San Diego Padres: 5 player improvements needed to contend

We take a look at five players who need to make certain improvements in order for the San Diego Padres to contend in 2020.

The San Diego Padres enter the 2020 season in a very interesting place. They have the pieces in place to contend for at least a wild card spot IF things go right.

However, it also wouldn’t take much for this team to fold and see yet another losing season.

But its spring training so we’re thinking optimistically, and I want to focus on those ‘if’ scenarios going right.

Not much went right for the Padres in 2019, so time for some things to start going our way.

Manny Machado has to be Manny Machado

And we start at the top with the $300 million man in Manny Machado. There is no question that 2019 was a bit of a disappointing year for the Padres third baseman.

But it’s not like it was a terrible season as he hit .256/.334 with 32 home runs and 85 RBI and was 3.1 WAR player.

However, it’s certainly not what we were hoping for from the MVP-type player we signed who had put up three 6 WAR-plus seasons from 2015-2018.

I’m willing to give Manny a pass with him adjustment to a new team and a less hitter-friendly home stadium.

But if San Diego is going have to any chance of contending in 2020, they need Manny Machado to be Manny Machado.

And I fully expect that to happen in 2020. I think he puts up an MVP caliber season and is at least a 5 WAR player.

Wil Myers needs to show more power

Unless A.J. Preller pulls off a miracle and is somehow able to trade Wil Myers before the season starts, he will be part of this team in 2020 and will get plenty of playing time.

And I’m optimistic that he can still be a productive player in a Padres uniform. But for that to happen, he has to get back to hitting home runs on a regular basis.

After hitting 28 home runs in 2016 and 30 home runs in 2017 with the Padres, he hit just 11 and 18 home runs the past two seasons.

I can take him hitting .250 with a .320 OBP if he’s hitting 25-30 home runs down in the lineup.

What’s crazy is that he’s hitting the ball harder in the past two seasons than those 2015 and 2016 seasons, and he’s hitting just as many flyballs.

That tells me that he’s still capable of putting up big home run numbers, and perhaps he’s just run into a bit of bad luck the past few seasons.

I also think that with the depth of the Padres, there won’t be as much pressure on him to produce. Maybe that will allow him to relax and get back to the hitter he was in 2016.

And with that depth, it will allow Tingler to put Myers in more situations where he can be successful.

Eric  Hosmer has to walk more and strikeout less

There is no question that Eric Hosmer has been downright terrible for the Padres since they signed him with back-to-back negative WAR seasons, according to FanGraphs.

He had a career-year in 2017 with the Kansas City Royals hitting .318/.385 with 25 home runs and 98 RBI.

But in two seasons with San Diego, he’s combined to hit just .259/.316 with 40 home runs.

The home run numbers are not terrible and about what you would expect with someone switching to the pitcher-friendly Petco Park as their home stadium.

But two things that really stick out are the elevated strikeout rate and the lowered walk rate.

In that 2017 season, he struck out 15.5 percent of the time, but in 2018 he struck out 21 percent of that time, and in 2019, he increased that even higher to 24.4 percent.

That’s an unbearable amount of strikeouts to have when you aren’t hitting 30-plus home runs.

His walk percentage in 2017 was 9.8 percent, and he kept that up in 2018 at 9.2 percent, but that number took a nosedive in 2019, to just 6 percent.

It’s really pretty simple – at least in theory – for Hosmer, quit striking out so much and start taking more walks.

If that happens, then I think we see the averages go back up, and he’ll be a much more productive player for the Padres.

Francisco  Mejia has to improve his defense

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This is a very big season for the 24-year-old Francisco Mejia to prove that he can be the catcher of the future for the Padres.

Hitting has never really been an issue for Mejia, and he put together a solid season at the plate for San Diego in 2019, hitting .265/.316 with eight home runs in 226 at-bats.

If given the starting job, I feel pretty confident he’ll be a .275/.330 hitter one day with 15-20 home runs.

The big question for Mejia will be how he progresses defensively behind the plate as that’s been the primary knock on him throughout his career.

According to FanGraphs, he posted DRS in 463 innings last year at catcher with a frame rating of -4.3.

By comparison, Austin Hedges had 22 DRS in 2019 in 813 innings with a frame rating of 20.7, according to FanGraphs.

Hedges is known to be one of the best defensive catchers in the game, so that’s not a fair comparison, but Mejia has to be better.

He ranked 25th in baseball in DRS last year among catchers that caught at least 450 innings and was 30th in frame rating.

If he can be average in both of those categories and the bat continues to develop like many think it will, that would be huge for the Padres in 2020.

What are some player improvements you’ll be looking for this season? Let us know in the comments below.