2022 Padres Player Review: Trent Grisham

2022 Regular Season Statistics

2.1 fWAR, 152 G, .184 AVG, .284 OBP, .341 SLG, 83 OPS+, 58 R, 53 RBI, 17 HR

Positives From This Season

Trent Grisham was usually solid with the glove during the regular season but I’m not going to waste your time with that. We all know the big positive from Grisham was the hot streak he was on in the postseason. The 25-year-old hit .500 with homers off Max Scherzer and Jacob deGrom on back-to-back nights in the Wild Card Series and he wasn’t done there. Grisham hit .308 against the Dodgers and homered in Game 3 of the NLDS, which ended up being the game-winner to put San Diego one win away from the NLCS.

Hopefully Grisham can get back to swinging the bat like that in 2023. If he does, he’ll be one of the best all-around center fielders in baseball.

Negatives From This Season

Unfortunately there were more negatives for Grisham than positives. I’m surprised his WAR was above 2 because he was just that bad on offense. Batting average doesn’t matter as much as it used to but when someone hits .184 in a season, you figure his other numbers weren’t good either and you’d be right to think that.

His average exit velocity (38th percentile), hard hit percentage (25th percentile), strikeout rate (11th percentile) and whiff rate (39th percentile) were all ranked poor according to Baseball Savant.

I’m not a hitting coach so I don’t know how to fix Grisham but I noticed he was aggressive in the zone when he had success early in the postseason so hopefully he can get back to doing that in 2023. The potential is clearly still there.

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