Star-Studded Myers-Kemp-Upton Outfield Could Actually Be Padres' Downfall

Here's guessing the average baseball fan probably wouldn't have been able to name even one San Diego Padres outfielder last season, much less all three.

But things ought to be different now. After Padres general manager/tireless trade demon A.J. Preller dealt for Justin Upton, Matt Kemp and Wil Myers over the winter, the team has the most star-studded outfield in Major League Baseball. It figures to be one of their biggest strengths in 2015, on offense anyway. 

It will be considerably less of a strength on defense. And by the end of the season, that could cost the Padres.

But first, let's give credit where it's due. Kemp recently told Lyle Spencer of MLB.com that the best outfield in baseball is "right here in San Diego," and that could prove to be 100 percent true from an offensive perspective.

Upton and Kemp both had an OPS north of .830 in 2014 and combined for 54 home runs to boot. Injuries contributed to Myers having a down year, but in 2013, he posted an .831 OPS and 13 dingers in only 88 games. Impressive stuff considering that all three guys played at pitcher-friendly parks.

For further perspective, we can turn to Weighted Runs Created Plus. It's a FanGraphs specialty that measures hitting value largely the same way OPS+ does: by adjusting for parks and leagues and putting everything on a scale where 100 is average. 

If what the Padres get in 2015 are the 2014 versions of Upton and Kemp and the 2013 version of Myers, they'll have a wRC+ north of 130 at each outfield position. The best outfield wRC+ last season was 129, so there's a chance this year's unit could be the best offensive outfield in baseball. 

Whether that will be enough to make up for what this new outfield does on defense, however, is a surprisingly good question.

Tony Dejak/Associated Press

As of now, the Padres are projected to go with Upton in left field, Myers in center field and Kemp in right field. If we erase the names and replace them with likely realities, however, they'll probably go with, at best, an average defender in left and easily below-average defenders in center and right.

Such is the message you get when consulting the defensive metrics, anyway. And though such things aren't gospel, a lot of the time they can be hard to disagree with.

Take Upton, for example. According to FanGraphs, Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR) and Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) rated him as a well-below-average left fielder in 2013 and as roughly an average left fielder in 2014.

You'd expect better for a guy with Upton's athletic reputation, but that reputation doesn't really apply anymore. He's become more of a slugger in the last two seasons and has seemingly lost a step in the outfield as a result.

Player	POS	UZR	DRS
Upton	LF	-9.0	-8
Kemp	RF	-7.8	-1
Myers	RF	0.4	-11

As for Kemp, the metrics have long viewed him as a horrendous defensive center fielder. The Los Angeles Dodgers finally got on board with that in 2014, but moving him to right field only helped so much. The UZR and DRS metrics rated him about three runs below average in just 500.1 innings.

This, too, makes sense. Kemp's athleticism had few peers not too long ago, but he's gone downhill partially as a result of age and even more by a slew of injuries, including ankle and hamstring issues. He always had an iffy route-running talent, and it's now compounded by diminished speed.

Which brings us to Myers. He's primarily played right field in the big leagues and not terribly well according to the metrics. For his career, UZR puts him right at average (0.4), and DRS puts him at well below average (minus-11).

That doesn't bode well for his future as a center fielder. Neither do these calculations offered by Carson Cistulli of FanGraphs:

"

Turning our attention to Myers, specifically, we find that he’s produced 0.4 UZR/150 in right field over the first 1279 innings of his major-league career at that position...Given the calculations present here, one could reasonably expect him, as a center fielder, to concede nine more runs defensively in 2015 — should he, in fact, play that position for the Padres.

"

I bolded that one part, which catches one's attention. And as to that last part, there's really no way for the Padres to avoid using Myers in center field. They need his bat in the lineup. And at 24, he at least has youth on the 27-year-old Upton and 30-year-old Kemp.

At any rate, we can take everything we've looked at and come up with a ballpark figure for how many runs San Diego's new outfield will concede in 2015. If Upton is only average while Kemp and Myers are below average, you're probably looking at a minimum of 15 runs lost on defense.

To put that in perspective, we need to go back to the 2014 Padres' outfield defense.

It was very much a part of what was overall a very successful campaign from a run-prevention perspective, as Defensive Runs Saved said it was the ninth-best outfield in MLB with 15 runs saved. Thus, going from that outfield to San Diego's new group could mean a 30-run swing in the wrong direction.

And if that's not scary enough, it bears repeating that could be the minimum defensive cost of San Diego's new outfield.

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It would be one thing if the Padres' new-look outfield was at least going to have the luxury of a small outfield to roam or a ground-ball-heavy pitching staff. But they figure to have neither of these things in 2015.

On the bright side, data compiled by Cork Gaines of Business Insider shows that Petco Park only has about an average amount of square footage in fair territory. Since the club moved the fences in a couple of years ago, the outfield hasn't been unreasonably big.

On the less bright side, you'd certainly sooner have Upton, Myers and Kemp patrolling a below-average amount of square footage when playing at home. Worse, they won't get any reprieve at other NL West ballparks. Coors Field, Chase Field, AT&T Park and Dodger Stadium all have pretty big outfields.

And given the makeup of it, the current Padres pitching staff figures to need that ground covered.

According to FanGraphs, San Diego pitchers were middle of the pack in ground-ball percentage in 2014. Their two best offseason acquisitions—high-priced starter James Shields and underrated reliever Brandon Maurer—likely won't boost that number. Maurer was very much a fly-ball pitcher in 2014, and Shields has generally struggled to be anything more than an average ground-ball artist.

It's hard to predict precisely how San Diego's ballpark and pitching staff will impact the defensive performance of its new outfield. But a good guess is that it could mean something as bad as 30 runs below average instead of 15, which would be a 45-run swing in the wrong direction.

Now, a team isn't necessarily doomed by outfield defense that bad. Last year's Dodgers and Detroit Tigers, for example, both won division titles despite being in the neighborhood of minus-30 Defensive Runs Saved from their outfielders. If nothing else, that goes to show how far a team can go with above-average pitching and offense.

However, whether the Padres can follow in their footsteps is questionable.

2014 RA/G	BP 2015 RA/G	FanGraphs RA/G
3.56	3.67	3.67

Rather than a superteam that can overcome any major weaknesses, Baseball Prospectus and FanGraphs only have the Padres projected as a wild-card contender. Part of the equation involves them being about as good at preventing runs as they were in 2014. Knowing what we know, their new outfield defense could very easily prevent that from becoming reality.

Put simply: The Padres are most definitely new and improved, but they still don't have a huge margin for error. And in the end, their new outfield defense could make the window even thinner.

This is not to say Preller wasted his time in trading for Upton, Kemp and Myers. The organization should benefit from the buzz he created in doing so, and their offense alone should ensure the Padres are at least relevant in 2015.

But if the Padres' season ends with them on the outside looking in at October, don't be shocked if their new outfield defense is the primary culprit for why it happened.

Note: Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference unless otherwise noted/linked.

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