“MLB Opening Day 2025: Unraveling the Surprising Transformations Shaping Every Team This Season!”
Advertisement
With a huge amount of payroll committed to a select group of players, there was little wiggle room to bring in any new impact talent. As a result, the Padres watched a huge portion of last year’s position-player group — Jurickson Profar, Ha-Seong Kim, Donovan Solano, Kyle Higashoka — leave in free agency, replacing them with a horde of low-cost veterans. Only six teams bring back a lower percentage of 2024 plate appearances than San Diego.
On the mound, however, the Padres have largely kept the band together, bringing us to one of the more stunning facts from this exercise: Entering 2024, no team brought back fewer innings than the Padres. Entering 2025, no team brings back more innings than San Diego, whose top 10 (!) innings leaders from last season all remain in the organization. Admittedly, this is somewhat misleading. Three of the top six Padres arms by innings in 2024 were knuckleballer Matt Waldron (currently injured and not projected to be in the rotation), Yu Darvish (currently injured) and Joe Musgrove (out for 2025 due to elbow surgery).
Related Posts
Post Comment