I sure hope so.
There’s been a general consensus the last few months about NL West supremacy. The consensus — which I, myself, have helped champion — is that the Los Angeles Dodgers sit alone atop the division, and the Colorado Rockies alone at the bottom. In the middle we find the San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks fighting each other for position, both comfortably below the Dodgers but ahead of your San Francisco Giants.
But upon second thought, I’m not so sure. Are the Padres actually better than the Giants?
This isn’t just getting caught up on Spring Training excitement; that alone isn’t enough for the Giants to overcome the 13 games that separated the teams a year ago. It’s about a number of things (and yeah … maybe a dash of Spring Training excitement).
San Diego has had one of the worst offseasons in the Majors. Among other players, they lost outfielder Jurickson Profar (an All-Star last year), reliever Tanner Scott (also an All-Star last year), and infielder Ha-Seong Kim (a recent Gold Glove winner). Their lone notable addition was starting pitcher Nick Pivetta, who has never had an ERA that began with a number other than four, five, or six.
PECOTA still sees the Padres as inhabiting a class comfortably above the Giants, predicting them for 9.4 more wins than San Francisco. Fangraphs, however, views just one game of separation between the two.
I lean towards the latter being more accurate, and that’s before accounting for the dysfunctional Padresian slide that I always predict for San Diego. Some years they avoid it, but it always hangs in the balance, waiting to pounce. It’s Mike Schildt’s second year with the Padres, and that’s usually when things start to fall apart for them.
That, plus feeling a little higher on the Giants than is recommended for my health, has me slightly favoring the Giants over the Padres — though still below the Diamondbacks — going into the season.
Hopefully I didn’t piss of Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado with that prediction. That would be in none of our best interests.