2024 Team Previews: San Diego Padres
Going through all 30 teams, looking back at 2023 and ahead to the 2024 season through a fantasy baseball lens.
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Padres Intro
The Padres were one of the more interesting teams of 2023. They finished tied for the 8-highest run differential, but they finished with just the 15th-most wins at 82-80.
There were some truly hilarious moments along the way, like the time when Zac Gallen gave up a .510 expected wOBA against them on August 17th, but it turned into just a .179 actual wOBA and the Padres lost 3-1.
There are few things funnier relating to baseball than that many little fire emoji’s and a 6.1 IP, 1 R allowed line.
The Padres offense wasn’t a huge issue with an above-average .742 OPS, and they had the second-best ERA in the league at 3.73 (Milwaukee beat them at 3.71). Just a bad luck season. The bad news is that they are sell-mode as their spending sprees of the last few years have come back to haunt them. Juan Soto has gone to New York and Josh Hader has left via free agency. They did get a nice return for Soto and that should function to strengthen the rotation, but you don’t lose one of the game’s best hitters and the game’s best reliever and not feel the effects of it.
The real tragedy is that any team would have to play in the same division as the 2024 Los Angeles Dodgers. This thing is basically a wrap already. But the good news is that there are all kinds of wild card spots now to get, and I’d say the Padres are firmly in contention to sneak into the playoffs.
But if things don’t go well for the first months, they could go into ultra-sell mode as they deal with this financial stuff, so they will be a really interesting team to watch and monitor throughout the year. But we don’t care too much about that, let’s get into the fantasy outlook for all of these players.
Hitters
Fernando Tatis Jr.
Age: 25
Pos: OF
After a lost 2022 season, Tatis Jr. returned in 2024 and was certainly not his prior first-round self:
635 PA, .259/.323/.450, .774 OPS, 22.2% K%, 8.3% BB%, 25 HR, 29 SB
Let’s compare that with 2021:
546 PA, .282/.364/.611, .975 OPS, 28.0% K%, 11.4% BB%, 42 HR, 25 SB
So he seems to have lost some pop in the bat, but gained substantially on strikeouts.
The underlying power numbers aren’t really at issue here, his fly ball exit velo stuff was great (90th percentile) and he posted a strong enough 11% Brl%, but both of those marks was down from 2021 (21% Brl% in 2021).
He also hit more ground balls in 2023 (48%), and that is a very interesting development. Regardless, we know he’s got homers and steals, so as long as he’s healthy he’ll be a very, very good fantasy player.
There are different ideas about why he lost some of that ability in 2023. The PED suspension certainly raises some questions, but probably more likely is that he just wasn’t quite fully healthy last year. Certainly 2021 was an over-performance, and we never should have expected him to repeat those ridiculous numbers.
The 2023 percentiles:
It’s funny that this write-up has a bit of a negative feel to it. He’s average in strikeouts and walks and still hits the ball quite well. I think we’ll see improved numbers in 2024 as compared to 2023, but we’ll probably never get another 2021-type season from him.
At the end of the day though we’re looking at a clear first-round bat. Steamer has him as the #4 most valuable roto bat, and my model brings him in at #3. He often falls to the back half of the first round, so there’s even some value here!
Comps/Rank-Arounds: Aaron Judge, Luis Robert
JA Projection: 669 PA, 100 R, 37 HR, 108 RBI, 26 SB, .264/.334/.507, .841 OPS
Manny Machado
Age: 31
Pos: 3B
January update! Machado headlined the “Boring Veterans to Draft” piece here.
I like looking at the last three years for these types of players, so let’s do that.
2021: 640 PA, .278/.347/.489, 28 HR, 12 SB, 15.9% K%, 9.8% BB%
2022: 644 PA, .298/.366/.531, 23 HR, 9 SB, 20.7% K%, 9.8% BB%
2023: 601 PA, .258/.319/.462, 30 HR, 3 SB, 18.1% K%, 8.3% BB%
The guy has always been a very good hitter, but he’s done this thing where some years he’ll be elite and other years he’ll come back to just being solid. Last year was a “solid” year with a .782 OPS.
Probably the most concerning part for fantasy purposes is the steals going away. His stolen base attempt rate dropped to 3.5%, down from 6.0% in 2022 and 9.3% in 2021. That part of his game might be going away as he gets deeper into his thirties.
So he’s still a very useful home run hitter, but not a useful asset in steals, and the barrel rate and contact stuff were shy of elite in 2023 as well.
Silver lining is that he still had a very nice launch profile as far as velo and angle goes:
So we’re looking at about an 80th percentile hitter overall, I think. He’s past the prime years, probably, but he’s still only 31 - so it’s not out of the question that he could splash another huge .900 OPS season before he’s done.
The field definitely picked up on the declines from 2023, because Machado has fallen a bunch in drafts. Last year his ADP was around pick 15. This year, in early drafts, it’s down to #75. That’s a huge drop.
As for the projection, I have him around an $11.80 third baseman, which is behind seven other names. That is perfectly in line with where he’s being drafted. Currently at third base we have:
Jose Ramirez
Elly De La Cruz (this is crazy)
Austin Riley
Rafael Devers
Gunnar Henderson
Royce Lewis
Manny Machado
So I don’t think it’s a buy or sell situation for Machado, the ADP seems to match up with the projection - but I would upgrade him a bit because we know the floor he has and I still think he has more ceiling than he might be given credit for.
Comps/Rank-Arounds: Royce Lewis, Gunnar Henderson
JA Projection: 653 PA, 82 R, 26 HR, 95 RBI, 4 SB, .256/.331/.447, .778 OPS
Ha-Seong Kim
Age: 28
Pos: 2B/3B/SS
Big time boost for Kim this draft season. He went #257 last year and this year he’s inside the top 80 early on. It’s almost like he had a breakout 2023 season or something!
626 PA, .260/.351/.400, .751 OPS, 17 HR, 38 SB, 19.8% K%, 12.0% BB%
From 2021-2022 for comparison:
880 PA, .235/.306/.372, .679 OPS, 19 HR, 18 SB, 19.4% K%, 8.3% BB%
So a big-time step forward there. Better results on contact, and way more steals while maintaining the non-awful home run rate.
He is fast, but he doesn’t hit the ball hard (27% hard-hit rate, 4.2% Brl%), and his BABIP was a believable .302. The batting average is a key thing for him without the good power numbers, and we’ve seen him giving us a mixed bag of results there.
You’re drafting Kim for the steals, the position flexibility, and the fact that he doesn’t kill you anywhere. He should be at the top of the Padres lineup all year long with the departure of Soto, so he’s a good fantasy player - I’m just not sold on him being well within the top 100 yet.
The projection puts him around $8.50, which makes him the #109 hitter on my list. So the ADP feels inflated.
Comps/Rank-Arounds: Jeimer Candelario, Ke’Bryan Hayes
JA Projection: 632 PA, 80 R, 15 HR, 58 RBI, 32 SB, .242/.330/.374, .704
Xander Bogaerts
Age: 31
Pos: SS
The Padres didn’t quite get what they paid for in the first season with Xander, but he wasn’t bad by any means.
665 PA, 83 R, 19 HR, 58 RBI, 19 SB, .285/.350/.440, .790 OPS,
Perfectly good real-life results there, and he knocked on the door of a 20-20 season. It was typical Bogaerts, really. He does everything decently, but doesn’t do anything fantastically well.
As I’ve said before, I don’t like to draft guys I don’t see having the ability to go over 50 HR+SB in this climate, and Bogaerts isn’t one of those guys - but he’s not a threat to totally kill your team either.
He’s been a 6.3% Brl% and a 77% Contact% the last two years. Not a lot of hitters can keep that high of a contact rate while still barreling at a 6%+ rate, but there’s just nothing overly exciting here.
Of course, he’s not priced like an exciting player either. On average he is the 13th shortstop off the board, and he’s the 11th best shortstop by the projections. So if you miss the first few waves at SS, Bogaerts is a fine emergency option, although there’s really no lack of floor and ceiling at this position - it’s pretty loaded again.
Comps/Rank-Arounds: Dansby Swanson, Matt McLain
JA Projection: 660 PA, 85 R, 18 HR, 75 RBI, 16 SB, .262/.334/.407, .741 OPS
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