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Padres News: That’s Why You Play The Game

By Billy Brost

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I think everyone who follows the San Diego Padres would agree that anything short of a playoff appearance in 2015 would deem the season a failure. After all, new GM A.J. Preller stripped the once-ranked sixth-best farm system in all of baseball, watching it drop to 18th overall out of 30 teams, and reloading the big league roster to win now. Multiple media outlets have deemed the Padres at or near the top of the winner’s list for winter activity, and while teams can be rebuilt, reloaded, and prepared for success in the winter, it’s the actual pieces playing out the marathon 162-game schedule that determines whether or not winter efforts were indeed successes or failures. 

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Add to the list of outlets that say the Padres are due for October with Baseball Prospectus’ recent PECOTA projections for the 2015 season. The well-respected projection system has the Friars staring 83 wins square in the face, which would be good enough for the fifth-best overall record in the entire National League. Thanks to Mr. Selig and his expansion of the current playoff format to add a second Wild Card team, that would put the Padres in the postseason if everything played out as projected.

PECOTA was even kind enough to give us some projections on some of the Padres who need to perform well if the team is going to be competitive. For instance, the brand new threesome outfield of Wil Myers, Justin Upton and Matt Kemp, all project to have a 3.0 or better WAR. PECOTA does believe that a pair of Padres’ hurlers might take a step back from their solid 2014 seasons in Tyson Ross and Ian Kennedy. Ross has to show last year wasn’t a flash in the pan, and Kennedy has to show that he is more in-line with his work in Arizona than most of his body of work in San Diego. While Kennedy pitched more than 200 innings and struck out more than 200 hitters, he does have some incentive: it is his free agent walk year, and he’s pitching for big dollars in what will be an extremely crowded 2016 free agent pitching class.

While it is certainly nice to see the Padres getting some national love in the pre-season, I think most fans would agree, especially after watching the San Diego Chargers never fully living up to expectations, to have the Friars fly under the radar in 2015, and make their collective noise on the field rather than in the media. If the bats can all have solid seasons, if Preller can figure out who is going to hit lead-off, along with finding a suitable every day shortstop, 83 wins with this pitching staff may be on the light side. With it being the odd year for the Giants, perhaps the defending champs are being given a little more love than they really should be, while the Padres are still underrated heading into the 2015 season.

Next: Braves Sign Eric Stults, Padres Miss Opportunity

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