seasons in team history came within the first four years of play which is understandable. The 2018 season wasn’t supposed to be on this list.

The addition of Matt Stairs to the coaching staff was supposed to bring about change to the offensive output, instead, the Padres have seen their OBP, SLG, and OPS all drop. The team batting average did increase….by one point. Maybe year two will be different? Manuel Margot‘s approach was changed with much success (but no playing time), Hunter Renfroe is clearly making progress, and Austin Hedges has had spurts of impressive production. But for how much longer can we say, “maybe next year is different?”

If you’re in the same boat as me, try to find some inspiration to watch these guys, because we both know that as soon the season is officially over, we’re going to miss it.