This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider.
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Based on what shows up in my inbox and text messages, I think I’ve picked up a reputation as a Padres hater. That’s not remotely accurate. It was just two seasons ago I kept hammering the point that an around-.500 Padres team was far better than its record, and I even insisted they could make the playoffs when they were well off the pace. I believed in A.J. Preller’s build that year. Last year’s team impressed me less, but it went from 2-12 in extra innings to 10-2 -- the entire difference in its ’23 and ’24 records -- and made the playoffs. Pointing that out, not buying into the narrative around the ’24 team, seems to have gotten me a label. (For whatever it’s worth, the Padres are 0-2 in extra innings this year, 8-4 in 1/x games.)
