San Diego Padres: Expectations for the upcoming decade

Instead of focussing on the past decade, we look towards what the future could look like for the San Diego Padres and what the expectations should be.

Let’s be honest, the past 10 years for the San Diego Padres have been more forgettable than memorable.

I know I said we weren’t going to focus on the past, but allow me to do so very briefly.

Over the last 10 seasons the Padres have had a winning record just once and finished better than third in the NL West just once, and that came all the way back at the beginning of the decade in 2010.

Other than that 2010 season when they won 90 games, the most games a San Diego team has won over the last 10 years is 76.

And making matters worse with that 2010 season, the second Wild Card wasn’t a thing and they missed making the playoffs by a game.

The best season from a Padres player came in 2012 when Chase Headley burst on the scene to hit .286/.376 with 31 home runs, 95 runs, and 115 RBI to go along with an OPS of .875.

He finished that year fifth in the MVP voting and won the Silver Slugger award at third base along with his one and only Gold Glove award.

Headley had a 6.4 WAR season that year, and according to Baseball Reference it was the highest WAR season for a Padre this past decade. And the only time a Padres player had a WAR over 5.

It was pretty much a flash in the pan for Headley as he never put up a similar season and was traded a couple of seasons later.

Needless to say, we are expecting much better things from the Padres in the decade to come. So instead of giving you our all-decade teams from the last 10 years, we’re going to focus on the decade to come.

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.