San Diego Padres (42-43, fourth in the NL West)PITCHING PROBABLES: Giants:

San Francisco Giants (38-47 Tyler Glasnow Jersey , fifth in the NL West) vs. Shaun Anderson (3-2, 3.86 ERA, 1.34 WHIP, 29 strikeouts) Padres: Cal Quantrill (2-2, 4.66 ERA, 1.34 WHIP, 32 strikeouts)BOTTOM LINE: San Francisco heads into the matchup fresh off a strong showing by Tyler Beede. Beede went seven innings, giving up one run on four hits with four strikeouts against San Diego.Article continues below ...The Padres are 16-19 against teams from the NL West. San Diego is slugging .433 as a unit. Fernando Tatis Jr. leads the club with a .606 slugging percentage, including 25 extra-base hits and 11 home runs.The Giants are 20-22 on the road. The San Francisco offense has compiled a .231 batting average as a team this season, last in the National League. Buster Posey leads the team with a mark of .250. The Giants won the last meeting 10-4. Tyler Beede earned his second victory and Evan Longoria went 4-for-5 with a double, two home runs and five RBIs for San Francisco. Matt Strahm took his seventh loss for San Diego.TOP PERFORMERS: Franmil Reyes leads the Padres with 25 home runs and has 42 RBIs. Tatis Jr. is 12-for-38 with a double, a triple, three home runs and eight RBIs over the last 10 games for San Diego.Kevin Pillar leads the Giants with 12 home runs and has 47 RBIs. Longoria is 9-for-30 with two doubles, three home runs and eight RBIs over the last 10 games for San Francisco.LAST 10 GAMES: Padres: 4-6, .259 batting average, 5.20 ERA Adam Frazier Jersey , outscored by two runsGiants: 5-5, .268 batting average, 3.29 ERA, outscored opponents by 17 runsPadres Injuries: Adam Warren: 10-day IL (forearm), Garrett Richards: 60-day IL (elbow), Jacob Nix: 60-day IL (elbow), Aaron Loup: 60-day IL (elbow), Dinelson Lamet: 60-day IL (elbow), Brett Kennedy: 60-day IL (shoulder), Jose Castillo: 60-day IL (hip), Travis Jankowski: 60-day IL (foot), Franchy Cordero: 60-day IL (elbow).Giants Injuries: Nick Vincent: 60-day IL (pectoral), Johnny Cueto: 60-day IL (elbow), Travis Bergen: 10-day IL (shoulder), Steven Duggar: 10-day IL (back). Can Willians Astudillo make the opening day roster?"The Marwin Gonzalez signing was a pretty dang good move in a vacuum. However nothing happens in a vacuum, (except literally everything if you zoom out far enough) and his inclusion means someone else’s exclusion. That exclusion has a pretty good chance of being utilityman/catcher and international sex icon, Willians Astudillo.Here’s some cursory roster crunching for you: Erasing the (probable) 13 pitchers and the starting lineup we have an entire 3 spots left. New friend Marwin seems a lock for the utility infielder slot http://www.piratesfanproshop.com/authentic-josh-bell-jersey , and carrying an actual fourth outfielder seems like maybe a good decision. That leaves the backup catcher spot.“But Tawny, Astudillo is a catcher!” you may have just yelled at your computer or phone. I can’t hear you though, that’s not how technology works. You can not stop this. Everyone’s favorite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle certainly CAN catch, but is his utility ability (say “utility ability” aloud, it is super fun!) enough to push him past probably backup Mitch Garver?The short answer is yes. The long answer is also yes, and we’re going to go with the long answer because I still have jokes to make. Let’s take a look at a few categories.Wins Above Replacement:Using straight bWAR from last season, Astudillo actually beat out Garver by an entire .1 wins. In fact Wild Wild Willians racked up his 1.0 WAR in a measly 97 plate appearances, 238 fewer than Mitch. However, that’s just, like, the past MAN. Let’s take a look at some projections. ZIPS loves Astudillo, in fact it projects him at 2.0 WAR and the most playing time among the catchers. His projected WAR doubles probable starter Jason Castro’s and dwarfs the 0.7 projected for The Garve.Point Astudillo.Defense:For some reason I always think Astudillo is a mediocre catcher, but that must just be me being an idiot, because Astudillo performed reasonably well in his (admittedly small) time behind the plate. He caught base thieves at a 33% clip (to Garver’s 18%) which is above the 28% league rate for the year.He also let zero balls pass, which is a very admirable talent. Astudillo also overshadows Garv in pretty much every fielding metric one can find.Point Astudillo.Minor League Options:Both Garver and Armored Armadillo Astudillo have minor league options left. However Astudillo has 3 to Garver’s 2, giving the Twins more future flexibility if Garver starts the year as the backup ball catchman. Point Garver.Pitching?????:Why not? I’m sick of pretending I’m good at real analysis! Both the catch boyz pitched one inning in relief last year. Garver’s inning was a real beauty, giving up one hit and no runs. Astudillo however gave 5 runs on 5 hits and 2 dingers. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT YOU GUYS STOP LAUGHING AT ME.Point Garver.The Tie Breaker:We once thought such intangibles to be immeasurable Ivan Nova Jersey , but I’m here to introduce to you my new metric, CAR. Curvature Above Replacement.According to an unquestionably scientific google search, the average weight of a major league baseball player is 207lbs, while the average height was 6’2”. This gives the platonic body of a Major Leaguer a BMI of 26.6. Body Mass Index (BMI) is a somewhat quick and dirty value derived from mass and height to determine if a single person falls into various categories like underweight, healthy, and overweight. Overly high and very low BMI have been linked to various health issues, and some European countries have even banned the usage of fashion models with egregiously low BMIs in certain instances to help combat anorexia. The MLB average BMI of 26.6 is actually slightly in the “overweight” category, likely due to the unusual amount of muscle pro athletes build up. However as Astudillo and Bartolo Colon have proven: We like ‘em even bigger! The 6’1” and 220 pound Garver snags a BMI of 29 and thus a CAR of 2.4. The 5’9 Astudillo is officially 225 pounds, and while that seems a bit off, we’ll roll with it. This gives him a 5.6 CAR. An amazing value!Astudillo wins!Conclusion: Astudillo is the clear winner here, and the poster boy for Curvature Above Replacement. Will he actually break camp with the team? I have no idea. I just wanted to analyze his curvature as a joke after saying in the very last thing I wrote that I did not want to do that. With Jason Castro being signed to real human money and Astudillo having more options than Garver, it wouldn’t be a total surprise to see Willy Astudillo and the Chocolate Factory start the year in Rochester.(The real loser of the Marwin signing is likely Ehire Adrianza or Jake Cave, btw.)Make sure you don’t take all this talk of body weight too seriously! You are beautiful however you are and the only one who can decide the healthy weight for you is you!