2023 Padres Season Review: Trent Grisham

2023 Regular Season Statistics

1.7 fWAR, 153 G, .198 AVG, .315 OBP, .352 SLG, 91 wRC+, 67 R, 50 RBI, 13 HR

Positives From This Season

Trent Grisham’s defense is still there. He finished 2023 at 7 outs above average, which is at the 93rd percentile (great), according to Baseball Savant. Padres President of Baseball Operations AJ Preller will continue to bring up the value he gives the club in center whenever he’s asked about why Grisham keeps getting all this playing time.

Negatives From This Season

Grisham continues to struggle at the plate, as 2023 was his second consecutive season hitting under .200 with an OPS under .670. His lack of consistent production only made things worse because it’s not like the rest of the lineup was doing their job good enough either.

Consistency was a big word in San Diego this season and it’s the same with Grisham. Nobody is saying the talent isn’t there. It’s just that it’s not there often enough.

For example in June, the 26-year-old had a respectable .747 OPS followed by a .742 OPS in July. But then in August and September his OPS dropped down to .478 and .676 respectively.

He’s under contract for two more years and it feels like every offseason fans keep bringing his name up in possible trade scenarios but he’s not getting cheaper as he gets closer to free agency and you have to ask yourself what teams would give the Padres good players for someone who is a bottom of the order below .200 hitter?

Bottom line: his offensive production needs to be better.

“With Grish, he’ll be the first to tell you that the last two years offensively, you know, he’s capable of more and obviously we feel like he’s capable of more,” Preller told the media during his end of season zoom conference. “Clearly with Trent he plays defense at a Gold Glove clip so I think that’s both sides of the ball, that’s part of the equation with Trent but clearly for us and for Trent this offseason is, you know, he’s had you look back at 2020 he was a huge part of what we did in ‘21.”

“I think it’s getting him into a place where we’re seeing more of that version of Trent Grisham here next year because of what he’s able to do defensively in center field in Petco is a real thing. But yeah I think the offensive improvement component is something we’ve gotta make sure we get right going forward and I think he’ll be the first to tell you that and that’ll be a big goal for us this offseason.”