Five Stat Friday: Padres Offensive Issues & The Matt Stairs Effect

*All stats used do not include Thursday’s game* 

Padres’ Offense Remains Mediocre
After limping through the first week of the season, the Padres’ offense made some noticeable improvements in week two. It was a quiet weekend of offense in Houston, but the Padres were able to push their share of runs across against the Rockies in Colorado. However, the Padres still remain pretty mediocre on offense by a variety of numbers.

The graph above plots wOBA (Weighted On Base Average) against xwOBA (Expected Weighted Base On Average). To clarify, weighted on-base average is basically a combination of batting average and on-base percentage that is adjusted for league and attempts to measure a player’s overall offensive contributions. wOBA weighs each offensive event based on run expectancies, adds up all those values, and divides by total plate appearances to get a number that is on the same scale as on-base percentage. By comparison, xwOBA is a similar calculation that uses expected results, based on quality of contact (which includes launch angle and exit velocity), to demonstrate what a player’s wOBA should look like given contact quality. As a further clarifier, a player could have a wOBA much lower than his xwOBA because of bad BABIP luck or lots of hard hit balls that are being caught for outs.

Back to the chart above, the Padres currently sit in the middle of the pack by wOBA, at exactly .300. By contrast, the Padres xwOBA of .302 puts them among the worst teams in baseball, with only the Milwaukee Brewers, Tampa Bay Rays, and Miami Marlins trailing. So what this tells us is that the Padres are among the worst teams in the league in terms of quality of contact. To further elaborate on this point, what follows is another chart demonstrating that contact quality among all teams in baseball.

Based on that chart, the Padres currently sit in the bottom third of the league in both average launch angle and average exit velocity. Currently, the Padres have an average exit velocity as a team of 87.3 mph, good for 22nd in baseball alongside the Arizona Diamondbacks and Baltimore Orioles. By launch angle, the Padres are at 9.9 degrees, which puts them ahead of seven other teams who have an average launch angle under 10 degrees.

However, there might be a silver lining here.

The Padres are the 12th best team in the league in terms of Isolated Power measured by ISO, which is basically a player’s slugging percentage minus their batting average. So the Padres may be struggling on offense overall, but they are doing a good job of getting extra-base hits. However, there is another negative here, as the Padres have the third most whiffs in baseball behind only the Rockies and Orioles, two other teams with poor overall offensive numbers. Takeaway: The San Diego Padres’ offense isn’t very good, but at least they do a good job collecting extra-base hits.

Franchy Cordero and Sky-High Ceilings
With a hit by pitch off his ribs, center fielder Manuel Margot found himself placed on the disabled list on Wednesday morning. Just like last year, Franchy Cordero was chosen as the first man up to replace Margot. And in his first big league action on Wednesday, Cordero did not disappoint.

Only 17 balls have been hit over 115 mph so far this season. Franchy Cordero did just that in his third at-bat of the season.

The funny thing is that wasn’t the ball Cordero hit over 115 mph (115.1 to be exact). Prior to that, Cordero grounded out to second baseman DJ LeMahieu. Now a groundout to second is not a lot to write home about, but two balls hit over 110 mph in your first game of the season is definitely something worth noting. The ability to make that kind of contact isn’t a fluke, and Cordero has one of the most valuable skills in baseball. Add to that his ability to impact the game in the field and on the basepaths, and Cordero may have one of the highest ceilings of any current Padre. It’s all about the strikeouts now.

The Matt Stairs Effect?
I swear I am not trying to just pile on here, but the Padres’ offense is bad for an entirely different reason. When baseball teams struggle to find offensive success, the hitting coach is usually the one to take the blame. Last year, the Padres struggled on offense, and predictably, hitting coach Alan Zinter was let go. This offseason, the Padres snatched away Matt Stairs from the Philadelphia Phillies and brought him on to be the new hitting coach. All offseason, and really all spring training, Stairs and manager Andy Green stressed having better at-bats, working more walks, and getting on base more often.

Although it’s only been 12 games, results have been fairly mixed so far.

Not only do the Padres currently rank 27th in baseball with a 7.1 percent walk rate, but they also sport the third highest strikeout rate (25.9 percent) and are 22nd in baseball with a .301 on base percentage. For some comparison, the Padres posted a 7.7 percent walk rate, 25.2 percent strikeout rate, and a league-worst .299 on-base percentage. Sure, it’s definitely a small sample size, but the Padres have yet to make noticeable strides in plate discipline in any meaningful way. Taking it a step further, the Padres also sport a 12.2 percent swinging strike rate, which is the fourth worst in baseball and also have one of the worst contact rates in baseball.

Outside of the trio of Eric Hosmer, Freddy Galvis, and Carlos Asuaje, who all have walk rates over 10 percent, every other Padre regular has a walk rate under nine percent, with several guys with no walks or nearly no walks (Christian Villanueva and Cory Spangenberg have yet to walk while Jose Pirela is under two percent). Add to that, Austin Hedges, Manuel Margot, Hunter Renfroe all being under the league average, and it’s clear the Padres have not made any noticeable improvements in walk rate. Beyond that, every Padre regular except for Carlos Asuaje (14.8 percent) has a strikeout rate over 20 percent. Taking it one step further, only three Padres’ regulars, Freddy Galvis (.423), Eric Hosmer (.414), and Jose Pirela (.333), have on-base percentages over .300. Not good.

It remains to be seen the effect Matt Stairs has on the Padres’ offense, but the early results are not promising.

Pireliacs Assemble!
There is not a single San Diego Padre that has impressed this guy more than Jose Pirela. The stat line doesn’t really jump out at you, with a .316/.339/.421 slash line through 57 at-bats, but Pirela has been very impressive. If you look beneath the surface, Pirela has been one of the best hitters in baseball by average exit velocity. Among all major leaguers so far this year, Pirela ranks third with 21 balls hit with an average exit velocity of 95 mph or higher, a number which trails only Andrelton Simmons and DJ LeMahieu (23 each) and Carlos Santana and Jose Abreu (22 each). If you lower that to 90 mph, Pirela is tied for seventh with 26 balls of at least 90 mph. That’s definitely a skill, and something you can’t teach a player. Pirela hasn’t walked as much as you would like (with a 2 percent walk rate on the year), but he has done more than enough to show his value. On top of that, Pirela has been a positive contributor on defense so far (0.8 DEF)! Team Pireliacs all the way!

Padres’ Staff Succeeding Without Velocity
That’s enough negativity on the Padres’ offense. Let’s talk about some positives. The pitching staff isn’t terrible! More importantly than that, the pitching staff has quietly been pretty good.

As of Thursday afternoon, the Padres’ pitching staff has an average pitch velocity of 87.8 mph, which is less than a mile per hour higher than the lowest average velocity in baseball (the Cleveland Indians). However, despite not pitching with a lot of velocity, the Padres are statistically one of the better pitching staffs in baseball. By wOBA, the Padres .287 ranks 11th best in baseball. By xwOBA, the Padres’ staff ranks third in baseball at .291. So not only have the Padres had pretty solid wOBA numbers as a staff, but even better numbers when you take into account quality of contact.

By most measures, the Padres are among the upper half of teams in baseball in terms of pitching. Slugging percentage; top 10. Isolated Power; top 10. Batting Average; top 10. Strikeout rate; top 15. Walk rate; top 15. ERA; top 15. FIP; top 10. Batting average; top 15. You get the point. The Padres’ pitching hasn’t been great in any one way, but overall, they have been much better than expected.

Patrick Brewer

Editorial and Prospect Writer for East Village Times. Twenty-five years young, Patrick has lived in San Diego for his entire life and has been a Padres fan nearly as long. Patrick lives for baseball and is always looking to learn new things about the game he loves through advanced stats.