Are the Padres the Real Team to Beat in the NL West?
The San Diego Padres have shot out of the gate in 2025 and currently lead the NL West. Are they built to dethrone the Dodgers though?
For followers of the San Diego Padres, life is good right about now. Your team is 15-6, which is good for a .714 winning-percentage. That number tops the charts in all of baseball, and the Padres also own MLB’s second-best run differential at +34, coming in at eight runs below the Chicago Cubs.
The Padres have come out of the gate smoking hot, but their major issue is that … so has the rest of the NL West. The Los Angeles Dodgers (15-7) and San Francisco Giants (14-7) are both within one game of San Diego in the standings and are going to give the Padres a run for their money by the time the season is nearing its final days.
However, these Padres are surprising people early on. There was never a doubt that they’d find a way to top the 90-win mark as they did last season, but this year’s team just has a different feel to them. This feeling was only underscored when the Padres went 10-0 at home to start the 2025 campaign.
It’s still early, yes, but the Padres are gelling even without some of their best players. Entering Sunday’s action, Jake Cronenworth, Jackson Merrill, Yu Darvish, and Joe Musgrove highlight the everyday contributors that are absent from the team’s current roster. Still, they’re cruising.
Let’s check out what’s been working out so far for San Diego, and determine whether or not they’re the real team to beat in the NL West.
The Padres Pitching Staff Is Dominating
If it wasn’t for this pitching staff shutting down the opposition on a consistent basis, it’s likely the Padres wouldn’t be anywhere near as successful as they’ve been so far this year.
Entering Sunday, the Padres’ pitching staff has a combined 2.77 ERA, which is second-best in all of baseball. Lending some legitimacy to the ERA is the club’s fourth-place ranking in FIP (3.41) and 3.77 SIERA, which is only good for 13th in the league, but is still a solid number to have.
Despite the fact that the staff isn’t strikeout-heavy, the Padres are riding on the shoulders of Michael King, Randy Vasquez and the newly-signed Nick Pivetta out of the starting rotation. Each of these hurlers has an ERA of 2.57 or lower, with Pivetta already owning an fWAR of 0.9 through his first four starts.
Dylan Cease, who was widely expected to be San Diego’s ace this year, has struggled out a bit out of the gate, but he’s punching out over 10 batters per nine innings and his 2.97 FIP and 3.41 SIERA suggests that his 6.64 ERA through four starts and 20 innings is nothing more than a mirage. Getting him to turn his fortunes around would make a dangerous rotation even better.
How About That Bullpen?
As a whole, the starting rotation has been outstanding for the Padres. But it’s the bullpen that’s standing out above the rest of the group.
Starters going deep into games has led to the Padres’ bullpen throwing just the 11th-most innings so far this year, but they’ve made every single one of them count. To date, San Diego’s ‘pen leads the majors in ERA with a sparkling 1.65 mark. They’ve stranded just over 90 percent of runners and have allowed just 46 base hits, which is the second-lowest (Giants, 45) in the game.
Each of Robert Suarez, Jason Adam, Adrian Morejon, Jeremiah Estrada, and Yuki Matsui have been heavily relied upon so far, and they’ve answered the call nearly every time. Suarez entered this year as a sneaky trade chip for the Padres, but he has yet to surrender an earned run through his first nine innings this year and has looked virtually unhittable. If he keeps this up, it’s going to be impossible for San Diego to move him.
Sure, the Padres’ bullpen has a few weak links in it, but the fact that they can rely on as many as five different relievers on any given night to slam the door on the opposition speaks volumes to just how talented this unit is as a whole.
Don’t Count Out the Lineup
Admittedly, the Padres’ lineup is much less sexy than their pitching staff is. It’s bonkers to see a team that sends Gavin Sheets, Tyler Wade, Martin Maldonado, and Yuli Gurriel to the field on a nightly basis boast the game’s highest batting average, lowest strikeout percentage, and fourth-highest OBP.
The Padres have 10 position players that have received 40 or more plate appearances, and eight of them have a wRC+ north of 100. Before going down with a short-term injury, Jackson Merrill topped the charts at 201 and is near the top of the league-wide leaderboards for batters with a minimum of 40 plate appearances.
But it’s been so much more than just Merrill. Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado have both been as advertised, with both sluggers outperforming their paces from recent year’s past all over the board.
Sheets is hitting .340 through 19 games, which is something nobody could’ve predicted. Even Jose Iglesias and Jake Cronenworth (who’s also now on the injured list) have been swinging hot sticks so far.
For years, the Padres’ lineup has always looked lethal, but it’s been a matter of them all clicking at the same time and capitalizing on the obvious potential. So far, all of the usual suspects are performing well all at the same time. Once you combine that with the pitching we’ve seen from them so far, it’s no wonder they’re currently baseball’s winningest team.
The NL West is MLB’s Most Talented Division
It’s impossible to ignore the teams San Diego calls their rivals, and it’s also difficult to make the case that the Padres are ready to dethrone the Dodgers this year. The Big Bad Dodgers are just a half-game behind the Padres in the standings, and that’s a lead that’s never going to be fully safe as the year marches on.
As of right now, the Dodgers lead baseball with 36 home runs, but the Padres have them beat in most other categories on both the pitching and offensive sides of the ball. Is that going to last though?
Unlikely.
Anyone who follows baseball knows just how ridiculously deep this Dodgers team is. Their current one-through-seven in the starting lineup goes Ohtani-Betts-Freeman-Teoscar-Conforto-Smith-Edman, with Muncy and his light-tower power batting eighth. Putting this unit up alongside the one that sends Maldonado, Iglesias, Sheets and the recently-injured Jason Heyward out every night feels like a lopsided battle.
Surprisingly, the Padres may have the Dodgers beat on the pitching side of things, at least for now. Not only do the Dodgers have about 65 different pitchers on the injured list, but a lot of their healthy ones haven’t been performing. To kick off his career, Roki Sasaki has looked decidedly average, while Los Angeles’ plug-and-play approach with their bullpen has highlighted Tanner Scott, Kirby Yates, and Alex Vesia as standouts, with nobody else looking all that strong.
It’s Unwise to Write Off the Giants and Diamondbacks
The Dodgers are forever going to be the first team mentioned when the NL West is brought up. The Padres are right there too, but it’d be foolish to count out the Giants and Arizona Diamondbacks.
As previously mentioned, the pesky Giants are just one game behind the Padres in the standings, and that’s with just four of their everyday batters sporting a league-average line. Willy Adames, the club’s top free-agent acquisition this past offseason, has sputtered out of the gate, but he’s primed for a massive turnaround in the near future.
Pound for pound, the Giants’ pitching staff has been hanging with the Padres on the leaderboards as well. Even if they’re not as sparkly as the Dodgers are, this team is performing well to begin the new year.
Ditto for the Diamondbacks, even though they’re “only” in fourth place. Their 12-9 record would have them in second-place in nearly every single other division in baseball (outside of the NL East). Now that Corbin Carroll is back to playing like an MVP candidate and their team wRC+ sits at 121, they’re no slouch either.
Right at this moment, the Giants and Dbacks are right about where they should be in terms of power ranking the NL West. They’re more than capable of continuing to stand out, but they’re the third- and fourth-best team in the division, with both having arguments for each spot in the standings.
Are the Padres the Actual Team to Beat in the NL West?
No, not just yet. The Dodgers are built to last, and once Blake Snell returns to the starting rotation (and Shohei Ohtani rejoins the fray on the pitching side of things), things are going to get a whole lot more concerning for the Padres.
Not to mention Blake Treinen and Michael Kopech, two of last year’s relief-pitching standouts who will be back in action soon, too (assuming Dave Roberts’ comments on Treinen’s injury having “low concern level” hold up). Being able to swap out two of the underperforming arms in the current Dodgers bullpen with these two is going to be huge for this team.
Once the Padres add Merrill and Cronenworth back to the lineup, it’ll allow some of the less productive bats to slide back to bench roles. That’s going to help them stick with the Dodgers down the stretch, but leapfrogging them in the standings and staying there until October? I’m saying no.
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Eric Treuden (troy-din) has covered baseball for years for multiple different outlets including FanSided, Yardbarker, and Wisconsin Sports Heroics. He recently was the editor for Jays…