2023 Padres Season Review: Rich Hill and Ji Man Choi

2023 Regular Season Statistics (with Pittsburgh and San Diego)

Ji Man Choi: -0.4 fWAR, 39 G, .163 AVG, .239 OBP, .385 SLG, 65 wRC+, 12 R, 13 RBI, 6 HR

Rich Hill: 0.7 fWAR, 32 G, 146.1 IP, 5.41 ERA, 1.524 WHIP, 129 K, 58 BB, 23 HR, 7 HBP

Positives From This Season

Choi didn’t go hitless! That’s literally all I can say about how he positively helped the San Diego Padres. Nothing against him personally obviously but he got two hits in 16 games (.065 AVG).

Hill gave the Padres some innings and had one scoreless appearances, which was as a reliever and came in his second to last game of the season.

Negatives From This Season

To be fair to Choi, he hit some balls hard but they went right at fielders. It’s a results based business though and the numbers say he didn’t perform. Choi didn’t get a hit until the Padres were already officially eliminated from postseason contention.

Hill called his own performances in San Diego crap so I’ll just leave it at that. It never made sense to me that Blake Snell and Josh Hader weren’t traded before the deadline when it was clear this team wasn’t going to go win the World Series. AJ Preller thought the better idea was to bring in some role players and hope for the best.

Now not trading the eventual NL Cy Young winner and one of the best relievers in the game is going to result in no 2023 postseason appearance and getting nothing back but a couple of draft picks (assuming they sign elsewhere which is likely).