The Padres can aspire to qualify for the playoffs

The Major League Baseball season is approaching and all 30 teams are preparing to win the World Series.

One of the favorites to make the playoffs due to their roster is the San Diego Padres, who were a disappointment last season.

1- After the disappointment of 2023 and losing Juan Soto in the offseason, can the Padres look toward the playoffs?
The elders say that “a tree does not make a mountain” and you do not have to go back far, specifically to last year, to notice that Soto did not make a difference in a squad where other “heavyweights” of the game coexisted: Manny Machado, Fernando Tatis Jr Xander Bogaerts and Yu Darvish. If those stars, who still remain in San Diego, click and deliver on their big contracts, it would be heresy to write them off. And it can happen; After a disastrous year, logic indicates that these players and the rest of the squad are eager to feed their egos and launch a machine built at the expense of money.

The big question for me at this point, beyond Soto’s absence, is: will it be enough for the Padres to overcome the sheltered LA Dodgers? I don’t think so, the Los Angeles team is not only the favorite to win the West division of the National League, the pools also place it as a contender to win the World Series.

Following the logic of the Dodgers winning the division, the Padres will have to fight for one of the three wild card spots and that scenario is within the possibility despite the significant loss of Soto.

2- A number or statistic of the Padres heading to 2024.
35, 109, 6.0, 2.25, 1.189. The first two figures are Juan Soto’s home runs and RBIs with the Padres in 2023. The Dominican finished tenth in home runs and third in runs batted in in the National League, in addition to being fifth in OPS (.930) and first in bases per balls. (132). There’s no need to explain much about the impact a bat like that can have in the middle of any lineup.

The other three are Blake Snell’s WAR, ERA and WHIP (walks and hits allowed per inning pitched) en route to his second career Cy Young. Those extraordinary numbers didn’t help the Padres make the playoffs in 2023, but that potential would have put them back in contention in 2024. But Soto was traded to the Yankees for five players before losing him in free agency after this season and Snell is still waiting on a contract after hitting the market in the winter, but by all indications he won’t be in San Diego.

The Padres would need Tatis Jr, Machado and Bogaerts in all their glory to try to somehow minimize the loss of Soto. It will be a bigger challenge to fill the void left by the league’s best pitcher in 2023.

3- What is the main strength and main weakness of the Fathers?
The Padres arrive in a situation similar to that of the New York Mets in terms of expectations for 2024 with the aggravating factor that they have in their division the great favorite to win it all this year, the Los Angeles Dodgers.

According to the team’s new leader, Mike Shildt, the team’s strength is its bullpen, but clearly, although perhaps, offensively, it does not produce at the expected level for multiple reasons, the team’s hitting. , even with the departure of Juan Soto, seems to continue to be his calling card. A lineup that includes the healthy Manny Machado and Fernando Tatis Jr., as well as Xander Bogaerts, is sure to produce and cause problems for opposing pitchers.

However, with the departure of Blake Snell and without having found anyone to fill his shoes, the Padres’ starting coaching staff will continue to be their anchor in 2024 and even more so considering that of the two main starters who returned from last year, only Joe Musgrove produced at the expected level, while Yu Darvish has struggled in two of his three seasons with the team.