Despite multiple additions early in Spring Training, the San Diego Padres took a step back in 2026 projections according to both FanGraphs and PECOTA (Baseball Prospectus). In January, the numbers projected significant steps back for multiple players on the team but the lack of adding any higher tier talent seems to have negatively affected how the analytics view the Padres for the upcoming season.
At this point, FanGraphs projects a 79-83 record and fourth place finish in the NL West for the Friars. PECOTA is only slightly better at 80-82. While noting the loss of Dylan Cease, Luis Arraez, Yu Darvish and Robert Suarez, the poor projections for the remaining team from last year drags down any possible upside their additions could give the rankings.
Last season’s lack of power continues
The only player projected to have a better season than last year is Jackson Merrill. Every other position player is worse or about the same in assessing their performance. While projecting Luis Campusano, Nick Castellanos, Sung-Mun Song and Bryce Johnson as the bench players, none of them have an fWAR above 0.8.
Miguel Andujar is the platoon partner for Gavin Sheets or the DH and his fWAR is 0.6. No Padre position player has an fWAR above 5.4 (Fernando Tatis Jr.) while many are between 0.5 and 1.5. Tatis Jr. is projected to lead the team with 30 homers.
Pitching woes
The starting pitchers fair no better. Michael King will only get 161 innings with a 3.68 ERA. Nick Pivetta takes a big step back with a 3.92 ERA and Joe Musgrove gets a 3.89 ERA projection. There is no belief in Randy Vasquez at 4.79 and Germán Márquez is the projected fifth starter with a 5.03 ERA.
The bullpen also gets very little love with lefty Adrian Morejon, who is widely considered a top reliever and was recently listed by MLB Network as a top 10 reliever in baseball, given an fWAR of 1.1 and a 3.40 ERA. Only Mason Miller gets any respect with a 2.44 ERA and fWAR of 2.3.
Playoff miss
The Los Angeles Angels, St. Louis Cardinals, Tampa Bay Rays, Cleveland Guardians, Athletics and Cincinnati Reds are all listed as having better odds of making the playoffs than the Padres. With the Dodgers listed at 94% to win the division and 99% to make the playoffs, the Padres come in at 1.2% to win the division and 22.1% to make the playoffs.
The San Francisco Giants come in at 37.4% to make the playoffs and the Arizona Diamondbacks are at 32% to make the playoffs. The Padres got the benefit of the doubt for much of the offseason with multiple projections listing them as the second or third best team in the NL West. That is no longer the case.
The only way to get national respect for this team in 2026 was if A.J. Preller agreed with the media around the league and traded away Tatis Jr. in order to acquire a power bat and top-tier starter. Trading the organization’s best player doesn’t seem like a good way to improve a team that finished with 90 wins last season. Preller made it clear early on that was not an option and he recently stated that shedding salary was not a priority.
Adding in the margins
While Preller has backloaded the team with starters returning from injury to compete for the fifth spot in the rotation, Randy Vasquez is facing a pivotal season in his career. Vasquez is out of options and must make the staff or be off-loaded at the end of spring. Reports from pitching coach Ruben Niebla and manager Craig Stammen has reflected that Vasquez has made the effort to take that step forward and has held onto the advances made at the end of last season.
The bats added, Castellanos and Andujar as 1B/DH options and Ty France as more of a defensive option, don’t deliver the power that fans had hoped. This puts the burden on the current roster to step up their game.
Heart and character matter
None of this goes into the projections seen on FanGraphs and Baseball Prospectus. They use algorithms and underlying metrics as well as aging statistics to determine their estimates. As fans who watch this team and know the players character and motivation, we can argue the numbers listed in these projections are devoid of the determination that we know these players exhibit.
Will the heart and character of the players play a role in helping the Padres outperform these numbers?
Xander Bogaerts and Manny Machado can’t avoid the inevitability of aging. But not every player ages the same way and there are plenty of examples of good performances well into some athletes 30s. It is true that neither of them will play their pivotal positions for much longer, but the math used for these numbers doesn’t take into account the uniqueness of each player.
Proving them wrong
If just a few of the players play to the same level they did last season; if Tatis Jr. finds more power and Merrill stays healthy and takes another step forward; if Machado and Bogaerts stay relatively healthy and don’t regress as much as expected; then the offense should be fine. No matter if Andujar and Castellano aren’t big power hitters, both are improvements over Jason Heyward and Yuli Gurriel.
The Padres won’t have as many singles with Luis Arraez gone but Tatis Jr. will have better lineup protection with Merrill (or Bogaerts?) hitting behind him. The bottom of the lineup has little power as it presently stands unless Castellanos breaks out, Gavin Sheets plays above last year or another bat is added. But all of these issues were much worse last year and somehow this team finished three games behind the Dodgers.
Preller may not be done, there is lots of time left for more moves and still plenty of decent players looking for jobs. The trade market will still be busy for another few weeks and I don’t know that we have ever seen Preller go a whole offseason without a trade.
With just a little luck, maybe the Padres can surprise some people. A snake-in-the-grass isn’t always a bad thing.
Read the full article here
