While other teams sit, Preller continues to deal.
More moves likely as the Padres seek closer, outfield depth
The 30 major league teams have combined to make 43 trades since Aug. 29.
The Padres have been involved in eight of those, including the one Sunday that landed Tampa Bay Rays ace Blake Snell and the Monday deal that brought Chicago Cubs ace Yu Darvish.
“We have talented players at our major league level and minor league level,” Padres General Manager A.J. Preller said late Tuesday night. “That always enables you to have the ability to line up on different deals. … The currency in the game (is) talented young players.”
Preller has clearly seized on opportunity (and been given the freedom to do so by ownership) while other teams have sat back and/or shed salary due in part to concerns over the loss of revenue to COVID-19, but the Padres GM predicted the free agent and trade market will pick up in the coming month.
“We just happened to line up on ours first,” he said.
After almost exclusively stocking up the minor league system through amateur signings and trades the previous four years, the Padres acquired major leaguers in every one of their trades over the past four months. It is a manifestation of a building process Preller and his staff embarked on in 2016.
Of the 12 major leaguers the Padres have added since the end of August, just three are gone. The rest are under team control through at least the next two seasons and seven are under control through at least 2023. That latter group includes Snell and Darvish.
“If we’re going to look to move quality prospects, there may be times you want the short-term fit and the rental fit,” Preller said. “But most of these deals, the attractive part for us is they’re players that fit in the short term and long term.”
The team officially announced the Snell trade late Tuesday morning and the Darvish transaction in the evening, after which Preller spoke to the media. The signing of shortstop HaSeong Kim likely won’t be announced for another day or two given he had to travel from Korea to undergo a physical.
More moves are almost certainly coming, as the Padres seek a closer and outfield depth.
While they maintain Brian O’Grady and Jorge Oña are capable of rounding out a quality outfield, the team continues to pursue a veteran option. That includes talking with Jurickson Profar about returning after his one productive season in San Diego.
The team is attempting no such coyness about needing to stock the back end of the bullpen. While the company line seems to be that the addition(s) doesn’t necessarily need to be a closer, the team is engaged in talks to retain the services of various closer candidates.
Two sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said re-signing Kirby Yates is among the options being pursued. The righthander, who underwent arthroscopic elbow surgery to remove bone chips in his throwing elbow in August, saved 53 games from his time taking over the closing role in the middle of 2018 until his surgery. Just three pitchers had more saves in that span, and Yates’ save percentage (93) was best in the major leagues among those with at least 40 opportunities.
Starting pitching was among the chief areas in which the Padres knew they had to improve in order to edge closer to the Dodgers, who have won eight straight National League West titles and swept the Padres in the
NL Division Series en route to winning the World Series in October.
The additions of Snell and Darvish and Monday’s signing of Kim upped the Padres’ projected WAR (wins above replacement) to 43.6, second in MLB behind the Dodgers (44.3).
“They’re the class of the league, and they’ve been the class of the division for pretty much the decade,” Preller said. “We’ll see how it plays out. We know on paper — the game is not played on paper at all — we feel like we have a quality team. … The goal here is to win a championship. That’s the idea — to have a team that can win a championship. Overall, we still have some areas we want to continue to improve.”