The San Diego Padres Will Regress

In a division where the Los Angeles Dodgers, Arizona Diamondbacks and San Francisco Giants all improved in the offseason, the Padres saw Jurickson Profar, Tanner Scott and Ha-Seong Kim depart in free agency. They appeared to be an obvious regression candidate before the season after winning 93 games a year ago.

Instead, the Padres are off to a scalding-hot start, as they became the first team to 15 wins last week. Fernando Tatis Jr. looks like he did a few years ago, a pretty scary development for the rest of the league considering you know there will be stretches where Manny Machado and Luis Arráez carry this lineup. Jackson Merrill was also building on an incredible rookie season before a right hamstring strain sidelined him.

The bad part for Mike Shildt's squad is that even with an amazing start, the Padres haven't really built any cushion in the NL West. It's probably going to take 100 wins to capture the NL West crown, and there's a good chance that this division produces three playoff teams in 2025.