The Padres had one of the best records in baseball during the regular season. You don't do that without a bunch of really good players.
On Sunday a bunch of those really good players got a nice feather in their caps.
Major League Baseball's All-MLB Team finalists were released. This is an honor voted on by fans and a panel of experts to identify the best players in the game regardless of the league they play in. San Diego is represented in four different categories.
Not surprisingly, shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr. made the cut. He became the face of the game during a season where he hit 17 home runs, a .937 OPS, played stellar defense, and had the 4th-highest selling uniform in baseball. The other finalists are Corey Seager of the Dodgers and Trea Turner of the Nationals.
Also not surprisingly is the guy who finished one spot ahead of Tatis Jr. in the National League MVP balloting. Manny Machado is a finalist at 3rd base, along with Jose Ramirez of the Indians and the Dodgers' Justin Turner. Machado got off to a slow start but finished the season with career highs in batting average and OPS, along with playing Gold Glove-caliber defense.
Somewhat surprisingly, the Padres got a third infielder onto the list of finalists. Rookie 2nd baseman Jake Cronenworth made the cut. Jake finished 2nd the NL Rookie of the Year voting after a breakout season where he slashed .285/.354/.477 and was, again, fantastic defensively at multiple positions. He has a tough road going up against Brandon Lowe of the Rays and Yankees batting champ DJ LeMahieu.
The fourth Friar to be a finalist is Dinelson Lamet, one of 12 starting pitchers on the list. Lamet put together a stellar season: a 2.09 ERA with 93 strikeouts in 69.0 innings that landed him 4th in the NL Cy Young balloting before being injured in the final week of the regular season. The other 11 pitchers are pretty good, too: Justin Bieber, Trevor Bauer, Gerrit Cole, Yu Darvish, Jacob deGrom, Max Fried, Clayton Kershaw, Kenta Maeda, Aaron Nola and Hyun Jin Ryu.
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Last year closer Kirby Yates was the only Padre to earn All-MLB honors.
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