Is another playoff run in store for the Padres? Predictions for 2025 season

By the end of the 2024 baseball season, it was easy to make the argument -- and you probably wouldn't get a whole lot of pushback for doing so -- that there were two teams capable of winning the World Series:

1) The Dodgers, who did so without much of a challenge from the Yankees. And, 2) the Padres, who pushed L.A. to the brink of elimination in the National League Division Series.

Perhaps it was the knowledge that San Diego is such a threat that pushed the Dodgers to assemble what might be the most talented roster in the history of Major League Baseball. The reigning champs added Blake Snell, Tanner Scott, Kirby Yates, and Roki Sasaki, and that's just on the pitching side.

Nobody is under the illusion that Los Angeles is not the favorite to repeat as champs. Several people have taken that, and the fact the Diamondbacks have gotten a lot better with free agent signings like Corbin Burnes, to mean the Padres playoff window has closed.

However, as Mark Twain might say, reports of the Padres' demise have been greatly exaggerated.

San Diego still features a lineup where the top six hitters have all gone to at least one All-Star Game. Their starting rotation, although it's missing Joe Musgrove for the season and Yu Darvish for the start of it, still has Cy Young Award candidates in Michael King and Dylan Cease. There is a whole lot of talent on this club that should keep the Padres very much in the postseason picture well into September.

Let's break it down position by position to see how the 2025 Friars look as they get ready for their Opening Day showdown with the Atlanta Braves (1:10 p.m. first pitch at Petco Park).

STARTING ROTATION

RHP Michael King
RHP Dylan Cease
RHP Randy Vasquez
RHP Nick Pivetta
LHP Kyle Hart

King will get his first career Opening Day start, followed by Cease, giving the Padres one of the best 1-2 punches in the game. Pivetta signed at the start of Spring Training to add much-needed length to the rotation. He averaged more than 150 innings a season over the last four years in Boston.

Vasquez and Hart beat out Stephen Kolek for the other two rotation spots. Hart is back in the big leagues for the first time in several years after a stop in the Korean Baseball Organization, where last year he won their version of the Cy Young Award.

Kolek will go to Triple-A El Paso to stay on a starter's schedule in case anyone else gets dinged up. At some point Darvish (elbow) and knuckleballer Matt Waldron (oblique) are expected to re-join the club. When they're healthy the Padres hope to have enough depth to make it through the grind of a 162-game season.

BULLPEN

RHP Robert Suarez
RHP Jason Adam
RHP Jeremiah Estrada
LHP Adrian Morejon
LHP Yuki Matsui
RHP Alek Jacob
LHP Wandy Peralta
RHP Logan Gillaspie

Training camp injuries altered this group a bit. Right-handers Bryan Hoening (shoulder) and Sean Reynolds (foot) will both start the year on the Injured List. Even without them this is one of the better groups in baseball.

---

LISTEN: With NBC 7 San Diego's Darnay Tripp and Derek Togerson behind the mic, On Friar will cover all things San Diego Padres. Interviews, analysis, behind-the-scenes...the ups, downs, and everything in between. Tap here to find On Friar wherever you listen to podcasts. 

---

Suarez is coming off his first career All-Star Game appearance. He and his 101-MPH fastball are back to handle the closer role. In front of him are Jason Adam and Jeremiah Estrada, two guys who joined the team in the middle of last season and quickly earned the right to handle late-inning, high-leverage situations.

It took the 2024 Padres a while to find the right bullpen formula. They should be well ahead of that curve at the very start of the 2025 campaign.

CATCHER

Elias Diaz
Martin Maldonado

Neither guy is known as a slugger but both are highly regarded for their defense and ability to handle a pitching staff. The 38-year-old Maldonado beat out longtime prospect Luis Campusano for the backup job.

OUTFIELD

Fernando Tatis Jr.
Jackson Merrill
Jason Heyward
Brandon Lockridge

The National League MVP betting odds list Shohei Ohtani as the favorite (to the surprise of nobody). Right behind him are Juan Soto and Fernando Tatis Jr., who is fully healthy for the first time since, he says, the start of the 2021 season. You might recall he ripped 42 home runs in 130 games that year and finished in the top five of the MVP balloting.

Merrill is back to improve on a spectacular rookie season that sent him to the All-Star Game and a runner-up finish in the NL Rookie of the Year race to Pirates ace Paul Skenes.

Heyward is entering his 15th MLB season and, while his offensive numbers might not make up for the loss of Jurickson Profar, he brings the kind of strong clubhouse presence that made Profar a team and fan favorite. He'll platoon in left field with Lockridge, one of the team's fastest players who had a productive Cactus League season with his bat.

INFIELD

Manny Machado
Luis Arraez
Xander Bogaerts
Jake Cronenworth
Yuli Gurriel
Jose Iglesias
Gavin Sheets

This seems like a large group but Gurriel and Sheets will be the primary designated hitters who can also moonlight in a corner outfield spot on occasion. Neither of them was expected to be on the Opening Day roster six weeks ago. Sheets was a non-roster invitee who slugged his way into the mix with six Cactus League home runs. The 40-year-old Gurriel joined the club the first week of workouts and showed enough with the bat for the club to keep him around.

Iglesias made the team after signing in the middle of Spring Training. He was a vital part of the Mets team that went to last year's National League Championship Series (and lost to L.A.) and has a penchant for smashing left-handed pitching.

And, of course, you have the regulars, where everyone is healthy. Machado is 100% on Opening Day, something he definitely was not a year ago after undergoing off-season elbow surgery. Arraez won his 3rd straight batting title in 2024 despite tearing a thumb ligament in June. Luis had it surgically repaired and says he feels like he has "a new thumb" which should make him a threat to be the first player to win four straight batting titles since Tony Gwynn (1994-1997).

Bogaerts and Cronenworth are both back at their natural positions (shortstop and 2nd base, respectively) and had an entire offseason to get themselves ready for it. All in all this should be one of the most talented and potent infields in the game.

EXPECTATIONS

It would be a miracle if the Padres, or anyone else, beat the Dodgers to win the National League West Division title. L.A. simply has too much talent to beat over a 162 games.

But they can absolutely be had in a five- or seven-game series, and that's what the Padres are going to be focused on.

Last year the Padres won 93 games, the second-most in franchise history. San Diego should be able to get close to the 90-win mark again, which would put them in the mix for a Wild Card spot and another chance to take out their hated rivals to the north. The 2025 Padres have playoff-caliber talent. Here's hoping that translates to another playoff appearance.

Let the games begin.