Padres Trent Grisham Hopes to Be a Better Leader After Learning from 2020 Struggles

Padres center-fielder Trent Grisham says he's learned from the 2022 struggles kept him from being the clubhouse presence he wanted to be.

Padres center-fielder Trent Grisham had a season to forget in 2022, posting a league-worst .184 batting average with an anemic .626 OPS. He still provided excellent defense in center, winning his second Gold Glove, but at the plate, he just seemed lost for much of the season.

As Kevin Acee writes in the San Diego Union-Tribune, the rough season wore on Grisham in ways that he regrets. While he's not expected to be the team leader on a roster with guys like Manny Machado, Juan Soto, and incoming veterans Nelson Cruz and Matt Carpenter, Grisham is still the center-fielder on a team that went to the NLCS last year, and there's a certain responsibility that comes with that.

“It’s tough to stay positive through that,” Grisham said. “I’ll admit I wasn’t. I let it get to me, and it made me not the person I wanted to be in the clubhouse every day. I think I learned from that, to be able to, when I’m struggling this year — because it’s gonna come, it’s inevitable — that I can keep my keep my same presence in the clubhouse, come to the field with the same attitude every day.”

For Grisham, the struggles were a nightmare, and while he appreciates the lessons he was able to learn from them, he's not quite to a point where he can say he's glad they happened.

“I learned a lot,” Grisham said. “It was tough to go through. And if it would have been my choice, I definitely wouldn’t say I want to struggle this much and really get beat down. But I think I’ve learned a lot from it — stuff that I’m gonna be able to apply into this year and going forward in my career. I think it was somewhat of a necessary evil to go through it. So I’m just really excited for what’s to come.”

This spring has already looked better for Grisham, but as he said, struggles will come. The nature of baseball says it won't be long before he has the chance to apply the lessons he learned last year.