It's not all Preller's fault
Why are the San Diego Padres in a tailspin? There's one obvious answer, and it's not entirely the fault of the team's President of Baseball Operations.
The San Diego Padres are bad!
*Audience*: How bad are they?
The San Diego Padres are so bad that they have a record of 18-23 since the beginning of July, which means they’ve been bad for almost two months and through the easiest portion of their season schedule.
(This tweet is outdated. The Padres lost again to the Rockies last night.)
When we were making predictions for this season, I don’t think anyone was counting on the team playing below .500 baseball through the majority of the season.
The Padres are now 1.5 games up on the Cincinnati Reds for the second NL Wild Card spot and, while the Reds have been similarly terrible over the last week or so, they face a much easier schedule the rest of the season. What didn’t seem to be in any jeopardy at all a few weeks ago very much is now.
What’s happening?
Welp, it’s mostly about the starting pitching. First, let me show you how bad it’s gotten. Here’s the ERA of the Padres starting pitchers by month for this season.
March/April: 2.67
May: 3.61
June: 4.41
July: 5.97
August: 6.18
Big yikes!
(Before you ask, the bullpen’s ERA has been steady all season. And the team’s hitting hasn’t really been any better or worse than it was earlier in the year when they were winning a ton.)
How did we get here?
It’s not all just performance that’s the issue, a lot of the problem here is health.
Mike Clevinger will not pitch this year despite making a starting pitcher’s salary.
Dinelson Lamet has averaged less than 4 innings per start this year and is currently on the IL.
Adrian Morejon threw 4.2 innings before his season-ending injury.
Chris Paddack and Yu Darvish are currently injured, the latter having pitched through a back/hip injury since before the all-star break.
Ryan Weathers is pitching with a broken bone in his ankle. He has started 5 games since returning with that injury and has gotten crushed in his last 4. He’s also 8 innings away from his career high in a single season.
Basically, the only two starting pitchers on the Padres roster (mostly) untouched by injury this season are Joe Musgrove and Blake Snell, who has struggled to be the pitcher he was with the Tampa Bay Rays.
Before the season, some were dreaming of a dominant starting rotation that would look like this:
Darvish
Snell
Lamet
Musgrove
Morejon
With Paddack, Weathers, and MacKenzie Gore filling in as depth for when those five faced (minor) injuries. Eight starters is what you need and we thought the Padres had it.
You could even be forgiven for thinking ahead to the 2022 Padres that would have all of the above guys under contract but would be adding back Mike Clevinger to the mix, as well.
Instead, the Padres now have a rotation that includes a broken Snell, a broken Weathers, Joe Musgrove and whatever else the team can cobble together with its bullpen.
This is why they appear lifeless and hopeless. This is why they can’t get excited to play the Rockies or Diamondbacks right now. They know what they’re about to walk into, and they know they don’t have the pitching to do anything about the ass-kicking that is coming at the hands of the Dodgers and Giants.
How do they fix it?
This season? They can’t. You could make an argument that A.J. Preller should’ve added a starting pitcher or two at the trade deadline to stem the bleeding, but I’m not entirely sure that it would’ve done a whole lot of good.
But someone has to be sacrificed for this disgrace and I have a fall guy in my sights.
It’s not A.J. Preller, although he deserves some of the blame here. As the guy at the top of the organization, the buck stops with him. He brought in these players and hired this coaching staff, so some of the fault is always on him.
And, as much as I do think Jayce Tingler isn’t the right guy to turn this ship around, I don’t think the fault is with him or the hitting coach either.
I’m placing the blame at the feet of pitching coach Larry Rothschild, who was let go by the Yankees for this exact reason. He has earned a reputation as a coach that gets a lot out of his pitchers but burns them out quickly, resulting in a number of injuries to the staff and a team scrambling to find starting pitchers.
Hilariously, the 2019 Yankees had a trade deadline very similar to the 2021 Padres (whiffing on the starting pitching help that they desperately needed) and then fired Rothschild anyway after winning 103 games.
As A.J. Preller is wont to do, he bought high on something that could easily flame out. He got Rothschild on a gamble that it was the Yankees’ fault, and not Rothschild’s, that their pitching staff fell apart. He bet that the Yankees were wrong in their reasoning for firing Rothschild.
I believe that bet is now a lost one. This is two seasons in a row where the Padres’ pitching staff has physically fallen apart before reaching the playoffs, dooming any chances of making it to the World Series.
It’s time to find a pitching coach that can keep these pitchers, with their long track records of excellence, healthy and performing at a high level.
COMPLETELY agree with the fault should be with Rothschild. I’ve been preaching this since Balsley was replaced by him. It has been documented “he devalues the fastball.” He has ruined a lot of arms and to date, the only one he improved of note is CC Sabathia. And even Yankee fans say Andy Pettitte had more to do with Sabathia turning it around than the Yankees pitching coach. LR is quoted saying “fastballs get hit, increase secondary pitches.” Now this might sound good on the surface, but what if your secondary pitches are below average Larry? Well, he insists that the only way you can improve it, is by throwing your slider, curve, change etc. Yes Lamet broke out last year, but at what cost did it take on his already surgically repaired elbow? Throwing PRIMARILY sliders, cut sliders mind you, will take serious toll on any elbow. EVERY Padre pitcher has regressed since Balsley left and maybe none more than Chris Paddack. What’s wrong with Paddack? He can’t command his fastball any longer. Everything works off locating your fastball. In the Marlins system he had Madduxlike command of his fastball. What’s different? The call to throw his secondary pitches more and more has allowed his command of his fastball to fade. It’s like a knuckles throwing 80% knuckleballs even though he has the ability to throw 90mph. Keep throwing knucklers and your velo will drop quickly. Bottom line, these pitchers aren’t doing the things that made them ACES in Tampa, ACES in Chicago or Texas, OD starter in Pitt because they have a new philosophy and that pitching coach is no Aristotle. This team is pressing because the pitching sucks and they are forced to come from behind all the time. Agree this is not Tinglers fault in the least bit. The lone “move” that I didn’t and never will support is replacing Balsley with Rothschild.
I wish there was some way to understand what LR does / doesn't do that is different than other pitching coaches that would be, at the very least, a tangible hypothesis as to what it is that he's doing / not doing that creates an environment where starting pitchers are more prone to injuries. Any thoughts / ideas? I get it. The pitchers are his responsibility and when things don't go right, it makes sense to blame the guy that is responsible for them. I support that. Just wanting to know what it is specifically about his approach that is different? I tend to think that trends get assimilated / copied, etc., very quickly in baseball (and sports generally).