Five Padres spring training stories to watch – The San Diego Union-Tribune

Pitchers and catchers report to the Padres side of the Peoria Sports Complex on Wednesday, the beginning to perhaps the most anticipated season in San Diego in more than two decades.

It was just a few months ago that the Padres, powered by the emergence of Fernando Tatis Jr. and with Manny Machado earning every penny of his megadeal, finally pushed their way back into the postseason. Then General Manager A.J. Preller doubled down on opening the Padres window to contend with arguably the busiest winter of anyone in the game.

He added aces. He re-signed one important bat and reeled in another from Korea. In the last week Preller began addressing the back of the bullpen.

Only time will tell if its enough to unseat the defending World Champion Dodgers in the NL West, but well begin to have a better idea of just how the 2021 Padres will come together as we get a better handle on these five pressing stories heading into camp.

News that Mike Clevinger would require Tommy John surgery further heightened the concern for the health of Dinelson Lamets right elbow/biceps. Both were nonfactors in the postseason. Clevinger will not pitch again until sometime in 2022, but Lamet has undergone platelet-rich therapy and has pushed his throwing program to mound work.

Thats the good news.

The problem is no one can be certain of Lamets health until he begins pitching regularly, which finally will happen in Arizona.

The 28-year-old right-hander returned from Tommy John surgery in 2019 and finished fourth in NL Cy Young voting in 2020, striking out 12.1 batters per nine innings and posting career bests in ERA (2.09), WHIP (0.855) and walk rate (2.6 per nine innings) over a 69-inning, COVID-19-shortened season.

Even without Clevinger, the Padres have no shortage of ace candidates hello, Blake Snell and Yu Darvish and Lamet could be better than any of them if he can pick up where he left off before he walked off the mound Sept. 25 with what turned out to be a playoff-ruining injury.

With some order of Lamet, Snell and Darvish leading the rotation, Joe Musgrove joining the mix and Chris Paddack looking to rebound from a disappointing sophomore season, the Padres rotation, one through five, could be the clubs deepest and most talented yet.

Thing is, the depth beyond that quintet could prove just as important as the season stretches from 60 games back to 162.

No pitcher in the majors threw more than 84 innings in 2020 (Darvish was fifth with 76). Starting pitchers tend to account for 200 innings in a given season and the Padres will have to find a way to get their inning total from 520 last year back to more than 1,400.

Even without accounting for the nagging injuries that pop up in a season, safely bridging that gap Darvish is the only pitcher on staff with a 200-inning season on his resume and that was back in 2013, before his Tommy John surgery could require inserting other pitchers into the rotation at times or even going with a six-man rotation through portions of the season.

Candidates from the 40-man roster to pick up some of those innings include left-hander Adrin Morejn, right-hander Michel Bez and perhaps right-hander Reggie Lawson later in the season as he pushes through his Tommy John rehab. Other names to know that might be further along developmentally than top prospects MacKenzie Gore and Ryan Weathers include right-handers Jacob Nix, Pedro Avila and Nabil Crismatt and left-hander Daniel Camarena.

Speaking of Gore, the Padres said an out-of-whack delivery was predominantly what barred him from making his MLB debut in 2020 like Weathers and former teammate Luis Patio. Well, that and the organizations insistence on keeping Gore one of the top pitching prospects in the game in the rotation.

Having worked almost exclusively at the alternate site in 2020, Gores performance this spring should provide the first real opportunity to gauge just how close he is to contributing this year. The same goes for Weathers, who hadnt pitched above low Single-A when the Padres called him up for the playoffs.

CJ Abrams, the sixth overall pick in the 2019 draft, has played in just two games above rookie-ball but also impressed in last years alternate site work. Other youngsters with a chance to show how far theyve come this spring include 2020 draftees Robert Hassell III, Justin Lange and Jagger Haynes and 2019 second-rounder Joshua Mears.

With Kirby Yates signing with the Blue Jays and Trevor Rosenthal still on the open market, the Padres bullpen will look markedly different than it did after nine relievers pieced together a 4-0 shutout to advance out of the wild-card round.

Left-hander Drew Pomeranz and right-hander Emilio Pagn are the leading candidates to close games, but the Padres have deepened that portion of the roster with the additions of Mark Melancon and Keone Kela, although the team has not confirmed either signing.

Beyond those four, well get a better sense of where left-hander Matt Strahm is coming off another offseason knee surgery, whether left-hander Jose Castillo can finally beat the injury bug and just how close right-hander Mason Thompson might be to contributing. After years of development stalled by injury and inconsistency, Thompson was a fall instructional league standout who pushed his fastball up to 98 mph in short bursts while flashing a power slider.

Another name to keep an eye on is James Reeves, a left-hander acquired from the Yankees for Greg Allen who has been a lefty-killer (.152 lifetime average vs. lefties) over four minor league seasons.

The Padres already had the NLs runner-up rookie of the year when they gave $28 million over four years to Ha-Seong Kim, coming off a 30-homer season in Korea. He was expected to push Jake Cronenworth at second base and bounce between shortstop and third base and possibly even the outfield when the Padres brought back the switch-hitting Jurickson Profar on a three-year, $21 million deal.

Profar played all three outfield spots, second base and first base in 2020 in addition to serving as an occasional designated hitter. Of course, the DH is not returning in 2021, leaving the Padres needing to devise just how to get enough playing time for Profar, Kim and Cronenworth.

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Five Padres spring training stories to watch - The San Diego Union-Tribune