Padres News: Analysts Break Down Underlying Issues in San Diego Leading to Consistent Disappointment

An underwhelming year.

San Diego had sky-high expectations for their 2023 season and met those projections with a season likely void of playoff baseball.

Many analysts have multiple answers on who's to blame at Petco Park for their woes, pointing the finger at several people within the organization for this year's failure. 

“There’s obviously a clubhouse chemistry problem here,” DeRosa said. “[Padres general manager AJ Preller] wants to amass as much talent as possible, stick it in a room and say, ‘Hey Bob Melvin, it’s your job to figure out where it all goes.’ It’s like, ’Hey, here’s six shortstops, figure out where they all play.’” “Who’s the alpha male in the room? For me it’s Manny, probably. But then you bring in Bogaerts, you bring in Soto, Tatis shows back up, sometimes it gets lost in translation. You’re asking Bob Melvin to put all these personalities together, for whatever reason it just hasn’t come to pass.”

via Mark DeRosa, MLB Now

Ego seemed to be a massive problem within the Padres' locker room this season and it's not a surprising outcome considering their cast of superstars. 

Shortstop Xander Bogaerts inked a massive contract in the offseason and joined Machado, Tatis Jr. and Juan Soto for one of baseball's most potent lineups on paper. 

2022 unfortunately seemed to be the exception and not the rule to Preller's formula after late-game execution and poor chemistry doomed this year's Friars to a fourth-place NL West finish. 

Since Preller's first year as the top executive in 2015, San Diego's talent only translated into two playoff years in 2020 and 2023 that both fell short of a World Series title. 

Ownership already signaled a decreased payroll is likely on the way for 2024, meaning that several in the organization, both players and staff, could be headed out the door in the near future.