Fan Q&AAAA: Padres' Offense not Totally Offensive

We here at TPP are very much interested in what you, the fellow fan wants to know about the collective heartache we call our San Diego Padres.

"Betcha won't guess where FOX put their mic."

Our friend Joe R. poses us our first ever question! Congrats Joseph, we really wish this honor meant something. Tell your mom!

Joe R. sez:

"Who will be the top 3 offensive producers for the Padres in the 2013 season?" 

It can be relatively easy to ascertain offensive value using a handy metric called wRC+. While the Fangraphs entry doesn't get into the guts of how the stat is calculated, it's a pretty simple idea: every positive event a batter can create (and every positive or negative event a baserunner can create) can be tabulated into a single metric to show how one player's offense compared to league average while accounting for the player's position and ballpark effects. The "+" means the value is normalized - that is, every point above or below 100 is every percentage point that player is better or worse than average, respectively. The stat is not perfect, but it works on the whole very well.


#1 - Chase Headley (2012 wRC+:  145 in 699 PAs)

Chase showing us his boomstick.

An easy pick for the first slot. Headley has had an overall bill of good health (excluding a pinkie injury that ended his 2011 campaign prematurely), is an on-base machine, and reclaimed the power he flashed in AA. While I don't think Headley will have a season as valuable as last year's Herculean effort, his health and production should place him at the top of the team's offensive contributors.

#2 - Carlos Quentin (2012 wRC+:  146 in 340 PAs)

Eat bat, get strong.

Quentin on his best days, represents an offensive force just as fertile as Headley: TCQ strikes out almost half as much as Headley, and Quentin's HR/FB% isn't screaming "Regression!" at the top of its lungs. Quentin's issue, as it always has and most likely will always be, is his ability to stay on the field, having averaged 464 PAs the last five years. In addition, Quentin's fielding remains a liability and will serve to reduce his PAs even further via late-inning defensive replacements.

#3 - Yonder Alonso (2012 wRC+: 108 in 619 PAs)

Alonso was good in 2012, but he's not one to... ah, forget it.

Alonso was spectacularly slightly above-average in his 2012 campaign, but I think there's a lot of room to grow in his sophomore season. His HR/FB% sat at a measly 6.4% (league average is generally around 10%, though some hitters show the ability to have HR/FB% above or below that mark). With a favorable regression as well as the modifications to the RF and center-RF fences, I believe Alonso could see his HR total creep up to the mid-to-late teens and cement his place in the five- or six-hole.

 Honorable mentions: The RF platoon (if you're asking for top offensive production by position, they'd make the list at #2), Jedd Gyorko, Logan Forsythe.