San Diego Padres In On Matt Olson Sweepstakes

It has not been an easy "offseason" to swallow for us baseball fans. With the lockout potentially cutting the season short or possibly having no season at all, the news has been little to none. However, the rumors have been making us wonder about all the possibilities. One of those rumors is Oakland A's 1B Matt Olson on the trade radar for many teams including our Padres.

It would be wonderful to see the Padres cap off an offseason by grabbing not only former A's manager Bob Melvin, but also by grabbing one of the best first baseman in the game with Matt Olson. Now yes, the Padres have to focus on some other weaknesses on the squad including the outfield and whether or not they decide to bring back outfielder Tommy Pham. (Previous article on why I believe he should walk.) But the Padres do have an infield problem. What was thought to be the "best infield in baseball" has turned out to be a huge investment with not the same hype living up to it. Unfortunately, current first baseman Eric Hosmer is the one player as the odd-man-out.

Hosmer, 32, signed an 8-year, $166 million deal back in February of 2018. During that time, we were ecstatic and rightfully so. I am a firm believer as if it was not for Hosmer signing with our Friars, Machado would have never even considered San Diego as a destination. Coming into a Padres team looking for answers, it seemed that Hosmer was going to be a big solution. Now the trade rumors that continue to go around his name have put an effect on the clubhouse which was a major reason for the Padres' odd-man-out disastrous second half-season in 2021. Hosmer is about to enter his fifth year into his contract, so let's see the numbers he put up for San Diego.

For the four years combined, Hosmer has produced a slash line of .264/.323/.415 (OPS .738 compared to a .781 OPS with Kansas City previously.) Those are not numbers you expect with a player who signed a major contract with your franchise. The shortened 2020 season was a nice one for Hosmer, but in a 60-game timeframe, it is not realistic. I am not the biggest advocate of WAR as a statistic, however, Hosmer has produced only a 2.7 WAR in four seasons with the Padres which is a major collapse to his 15.4 WAR in seven seasons with the Royals. Hosmer also has 76 career errors at 1B. 27 of those came in four seasons with San Diego and some of them were costly during crunch time. So frustrations began as not only Hosmer's bat was underperforming, but the 4x Gold Glove winner was not producing defensively into which the versatile 2B Jake Cronenworth saw some action at first to shake the lineup a bit.

Olson, 27, had himself his biggest year yet in his career posting a slash line of .271/.371/.540 and an OPS of .911. Along with those numbers, Olson had a career-high 111 runs batted in as well. Olson is also known for his higher slugging and power numbers that help in today's game of baseball. That is what scouts drool for in a player now. Oddly enough, Olson produced higher slugging numbers against left-handed pitching, who tend to pitch down and in which is a sweet spot for lefties as he produced a .608 slugging percentage in 2021.

Like I stated before, slugging has been a key attribute to Olson's career and comparing those numbers to Hosmer, you definitely get an upgrade. Olson has shown a great, powerful swing when putting the barrel on the ball and with more power numbers, the more it contributes to runs being produced for the team. Olson has shown more plate discipline with working the count and getting walks as well.

If the Padres have an opportunity to upgrade at first, the time is now due to Olson's availability. Of course, it is a risk for a player that came off a breakout season compared to his rest but there needs to be change in order for this team to go over the hump. Free-agent moves, trades, you name it, they do fail but we do not know that until you give it a shot in the end. The Hosmer experiment ultimately has been a bust, so why not move on while eating some of the contract for a better left-handed-hitting first baseman? A trade will not be easy despite San Diego willing to give up a top 5 prospect along with taking some of the money. You have to figure one prospect (Gore, Abrams or Campusano) will be brought up by the Athletics. General Manager A.J. Preller has shocked us before with trades, maybe he can do it again and set this squad up for 2022, well, if we even have a season at this point.