San Diego Padres Miss Postseason in Latest PECOTA Predictions

PECOTA updates it’s latest standings with predictions for the shortened 60-game season and the San Diego Padres didn’t see much improvement.

This season was supposed to be one where we saw a young San Diego Padres team take a huge step forward and push for a playoff spot.

Obviously, with such a weird season in the works, not much should really be expected of this team.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t think they are capable of doing big things.

Just yesterday I wrote about what it would take for the Padres to win the NL West, and I think we the depth of talented pitching they have it’s certainly possible.

However, PECOTA doesn’t share that same optimism for the Friars as they project them to just win 29.5 games in their latest standings for the shortened 2020 season.

Now, some might say at .500 season or one game under would be a pretty good year for the Padres. But in just a 50 game stretch they’ll need to be much better than that to make the postseason.

PECOTA has the Dodgers winning the West 38 wins.

In that article I wrote on Tuesday, I said it would take anywhere from 35-38 wins to win the division, so that seems about right.

Assuming the postseason stays the way it is with your three division winners and two wild card teams, the Padres would finish two games back of the second Wild Card spot.

Again, that doesn’t seem like much, but in a 60-game stretch there should still be a lot of teams in contention for that Wild Card spot.

They have 10 National League teams finishing with between 28-33 wins, so you can see how crowded of a race it will be.

Thirty-two or 33 wins is likely what it will take to earn a playoff spot.

If they did extend the postseason so that eight teams make it from each league, the Padres will still be just on the outside looking in.

These are just projections and something fun to talk about as we wait for games to begin. No one really knows what might happen in this crazy 60-game run. But I think this does show the Padres will be in the race until the end, which will be fun.