30 Teams In 30 Days: People Are Sleeping On The San Diego Padres

This might be one of the more controversial placements on this list. The whole world seems to have forgotten about the San Diego Padres. It makes sense. Last year was their year. They put all their chips to the center of the table and enter the season as World Series favorites. They left the year not even making the playoffs and barely finishing above .500. It was one of the most disappointing campaigns that baseball has seen in a long time. And they lost a ton of talent. Their all-star closer is gone. Their Cy Young winner is gone, and Juan Soto has been traded to the Yankees to finish out the last year of his contract. I understand why people are down on them, but when you look at last year’s numbers, they were something of an anomaly. The team suffered from one huge problem: they simply weren’t clutch at all. They put themselves in a weird position, but just looking at things from a roster perspective, there is still a lot to like here.

I did originally have this team lower a few days ago, but I moved them up a few spots following their trade for Dylan Cease. I feel like the farm system has to be completely fucked by now. If there’s one complaint I have about this team, I’m not sure if they want to do something of a rebuild or if they’re still all in for a championship. Their offseason would make you think they were trying to take a step back, but then they went out and got Cease. I know Cease had it down here last year, and his velo is down a tick, but he still has some of the best baseball stuff, and he will pitch in a large park in San Diego. He and Joe Musgrove are a legitimate one/two punch at the front of that rotation. 

I do feel like this team is in a bad position. In many other divisions, I could see them easily being a playoff team, but given that you have the Dodgers and Diamondbacks in the NL West, it might be a tough go for the Padres. They snuck into the postseason two years ago and did a fair amount of damage. If they can stay consistent, I feel like they could do something like that again.