Padres 2016 Season in Milestones

For the 7th straight year, we’ll wrap up a Padres season talking about the players’ milestones. Milestones, for those that haven’t participated before, are about Padres players setting league (rare) or career (somewhat rare) records, moving up the Padres franchise leaderboards, or reaching big round numbers in certain notable statistics. Back in April, I previewed the Padres season in milestones by looking at ones that were likely to happen. You can go check that out first if you want. A sort of side effect of looking at the year in stats for a Padres team also tends to be a final opportunity to appreciate and say goodbye to players that are no longer with the club. We will cover a few of those players including Andrew Cashner and our lead off man for this post: Matt Kemp.

Matt Kemp, OF

Round Numbers:

• 5000 ABs: Kemp actually reached this not-so-sexy milestone before leaving the Padres. Did you miss the fanfare? lol.
• 1500 Hits: A nice milestone for Kemp, but he belatedly reached it with the Braves after the trade.

Franchise Leaderboards:

• Home Runs: With 20 dingers for the Friars this season, Kemp tied Ruben Rivera for 30th in franchise history with 46 homers.
• Runs Batted In: With a nice 69 RBI, Kemp tied Bip Roberts for 30th on the franchise RBI list with 169 of them.

Wil Myers, 1B

Round Numbers:

• 1000 ABs and 1000 PAs: Hopefully this won’t be the last time Myers reaches 4 figures in a statistics during his Padres tenure.

Franchise Leaderboards:

• 160 Strikeouts: I really thought last year that Justin Upton would easily set the Padres single season strikeout record, but it turned out that it was a year later with Wil Myers that Mike Cameron’s 2008 record would be equaled. Still not broken though. Seems like it’s only a matter of time before someone does it.
• 28 HRs, 94 RBI and 99 Runs Scored: Myers had a great year, and these numbers should be applauded. They all got into the top 50 on the Padres single seasons, but weren’t ones that got him into any top 10s. HRs tied 1997 Steve Finley for 22nd. RBIs are part of a 4 way tie for 28th. Runs was good enough for 16th.

Yangervis Solarte, 3B

Franchise Leaderboards:

• Runs Batted In: Solarte finished 2016 with 64 RBI for his Padres career. That put him a 3 way tie with Mike Ivie and Ozzie Smith for 45th.
• Home Runs: With 33 round trippers Solarte moved into a tie with Chris Denorfia and Carlos Quentin for 46th place.

Melvin Upton

Round Numbers:

• 5000 At Bats and 2000 Total Bases: Both happened with the Padres.
• 300 Stolen Bases: He got most of the way there with the Padres, but his last 9 with the Jays got him all the way to the even 300.

Franchise Leaderboards:

• Stolen Bases: Melvin’s 29 swipes in (20 in 2016, 9 in 2015) helped him accumulate enough to tie Marvell Wynne for 43rd on the franchise list.

Andrew Cashner

Round Numbers:

• 200 Games and 100 Games Started: Both ended up getting achieved after being traded to the Marlins.

Franchise Leaderboards:

• Top 15 ERA: Sadly, Cashner used to be the top 10 in ERA before the season and was top 5 in ERA before 2015. He finished tied with Mark Thurmond for 15th with a 3.67 ERA for his Padres career.
• Top 15 WHIP: In this category, Cashner actually finished exactly where he started the year at #14 with a 1.272 WHIP.
• Top 20 Strikeouts: Cashner just barely got over 500 strikeouts, finishing with 505. That was good enough to finish 16th in franchise history. He passed Steve Arlin, Tim Lollar, Dave Dravecky, Greg Harris, Andy Hawkins and Chris Young along the way this year.

Brad Hand

Franchise Leaderboards:

• Top 2 Singles Season Games Pitched: Brad Hand was such a favorite of Andy Green that his 82 games pitched is second only to Craig Lefferts’ 83 games in 1986.

Drew Pomeranz

Franchise Leaderboards:

• Top 10 Single Season ERA: Pomeranz’ 2.47 ERA stands as the 9th best single season ERA in franchise history.
• Top 10 Single Season WHIP: Drew’s 1.059 WHIP will sit as the 7th best sinlge season WHIP in franchise history.
• Top 2 Single Season Strikeouts/9 IP: The lefty hurler’s strikeout efficiency at 10.147 K/9 was second only to Oliver Perez’ 2003 season.
• Top Single Season Hits/9 IP: I don’t normally mention this category, but since it was the best mark in club history at 5.912, it seemed worth pointing out.

Fernando Rodney

Round Numbers:

• 250 Saves: The arrow shooter finished the season with 261 saves and since 17 of his 25 saves this season came with the Padres, he crossed the 250 save milestone while still with the San Diego club.

Franchise Leaderboards:

• Top 15 Saves: 17 saves is still good enough for 15th place in franchise history.