Padres GM Fails To Address Offensive Failures In Postseason

The San Diego Padres suffered a tough loss to the Milwaukee Brewers in the NLDS, especially since the Brewers are now poised to play in the World Series as they await the arrival of their opponent. 

The Padres cam agonizingly close to beating the Brewers, and one of the biggest issues they had was scoring enough runs in a close, well-played series where getting that one big hit was the different between moving on and going home. 

Padres GM A.J. Preller addressed the issue in his video conference call with reporters this week…except he didn’t. The Padres got 10 runs in four games against the Brewers after getting 5 runs in three games against the Chicago Cubs last year, and Preller gave a woefully inadequate answer. 

He started by saying that it’s “hard to score in the postseason,” then said the Padres would leave it to manager Craig Stammen and hitting coach Steven Souza Jr. to figure it out. The GM also said the Padres need to be “a little bit more effective,” which simply isn’t true given those offensive scoring numbers. 

This is a classic Preller move, actually. He’s one of the best in the game when it comes to dodging tough questions he doesn’t want to tackle, especially when Preller doesn’t have an answer that makes him look brilliant. 

Part the answer also involves one of the Padres superstars, which makes answering this question even dicier. Fernando Tatis Jr. hit just .167 in the two postseason series, going 4-for-24 with two homers and no extra base hits. 

Contrast his performance with that of Manny Machado, who was brilliant in both the postseason and the Padres’ late-season surge. Machado struggled mightily through most of the season, but he somehow managed to find the switch at the end that Tatis couldn’t locate. 

This problem doesn’t all land on Preller and Tatis, however. The Padres needed bats throughout the season, but Preller was hamstrung by the ownership transition that left him signing one retread veteran after another, with the usual percentage that comes with doing that sort of thing. 

Hopefully that issue gets resolved as the new ownership group settles and the lockout somehow gets resolved, but as Dennis Lin of The Athletic pointed out, this year’s free agent group isn’t exactly promising. The Padres offense still needs a lot of help, and right now it isn’t clear at all where that help is going to come from.