San Diego Padres: Expectations for the upcoming decade

Player accomplishments in the coming decade

San Diego hasn’t had a player win the NL MVP award since 1996 when Ken Caminiti took home the award.

And they haven’t had a pitcher win the Cy Young since Jake Peavy did so in 2007.

There is a very good chance both of those streaks come to an end over the next decade.

Fernando Tatis Jr. is the one most likely to win an MVP award. In his rookie season he hit .317 with 22 home runs and had an OPS of .969.

He’ll turn 21 in January of 2020 so he has plenty of seasons left to compete for the award.

Even in an injury-shortened first season he posted a WAR of 4.2.

In order to win the MVP he’ll likely need to put up a 7-plus WAR season, and that certainly seems within reach.

And while it’s been four seasons since Manny Machado garnered MVP consideration, you can’t count him out either with two top-five finishes in his career.

As for the Cy Young award, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Chris Paddack get some consideration over the next decade.

He posted a 2.4 WAR rookie season with a 3.33 ERA in 140.2 innings with 153 strikeouts.

Paddack would need to get that WAR to at least 6 to be in consideration, but I wouldn’t put it past him.

However, if Paddack can’t get there San Diego has two prospects that could certainly compete for Cy Young awards in the coming decade.

MacKenzie Gore and Luis Patino look like possible front of the rotation pitchers and could be Cy Young contenders in the future.

Either way, I have a really good feeling that San Diego is going to win one of these awards over the next 10 years. And my money is on Tatis winning the MVP, maybe in the next five years.