Padres: Stream Against the Pitchers or Offense?

By Bill Pivetz | Apr 5, 2017

Sep 24, 2016; San Diego, CA, USA; San Diego Padres first baseman Wil Myers (4) hits the go ahead RBI single during the seventh inning of a 4-3 win over the San Francisco Giants at Petco Park. Mandatory Credit: Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports /

The Padres don’t have the best roster on paper. There are a lot of holes on both sides of the ball. What matchup should you take advantage of?

The San Diego Padres are one of a few teams in a rebuilding stage. Unlike the other teams, the Padres seem to be further away from success. This gives fantasy owners the belief that you can stack up on opposing hitters or stream pitchers against their offense. However, I don’t think the latter is completely true.

The Padres starting rotation leaves a lot to be desired. Jhoulys Chacin, Clayton Richard, Jered Weaver, Trevor Cahill and Luis Perdomo are the five starting pitchers. There is not a single pitcher in that rotation that scares me. If you own hitters going up against the Padres or play in DFS looking to load up on one team, it would be against this rotation.

Now, Richard did get the win in the Padres second game but he isn’t someone I would go racing to the waiver wire to add. I don’t see any San Diego pitcher winning double-digit games. They will have their moments but they will be very hard to predict. Who would have thought that Richard would dominate the Los Angeles Dodgers like he did?

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The National League West is home to some good offenses. The aforementioned Dodgers, San Francisco Giants and Colorado Rockies are all division contenders.

Even the Arizona Diamondbacks have some premier hitters. I would avoid the Padres staff in even the deepest of leagues.

On the other side, the offense has a lot of promise. Their star hitter is first baseman Wil Myers. He just missed a 30 HR/30 SB season last year. Second baseman Yangervis Solarte is a solid hitter. The outfield is full of young upside talents in Travis Jankowski, Hunter Renfroe and Manuel Margot. Even catcher Austin Hedges and third baseman Ryan Schimpf have value in deeper leagues.

The Padres had the misfortune of facing Clayton Kershaw in their first game. They scored one run in the first after Solarte drove in Myers with a single. Schimpf hit a home run in the seventh and Margot hit an RBI double in the eighth.

In game two, the Padres scored four runs but it was enough to get the win. Solarte hit an RBI single in the first and a solo home run in the third. Schimpf hit a sac fly in the first. Myers scored the final run in the eighth inning with an RBI single. They knocked Kenta Maeda out of the game after five innings.

The Padres were 14-19 in blowout games last season. Baseball Reference labels a blowout game having a run difference of five or more runs. They were also shutout 15 times. You never know when the Padres offense will put up 10 runs or zero runs or the pitchers will allow that many runs.

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There are only a couple of Padres hitters worth owning in all league types. As a whole, though, this offense can score enough runs to win games. You are obviously not going to bench your ace pitchers but this isn’t an offense you want to stream against on a daily basis. I would rather stack up on hitters against the Padres starting pitchers.

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