Time is running out for San Diego Padres chairman Ron Fowler and the folks who work for him, and we know this because Fowler says so. We can speculate about 2020 being a win-now season for the Mets and Phillies, but Fowler himself has already declared next season and the year that follows as must-win for his franchise.
"We've said that in '20 and '21, we have to compete," Fowler told NBC San Diego and other news outlets. "We mean that. The fact that we sucked at the end of last year, the fact that we played only .347 baseball after the All-Star Game is absolutely unacceptable. ... We were an embarrassment the last three, four weeks of the regular season."
If the Padres don't compete, Fowler said in September, "Heads will roll, beginning with mine."
The greatest complication with this -- and there are many -- is that the Padres have given no indication they are actually close to making the leap Fowler insists they must take over the next 23 months.
Nine seasons have passed since San Diego's most recent winning season, and it's been 13 years since the Padres last participated in a playoff game. But that's ancient history relative to what happened last season, when San Diego went 70-92 and finished 36 games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers. To put that deficit into context: If the regular season had been extended by three months, with the Dodgers sent home, San Diego might still not have matched L.A.'s 2019 win total.
According to Elias Sports Bureau research sent along by Paul Hembekides, the most recent team -- since 1900, and ignoring the impact of the strike-shortened 1981 season -- to increase its win total by 36 or more from one season to the next is the New York Giants from 1902 (44-88) to 1903 (84-55). In the divisional era, since 1969, there have been only two instances in which a team improved by 36 wins over two seasons -- the Rays of 2006-08, and the Mariners of 1999-2001.
Fowler's standard for improvement could be something less than winning the National League West, which would be wise. The strength of the Padres' organization is a wealth of great young talent, a farm system spilling over, with a young core of talent already in the big leagues. Fernando Tatis Jr., who turns 21 in January, is, like Juan Soto and Ronald Acuna Jr., among baseball's best under-25 rising stars. Second baseman Luis Urias, 22, could play alongside Tatis for years. The 23-year-old Chris Paddack had an excellent rookie season, and has the makings of a staff ace. Next year, the 20-year-old Mackenzie Gore, one of baseball's best pitching prospects, might make his major league debut.
But the Dodgers -- the team San Diego must run down -- have as many or more high-end youngsters. Such as Cody Bellinger, who just won his first MVP award at age 24. Staff ace Walker Buehler is 25. Julio Urias, 23. Corey Seager will be 26 in April. Gavin Lux turns 22 next week. Will Smith will be 25 in the spring. Additionally, L.A.'s organization is viewed as a model for big-market teams in the way it drafts and develops players, in the way it finds and fosters assets who haven't been valued elsewhere -- Max Muncy, who was released by Oakland, and Chris Taylor, who had fallen out of favor with the Mariners.
On top of all that, the Dodgers have the ability to outspend the Padres and every other team in the division by a significant margin.
The Padres aren't in the same universe as the Dodgers in reliable depth. San Diego is not a team one or two pivotal moves away from seriously challenging Los Angeles. The Padres would need to win 19 more games in 2020 to match the total of the Brewers, who won 89 games and the second wild card in the NL this year. If the Padres don't win the division next year or make the playoffs, the players wouldn't deserve the tag of failure.
The Padres need a veteran starting pitcher, for sure, and yes, there is a fantasy that San Diego might land Gerrit Cole or Stephen Strasburg. But unless one of those pitchers forces his way to the Padres, that almost certainly has no chance of happening. The Padres went over $100 million in payroll for the first time in 2015 -- they're a small-market team with limited resources, closer in financial capability to the Indians' neighborhood than the Dodgers'. Moving forward, they owe $75 million annually in each of the next three years to three players: Manny Machado, Eric Hosmer and Wil Myers. According to other teams, they've been willing to give away Myers to any club willing to take his salary, but to move him, they'd probably have to pay down a lot of his contract.
The Padres could use an experienced starting pitcher, and maybe they can use their deep farm system to make a deal for someone like the Tigers' Matt Boyd. Maybe they could add a veteran like Rick Porcello on a short-term deal, to help lead the staff. It would be more prudent for Fowler to ramp down expectations, for the sake of the developing players.
What is really needed is patience -- and ownership's efforts to goose the big league team have already complicated the potential of the team. The signing of Hosmer turned to be exactly what rival evaluators thought it would be -- the wrong player, at the wrong time, at the wrong price -- and now the Padres have to hope the regression he showed the past two years is reversed over the final six seasons of his contract. The Padres have to hope Machado has a greater impact than he did in 2019, when he ranked 72nd among all position players in fWAR, in the first year of a 10-year contract.
The Padres chose to take this long, laborious path of growth when they built their future on a lot of very young prospects in 2015 and 2016.
The Padres unveiled new uniforms last week, pleasing their fan base. Now Fowler should enjoy the new/old colors, enjoy the moments of excellence from Tatis, and enjoy the climb.
It's going to take a while.