The San Diego Padres were finally eliminated from playoff contention on Friday night, the unofficial end to a season that was thoroughly disappointing but also downright confusing. They were a high-priced, star-laden team with grand expectations they did not come close to meeting -- but it was often difficult to understand why.
The Padres' four superstar position players -- Manny Machado, Fernando Tatis Jr., Juan Soto and Xander Bogaerts -- have played in 92% of their games, and yet their offense ranks 16th in slugging percentage. Their defense is the fourth-best in the majors, based on outs above average, and their starting pitchers boast the lowest ERA in the sport -- yet they were the last major league team to extend a winning streak beyond three games. They employ one of the game's best closers, Josh Hader, and yet they hold the seventh-worst record in one-run games since 1900. They got a breakout season from Ha-Seong Kim and a Cy Young-caliber season from Blake Snell, and yet they still didn't have enough, the embodiment of a team significantly lesser than the sum of its parts.
The Padres' plus-98 run-differential is the third-highest in the National League, yet their 80-80 record -- the product of a hot stretch over these last two weeks, which put them at .500 for the first time since May 11 but came way too late to vault them into the postseason -- ranks ninth.
One rival coach who has seen the Padres often this season pointed to a lack of cohesion as a reason they didn't win more consistently, calling them "a bunch of hired guns" who don't know how to play together, particularly on offense. Another rival coach, though, believes that wouldn't be talked about nearly enough had the Padres benefitted from a little better luck.
"You can simulate this season a hundred times," the latter coach said, "and you'd probably never get another result like this."
But it happened. Three numbers in particular help to explain.
8-23, 1-12
The Padres' 2023 record in one-run and extra-inning games, respectively. The Padres' 2022 record in one-run and extra-inning games: 30-17 and 12-5.
The Padres held a one-run lead with two outs in the eighth inning in San Francisco on Monday but still lost, 2-1, giving them the second-worst record in one-run games since the start of the 20th Century, ahead of only the 1935 Boston Braves (their one-run win on Friday, after they had already been eliminated, moved them down to seventh). Two nights earlier, they had tied the 1969 Montreal Expos -- an expansion team that lost 110 games -- for the worst record in extra-inning games at 0-12 (they finally broke through and won their first extra-inning game on Wednesday).
Their mystifying struggles in close games is highlighted by Pythagorean winning percentage, which strives to calculate the amount of games a team should have won based on the amount of runs it scored and allowed. Based on that formula, this year's Padres should be 91-69, good enough for the top wild-card spot. The 11-game gap between their Pythagorean record and their actual record represents the biggest gulf in the sport by a wide margin.
It's not that simple, of course. And while it's easy to attribute poor luck and ill timing, the Padres' issues in close games were also underscored by the overall lack of depth throughout their 40-man roster. With Robert Suarez missing the entire first half with elbow inflammation, the Padres often struggled to find a mix of reliable relievers outside of Hader, who never once contributed more than three outs at a time -- a reality highlighted by their latest one-run loss on Monday night. The bench often didn't include a reliable pinch hitter for Padres manager Bob Melvin to deploy for a favorable matchup late in games, either.
Just as important, though, is that their offense continually failed to come through when those tight situations presented themselves.
Minus-9.12
The Padres' FanGraphs "Clutch" score, which ranks last in MLB
FanGraphs' "Clutch" metric aims to measure how a player fared in high-leverage situations compared to what he did in a context-neutral environment, utilizing leverage index and win probability added. The Padres' score is MLB's lowest in seven years.
They also hold a .615 OPS in what TruMedia considers high-leverage situations, worse than every team except the Oakland Athletics and the Kansas City Royals.
The Padres finished the month of June ranked 29th in the majors in OPS with runners in scoring position, producing merely a .208/.300/.352 slash line. They've been better since, but most of their production has come in lopsided games, the type that have also served to inflate their run-differential. For some reason, a team full of superstars who have grown accustomed to being counted on in pressure situations couldn't collectively produce when it mattered most.
Some on the team have pointed to a slow start, particularly a 10-16 May, which only magnified the pressure in a season full of expectations. Others have pointed to the effects of a newly constructed lineup composed of players who hadn't solidified their roles, compromising the Padres' situational hitting. Others have chalked it up at least in part to bad luck, highlighted by two key stats: The Padres saw 3.96 pitches per plate appearances during late-and-close situations, tied for eighth-most in the majors, but had the worst batting average on balls in play in those instances (.256).
But one longtime scout who watched a lot of the Padres' games believes those numbers are deceiving, noting "selfish at-bats" and saying players were mostly "swinging for personal stats and not moving runners over or knocking them in."
"Theme all year," he said.
.678
The combined OPS for Bogaerts, Machado, Soto and Tatis in August. For April, May, June, July and September, it's .856.
The second Monday of September provided a cruel reminder of what the Padres were capable of. They got down early against a quality opponent and came all the way back. Their four superstars had big nights, combining for eight hits, half of them home runs. And in the end, they beat a Los Angeles Dodgers team that had defeated them 31 times in a stretch of 38 regular-season games.
Later, Melvin was asked why nights like those felt so rare.
"If you knew how many times I've gotten that question in the last couple of months," Melvin said, forcing a smile. "I haven't come up with an answer, really, with the guys that we have in our lineup."
The month of August was especially perplexing.
The Padres were barely on the fringes of contention heading into the final weekend of July, sitting five games below .500 and 6½ games out of a playoff spot. There was talk of trading Snell and Hader, two pending free agents, and essentially punting for 2024. But Padres general manager A.J. Preller instead decided to add, augmenting the fringes of the roster with a handful of veterans (first basemen Ji Man Choi and Garrett Cooper, starter Rich Hill and reliever Scott Barlow).
The thought, given the underlying numbers, was that the Padres were a lot better than their record indicated. Eventually, they hoped, it would show. Then Bogaerts, Machado, Soto and Tatis all struggled mightily together, producing a brutal month of August that sank them even further.
The Padres' roster was generally devoid of quality depth, the consequence of a top-heavy payroll that stood at nearly $250 million on Opening Day. If they were going to contend this season, their stars needed to carry them. But they didn't quite do enough. Soto put up elite numbers but had a brutal first month. Tatis played a dynamic right field but didn't hit at his customary level . Bogaerts got off to a scorching start but faded thereafter. Machado, still playing through a balky elbow that will probably require offseason surgery, was hardly ever right.
And when the Padres needed them most, they all struggled at once.
Dramatic change will come this offseason, in some form. Already there are rumors swirling about Preller losing his job or Melvin going elsewhere, the product of a disconnect between the two that industry sources say has been festering since the start of last season. Snell and Hader will in all likelihood depart via free agency, and perhaps Soto, a free agent after 2024, is traded in an effort to reduce costs.
Whatever form this offseason takes, one perplexing question will linger:
Why didn't the 2023 Padres win more often?
"The ultimate goal was playoffs and winning the World Series with these guys," Snell told reporters on Monday night, moments after his six scoreless innings were wasted amid another loss. "Looking back, when we're all old, it's gonna be one that stings because I don't know if I'll ever play on a team this talented and this good."