NL West Power Rankings After One Month of Baseball

Look, the San Diego Padres are currently fourth in the division, but that probably won’t last. No, they aren’t going higher than that, likely for the rest of the season. That’s unless they somehow land Mike Trout in the next week. But that’s not happening, so you’re stuck with rookies learning the big-league level at a minimum.

You’re also stuck with Jered Weaver, whose HR/9 is sitting at a lovely 3.14. More than a quarter of the fly-balls surrendered by him have ended up being home-runs. He’s a middle of the rotation guy for them. As a team, their percentage of home-runs on fly-balls is the second worst in baseball. The Giants are currently within the top ten in that category.

There are some really encouraging things with the future of the Padres though, as Manuel Margot, and Hunter Renfroe have been decent to start the season. Their averages are well below what people think they’ll be over the course of their career, and that’s probably ok for their first month in the big leagues. They do, however, have 8 HRs between them, which is more than the entire Giants outfield put together. But, hitting was going to be the strength of this Padres team anyways.

The Padres had a great April, and frankly the version of these San Diego Padres is likely the best version of them possible. If they continued at this rate, they’d end up with 66 wins, which is just about right for them. They will likely sit last in these rankings throughout the season, unless the Giants are really just this bad (they aren’t).