San Diego Padres: The 2010s All-Decade Team
By Ben Fadden
. All-Decade Infield. . player. 127. .
Nick Hundley, Catcher
Nick Hundley is hard to forget in the minds of Padres fans, as he was the catcher from 2008-2014 before going to the Baltimore Orioles during the 2014 season.
In 7 seasons in San Diego, he composed an OPS of nearly .300 with 47 home runs. Hundley wasn’t the best offensive catcher but he was pretty reliable behind the plate.
I understand that some fans might have expected Yasmani Grandal or even Austin Hedges to be the catcher. But in Grandal’s case, he only played with the Padres for parts of three seasons and only played in over 61 games once in his career.
Hedges has also just played in over 100 games in two of his first six seasons with San Diego, and his playing time continued to decrease in 2019 with the arrival of Francisco Mejia.
Yonder Alonso, First Base
Yonder Alonso played four seasons with the San Diego Padres from 2012-2015. His best season with the club was in his first season with the Padres, as he hit .273 with over 60 RBI. A big stat that stood out to me for Alonso was the fact that in 2012 he only missed seven games of the whole regular season, which means he was able to be relied on by Bud Black.
Adrian Gonzalez could have an argument right now that he had the best Padres career of any first basemen in the franchise’s history, but like with Hosmer, he just didn’t play enough in a Padre uniform during this decade.
Wil Myers is another logical candidate, but he only played first base until Hosmer arrived two seasons ago.