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For 7 years now I've started the season by talking about milestones. It was a couple years ago where I split up the format. Back in October, I reviewed the milestones that were achieved in 2014. Today I am just talking about the milestones that might be achieved in 2015. Some of these will be easy to achieve and arrive early, some will be a player whose recent seasons point to him being on pace for a milestone and some will require a career year to achieve. To me it is all worth noting. The fun part of this post for me is to remember the names of Padres past that will have their numbers bested by the players of the present. A chance to respect the Friars of yesterday. Sometimes you also get a new found respect for the players of today and their unnoticed longevity with the San Diego ballclub. Now, on to the milestones.
Let us begin with the longest tenured current Padre. Will is no longer a starter for the team, but he will get some chances and his longevity with the club brings with it some heights among the franchise leaderboards. But first let's start with some round numbers.
Round Numbers:
- 263 Plate Appearances from 3000. He should be able to get this even with just part time play.
- 31 At Bats from 2500. Obviously a pretty easy number to hit barring injury.
Franchise Leaderboards:
- Needs 1 Triple to break a tie with Garry Templeton for 4th place in franchise history at 36. He needs 3 to tie Dave Winfield in 3rd place, but Will only managed 2 triples and won't get as much playing time this season.
- Needs 10 Stolen Bases to tie Enzo Hernandez for 8th place. Will currently has 119 in his Padres career. He only swiped 11 bags last year, so it might be safe to assume he'll stick at 9th place.
- Many that watch Venable know that he has a penchant (like many major leaguers these days) for striking out. He currently has 649 Ks in his Padres career. That puts him in 5th place in franchise history. He's 20 behind 4th place's Phil Nevin and 35 behind 3rd place Garry Templeton.
Round Numbers:
- 7 Stolen Bases from 100. He has only swiped 8 bags combined over the last 2 seasons, but perhaps the extra rest that comes from being a bench player and possible pinch runner will help him get to the century mark.
- 127 At Bats from 2000. Even as a bench player that seems very doable in 2015.
- 39 Hits from 500. Not exactly a notable milestone when it comes to hits, but 500 looks kinda cool.
Franchise Leaderboards:
- Needs 7 Triples to reach the franchise top 10 in that category. He currently has 17 and sits tied in 16th place with Kevin McReynolds. Once in his career (2011) has he knocked 7 or more three-baggers. If somehow, someway he could get that many with the Padres he'd pass Ozzie Smith (19), Everth Cabrera (20), Bip Roberts (21), Nate Colbert (22) and Dave Roberts (23) while catching Luis Salazar (24) in 10th place.
- Needs 37 Stolen Bases to reach the franchise top 10 in that category. This is a similar story as triples. He currently has 74 and sits in 17th place. Once in his career (2011) he topped 37 stolen bags. Steve Finley (85), Quilvio Veras (87), Roberto Alomar (90), Rickey Henderson (91), Luis Salazar (93) and Damian Jackson (100) await ahead of him on the way to catching Garry Templeton (101) in 10th place.
Round Numbers:
- 4 Plates Appearances from 4500. This also means he's 504 from 5000 for his career, which is an amount he eclipsed last season as well as 4 other seasons in his career.
- 18 Home Runs from 200 for his career. 2013 was the only time since 2007 where he didn't hit at least 18 dingers, so hopefully he will be reaching that mark in his first season as a Padre.
Round Numbers:
- 213 At Bats from 4000 for his career.
- 36 Home Runs from 200. Upton's career high in this category is 31, so 36 is definitely a stretch, but definitely fun to root for.
Franchise Leaderboards:
- It's a little weird to look at the franchise leaderboards for a player in his first year, but there are always single season records. One of those has a decent chance of being broken by Upton. Unfortunately its a negative statistic. In 2007 Mike Cameron set the Padres record for striking out the most in a single season with 160 whiffs. Last year Upton struck out 171 times. The year before he was fanned 161 times.
Round Numbers:
- 91 Plates Appearances from 1500. A full season with regular starts could see him get 591 and reach 2000. In 2012 he accumulated 619 PAs, so it's doable.
- 233 At Bats from 1500.
- 25 Doubles from 100. He had 39 two-baggers in 2012, but hasn't topped 20 in any season since.
- 157 Hits from 500. This would be a career high, he only had 150 in 2012.
Round Numbers:
- 210 at bats away from 3000. He last did that in 2013, but he was a starter then and isn't now.
- 9 RBI are all that is need for him to reach 500. Even if he were limited exclusively to pinch hitting, that's a mark he could hit. If healthy.
Franchise Leaderboards:
- Needs 6 HBP to reach the top spot in that category. He currently has 30 HBP as a Padre and is in 6th place. He trails Khalil Greene (32), Tim Flannery (32) and Gene Tenace (35) as well as co-leaders both Kevin Kouzmanoff and Chase Headley (36).
Round Numbers:
- 57 Plates Appearances from 4000.
- 402 At Bats from 4000. He's had that many at bats in plenty of previous seasons, but with Alexi Amarista likely getting most of the starts at SS, this seems unlikely in 2015.
- 116 Hits from 1000. Another unlikely one, but potentially doable in a single season under the right conditions. However, the only time he equaled or eclipsed 116 Hits in a season was in 2009 when he had 135.
- 6 Doubles from 200. He only had 5 in a limited role last year, but has been in double digits in this category most seasons of his career.
- 14 Home Runs from 100. You laugh, but he actually once hit 23 in a single season. However, that was back in 2009 and he played his home games at Coors Field.
Round Numbers:
- 14 Games away from 300 Games for his career.
- 15 Games started away from 300 Games Started.
- 89 2/3 Innings from 2000 Inning Pitched.
- This is Shields' 10 season in the big leagues, so he has a chanced to do some things for the 10th consecutive season. Those include 20 Games/Games Started, 100 IP, 100 Ks.
Round Numbers:
- 24 Games from 200 Games Pitched.
- 26 Games Started from 200 Games Started.
- 34 Strikeouts from 1000 Strikeouts for his career.
Round Numbers:
- 32 Games Started from 100. He only started 31 last year, but pitchers who make every start can hit 33 or 34 in a season.
- 30 2/3 Innings from 500 Innings Pitched. This milestone should take around 5 starts to reach.
- 84 Strikeouts from 500. Should take somewhere around 13-16 starts to reach this one.
Franchise Leaderboards:
- The 500 IP listed in the Round Numbers section can be a bit of a magic number as far as the leaderboards are concerned. It's the number that allows you to qualify for rate stats like ERA. However, the 500 IP target mentioned earlier was for his career, which wasn't all with the Padres. He needs 179 1/3 IP in 2015 to get to 500 as a Friar. That's doable. If he does that and maintains his current Padres ERA of 2.95, he'd be tied with Greg Harris for the 2nd best ERA as a Padre (behind Trevor Hoffman's 2.76). Only one other Padre has an ERA under 300 (Dave Roberts). It'd be a nice little milestone for Ross.
- WHIP is also another stat affected by the 500 IP mark. If he gets there his current 1.188 WHIP would be good for 5th. He'd slot in between Jake Peavy's 1.186 and Chris Young's 1.191.
Round Numbers:
- 90 1/3 Innings from 500 Innings Pitched. Should take somewhere around 13-16 starts to reach this one.
- 169 Strikeouts from 500. One would think this should be easily achievable for a hard thrower like Cashner, but his career high for a season is 128 strikeouts over 175 IP in 2013. He can only reach this milestone if he can stay healthy all season and even then he might need an uptick in strikeout rate.
Franchise Leaderboards:
- Cashner is in a similar boat as Ross as far as 500 IP and qualifying for ERA. He needs 155 1/3 innings to get to 500 as a Friar. His ERA with the club is currently 3.06. Maintaining that would put him 4th place, ahead of Dave Dravecky's currently 4th place worthy 3.12.
- With WHIP (as mentioned in the Ross section as being another affected by 500 IP) his current 1.155 WHIP would be the 2nd best for the franchise trailing only Hoffman's 1.043, but ahead of Bruce Hurst's 1.181.
Round Numbers:
- Just 2 more IP and Johnson will reach 1000 IP for his career. This one just needs to see Johnson get back healthy and pitching.
- 85 strikeouts and Josh will have whiffed 1000 in his career. Even if healthy this one might be challenging since he'd have to get regular starts at a point in the season where he can accumulate enough of them to reach this total.