As the first week of Cactus League play comes to a close, a few players on the San Diego Padres have begun to show hints of a MLB breakout. One of these is non-roster-invitee, Samad Taylor.<\/p>\n
Prior to this year, Taylor had only logged 38 games of big-league experience, posting a .205 batting average in 73 plate appearances, with his longest stint coming with the Kansas City Royals in 2023. Across a nine-year career in the minors, he\u2019s managed a much more respectable .269\/.358\/.425 slash line.<\/p>\n
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A red-hot start in Arizona<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why this first week in Spring Training has been so surprising. Taylor has hit .556 through four games with the Padres, going 5-for-9 with two doubles and two RBI, and kicking off the spring with a ridiculous 1.278 OPS.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s almost certain that this isn\u2019t sustainable production at the major league level. In the past Taylor has raked in the spring only for his bat to go cold once the calendar turns to Opening Day.<\/p>\n
Over six Spring Training invites, he has posted a .358\/.396\/.642 slash line. And while a line like that might make you think of Taylor as an obvious offensive powerhouse, he has yet to put it together in the majors.<\/p>\n
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The fight for the bench<\/p>\n
The problem for Taylor is that the Friars have an abundance of players fighting for bench spots with the big-league club. From the emergence of Jose Miranda to recent mainstays like Bryce Johnson and Mason McCoy, there is no shortage of talent for San Diego to fill out its offensive depth.<\/p>\n
But Taylor does have something over the others: speed.<\/p>\n
Between the majors and minors, he has stolen 40-plus bases over each of the last three seasons, reaching a career high of 51 in 2023. It\u2019s possible he\u2019s brought up to the big-league level simply to act as a pinch-runner for the Padres in certain situations.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to make heads or tails with such a small sample size. But if Taylor can build on his hot start to 2026, it\u2019s easy to see him earning a place in the San Diego dugout come Opening Day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the first week of Cactus League play comes to a close, a few players on the San…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":591576,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2387],"tags":[146,646,5,24292,4993,936,2123,55,2596,2595,1366,4,252,1335,137,18,151,4073,39836],"class_list":["post-591575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-kansas-city-royals","tag-arizona","tag-az","tag-baseball","tag-bryce-johnson","tag-jose-miranda","tag-kansas","tag-kansas-city","tag-kansas-city-royals","tag-kansascity","tag-kansascityroyals","tag-mason-mccoy","tag-mlb","tag-royals","tag-samad-taylor","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-padres","tag-spring-training","tag-surprise","tag-the-san-diego-union-tribune"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116129801792989822","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=591575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/591576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}