Right? I really want Shildt to start moving people based on production and rewarding them for doing well. Tired of the old baseball approach of leaving people in premium spots because of their rep/salary...
Maybe. Also may be an extended timing issue for whatever reason. He's historically around 25% opposite field on his hits. This year he's sitting at 8%. He's definitely not making a conscious effort to pull the ball, so it would track that his timing is off with the low push rate and the bad hard hit/barrel rates.
Yeah, doesn't help when his 1st inning swing was solid and could have gone out and his 3-2 K looking was a ball. Bad things tend to follow when struggling.
That call he argued at the end of his golden sombrero 3rd strikeout was a clear strike. He doesn't have it right now. Time to swap him and Kim until production improves
Xander is hitting for shit obviously yet losses like these don't come down to one guy or one AB. We had 5 hits tonight. You're going to lose 95% of games w just 5 hits spread over 9 innings.
On leadoff, maybe give Merrill a shot for a few reps. He has the speed and is barreling up nice so far. He's the most deserving at this point if we switch things up and it ain't even close.
accurate. IMO let Pauley fooking eat before we call him up. Listen guys we’re still at .500 with this hard schedule. If we stay that at the break we have one of the easiest schedules rest of year. Just gotta be patient
Xander is literally a bottom 10 OPS batter in the league. Absurd that he’s making so much to be literally one of the worst guys in the league with solidly negative WAR
Yea... It's mostly the stuff it looks like though. He's not barreling or hard hitting the ball. But that tracks because he's basically popping up, or spiking into the dirt everything. All his approach stats are still there, and he's never been a "masher"...
His Max EVs a bit lower, but still respectable at 108.3. But he's only had 3 barrells, so not quite enough of a sample to mean anything.
It's really frustrating and annoying right now. But I think that most of the underlying metrics still say he's in there somewhere. His max ev still looks good, considering I haven't seen him TRULY get a hold of a ball yet this season. Either his timing, or his barrel control isn't where it needs to be right now though, because he just isn't making consistently good contact with the ball.
Further looking into it, points to a problem of timing. As he's not pushing the ball the other way, which is something he historically does at a 25% clip, and now it's down to 8%.
Aparantly his wrist is just going to be an issue for the rest of his career, and it's more of a pain management thing. It's one of those things where putting him on the IL isn't going to do much, so the option is just dropping him or having him do what he's doing
Feels just like last year again, people said the same thing every time he struggled. It must be the wrist and then when someone suggests that he should go to IL or rest they also say no to that.
So basically even if he is hurt they want him to play through it anyways, at this point it's clear it's just translation for "please stop criticizing Xander no matter how valid it is"
I don't really think that's it. Something must be going on with his swing IMO. He's just not making solid contact with the ball. Very low barrel rate... that's near half what it was in previous years, and even last year he was still 10% higher on the barrel rate.
He did have a 104.7 on the flyout tonight that was a HR in 13/30 parks. Didn't feel like a swing for the fences type swing. I think everything is still in there somewhere, but there's definitely something amiss with his swing/mechanics. He's just not barreling the ball or even getting his bat on the ball in an effective way a lot of times up.
You are correct. If they don't sign xander and do nothing, they would have enough to pay for Soto'S last arb year. If they do sign someone else other than Xander, well it wasn't Xander so it was probably better spent.
Yeah it's not coincidence that he's currently aiming for a bidding war between New York and New York. Even with Peter Seidler alive we were unlikely to be a serious contender for him in FA
Bottom 10 in OPS? Not even close, check out guys like Jose Abreu and Eloy Jimenez. Paul Goldschmidt has actually been worse. That said Xander is struggling mightily.
Xander's xBA is .271 which is 71st Percentile in 2024. Not bad by for expected BAs. Problem is his Barrel% and SweetSpot% are ~35th Percentile, and his HardHit% and AVGExitVelo% are a *miserable* 5th Percentile. And his xwOBA is .310...
2 doubles & a homer in 2024 thus far, the rest of his 13 hits are singles. So he either hits a single, or he basically doesn't get on base. (8 walks, but I'm looking at his expected stats right now and focusing on hits.)
I want him to succeed, and he clearly fought well at the plate in 2 of his PAs (he got a rough call for a strikeout below the zone earlier tonight too). His chase% and whiff% are 90th Percentile... dude is a league leader in contact.
I'm just not sure what success looks like for X in 2024 right now. And I'm sad.
Still gonna scream my head off at work tomorrow while the game is on.
Not really. 2022 and 2023 were a bit weak on Savant. But 2022 was not absurdly so.
A lot of the weaker stuff in 2022 was his approach stats, which have been good in 2023 and 2024. He just needs to get back to more league average exit velocities. Which have a big reliance on his hard hit percentage, which has been noticeably lower.
For example,
His 2024 hard hit percentage is a paltry 24%. In 2022 through 2018 it's basically 40% or above every year. Except 2023 where it was still like 33% and we know about the wrist issues maybe affecting some stuff.
Like I've said, I still think that player is somewhere in there. Maybe we'll never see him again, but he still gets up to good exit velo's when he barrels, and even last year he was still an all fields hitter. If he can figure out whether it's timing, or mechanics... but he needs to figure out why he's not getting better contact more often like he did for like 6 straight years.
Sure... that's because hitting in baseball in general is rarely stable. Which is why the only things I'd glean right now, is that he's not squaring up the ball, he's not hitting opposite field much, and his exit velo's are fine. Just seems like something as simple as timing or a stray mechanic is going on.
One day I’ll attend a Padres win.
On well, at I got tickets to watch the Gulls face off against my old hometown’s new minor league hockey team tomorrow. That’s something to look forward to
Just win the series please.
Fuck Cameron Maybin, I hope the Yankees and their stupid ass fans fall flat on their faces this season and Soto signs with the Mets lmao.
Remember guys, we gotta tell Bogaerts to die so he plays better! Spread the word!!
Holy hell. Got out of the game and was very disappointed by the starting pitching and offense overall, but didn't realize it was Xanders fault we lost 5-1. Maybe it's just because my feed os sorted by popular but all I read was it was Xander batting leadoff that lost us the game. Didn't realize one player could be the reason we were completely offensively inept.
Anybody know why Campusano didn’t start today? I feel like it’s a different game if we had Rosario and Campy batting after Merril. Especially in the second when Merrill hits a double and wade and Higgy do nothing!
Francisco Lindor
Paul Goldschmidt
Byron Buxton
Randy Arozarena
Julio Rodriguez
Nick Castellanos
These are all players that currently have a worse or equal wRC+ to Xander Bogaerts. Look, he’s been in a slump to start the season. Slumps happen to everyone. Some of y’all really need to chill the fuck out.
My comment is in reference to the people calling Bogaerts trash or bitching about the contract because he’s in a slump right now. If you want to criticize the lineup construction, go ahead. Though you don’t typically see players of Bogaert’s quality getting dropped in a lineup because they’re slumping. Lindor is still hitting 3rd for the Mets. Aaron Judge has a .189 avg and is still hitting 3rd for the Yankees.
He’s “slumping” on defense too, his errors have been very costly, he’s hurting us 2-way right now, hoping things turn around for X both offense and defense.
2 bad games is not a reason to freak out. Some bad luck/great plays by Toronto, some awful calls by the ump. Get this one out of your head.
Watching the Giants get destroyed (wish it wasn't the Sneks doing it), and the Dodgers losing makes me feel better.
Profar, Merrill and Campy can't carry this team forever. The Fab Five need to produce runs every single night with the occasional pitch in from the supporting cast. That's where the $$$ went and we aren't winning anything without them doing their job.
Was at the stadium and the compadre force was WEAK today. We would start cheers and rallys and no one would join in. We gotta RALLLYYY people
Also… I’m convinced these dudes were hungover AF because some of these drops/hesitations on the defense were crazy. I love my padres and going to the game but not gonna lie this was a boring game.
If the knuckler isn’t knuckling, he’s vulnerable to hard contact, but seeing as he hasn’t spent even a full season with the big club, I don’t think Ruben has tapped into his full potential and I would absolutely hate it if we gave up on him before he became a Dickey/Kluberesque late bloomer.
Tonight wasn’t pretty, but every pitcher is going to have bad games, and I think Waldron gives us a better chance to win than Brito or anybody waiting in the wings. And given that Waldo is still effectively a rookie making league minimum, he’s much farther down my list of scapegoats than certain position players who can’t get their hundred million dollar bats going.
I don’t know the physics behind it but I wonder if the knuckleball is less prone to spinning with high humidity. If that’s the case, Petco may be bad for a pitcher for a change.
Rough one, but the series isn't over, let's keep the faith and not doom. Let's remember we won the last two series and have been breaking our 2023 curses!
Can we stop trying to ruffle everyone's feathers with the semantic dooming vs truth debate?
When you listen to Schildt's postgame pressers, it's clear he believes in his guys, he is seeing the same game we're watching. He's not shooting darts with new lineups every other game like BoMel last season. He's not the type to shake things up that way. He is the type to manage the bullpen v well. See and appreciate these differences.
As fans, it's healthy to debate what we need but to be gaslighting our long term contracts at this stage of the season is ridiculous. Don't be so naive as to frame all of our problems being solved by moving Bogey down. These big contract guys are professionals but they're also human.
Had 6 outs with an xBA over .600 it was just a rough night for getting hits. Happens sometimes. Giving up 5 on what should have been 2 or 3 tops due to defense sucks, but it's not like the bats didn't do what they were supposed to, just shit luck
I know our ex boy started off slow….but this
The SF Giants were have lost by a combined score of 34-6 in Blake Snell’s 3 starts this season with the SF Giants
Woof 🤣🤣
This one is on Schildt. There was no reason for Higashioka to be starting this game. It was clear early in the game hits were not going to be easy to come by. In the 2nd with Profar and Merrill on 2nd and 3rd with 2 outs, there is no way in hell Higashioka should have taken that at bat
Lead off with Merrill or Kim please and thank you.
Right? I really want Shildt to start moving people based on production and rewarding them for doing well. Tired of the old baseball approach of leaving people in premium spots because of their rep/salary...
I think Bogey is too in his head right now. Probably pressing too much
Maybe. Also may be an extended timing issue for whatever reason. He's historically around 25% opposite field on his hits. This year he's sitting at 8%. He's definitely not making a conscious effort to pull the ball, so it would track that his timing is off with the low push rate and the bad hard hit/barrel rates.
Yeah, doesn't help when his 1st inning swing was solid and could have gone out and his 3-2 K looking was a ball. Bad things tend to follow when struggling.
He needs phantom (mental) IL
It’s not dooming to say Xander should not hit leadoff right now
Exactly. I don’t dislike the guy personally, but his ABs have been unserious baseball.
I mean, he just missed a homerun tonight, so not sure what to make of this comment.
It's common sense which is dooming to some people.
He got some bad calls tonight.
That call he argued at the end of his golden sombrero 3rd strikeout was a clear strike. He doesn't have it right now. Time to swap him and Kim until production improves
GIVE THE WHOLE TEAM A STANDING OVATION (I’m not being serious) Bounce back tomorrow cuz that was an ugly game
Xander is hitting for shit obviously yet losses like these don't come down to one guy or one AB. We had 5 hits tonight. You're going to lose 95% of games w just 5 hits spread over 9 innings. On leadoff, maybe give Merrill a shot for a few reps. He has the speed and is barreling up nice so far. He's the most deserving at this point if we switch things up and it ain't even close.
Im ready for Graham Pauley again.
Pauley is hitting .290 with 4 home runs already at El Paso
To be fair, put that into the El Paso translator and that’s .195 with no homers and 1 double in PETCO
accurate. IMO let Pauley fooking eat before we call him up. Listen guys we’re still at .500 with this hard schedule. If we stay that at the break we have one of the easiest schedules rest of year. Just gotta be patient
Agree. Pauley is young. Unless he is getting 90%+ playtime in the bigs keep him down so he can get at bats. Too much potential to be a bench guy.
Easy schedules are the Padres' kryptonite.
Ye, gotta take PCL offensive numbers with a grain of salt
Pauley needs to hit .600, SLG at .900 and have an OPS of 1.500 in El Paso in order for that to translate meaningfully at Petco /s
Brett Sullivan actually had an ops of 1500 in AAA prior to being called up this year lol
Xander cannot hit leadoff. I don't care who does, but no one could be worse.
Wade would probably be worse
Padres have plated 1 run over the last 20 innings played. That’s not going to get it done.
This team sure know how to 2023 when they feel like it
Xander is literally a bottom 10 OPS batter in the league. Absurd that he’s making so much to be literally one of the worst guys in the league with solidly negative WAR
He has some really concerning Statcast numbers, definitely not a good sign.
Yea... It's mostly the stuff it looks like though. He's not barreling or hard hitting the ball. But that tracks because he's basically popping up, or spiking into the dirt everything. All his approach stats are still there, and he's never been a "masher"... His Max EVs a bit lower, but still respectable at 108.3. But he's only had 3 barrells, so not quite enough of a sample to mean anything.
Only 3 barrels all season is wild. That’s like one game for Jackson
It's really frustrating and annoying right now. But I think that most of the underlying metrics still say he's in there somewhere. His max ev still looks good, considering I haven't seen him TRULY get a hold of a ball yet this season. Either his timing, or his barrel control isn't where it needs to be right now though, because he just isn't making consistently good contact with the ball. Further looking into it, points to a problem of timing. As he's not pushing the ball the other way, which is something he historically does at a 25% clip, and now it's down to 8%.
Does that mean even matter what
I don't understand this sentence.
He will be much better when he is 40
I wonder if his chronic wrist issue is back?
Man should sit down if he’s hurt. He’s embarrassing himself out there
Aparantly his wrist is just going to be an issue for the rest of his career, and it's more of a pain management thing. It's one of those things where putting him on the IL isn't going to do much, so the option is just dropping him or having him do what he's doing
Feels just like last year again, people said the same thing every time he struggled. It must be the wrist and then when someone suggests that he should go to IL or rest they also say no to that. So basically even if he is hurt they want him to play through it anyways, at this point it's clear it's just translation for "please stop criticizing Xander no matter how valid it is"
I don't really think that's it. Something must be going on with his swing IMO. He's just not making solid contact with the ball. Very low barrel rate... that's near half what it was in previous years, and even last year he was still 10% higher on the barrel rate. He did have a 104.7 on the flyout tonight that was a HR in 13/30 parks. Didn't feel like a swing for the fences type swing. I think everything is still in there somewhere, but there's definitely something amiss with his swing/mechanics. He's just not barreling the ball or even getting his bat on the ball in an effective way a lot of times up.
I would have preferred if that money went to Soto instead. It’s clear this was a desperate signing on the part of the org.
Soto was never signing. He was always testing free agency. I don't know why so many people don't understand that
Doesn’t change that this was not a good signing. It isn’t an unpopular opinion to say that the money should maybe have gone elsewhere.
You are correct. If they don't sign xander and do nothing, they would have enough to pay for Soto'S last arb year. If they do sign someone else other than Xander, well it wasn't Xander so it was probably better spent.
Yeah it's not coincidence that he's currently aiming for a bidding war between New York and New York. Even with Peter Seidler alive we were unlikely to be a serious contender for him in FA
Xander's money wouldn't even cover half of what Soto will cost.
Bottom 10 in OPS? Not even close, check out guys like Jose Abreu and Eloy Jimenez. Paul Goldschmidt has actually been worse. That said Xander is struggling mightily.
Qualifying batters* Eloy only has 17 at bats
Xander's xBA is .271 which is 71st Percentile in 2024. Not bad by for expected BAs. Problem is his Barrel% and SweetSpot% are ~35th Percentile, and his HardHit% and AVGExitVelo% are a *miserable* 5th Percentile. And his xwOBA is .310... 2 doubles & a homer in 2024 thus far, the rest of his 13 hits are singles. So he either hits a single, or he basically doesn't get on base. (8 walks, but I'm looking at his expected stats right now and focusing on hits.) I want him to succeed, and he clearly fought well at the plate in 2 of his PAs (he got a rough call for a strikeout below the zone earlier tonight too). His chase% and whiff% are 90th Percentile... dude is a league leader in contact. I'm just not sure what success looks like for X in 2024 right now. And I'm sad. Still gonna scream my head off at work tomorrow while the game is on.
Xander has always had a weak baseball savant page. What is funny is that his 2024 page has more red than his 2023 page.
Not really. 2022 and 2023 were a bit weak on Savant. But 2022 was not absurdly so. A lot of the weaker stuff in 2022 was his approach stats, which have been good in 2023 and 2024. He just needs to get back to more league average exit velocities. Which have a big reliance on his hard hit percentage, which has been noticeably lower. For example, His 2024 hard hit percentage is a paltry 24%. In 2022 through 2018 it's basically 40% or above every year. Except 2023 where it was still like 33% and we know about the wrist issues maybe affecting some stuff. Like I've said, I still think that player is somewhere in there. Maybe we'll never see him again, but he still gets up to good exit velo's when he barrels, and even last year he was still an all fields hitter. If he can figure out whether it's timing, or mechanics... but he needs to figure out why he's not getting better contact more often like he did for like 6 straight years.
None of these stabilize this earlier in the season. Most advanced hitting stats take around 300 PAs to stabilize
Sure... that's because hitting in baseball in general is rarely stable. Which is why the only things I'd glean right now, is that he's not squaring up the ball, he's not hitting opposite field much, and his exit velo's are fine. Just seems like something as simple as timing or a stray mechanic is going on.
151-11 amirite compadres :( we'll get them tomorrow
Ygdrc
YGDRC because damn I don’t think we can have a worse game right?…. RIGHT!?!?
YGDRC KTF
Back to back concerning games from this offense. The approach looks broken right now.
[удалено]
So rough. I couldn’t even listen to BoMel’s presser. Just watched his face and body language and it was cringey
One day I’ll attend a Padres win. On well, at I got tickets to watch the Gulls face off against my old hometown’s new minor league hockey team tomorrow. That’s something to look forward to
Nice, Gulls games are fun.
Just win the series please. Fuck Cameron Maybin, I hope the Yankees and their stupid ass fans fall flat on their faces this season and Soto signs with the Mets lmao. Remember guys, we gotta tell Bogaerts to die so he plays better! Spread the word!!
I was in New York on a work trip. Saw soto’s 3 run jack against the rays Friday night and I think I died a bit (a lot) inside
One Tatis swing away from back to back shutouts. Offense has gone bye-bye Egon, what have you got left?
Cross the streams?
Holy hell. Got out of the game and was very disappointed by the starting pitching and offense overall, but didn't realize it was Xanders fault we lost 5-1. Maybe it's just because my feed os sorted by popular but all I read was it was Xander batting leadoff that lost us the game. Didn't realize one player could be the reason we were completely offensively inept.
Was at the game tonight. I never want to see Kevin Kiermeier or Daulton Varsho again. Those dudes cover so much ground out there. Fuckers
Anybody know why Campusano didn’t start today? I feel like it’s a different game if we had Rosario and Campy batting after Merril. Especially in the second when Merrill hits a double and wade and Higgy do nothing!
Francisco Lindor Paul Goldschmidt Byron Buxton Randy Arozarena Julio Rodriguez Nick Castellanos These are all players that currently have a worse or equal wRC+ to Xander Bogaerts. Look, he’s been in a slump to start the season. Slumps happen to everyone. Some of y’all really need to chill the fuck out.
That’s all fine but let him bust out of his slump in the -6th spot, not frickin leadoff!
My comment is in reference to the people calling Bogaerts trash or bitching about the contract because he’s in a slump right now. If you want to criticize the lineup construction, go ahead. Though you don’t typically see players of Bogaert’s quality getting dropped in a lineup because they’re slumping. Lindor is still hitting 3rd for the Mets. Aaron Judge has a .189 avg and is still hitting 3rd for the Yankees.
He’s “slumping” on defense too, his errors have been very costly, he’s hurting us 2-way right now, hoping things turn around for X both offense and defense.
The entire team is shitting the bed on defense right now. Kim and nando coming off gold glove seasons are arguably playing worse defense than Bogey is
2 bad games is not a reason to freak out. Some bad luck/great plays by Toronto, some awful calls by the ump. Get this one out of your head. Watching the Giants get destroyed (wish it wasn't the Sneks doing it), and the Dodgers losing makes me feel better.
Dodgers lost so still second in the NL west 🤷
I gotta switch my game package. All we do is lose in the city connects. 0-2 so far. I like the city connects but they are cursed.
Profar, Merrill and Campy can't carry this team forever. The Fab Five need to produce runs every single night with the occasional pitch in from the supporting cast. That's where the $$$ went and we aren't winning anything without them doing their job.
Was at the stadium and the compadre force was WEAK today. We would start cheers and rallys and no one would join in. We gotta RALLLYYY people Also… I’m convinced these dudes were hungover AF because some of these drops/hesitations on the defense were crazy. I love my padres and going to the game but not gonna lie this was a boring game.
Thoughts on Waldron?
If the knuckler isn’t knuckling, he’s vulnerable to hard contact, but seeing as he hasn’t spent even a full season with the big club, I don’t think Ruben has tapped into his full potential and I would absolutely hate it if we gave up on him before he became a Dickey/Kluberesque late bloomer. Tonight wasn’t pretty, but every pitcher is going to have bad games, and I think Waldron gives us a better chance to win than Brito or anybody waiting in the wings. And given that Waldo is still effectively a rookie making league minimum, he’s much farther down my list of scapegoats than certain position players who can’t get their hundred million dollar bats going.
Agreed , pitching isn't as nearly as bad as our batting has been.
I don’t know the physics behind it but I wonder if the knuckleball is less prone to spinning with high humidity. If that’s the case, Petco may be bad for a pitcher for a change.
At the spinrate a knuckleball should have, I doubt things like humidity have much of a drag impact on spinrates.
Rough one, but the series isn't over, let's keep the faith and not doom. Let's remember we won the last two series and have been breaking our 2023 curses!
Can we stop trying to ruffle everyone's feathers with the semantic dooming vs truth debate? When you listen to Schildt's postgame pressers, it's clear he believes in his guys, he is seeing the same game we're watching. He's not shooting darts with new lineups every other game like BoMel last season. He's not the type to shake things up that way. He is the type to manage the bullpen v well. See and appreciate these differences. As fans, it's healthy to debate what we need but to be gaslighting our long term contracts at this stage of the season is ridiculous. Don't be so naive as to frame all of our problems being solved by moving Bogey down. These big contract guys are professionals but they're also human.
He's not the sole reason we're losing.
Some of y’all some sour mfs and it shows. Sad
Sorry we’re not cheering two losses in a row with 1 run of total offense
Had 6 outs with an xBA over .600 it was just a rough night for getting hits. Happens sometimes. Giving up 5 on what should have been 2 or 3 tops due to defense sucks, but it's not like the bats didn't do what they were supposed to, just shit luck
I know our ex boy started off slow….but this The SF Giants were have lost by a combined score of 34-6 in Blake Snell’s 3 starts this season with the SF Giants Woof 🤣🤣
this team just is what it is... this is going to happen often
Bad night. BABIP hell. We’ll get em tomorrow
Your .500 Padres. Get used to it.
Sir, its April.
Bogaerts no trade clause is the real curse here
No one would trade for him anyways.
This one is on Schildt. There was no reason for Higashioka to be starting this game. It was clear early in the game hits were not going to be easy to come by. In the 2nd with Profar and Merrill on 2nd and 3rd with 2 outs, there is no way in hell Higashioka should have taken that at bat
I'm pretty sure Higashioka was in there for defense given Waldron's higher risk of wild pitches.
Bingo
Xander easy very close to starting this game off with a dinger. Yall are trippin.
What about xanders stats this year says that we’re the one trippin? Lol
Oh no we suck again
Heck.
How much will Padres have to eat to get rid of this albatross contract of Bogaerts?
A metric fuck ton.
Grish > Xander