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Major League Baseball unveiled its All-MLB Teams presented by MGM Rewards on Saturday in Las Vegas, with a pair of Padres receiving First Team honors -- Blake Snell and Josh Hader.
Obviously, that news comes with a caveat: Both Snell and Hader are currently free agents. Neither is likely to pitch for San Diego in 2024.
Still, it's a noteworthy achievement. In Snell's case, he's the first Padres starter to make First Team All-MLB, after Dinelson Lamet earned Second Team honors in 2020.
Which got me thinking … wouldn’t it be cool to know which other Padres, historically, would’ve made an All-MLB rotation, prior to its implementation in 2019? And that question got me poring over year-by-year data to uncover the most deserving candidates.
Formally, we’ll never get an answer. But I came up with these 11 All-MLB rotation-worthy seasons, in addition to Snell’s and Lamet’s:
1971 Dave Roberts (Second Team)
Who knows? The 1971 Padres were bad, and Roberts finished with a 14-17 record. Given the standards at the time, it’s likely Roberts wouldn’t have cracked All-MLB. But this is my list, dang it! Roberts’ 2.10 ERA remains the lowest full-season ERA in franchise history, and he pitched a whopping 269 2/3 innings with 14 complete games. Roberts is plenty deserving.
1975 Randy Jones (First Team)
Jones’ 1975 season was something to behold. He posted a National League-best 2.24 ERA across 285 innings while completing 18 of his 36 starts. It was remarkable, but not quite as absurd as …
1976 Randy Jones (First Team)
What an utterly mind-bending season from an erstwhile era. Jones wasn’t quite as dominant in 1976, with an ERA half a run higher. But he pitched an absurd 315 1/3 innings, making 40 starts with 25 complete games. And amid all those starts and all those innings, Jones -- ever the quick-working ground-ball specialist -- struck out only 93 hitters.
1978 Gaylord Perry (Second Team)
Perry became the Padres’ second Cy Young winner in three seasons, posting a 2.73 ERA while leading the NL with 21 wins. But with a number of dominant AL pitching seasons, I think Perry is bumped to Second Team status here.
1989 Bruce Hurst (First Team) and Ed Whitson (Second Team)
In franchise lore, this team is seriously underrated. The 1989 Padres won 89 games (as many as the 2022 team) and finished with the third-best record in the NL, but they missed the playoffs pre-Division Series. In any case, they were led by dominant seasons from Hurst (15-11, 2.69 ERA, 2.96 FIP, 244 2/3 innings) and Whitson (16-11, 2.66 ERA, 3.69 FIP, 227 innings). Not to mention closer Mark Davis, who won the franchise’s third Cy Young Award.
1990 Ed Whitson (First Team)
Whitson got even better in 1990, notching a 2.60 ERA while leading all NL pitchers with 7.0 bWAR.
1995 Andy Ashby (Second Team)
There were some serious aces atop the sport’s pitching leaderboards in 1995, so I’m skeptical that Ashby would’ve earned All-MLB. But again -- it’s my list! In an era when offenses were exploding, his 2.94 ERA trailed only Greg Maddux, Randy Johnson and Hideo Nomo, and Ashby ranked 10th among pitchers in bWAR.
1998 Kevin Brown (First Team)
The best pitching season in Padres history -- and it's still a crime Brown didn’t win the NL Cy Young after splitting votes with teammate Trevor Hoffman.
2004 Jake Peavy (Second Team)
Some interesting debate here, as Peavy only threw 166 1/3 innings in his breakout 2004 campaign. But they were 166 1/3 utterly dominant frames, as Peavy notched a 2.27 ERA, the lowest full-season mark by a Padre this century, until Snell bested him this year.
2007 Jake Peavy (First Team)
Peavy, of course, took home the NL Cy Young and Triple Crown in 2007, his finest season in the big leagues. Based on this hypothetical list, he’d have been the fifth Padres starter to make First Team All-MLB -- and the last to do so until Snell in 2023.