What San Diego Padres lineup could look like in 2021, 2022

Even though we still have a full season of San Diego Padres baseball ahead of us in 2020, we look to what this team could look like in the coming years.

We are in a very exciting time for San Diego Padres baseball with a lot of young talent coming into the big leagues and more on the way.

While I certainly don’t want to lose sight of the 2020 season, which I think has the makings of being a very good year for San Diego, now is a great time to start looking towards the future as well and what could be.

Certainly 2020 is the year we all expected this team to start to turn the corner and become competitive.

Some may have thought that would happen in 2019, but that was thinking optimistically. This season is the one where we should see the Padres take the next big step in their development.

But 2021 and 2022 are the seasons where we really should see this team start competing for division titles and even World Series titles.

Now I know a lot can happen over the next year or so, but I think we have a pretty good idea of what the foundation of this team will look like.

We have a young superstar at shortstop in Fernando Tatis Jr. and a veteran superstar at third base in Manny Machado.

On the pitching side we have a rising top of the rotation pitcher in Chris Paddack, and a couple more on the way in MacKenzie Gore and Luis Patino.

Those five players appear to be the core group in what should be an entertaining era of baseball for the Padres over the next five seasons or so.

Assuming there are no more trades, and I’m sure there will be, let’s take a look at what the lineup and starting rotation could look like in the 2021 and 2022 seasons.