2022 Padres Player Review: Brandon Drury

2022 Regular Season Statistics (with Cincinnati and San Diego)

3.0 fWAR, 138 G, .263 AVG, .320 OBP, .492 SLG, 122 OPS+, 87 R, 87 RBI, 28 HR

Positives From This Season

Weeks before the trade deadline when nobody was talking about Brandon Drury as a trade candidate for the Padres, I did a podcast episode proposing a hypothetical deal for him. I thought his versatility, power and cheap contract would be very beneficial to the franchise for the rest of the season and that ended up coming true.

He finished with an above average OPS+ for San Diego and hit eight home runs in 46 regular season games. When the postseason came, Drury had his moments just like Josh Bell did. The Padres wouldn’t have won Game 2 of the NLCS without his 2-hit, 1 HR, 3 RBI performance. He then drove in two runs in Game 4 to help get his team out to an early lead before Mike Clevinger even took the mound.

Negatives From This Season

One negative was that Drury wasn’t able to have better offensive numbers with the Padres because of a concussion he got because of Dustin May hitting him in the head September 2 in Los Angeles. This caused Drury to miss about 10 days while San Diego was fighting for a Wild Card spot. Obviously that isn’t a negative about Drury’s play. It just stings he wasn’t able to be in the lineup the whole time he was on the team.

Drury, like Bell, is a free agent and it seems like Padres fans would rather have him back over Bell. Do you agree?

If you wish to listen or watch me talk more about Drury’s season on the Talking Friars Podcast/YouTube show, click here!