There’s no time like the present to buy some San Diego Padres stock in MLB futures markets

The National League playoff race is an interesting one, with five teams separated by four games vying for three wildcard spots.

None of those teams are named the San Diego Padres.

And while the 2023 season has been a disaster for the Padres, they’re not out of contention yet, and they have the tools to make a second-half run (All-Star talent, aggressive general manager).

Is now the time to buy low?

The Padres have a star-studded roster. They just haven’t built any chemistry or consistency.

But the Padres are beginning to find exactly that.

Manny Machado is starting to heat up. He has the second-highest wRC+ of any hitter in baseball over the past two weeks (267), a welcome sight given his struggles for most of the year.

Machado’s positive regression means San Diego’s “core four” hitters now all have an above-average OPS. Juan Soto is crushing the baseball, Fernando Tatis Jr. has a wRC+ approaching 140, and Xander Bogaerts has managed to keep his head above water despite lagging power numbers.

Trent Grisham and Ha-Seong Kim are also hitting well, and the addition of Gary Sanchez has been huge. This lineup has found some depth.

San Diego has the most talented and dangerous lineup in baseball, and it’s finally starting to show.

» READ MORE: Open Championship picks: Back these long shots at Royal Liverpool this week

A few weeks ago, I took a shot at Blake Snell in the National League Cy Young market at 40-to-1. I saw he’d added some velocity to his fastball and that his Stuff+ metrics were rising — Stuff+ is a metric that attempts to capture the “nastiness” of a pitch based on its physical characteristics, such as velocity, movement, spin rate, release point —and thought his upside was rather high.

Snell has a 0.51 ERA and 41.9% strikeout rate in nine starts since. He’s moved to +500 to win the NL Cy Young at some markets.

The Padres have a bona fide Ace.

Snell leads a rotation that features Yu Darvish and Joe Musgrove. That’s as good of a 1-2-3 punch as you’ll find in MLB.

In fact, the Padres lead MLB in starting pitcher ERA.

And don’t forget about the bullpen. Closer Josh Hader quietly has 22 saves and a 1.03 ERA. They’re short on middle relief arms, but I expect San Diego to fix that issue (more on that later).

This is a quickly-improving, talent-laden team.

» READ MORE: Denny Hamlin, Martin Truex Jr. open as co-favorites to win at Pocono Raceway on Sunday

The Padres had a sub-.200 batting average with runners in scoring position (RISP) through mid-June, an unsustainably low number (it would’ve been an MLB record).

Since June 16, the Padres have scored the third-most runs with RISP in baseball (101).

Positive regression always finds you.

The Padres have also been underperforming their Pythagorean record. Their +42 run differential mark implies a 52-43 record, as opposed to their actual 45-50 record. A big part of that is a 5-16 mark in one-run games, and their close-game luck should flip as the season progresses (i.e., expect extra one-run victories in San Diego in the second half).

San Diego’s first half can be chalked up to poor chemistry and general unluckiness. I think they’ve fixed the former issue, and the latter issue tends to fix itself.

The Padres could still improve.

Expect general manager A.J. Preller to add pieces at the deadline. He’s one of baseball’s most aggressive front-office leaders and always wants to make a splash.

The Padres are in win-now mode, no matter what their record says, so the front office will try and fill any holes they see. These Padres will not be sellers at the deadline.

San Diego has four top-100 prospects, and Preller is fine with moving any of them.

The Padres will likely try to add a back-end starting pitcher (to replace Seth Lugo) or middle reliever (to deal with the bullpen depth problem).

Here are some trade deadline guys to keep in mind for the Padres:

So, you want to buy San Diego stock. What’s the best way to do that?

First, target the Padres to make the playoffs.

You can get odds as high as +400 in that market, which translates to a 20% implied probability. However, FanGraphs projects the Padres with a 25% probability of making the postseason, while Baseball Prospectus projects a 44% probability.

The market is undervaluing this team.

If these Padres put together one winning streak, they’re right back in the Wildcard race. And a fully healthy, fully clicking Padres team is one I’d trust more than the Giants, Diamondbacks or Phillies.

Second, target the Padres to win the World Series.

The 2021 Atlanta Braves went 44-45 with a +19 run differential in the first half. They reorganized their outfield, got healthy, saw positive regression, and cruised to an NL East title and a championship.

This feels like a very similar story, and I want to buy now before these Padres string together a winning streak.

You can get the Padres as high as 65-to-1 in the World Series market, and that’s worth some couch change.

» READ MORE: Full sports betting coverage from The Philadelphia Inquirer

The Inquirer is not an online gambling operator, or a gambling site. We provide this information about sports betting for entertainment purposes only.