How things could go wrong

If the 2022 Padres were going to miss the playoffs, this is definitely what it would look like.

All season long, I’ve tried hard to be the voice of reason. Any time someone mentioned a way in which this season could mimic the historic collapse of last season, I’ve been pretty quick to try and shut them down.

Historic collapses don’t happen every year. Eric Hosmer isn’t here to drag down the clubhouse this year, and Jayce Tingler’s not here to lose control as an inexperienced manager. As a matter of fact, they got the exact best candidate to replace him and make sure there’s no historic collapse in 2022.

Also, if you are waiting for the same collapse that happened last year, you’re clearly blaming these players (not Hosmer and not Tingler) for what happened last year and expecting them to repeat whatever went wrong then. That’s not where I am and not where I have been, in regards to this team.

That being said…if the Padres were going to repeat their historic collapse of 2021, this is probably what it would look like.

The team wouldn’t lose every game, not at first, but they would have a hard time putting away lesser teams. And then they’d fight with each other over petty stuff, like whether Jurickson Profar was daring the runner to go to third or telling Kim to cover the base.

And the face of the franchise would have something terrible happen to him, like an 80-game suspension, and the team (and players) would have to spend more time working on processing that action and considering repairs to those relationships instead of focusing on winning baseball games.

Yup, the ingredients are all there to make another historic collapse this year. It’s back in the realm of possibilities, somehow. Let’s hope it doesn’t happen.