San Diego Padres Simulated Season Week 7: Fernando Tatis for MVP

It’s another big week for the San Diego Padres in our 2020 simulated season and they have one player pushing his way into the MVP race.

While we may not be far from getting the real-life San Diego Padres back on the field, for now, we continue with our simulated 2020 season.

The Padres had another huge week with a four-game sweep at home over the Chicago Cubs and a series win on the road against the Miami Marlins.

They’ve improved their overall record to 31-19 and are now just six games back of the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL West with a firm hold on the top NL Wild Card spot.

As a team, they’re hitting .250 (one point higher than last week) with a 3.58 ERA (14 points lower than last week).

Individual Performances

Chris Paddack finally broke out of his funk by going 8.2 against the Cubs allowing just 4 hits and a walk with 5 strikeouts.

Trent Grisham had a really good week, including a 4 RBI game against the Marlins. He’s now hitting .261 on the season with 10 home runs and 27 RBI.

But what I really want to focus on this week is Fernando Tatis Jr. who had a monster week. The Padres shortstop is now hitting .312 with a .362 OBP and 1.038 OPS.

He leads the team in runs with 32, hits with 54, home runs with 15, and RBI with 45. Those home run and RBI totals rank third and second in the entire National League, putting him squarely in the MVP discussion.

Tatis is also second in slugging percentage and seventh in OPS. He can’t help that his runs and RBI totals aren’t higher because the rest of the team hasn’t really been doing their part.

Seeing him put up these numbers, even in a simulated video game, just make me wonder what kind of season we really could have gotten from him in 2020.

Again, it’s just a video game, but I certainly think Tatis will be in his fair share of MVP races over the next several seasons, and MLB The Show apparently thinks that could start in 2020.