Padres roster review: Wil Myers

Sizing up the Padres’ 40-man roster heading into the 2022 season: Wil Myers’ was quietly one of the NL’s most productive hitters in 2020 but underwhelmed last year

By Jeff Sanders

Jan. 26, 2022 5 AM PT

WIL MYERS

Position(s): Outfielder
2022 opening day age: 31
Bats / Throws: Right / Right
Height / Weight: 6-foot-3 / 206 pounds
How acquired: Via trade with Tampa Bay Rays in December 2014
Contract status: Will make $20 million in the final guaranteed year of a six-year extension; the Padres will owe Myers a $1 million buyout if his $20 million club option is not picked up in 2023.
Key 2021 stats: .256 avg., .334 OBP, .434 SLG, 17 HRs, 63 RBIs, 56 runs, 8 steals, 54 walks, 141 strikeouts (146 games, 500 plate appearances)

STAT TO NOTE

.194 — Myers’ batting average against breaking balls in 2021, down from .308 in 2020 while posting career-best .959 OPS, good for ninth in the NL and tops on a Padres team in which two of his teammates — Manny Machado (.950) and Fernando Tatis Jr. (.937) — finished in the top-four in MVP voting. After a breakout 2020 season in which he did most of his damage on breaking pitches (.723 SLG, 7 of 15 homers), Myers’ struggles with spin torpedoed his and the Padres’ hopes that he’d string together two productive seasons.

Down — Signed to a six-year, $83 million extension before the 2017 season, Myers’ stay in San Diego had largely underwhelmed since representing the Padres in both the All-Star Game and Home Run Derby in 2016. In fact, he was a middling .249/.328/.428 hitter who’d been shifted from first base to third base (briefly) to all three outfield positions when he put together his best season yet in 2020, albeit in a COVID-19-season. He was not only one of the most productive hitters in a suddenly star-studded lineup in San Diego, his .606 slugging percentage was the second-highest ever by a Padre behind Ken Caminiti (.621 in 1996) and his home run rate (13.20 AB/HR) was the third best in club history behind Greg Vaughn (11.64 in 1998) and Fernando Tatis Jr. (13.18 in 2020). But instead of building on that season or even a solid start to 2021 (.824 OPS in in April), Myers hit a cold spell, hitting .245/.307/.395 over 45 games in May and June. That stretch included losing 10 games to a positive COVID-19 test. He rebounded the next two months (.855 OPS), but not quite in time to assure himself a starting spot as the Adam Frazier trade and a recurrence of Tatis’ shoulder woes left Myers, Tommy Pham and Trent Grisham in a hot-hand-plays situation in the outfield. Myers, with a .783 OPS after the All-Star break, was at least warmer than Pham (.649 OPS) and Grisham (.630 OPS), but another uneven year did little to improve Myers’ stock as either an anchor bat in the lineup or a trade chip.

2022 OUTLOOK

With the lockout halting offseason planning, Myers, the longest-tenured Padre, seems destined to at least begin the final year of his contract in San Diego (the Padres hold a pricey $23 million club option that likely will not be picked up). Where the trade rumors go from there — and in his walk year there figures to be as much as ever — will have a great deal to do with Myers’ contributions to the team’s success and whether new hitting coach Mike Brdar can iron out his streaky tendencies.