The Padres are a wonder.
How in the name of Tony Gwynn are they winning games?
They have the worst batting average in the major leagues and the second-worst OPS. They’re third from the bottom in the National League in runs scored. Their starting pitching is somewhere between below average and atrocious: fourth worst in the NL in innings pitched and sixth worst in ERA.
The Dodgers are just a step ahead of the Padres in the NL West standings as the teams enter their series opener Monday night at Petco Park, but the threat doesn’t feel real this time. What the Padres are doing isn’t sustainable.
The only Padre who will be around in October will be the one reading the team its last rites — unless something drastically changes, that is.
Well, something has already changed.
The Padres are about to have new controlling owners in private equity billionaire Jose E. Feliciano and his wife, Kwanza Jones, who agreed to purchase their share of the franchise at a record valuation of $3.9 billion.
The sale is expected to be finalized at the owners meetings next month.
Feliciano and Jones might not be able to reinforce the Padres’ unbalanced roster in time to mount a serious challenge to the Dodgers this season, but their financial resources could restore the sport’s greatest rivalry of this decade.
The Padres’ gradual transformation into a non-threat became an inevitability when free-spending owner Peter Seidler died in late 2023. Under Seidler, the Padres dreamed big and spent big. They signed Manny Machado for $300 million before the 2019 season. They acquired Juan Soto at the 2022 trade deadline, which led to them beating the Dodgers in the divisional round of the playoffs that year. In the winter that followed, they spent more than $400 million.
In the wake of Seidler’s death, the Padres scaled back their spending. They gradually depleted their farm system, as the only way they could make any notable additions was by trading their top prospects. Not only was their championship window closing, they seemed headed back to irrelevance.
Being sold to an owner who would have operated them the way Frank McCourt did the Dodgers would have effectively been a death blow to this iteration of the Padres. Asked if he was wishing for that outcome, manager Dave Roberts chuckled.
“I think the valuation of the Padres is a good thing for baseball,” Roberts said.
Roberts saw how an ownership change could change a franchise. He was a coach for the Padres when the Dodgers were purchased by Guggenheim Baseball Management in 2012. Bankrupt under McCourt, the Dodgers became baseball’s No. 1 spender overnight.
“It’s a tale of two paths,” Roberts said. “Ownership, it starts with ownership. When the ownership has a vision to invest in the team, the fans, the infrastructure to ultimately win, then it kind of bleeds down.”
At this point, it’s unknown whether Feliciano and Kwanza have visions of spending. And even if they do, there’s no guarantee it will lead to results. The Mets have spent at Dodgers-like levels under Steve Cohen, but they remain a joke of a franchise.
But if Feliciano and Kwanza want to fund roster improvements and general manager A.J. Preller can execute the right deals by the Aug. 3 trade deadline, the Padres should push the Dodgers until the end, as they have in seasons past.
The Padres can’t be any worse offensively than they are now. Machado entered Sunday batting just .182. Fernando Tatis Jr., who was once suspended for a positive drug test, had as many home runs this season as the Padres have World Series championships: zero.
The team has a reliable bullpen anchored by the best closer in baseball in Mason Miller, who has a 0.86 ERA; and two solid starters in Michael King and Randy Vasquez, both of whom are expected to pitch against the Dodgers this week. King is lined up to pitch opposite of Yoshinobu Yamamoto on Monday night, with Vasquez likely to go head-to-head against Shohei Ohtani on Wednesday.
With how their pitching is set up, the Padres can win the upcoming series. But they don’t have the lineup or rotation depth to compete with the Dodgers over a 162-game regular season. Preller started addressing the rotation problem by picking up veteran free agent Lucas Giolito on a one-year, $2.8 million contract, but more will have to be done if the Padres intend on competing with the Dodgers.
Just a couple of months ago, this wasn’t even a possibility. The Padres at least have a chance now. The question is whether their new owners will give it to them.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: nypost.com
