SAN DIEGO — Is it the talent or the depth?
“The talent first and foremost,” Padres manager Jayce Tingler said of his team’s starting rotation. “… And then the depth of it. You can go through (Dinelson) Lamet, (Yu) Darvish, (Blake) Snell, (Joe) Musgrove, (Chris) Paddack. Then there’s (Adrián) Morejón and (Ryan) Weathers and (MacKenzie) Gore and (Michel) Báez and these other guys. Being deep is important. But overall, the talent.”
OK, then. It’s both. Especially in 2021.
If the Padres’ top five starters live up to projections this season, they will rank among the best rotations to ever pitch for the organization.
The trades for two-time Cy Young runner-up Darvish, 2018 American League Cy Young winner Snell and Musgrove elevated the Padres’ talent level in a way practically unimaginable here for decades. Those three join incumbents Lamet and Paddack to form the major leagues’ second-best starting five, at least according to FanGraphs projections.
“From the players’ perspective, they come in the locker room and know it’s a matchup where you can win a game,” pitching coach Larry Rothschild said. “You’re going to feel good about who is pitching that night. You should feel good.”
There is plenty of reason to be bullish on the Padres’ top five starters heading into 2021.
Their projected combined WAR (wins above replacement) is 14.5, which ranks second to the Dodgers’ 14.7 and just ahead of the Yankees (14.2).
Darvish (3.8), Snell (3.2) and Musgrove (3.0) are all projected to post at least a 3.0 WAR.
Such excellence would be especially rare for the Padres.
The last time their five most-used starting pitchers combined for a double-digit WAR was 2007. The last time their top five starters had a higher combined WAR was 1998, when Kevin Brown & Co. posted a 17.9 WAR.
In the 22 seasons since that ‘98 World Series appearance, just 10 Padres starting pitchers have posted at least a 3.0 WAR. Jake Peavy did it four times, Chris Young twice. The last Padres starting pitcher to post a WAR higher than 2.9 was Drew Pomeranz, who had a 3.3 WAR in 17 starts before being traded in 2016.
This could be a truly fantastic five.
And yet, the Padres believe that alone won’t be enough for them to achieve the success they expect.
The health of Lamet, who missed the playoffs with an elbow issue, and the resurgence of Paddack, whose inconsistent second season was not without promise, figure to be among the main storylines of spring training.
And what will likely be among the central stories of the season, a key part in determining whether the team can truly contend for its first World Series title, is the emergence of the pitchers who would be sixth, seventh, eighth and, possibly, ninth among the team’s stable of starters.
“Very rarely do you see teams go through a season with five starting pitchers in a regular season where we’ve being playing 162 game-seasons,” Padres general manager A.J. Preller said. “It’s always important to have extra starters. Things come up. Guys get nicked up, you want to give guys a blow. But obviously, going from 60 to 162, we’re not really sure how pitchers are going to respond to that, so it takes on a little added importance this year.”
Amid the hoopla over adding arguably three of the four most-prized pitchers available on the trade market this winter, it became readily apparent many in the organization were most pleased with the cushion the moves created.
There is significant concern across baseball that even the best rotations will be challenged to maintain a level of excellence throughout the season.
The top starting pitchers in the majors made 12 or 13 starts in the COVID-19-shortened 2020 season. Lance Lynn, who was traded from the Texas Rangers to the Chicago White Sox this winter, led the majors with 84 innings pitched last season.
None of the Padres’ top five starters threw more than the 82 2/3 innings Darvish pitched in his 13 starts (including playoffs) in 2020. Snell’s 17 starts, including his six in the playoffs, encompassed 79 2/3 innings. Paddack made 13 starts.
Lamet was removed with an elbow issue in his 12th start and didn’t pitch in the postseason. Musgrove missed a month in the middle of the season with triceps inflammation and started eight games.
Darvish is the only one among the Padres to have thrown even 181 innings in a season. Snell threw 180 2/3 in 2018 but just 129 1/3 the year before that and 107 the year after. Musgrove put together 170 1/3 innings in 2019 but never more than 115 1/3 in any of his four other big league seasons.
Paddack was capped at 140 2/3 in his rookie season (’19). Lamet’s career high of 114 1/3 innings came in his rookie season in ‘17, and he has thrown 142 innings since.
Even if all five achieve their innings level from their last full season (2019 for everyone but Lamet, who didn’t pitch the first half of that year after returning from Tommy John surgery), the Padres would fall more than 100 innings shy of what they likely need out of their rotation.
Even five innings per start equals 810 innings in a 162-game season. In 2019, MLB teams got an average of 838 innings from their starting pitchers. Playoff teams got an average of 942.
With the potential complications of a starting pitcher testing positive for COVID-19 and games being postponed due to an outbreak, the readiness and reliability of the team’s “extra” starters will be on the mind of the Padres’ coaching staff and front office.
“The depth is really important,” Rothschild said. “You’re probably going to run into some (7-inning) doubleheaders and things like that. The guys who are capable of starting, when you have depth, you can spread them out so somebody can be ready when you need them. That works out. You want to have depth. The obvious reason is in the case of injuries. Now it goes a little deeper than that.”
With Morejon, Báez, Weathers, Gore and Jacob Nix in camp, the Padres have multiple attractive options to make a season-long rotation equation work out.
They will almost certainly give their starters extra days of rest and be vigilant about their workload. That is true to some extent for every team every season, but such caution will likely extend well into the season if not be a consideration all the way through.
They are considering a six-man rotation at the season’s outset, and being able to carry as many pitchers as they want on their 26-man roster allows for the possibility of an additional “swing” man in the bullpen to fill innings and/or make a spot start. Extra pitchers can also be carried on the five-man taxi squad during the season.
“There’s a lot to get excited about,” Tingler said. “At the same time, we’ve got to stay present day to day and know things can happen. That’s why it’s going to be important, the development of all our guys in spring training. We’ve got to stay ready. … We know things are going to happen.”
