Padres Offensive Numbers Point to Record Regression in Coming Weeks

The San Diego Padres entered the season with a huge hurdle to overcome. Their best player, Fernando Tatis Jr., has been out the entire season so far after fracturing his wrist during the offseason. The Padres are not without other talents such as Manny Machado, Eric Hosmer, and Juricson Profar. But, Tatis is not only the best player on this team but one of the best in the game.

However, to my surprise, the San Diego Padres have been phenomenal so far without Tatis on the roster. They are in second place in the NL West with a 30-19 overall record. With a .612 winning percentage, the Padres might be the best second-place team in the major leagues. 

Despite all of this, there are some signs that San Diego is not going to play this well indefinitely. This is because of something called “regression to the mean.” This refers to the idea that scores or results considered out of the ordinary will eventually correct themselves. All outcomes in sports are a mix of skill and luck. So, when a team is playing to an extreme, one can assume that a return to their expected performance is incoming. This is why a guy like Mookie Betts can hit 11 home runs in a month, but nobody expects him to have 70+ home runs over the course of the regular season. He will cool off eventually. 

Padres Offensive Numbers are Concerning

Getting back to the Padres, it appears that regression is on the horizon based on a few key indicators. First of all, the Padres are winning a ton of very close games. Close games can often go either way based on luck factors and the fact that the Padres are winning more than 70 percent of these games is a red flag. It is not reasonable to expect them to finish the season in the 70 percent range. This luck factor leaves the Padres with one of the best winning percentages in the league, but the ninth-best run differential. 

Team luck is obviously not the only reason the Padres are succeeding right now. They are not a bad team after all. They are just playing over their heads. One perfect example of this on the field has been Manny Machado. Machado not only leads the Padres in batting average (.347), home runs (8), and OBP (.246), but he also leads the MLB in WAR at 3.2. That is 0.2 points higher than Mookie Betts and Mike Trout. And while Machado is insanely talented, and finished with a WAR over 5.0 last year, he has been very lucky so far in 2022. His BABIP is .396 and one of the highest in the MLB. His previous career-high was .311 in 2018 and his career average is .300. Again, very impressive but he is playing at a level that qualifies as extreme. Therefore there will be a sharp regression by Machado eventually. 

All of this is not to discredit the Padres and the fantastic start they have had to the year. It is just to put their hot streak into perspective and try to warn people about expecting San Diego to continue at this rate for the rest of the season.