What Would a Lost Season Mean to the San Diego Padres?

We take a look at what it would mean to the San Diego Padres if there were no games in 2020 and the league and players can’t reach a deal.

There has been a lot of excitement for the San Diego Padres over this past offseason. We’ve seen it here at Friars on Base as readers have flocked to our articles at times to get ready for what was supposed to be a big 2020 season.

Money seems to be being spent more abundantly by the front office and the young talent that has been gathered over the last three or four years is finally starting to break through at the big league level.

The 2020 season was supposed to be the start of a great decade for Padres baseball.

But if we don’t get any type of season in 2020, what does that mean for the growth of this franchise?

First and foremost, it means we miss out on a potential full season of Fernando Tatis Jr. After his rookie season was cut short we all looked forward to seeing what he could do over a full season i 2020.

Even if we get a shortened season in 2020 we still won’t know. And I think a lot of us want to see what he’s capable of over 162 games and if he can push himself into MVP territory.

Second, we don’t get the development of a lot of our young players. Certainly, Tatis is in this category as well, but a lot of us also thought we could see Luis Patino and MacKenzie Gore in the big leagues this year.

Now that they’ll likely miss an entire year of competitive baseball, just how much longer does this delay their development?

This was also going to be a big year for Taylor Trammell to see if he could bounce-back and possibly earn an outfield spot in 2021.

And the Padres have several young pitchers that were question marks going into 2020 and will remain question marks going into 2021.

Third, they lose time from some of the short-term veterans they acquired. It’s going to be sad if we never get to see what Garrett Richards can do when healthy with the Padres.

And again, at this point, even in a shortened season Richards isn’t going to get much of a chance to prove he’s still an elite starting pitcher.

After acquiring Tommy Pham this past offseason thinking we’d get two full years of him, we’ll be lucky to get one full season out of him.

Zach Davies is one year closer to free agency as well and we haven’t gotten anything out of him yet.

Fourth, the one positive might be they’re a year close to the end of the Eric Hosmer and Wil Myers‘ contracts and don’t have to pay their full contract in 2020.

Hosmer still has five years left on his contract after 2020, but the AAV drops from $21 million after the 2022 season to just $13 million.

Myers will still have two years left, but I think that could make him more tradeable this coming offseason.

Lastly, not having a 2020 season just really hurts the development of a young team and possibly pushes back their contention window another year.

And what really worries me is that with how bad relations are between the owners and players, we could see another strike-shortened season in 2022 or no season at all.

At a time when the Padres were ready to blossom they’re seemingly behind held back by unforeseen circumstances.

It’s really sad to see as I was so excited to see what this team could do in 2020 and thought it would be the jumping-off point for a huge decade of success in San Diego.