I hope it can be precisely said that I am writing the first official series preview where the Cardinal is exiting the game. Or at least, the front desk will preview the first series where the Cardinal is not there. Oh, of course, you can make an argument that a preview of the Rockies can be applied. But they may always sweep the Rockies. I think if there is anything to play out, it will lose to the Rockies series.
So while this is a significant series in theory, the bets will also be lowered. The Cardinals have four games with direct competitors, and they may outperform a team by the end of the series. It needs to be a clean sweep, but they can assume that the priests in the rankings. They still need the Reds and Giants discount results to be the third wildcard, but they may form the basis, and they only have 2 Giants games, and they live as the next man standing in the foreign card game. At least, nothing less will move the needle except to win this series of 3 games to 1 games.
Padres offense is almost the definition of stars and scrubs. On the offensive end, they are led by someone I want to call Permanent Miracle, except Manny Machado, who is still only 32 years old. He has 132 WRC+, which will be the best mark since 2022. Fernando Tatis Jr. Jake Cronenworth saw an offensive revival with 118 WRC+, his best result since 2021.
Padres turned Gavin's sheets into an above-average batsman, which made the White Sox seem helpless, although his defense still makes him an average player. Xander Bogaerts, Luis Arraez and Jackson Merrill had slightly above average batting line.
They then skip below average hitters. No matter which player plays, their catch duo won't play. Martin Maldanado has a WRC+ of 54 and Elias Diaz has a WRC+ of 67. If they were to believe in the defensive numbers, they wouldn't make up for this with defense, because both were below the substitute. Jose Iglesias also started some games with his WRC+67. Tyler Wade played a fanatical role, and his 72 WRC+ wasn't much better. They really don't have a bench.
Presuming early trade deadline: Boys will become Padres, who is trading partners. They need a second baseman very much, they need a catcher very much. What you know, Cardinal has a lot of stuff. Don't know how good their farm system is. Quick Elance told me they only have two prospects in the Fanggraphs’ top 100, and they are both teenagers, one of which is a catcher. Not really ideal. But they need what we get.
They are a below-average defensive team. Bogaerts and Tatis lead the team in defense as they release elite defensive numbers at least this season. For Tatis, it's because he's an elite. Although Bogaerts has seemed to be lucky given his past few seasons. These numbers are being dragged off by Arraez, Sheets and interestingly Maldadano, who sucks in every way.
OK, so overall the offense isn't impressive (98 WRC+ this season, 19th in baseball), and the defense isn't impressive. You can probably guess that pitching is good. They have an elite bullpen, which is probably one of the easier bullpens to be honestly managed.
Robert Suarez had 29 saves and 3 saves, which was a weird line as he was lucky on home runs, which is why he had 1.8 fwar, but his era reflected his XFIP (3.46). His 63.6 Lob% is absolutely terrible. Get the foundation and you may score. Good luck.
Adrian Morejon, Jason Adam, and Suarez all became All-Stars. Morejon should be worth 1.79 ERA and 1.7 FWAR. Adam's little. His days at 2.01 were great, but the basic statistics were pretty mediocre. Can't take his place to something like Marton? The three reliefists in the All-Star Game are ridiculous. Honestly, Jeremiah Estrada has a better case. Those are four very good reliefists. The only real weak rescuer is left-handed Kyle Hart, who just summoned from the AAA, while left-handed Yuki Matsui has not fulfilled the NPB's 5-year contract. Both are of course left-handed, meaning the Cardinals will have a hard time rating with anyone they use.
Thursday – 6:45 pm
Yu Darvish (6.08 ERA/3.92 FIP/5.14 XFIP) vs. Sonny Gray (4.04 ERA/2.88 FIP/2.89 XFIP)
Darvish's numbers look bad, but there are only three starts. He didn't look particularly good at any of the three starts. It is worth pointing out that he is 38 years old and has three years left on his $108 million contract. He was decent last year so I wouldn't pretend he won't have a good start tonight.
Grey is doing the same thing he did last year, which is strange. I don't know why his high-level stats are much better than his time, but it's really annoying. Especially because his career statistics show that this is not his pitching type. His career, FIP and XFIP are very similar in his career, which makes this even more confusing.
Friday – 6:15 pm
Nick Pivetta (2.81 ERA/3.16 FIP/3.50 XFIP) vs. Miles Mikolas (5.20 ERA/4.72 FIP/4.65 XFIP)
What we have here is a real mismatch. Pivetta did well in the first year of his four-year contract. Mikolas is lucky that Erick Fedde takes away his heat, well, of course he has to be better than him or else the heat will transfer to him.
Saturday – 6:15 pm
Randy Vazquez (3.73 ERA/5.39 FIP/5.94 XFIP) vs. Matthew Liberatore (4.13 ERA/3.51 FIP/4.01 XFIP)
The Holy Bull guy is Erick Fedde! You know his profile is completely broken. Vazquez made 20 starts somehow with 11.6 k% and 10.9 bb%. He also has no ground balls. His 81.4 stock rate was incredible, and pitchers with statistics like him should be close to 70% at the time. In principle, I want us to destroy this man.
Liberatore will have very full competition and hope this will appear in his performance. I know they hope he will end the year because that's how he's ready for next year, so I hope he has a good start. I don't have to care about the results of this series, but this is the game I really want to win.
Sunday – 1:15 pm
Stephen Kolek (4.28 ERA/4.08 FIP/4.20 XFIP) vs. Michael McGreevy (3.49 ERA/3.23 FIP/4.05 XFIP)
You know it's as good as the Padres pitching, I'm not sure where the idea of them being able to sell Dylan to stop and still go to playoff locations comes from. Their beginners are not particularly powerful. They had a very, very good bullpen, but Dylan stopped, Nick Pivetta, and then… frustrating guys. Kolk's strikeout efficiency is below average and relies on ground balls.
This makes it a perfect showdown as he faces McGravey. Although McGrevi hasn't really scored a ground goal this season, he still has a career rate of 48% due to last year. McGreevy's success is almost completely unrelated to him, not a walking batsman, which I expect to continue.
All in all, it is clearly a series of Cardinals who can’t get the Padres to get the lead into the bullpen. They need to hit the starting pitcher. Strangely, I thought it was a win than I thought, because their success was related to getting into the sixth and seventh innings.