Return of the Kraken

 

The Twins uniform didn't look weird, this looks weird.

After being released by the Twins at the end of last season, and spending all of Spring Training without anyone signing him, Gary Sanchez, to me, felt like a lost cause. I have to remind people that Sanchez hit .299 in his 60-game debut in 2016, and was at least capable of wielding those numbers before getting lost in a sea of strikeouts and .210 averages. He had a ton of heroic moments with the Yankees, but they were too infrequent, and once the team dealt him to Minnesota for a younger, better catcher, nobody was exactly cursing Brian Cashman. 

And then once Sanchez bobbed around the minors this year, I thought he'd wind up with the same late-career trajectory that Robinson Cano had last year, winding up in all these different cities [San Diego, Atlanta] and trying to restore his credibility to no avail. Sanchez didn't make the team with the Giants, and couldn't do anything with the Mets. When the Padres picked him up, I didn't think anything of it, only that the same outcome was likely.

Somehow, Gary Sanchez has wound up as the starting catcher for the San Diego Padres, as they make their wild card case known. Somehow Gary Sanchez has booted Austin Nola from the position and made him a minor league piece. Somehow Gary Sanchez has formed a platoon with Luis Campusano, who can start behind the plate [and is hitting .300] when Sanchez can be used as DH. And somehow Gary Sanchez has a higher OPS than both Manny Machado and Fernando Tatis Jr. It is absolutely wild, and I think I'm alright with it.

The Padres have had a lot of bad luck this year. Not Yankees levels of bad luck, but close. A lot of the things they tried to keep the team rolling after its 2022 success didn't work: Nelson Cruz, David Dahl, Rougned Odor and Brent Honeywell are all off the team, and Matt Carpenter clearly didn't measure up to his June 2022 numbers. Plus, several of the pieces that seemed a ton more self-assured last year, like Jake Cronenworth, Trent Grisham, Joe Musgrove and, well, Austin Nola, took steps back this year. Especially Cronenworth, who has regressed in practically every category, and is being made to fill in at 1st, which is not his best position.

Yet at the same time, the things that have worked have been things that were underestimated. Tatis is back to his old self, and he's been so well-received because expectations were somewhat low after the PED suspension. Ha-Seong Kim is having the single best season of his career in any capacity, and may steal some MVP votes from Acuna and Freeman if he keeps at it. The titans of the rotation have been people like Blake Snell and Michael Wacha, rather than the over-powered hurlers like Yu Darvish and Joe Musgrove. And Josh Hader's only allowed 4 earned runs this year. Even if the deadline additions are taking a bit to truly blossom, the core of this team is working in ways that people assumed it wouldn't, and it's made the Padres even more interesting down the stretch.

So the Sanchez thing is basically the Padres trying something out, it working, and then going with it at a thousand miles per hour. It's what they've done with Grisham, Cronenworth, Kim, lots of other people they picked up in low-key deals. Sanchez is a higher risk because, like...the downturn can happen at any moment, but his strikeouts are down, he's hitting for power really well, and he's got his highest WAR since 2019 right now. His 15 homers aren't the most on the team, but they're a very good piece of a team that's pulling excellent power numbers.

The Padres right now are in danger of falling out of the wild card race, yet also a good couple weeks of streaking away from landing right back in it. They're 6.5 games out of a spot at the moment, meaning 6 teams are in front of them, but three of those teams, namely the Marlins, Reds and D-Backs, have lost a ton of momentum in recent weeks. This isn't as impossible as one might think, especially considering that Tatis, Machado and Soto are still doing well. It's not as sure of a bet than it was last year, which is a bit of an ego-blow, but it could happen, and if the Padres make the most of some easier upcoming series, it just might. 

Plus, I kinda wanna see how much further the Gary Sanchez San Diego Experience can go. What else does he have left?

Coming Tonight: A well-loved 80s new-wave band with dozens of hits and a recent Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame induction that-...what? Oh, it's a different guy? Oh, that figures.