Reason for optimism: The offense outscored nine different teams last season -- including the New York Yankees!
Reason for pessimism: It was all a cluster luck-driven mirage.
And you thought Brock Osweiler got lucky in 2016. Last year, the San Diego Padres continued their multiyear offensive ineptitude by finishing last in the majors in both batting average and on-base percentage for the third year running. Of course, those two readings only measure the frequency of getting on base and by which manner; they don't distinguish between singles and, say, home runs. Unfortunately, slugging percentage does, and the Padres finished 28th in that category. That's 30th, 30th and 28th in three categories that go a very long way to accurately predict a team's run production. Yet the Padres finished 21st in runs scored.
Their component skills profiled very similarly to those of the Phillies, but they outscored Philadelphia by 76 runs. Washington outscored San Diego by 77 runs, and I assure you the Nationals' offense was orders of magnitude better as compared to San Diego's than the Padres' offense was as compared to the Phillies'.
