Padres wait on top talent

When will Fernando Tatis Jr. be called up?

San Diego’s top prospect appears to be almost ready for the majors, but the 20-year-old shortstop is coming off a season that was cut short by injury and he has just 408 at-bats above Class A.

In 2018, we saw the Blue Jays put off calling up Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and a similar situation is entirely possible with Tatis this year. The Padres aren’t expected to compete in 2019, so there’s no real rush to get him to the bigs, but how they handle the shortstop of the future may be the biggest story for San Diego this season.

Who’s in the rotation?

Joey Lucchesi and Eric Lauer are really the only two pitchers who are penciled in for the rotation to begin the season, and the Padres will have some tough decisions to make based on performances in camp.

Robbie Erlin, Bryan Mitchell and Luis Perdomo all started a fair share of games last year, but had their ups and downs. San Diego has a number of prospects knocking on the door in the high minorsm including Chris Paddack, Logan Allen and Cal Quantrill. With so many arms available – and none of them particularly strong options at this point – manager Andy Green and the club are going to have devise a way to continue everyone’s development.

— Jesse Yomtov