Earlier this week I said the Padres would be a Wild Card team and that was based on the fact that Machado and Tatis are already fucking people up and only getting better. Another thing was Hunter Renfroe basically doubling his average homerun total for a year (26) in the first half of the season (28) while Franmil Reyes did nothing but hit bombs.

Well almost nothing but hit bombs.

He’s got 32 extra base hits this year, 25 of which are dingers, easily the highest home-run-to-extra-base-hit ratio in recent history but I digress.

Point is the Padres are trending way up and that’s mostly on the heels of extremely young players. And not for nothing, having 8 guys in the MLB top 100 prospect chain certainly doesn’t hurt the chances of immediately improving in the 2nd half:

Imagine having 8 top 100 guys to work a deal with and then double imagine the fact it’s with the Mets. Before we even get to the Man/Myth/Legend that is Noah Syndergaard can we all agree that the Padres are walking into this under pretty much the best circumstances imaginable?

Great because I’d absolutely LOVE to see what the Padres look like with a rejuvenated west coast Noah Syndergaard throughout the 2nd half. The only thing missing from the Padres to go on a massive run is an arm to follow rookie phenom Chris Paddack. You think hard enough and it becomes a pretty scary club assuming you’ve accepted Fernando Tatis Jr. as a bonafide superstar.

55 games

.327/.393/.620

Opposite the Padres in this are the downright terrible no good very bad New York Metropolitans. They fuck up everything. Easily the most embarrassing franchise in professional sports and I’m going to stop there because that’s just my opinion and I don’t want to get sued by the Wilpon’s for unfair criticism. Fucking Pussies.

Anyways.

Syndergaard.

He kinda sucks this year and it’s because he’s giving up about 70% more home runs than years past, *probably* because the balls are juiced and everyone knows it. Also because he’s a semi-beat up power arm in a horrible environment. So let’s agree that he sucks now relative to normal, but there’s extenuating circumstances that San Diego can offset: better team, pitchers’ ballpark, relaxed atmosphere, way more smokes and an impossibly high quality of life.

*Everyone agrees*

Great.

Because under that mindset it would make sense to aggressively move for him now. He’s got 2 years of control left before free agency which means MAX the Padres are paying is $30M for 2020-21. That’s remarkably low for someone with Syndergaard’s stuff and this is where the blog gets fun.

Let’s just assume Noah rebounds. He’s already gotten progressively better for the last 8 weeks anyways. Say that continues to San Diego…

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Do you remember what a 100% Noah Syndergaard even looks like? The opportunities to find these guys in baseball are extremely rare. There’s a handful of them right now, maybe a dozen or so dudes that look like they were created in a science lab. And because it’s impossible to find, the opportunity to jump on players like this is few and far between so even if he’s trending down you want in because the upside is virtually irreplaceable.

Then from a baseball fan standpoint, the Mets need to get some guys around Pete Alonso first and foremost. That dude can hit 60 a year at this pace and style so if I’m the Mets, I’m targeting an outfielder and infielder to lead the package. And if I’m the Padres, I’m gladly making that deal. If there’s any way to tap into the following, they’re going to be an electric factory come October.

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My personal favorite:

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Not saying he’s the second coming of Clemens but history books are filled with guys that just needed a change of scenery for a reason. Everything here just makes too much sense which means it’s basically up to the Mets to ask for the right players back. Without exaggeration I can’t imagine any team could fuck this up, but if one did it would definitely be the New York Mets. So good luck to my guys on the East Coast. You definitely need it.