The 2018 Padres’ Season By the Numbers

With the 2018 season complete, it is time to delve into the San Diego Padres’ team stats and digest whether or not the team actually made strides in the season. Here is a glimpse at this year’s stats and how the numbers compared to the 2017 major league season.

The San Diego Padres ended the 2018 season on a high note, with a 10th-inning walk-off.

Although Francisco Mejia struck out, Manuel Margot made it home.

Starting Monday, ten teams will play at least one more game, including Padres’ rivals in the National League West, the Los Angeles Dodgers and Colorado Rockies.

With the goal of playing more than 162 games in the not so distant future, the front office for the home team will face many questions this off-season and will definitely be addressing areas in need of improvement.  In order to address those areas, the Padres will need to evaluate the team’s progress, or lack thereof, this year.

Instead of waiting for that analysis, here are comparisons of the 2017 version of the Padres to this year’s, as well as to the rest of Major League Baseball.

                  Stat                                   2017               Ranking       2018              Ranking

In a team-designated “building” season, the statistics in many categories match the results: another losing season. For the eighth year in a row, the Padres didn’t reach the .500 mark.  Worse, the team lost more games in 2018 (96) than in 2017 (91).  Yet again, the team fired the hitting coach at the end of the season last year and hired Matt Stairs. It’s past time for the front office to admit the problem with San Diego’s offense does not lie in the hitting coach’s approach, but has much more to do with the guys actually playing the game.

At the beginning of the season, one of the major goals was improving a miserable on-base percentage. Instead, that number actually went down from an unacceptable .299 to an even less acceptable .297. Obviously, teams that don’t get on base don’t score runs. Unless Cy Young pitches every night, that formula just won’t work.

Already, the talk has turned to the off-season, which just may be one of the most interesting in Padres’ history. The multiple ways in which the team must improve in order to actually become competitive will undoubtedly guide the choices made. Then fans will just have to “wait until next year” with fingers crossed.

Diane Calkins

Baseball has been a part of Diane’s life since her father played professionally (mostly at the minor league level). She has written for a number of publications and concentrated on companion animal welfare. She welcomes the opportunity to write about the sport she loves. Diane shares her home with her husband and a house full of rescued animals.