The Padres announced a broad-reaching slate of roster moves Tuesday, most notably designating infielder/outfielder Rougned Odor for assignment and optioning catcher Austin Nola to Triple-A El Paso. San Diego also optioned utilityman Brandon Dixon to El Paso.
That trio of moves creates space for the team to reinstate catcher Luis Campusano from the 60-day injured list, select the contract of outfielder Taylor Kohlwey and recall infielder Alfonso Rivas from Triple-A. The Padres also announced that righty Reiss Knehr has been transferred from the 15-day IL to the 60-day IL. He’s been on the shelf with elbow discomfort since late June and will now be sidelined until at least late August.
It’s a notable shakeup for a struggling Padres club that has gotten negligible production from the bench and from its catching position this season. Odor, who’ll be traded or released within a week’s time (he can reject an outright assignment), has batted just .210/.306/.370 in 157 trips to the plate this season. Nola (.146/.260/.192 in 154 plate appearances) and Dixon (.204/.244/.329 in 86 plate appearances) have been even less productive. They’ll both remain in the organization in Triple-A, at least for the time being.
The Padres were Odor’s fourth team in as many years. He hasn’t had an above-average season at the plate since 2016 but has continually gotten looks around the league thanks to his glove and considerable left-handed pop. He’s been with the Rangers, Yankees and Orioles in the past three seasons, respectively, and cracked the Padres’ Opening Day roster in 2023 despite a combined .199/.269/.374 showing from 2020-22. In doing so, he continued the long line of former Rangers who’ve made cameos with the Padres under president of baseball operations AJ Preller — a longtime assistant GM in Texas (e.g. Ian Kinsler, Keone Kela, Mitch Moreland, Nelson Cruz, Nomar Mazara, Jurickson Profar, Yu Darvish, Nick Martinez, Carl Edwards Jr.).
Nola, 33, has been San Diego’s primary catcher in recent seasons after coming over from the Mariners in what’s become a lopsided deal for Seattle. San Diego acquired Nola, Austin Adams and Dan Altavilla in exchange for infielder Ty France, reliever Andres Munoz, outfielder Taylor Trammell and catcher Luis Torrens. France has since settled in as the Mariners’ primary first baseman and made the All-Star team in 2022. Munoz has stepped up as Seattle’s closer.
While Nola had been enjoying a breakout with the Mariners in 2019-20 and was solid in his first season-plus with San Diego, his bat has since cratered. Dating back to Opening Day 2022, he’s a .222/.304/.291 hitter (75 wRC+) in exactly 162 games and 551 plate appearances. His once-strong framing ratings have also deteriorated, and Nola has thwarted just 16.8% of stolen base attempts over the past two seasons.
With Nola now in El Paso, the Padres will rely on Campusano and Gary Sanchez behind the plate. Sanchez started hot after signing in San Diego, clubbing five dingers in his first 50 plate appearances. However, he’s since gone ice cold at the dish, batting just .150/.253/.250 in his past 91 turns at the plate.
That could open the door for Campusano to at last get a legitimate look behind the plate. The longtime top prospect has appeared in each MLB season since 2020 but has only 114 career plate appearances to his name. He’s mustered only a .198/.237/.302 output in that time, but Campusano is a career .297/.366/.513 hitter in 702 Triple-A plate appearances and has outstanding batted-ball metrics in his limited MLB work. Despite the pedestrian bottom-line results, Campusano has an average exit velocity of 90.6 mph and a massive 48.7% hard-hit rate, per Statcast. Opponents have gone 16-for-16 against him in stolen bases at the MLB level, but Campusano has a 25% caught-stealing rate in the minors.
Also joining the Padres’ roster will be Kohlwey, who’ll be in line for his MLB debut just two days prior to his 29th birthday. A 21st-round pick out of the University of Wisconsin La Crosse back in 2016, Kohlwey has experience at all three outfield spots and is batting .261/.377/.437 with nine homers, 16 doubles, a pair of triples, 10 steals and nearly as many walks (50) as strikeouts (51) in 328 trips to the batter’s box.
Rivas, 26, signed with the Padres over the winter after spending the past two seasons with the Cubs. He’s gone 2-for-7 with a double in his limited sample with the Friars so far this year and is a career .248/.332/.325 hitter in 344 MLB plate appearances. Rivas boasts a colossal .332/.462/.582 slash in Triple-A this season and carries a lifetime .313/.424/.492 line in 150 games at that level.
Yikes, but something has to be done I guess.
Glad to see AJ bringing up the kids..but there’s lots more work to be done when half your lineup is hitting around .200.
Here’s what I’d do.
1) First, call Baltimore, Houston, and Tampa to let them all know that Snell, Hader, Lugo, and possibly Soto are available.
2) Then, let the bidding war commence.
3) Take the best offers on deadline day..(Should be able to get somewhere between 6-10 prospects/young mlb ready players for them).
4) Throw everything at Ohtani in the off-season.
Being real here, if even 3 of the prospects/young mlb guys are solid/good, they’d be able to finally fill in the blanks on the mlb roster while getting huge cap relief for Ohtani, plus the prospect capital to deal at next year’s deadline while keeping their contention window wide open.
In the meantime though, Campusano needs to be installed as the every day catcher, and needs to be given a long enough leash to get comfortable. Dude can hit, and is at least decent defensively. Time to give him a real shot.
As oooooofoiio8
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You lost me at Munoz is the Mariners’ closer — he of one save? Could have sworn that other guy with 19 saves was their closer.
Sanchez has been decent behind the plate. Especially when Snell starts.
If they are making a push, Sanchez and Campusano shares the starts evenly and DH when they have the platoon advantage
Ohtani doesn’t want to wear those ugly uniforms.
This site did a pretty good article on that subject. Snell, Hader and Lugo will bring in 3-4 borderline top 100 prospects. None will help in 2024 which is the last season with Soto.
Why would Ohtani want to sign with a team that game up with more than 2 months to go and sold off three good players? He wants to be on a winner.
1 in 5 top 100 prospects eventually become a major league average player. If ONE of the prospects eventually becomes a regular in the majors then Preller did an awesome job and that is not enough to make up for the PR hit of giving in and having a fire sale.
Trading Hader, Snell, and Lugo at the deadline saves the Padres about $10 million this season. That will not take them below $233 million. Since Hader and Snell are FA at the end of the season and Lugo is pitching well enough to opt out at the end of the season they are saving nothing in 2024.
Not saying that trades are not in order. Those trades have to be focused on making the Padres stronger in 2024.
Pads Fans, as usual you have expressed a very good point. I might add that Snell and Hader could even possibly be QO candidates for draft picks. The amount for the year would be a little high but neither of those guys are signing a 1 year deal for the QO amount.
What everybody misses is that the Padres have merely been unlucky. It’s nothing more than that. They’ve scored 423 runs, given up 387. With average luck and run distribution their record would be 51-43. They’re 5-16 in one run games, and we know from 150 years of data that one-run games are largely luck. A team with the Padres talent level, on average, would be 11-8 or 10-9 in one-run games. Either record fixes more than half the shortfall in their overall seasonal record.
In short with average luck they’d be 3.5 GB the Dodgers, a couple of games out of the last wild card. They’ve got 6 hitters who are better than average, and enough starting pitching to carry them through the postseason, and the requisite 3-4 bullpen arms they can probably ride until the end. In sum they should be in the thick of it, with as much a shot at the WS as any of the wild card teams.
It may well be too late. They’re, what, 8 games out of the last wildcard with just 66 to play? That’s a rough road, but they’ve got the talent to pull it off—they’re certainly a better bet to do it than the Mets, who should have committed yesterday to selling off with an eye towards 2025 or 2026.
“Why would Ohtani want to sign with a team that game up with more than 2 months to go and sold off three good players? He wants to be on a winner.”
Why would Ohtani want to sign with a team that traded three guys they were about to lose anyway for prospects and the cash savings associated with shedding their contracts rather than losing them for comp picks after the fourth round? If Shohei wants to be on a winner, don’t you think they would win more games during the years he would theoretically be in San Diego if they go the former route?
“1 in 5 top 100 prospects eventually become a major league average player.”
Cool man. Now what percentage of 4th/5th rd sandwich picks eventually become major league average players?
“Not saying that trades are not in order. Those trades have to be focused on making the Padres stronger in 2024.
Could always trade Snell and the other for prospects and then trade those prospects for more immediate help in the offseason.
People might think this is performance related but it’s actually because he couldn’t handle the boos during the upcoming Toronto series.
I think he walked off Toronto like twice last year, so he can handle it just fine
Odor is the blue jays daddy.
Only in Dunedin now. Shame, that.
Kind of wild that Odor and Nola got a leash that long to begin with.
What do you mean padre fans were acting like odor was their savior a few weeks ago
I’m stunned that Nola even has any options left. He was the guy they really wanted in the SEA trade, but the bat’s gone south steadily. At least he can work on that at AAA. Should be interesting to see where Odor lands. Despite his offensive struggles the past 4+ years someone will believe there’s still lightning in the bottle. His biggest hit was and will forever be that right to the chin of Jose Bautista.
On Nola that is due to trying your hardest to make the trade look less bad. AJ was hoping for some kind of bounce back from Nola to save face. Didn’t happen so it’s looking like a disaster of a trade. That’s the problem with trading for a player with limited history/sample size, mean reversion can be painful. Looks like Nola didn’t do much in the minors until he caught fire in 2019 at AAA before putting a solid half season there. That continued until the first month or so of 2020 before getting traded to the Padres. Mariners pretty much traded Nola at the top of his trade value.
If player, like Nola, has a limited sample size, how can he “revert?”
Revert to his very mediocre minor league stats. And also, we’ve seen plenty of young players put up monster numbers early and not come close to maintaining those type of numbers.
Preller doesn’t give a rat’s patootie about saving face. He cares about putting a winning team on the field. Nola isn’t hitting at all since getting beaned. He is still the best defensive catcher and game caller in the system. But you have to hit at least a little.
It’s only their job that we’re taking about. Of course he cares and why front office typically stick with traded/acquired assets longer than they should. It’s a sunk cost but human tendency. Nola’s 237 game Padre track record also speaks volumes. If he came up from the system the leash would have been cut long ago.
I heard on the Padres’ flagship station that Nola’s framing score dropped too.
That injury may be more serious than he’s let everyone believe. If that’s the case, then he’s being selfish. Maybe he’s just past his prime. Maybe that was *it* – maybe he’s done.
Preller knows his job is safe. He has executed the ownership group’s plan to a T and the team is making money hand over fist. He could care less what you or anyone else not named Seidler thinks of him.
The PITCHERS sung Nola’s praises and Preller watched his incredible work ethic in terms of preparing the staff and executing the game plan for 3 seasons. Even after Sanchez was starting every game this season, Nola was part of every meeting regarding the game planning for the next team. He is the consummate professional. In 2021-2022 he hit .258/.327/.344/.671 with a 94 OPS+. 8% better than league average for catchers. Then Campusano got hurt. The Padres had no other options. Those are the reasons why he was kept up so long.
His problem is that after he got beaned he has not been able to hit a lick. I would not be surprised at all to see him hired as a coach at some level in the Padres system starting next season.
It did. By quite a bit. Makes you wonder if his vision was affected by taking a FB off the beak,
I think you could have that right. Certainly getting hit in the head could be effecting his vision.
So he DOES care what Dodger Fan or anyone not named Seidler thinks of him?
Who the F said he should care? His own F up. You’re on a discussion board pal in case you didn’t know.
A.J. Preller: *Uses an air freshner spray*
“There. No more Odor.”
The Padres Pythagorean win total is 7 wins more than their actual win total. I don’t know if that means they shouldn’t sell but it’s something to consider.
A few occasional blow-outs has boosted their run differential. But they lose every close game due to lack of skill (timely hitting, quality RPs)), not lack of luck. They are what they are and probably should sell looking to boost 2024 roster.
0-9 in extra inning games and absolutely miserable record in 1 -2 run games.
I don’t think that winning close games is skill. I think that’s false.
walking in the winning run with bases loaded is just back luck?
moving a runner from 2nd to 3rd instead of striking out isn’t skill?
Winning close games can be contagious. Maybe its a virus.
“Timely hitting” doesn’t actually exist except for the very rare player with superb bat control, and even then it’s mostly luck. Clutchiness is not a thing.
Baseball is always harder than we think and, no, it’s not a lack of skill. Who knows who the 8 people are who liked your comment, but they should try to understand that baseball involves an enormous amount of luck. Didn’t you lot notice that very, very few players can beat the shift, even after you spent years yelling at them for not dropping down bunts or slapping the ball and hitting .370 for the year?
Everything is a consideration. Like with my RS, if Sale, Story & Houck can return in early August, it means we are theoretically x% better than we are now. Schedule matters as well.
In the case of Py W/L, that is probably more important earlier in the season, when there are more games for it to flatten out. At this point of the season, I think it is easier, and probably more accurate, to determine how many wins you need to make the playoffs. Then calculate the winning % that SD needs.
If you assume that both Philly & Miami win 90, which I think is reasonable, and the assume that either SF or AZ will 90, then that becomes the benchmark. That would then mean SD needs to play .676. They Py W/L suggests that they a fair bit better than .468, but way far short of .676.
FWIW, when I was in Vegas last week, SD was 100-1 on the board to win the WS, which I would’ve taken. By the time I made up my mind, they had dropped enough that I didn’t bother. It was probably due to winning three in a row, but also shows you how quickly these things can turn against you.
Nick Martinez isn’t with the team anymore? He’s listed as only having made a cameo…
This is Nick’s 2nd year on the team.
I was worried they’d let him go. Thanks for clarifying…
I was shocked when Odor made the team in the first place. Him getting DFA is abot 3 months overdue. Preller loves Rangers leftovers.
More swing and a miss on that front…
Amazing that a guy who’s negative 1.0 bWAR over the last 5 seasons, with a .277 OBP and subpar glove in the infield is still getting work. He’s completely done. There are no surprises left, no 2-win seasons still hiding in that shaggy beard. He should be fleshing out the Tigers’ AAA roster, or something, not boring us with below replacement level play on a team that should be aiming to catch the last wildcard bus and needing a lucky 200 PA from some glove wizard.
Good for Taylor Kohley to get a shot. He turns 29 on Thursday, hopefully he can get into tonight’s game or tomorrow so he can say he made the bigs at age 28.
Bring back Jurickson Profar.
Colorado will be glad to give you that contract, cheap.
Campusano should get the majority of starts rest of the season.
Trading soon to be free agents and Juan Soto should be top priority.
Snell, Wacha, Martinez, Lugo, Hader.
Definitely think a reunion of Snell to the Rays makes sense. Mason Montgomery, Greg Jones, Colby White
Soto to the Orioles for Kjerstad, Norway, Hall, McDermott, and Ambruester.
I’d package Wacha, Martinez, and Lugo to the Rangers for Jack Leiter and Marc Church . Wacha has a mutual option for 16 mill next year and Lugo has a player option for 7.5 mill.
I’d send Hader and prospects to the Reds for Encarnarcion Strand.
Except those other teams probably aren’t biting at any of those proposals.
Wacha is on the IL, Martinez has a 3.80 ERA, and Lugo has a 3.78. They aren’t bad, but if you want a recent #2 overall, you will have to give them a much better player.
The Reds are unlikely to give up CES for Hader, since they already have a closer. An SP like Snell would be a lot more appealing.
Why would the Rays give up 3 prospects for a guy they couldn’t wait to get rid of in the first place?
I don’t see the Rangers giving up Leiter for two guys they passed on over the winter and a guy they used to have and was terrible for them. Plus Wacha and Lugo could both leave after the season and then they have nothing to show for trading the #2 pick from just a couple of years ago.
Don’t need Hader with Diaz closing and Encarnacion-Strand is a steep price for a rental for a team thats gotten ice cold all of a sudden
The O’s already have a log jam in the OF and honestly it’s questionable at this point if he is really an upgrade over Hays or Santander
Campusano needs to earn his starts. He will definitely get starts, just don’t expect it to be 5 a week. Probably 2 at catcher and 3 at DH a week.
Snell’s has given up 3 runs in 9 starts dating back to May 31st with Sanchez as his catcher. Before that his ERA was 5.04. As long as Snell is a Padre, Sanchez is his catcher. Wacha had a 4.90 ERA with Campusano and Nola as his catcher. With Sanchez its 1.54. Hitting counts, but handling a staff matters more.
Any trades the Padres make will be with the goal to improve the team now and in 2024. They won’t have a fire sale. They MIGHT trade one or two guys if it makes the team better now.
Can you name a single time the Rays traded to get a high paid player back that they had previously traded away?
Soto won’t be traded. Period. As of yesterday they were still talking about their desire to extend him.
Snell and Hader might, but there is really no reason to. As this site pointed out, the Padres would get at best a single top 100 prospect for them as a rental and that doesn’t help them get better in the short term.
Lugo might be tradable. But why. Extend him.
Wacha is on the IL and not expected back until August. No team is trading for him until they know what his health situation is. He is a Padre at least through the end of this season and chances are because of the injury he opts IN to the last 3 of his deal. Its NOT a mutual $16 million. Its a TEAM option for $16 million per for 3 years OR a player option for $18.5 over 3 years.
Jack Leiter is worth exactly nothing in trade right now. Two straight seasons of complete failure in AA has left him out of the top 100 on most prospect lists and about to drop out of MLB.com’s list when they update for post draft rankings.. He wouldn’t be the throw in on a trade for one of those guys let alone the headliner of a trade for all 3 of them. As a middle reliever in the minors Church has even less value than Leiter.
The Reds have Alexis Diaz as closer. They are not trading for Hader.
Where do you come up with this stuff? Randomly pick names out of a hat?
Pads, I agree with pretty much everything you said except the bit about Leiter. Yes he is struggling in AA, but he was a top pick in the draft and he was sent straight to AA in 2022 after being drafted the previous year.
Leiter would be a great get for the Padres. He wouldn’t help them now but by 2025 he could be a piece of their rotation.
Leiter was shut down by the Rangers completely and sent to extended spring training to work on his mechanics. He has no trade value right now. Maybe next season he will be back to the top 100 prospect type player Until then he is a no in any trade, let alone one that would send 3 above league average MLB pitchers to the Rangers. .
The problem with random fan trades is it is always unrealistic and favors the fan’s team. Here we have a proposal of the Padres trading off 6 players to 4 different teams acquiring 3 MLB top 100 prospects plus acquiring 4 of the Orioles to 30, 3 of the Rays to 30 and 1 of the Rangers. Seems like Padres would make out pretty well in this scenario but teams trades like those actually set teams like O’s and the Rays back by dumping big chunks of prospects for rentals which is not Tampa’s style and Elias doesn’t strike me as the type to go all chips in on one player
About time
Yankees on line one
Preston Tucker can’t do any much more to prove himself.
other than heal his heel
has he been having heel problems?
Preston Tucker was actually selected to the MLB roster last month and then immediately placed on the injured list with plantar fasciitis in his right foot.
In other words they can’t even call up Preston Tucker at this point, they’d just be reinstating him from the IL.
sort of, plantar fasciitis. Out well into August
He is actually playing for El Paso – not sure if on rehab or what but in the line up.
Really? Padres.com says return early August but I trust you for sure
I think you are correct too as to Padres injuries website – note they don’t update they all they well.
1-2 (HR) with a walk tonight so far.
I think he must be in the “rehab assignment” status which would match what is posted on Padres timeline for return to Padres.
Cool. Maybe we’ll see him at Petco soon
3rd game back tonight
milb.com/gameday/chihuahuas-vs-dodgers/2023/07/18/…
Nice on Tucker. Not so nice on Suarez BS though.
3 “singles” and a sac fly. The first one was a swinging bunt to 3rd. Then Mercado turned an out into a single. How it wasn’t an error is beyond me. Then Schrock blows a play at 2B and its “single” #3. Another one that is beyond me how it wasn’t called an error. Guess the OKC scorer wants the Dodgers players BA to look better?
Bottom line is Suarez didn’t pitch poorly. He was hitting his spots and his defense let him down.
As far as SD goes (and NYM for that matter) I think there’s something to be said for leaving a team alone that performed so well last year instead of adding so many guys. I like adding a few pieces but they added SO many guys and adding Bogaerts shuffled up things a bit too much for me.
And Bogaerts admitted that HSK is a better fielder with more range. Maybe he’d “take one for the team” and move to 2B… Nah. Never.
Agree. To me the Bogaerts signing seemed like a move of desperation but in reality it wasn’t even necessary. It was likely from ownership. Reminds me of them throwing away Max Fried for a year of Justin Upton and also adding a disabled vet in Matt Kemp and expecting to be good overnight. I don’t even know what Preller was responsible for and what he wasn’t all that time.
It’s not chemistry. It’s merely bad luck—though they’ll be earning that luck with ridiculous moves such as not letting Machado depart at year’s end, and by signing Darvish until he’s 50 or 42 or whenever that absurdity ends.
How do you know? They put a target of high expectations on themselves. They made it where coming into 2023 the story was all about the free agents they signed instead of the spotlight being on the guys who deserve it because they got them there last year. They turned good story and team you root for into high price tag team that is world series or bust. If I come into your job or house and bring in a bunch of new people, tell you your switching positions, surely it is more comfortable 4 months into it than it was at first. If we are all the sudden a fortune 500 company and the first quarter is looking like a bust do you think people don’t start to panic a bit?
Wake me up
The POBO
GOGO
Kohlwey certainly put in the work. Think this promotion is ~2-3 years overdue.
Dark – feel good story – I let his parents and talked to them watching him play a backfield game in 2018 ST. Been keeping an eye on him ever since. Hope he is a diamond in the rough.
In the immortal words of Homer… woohoo!!!
Read Homer as a kid thinking it was about baseball only to be disappointed
Doh!
Wouldn’t be mad if the Cubs picked up Odor and DFA’ed Mastrobuoni.
They’d be better off DFA’ing Mastrobuoni and adding David Bote back to the 40 man. He’s better than both of them.
San Diego is the 3 time defending CHAMPIONS….of the off-season.
Gary Sanchez is the new Wily Mo Pena
Catcher version
These changes are meanless. The season is over as far as the playoffs are concerned. There’s always next year or the year after.
“Meanless” – yes, I assume you were the victim of autocorrect which gets me 2-3 time per post – but even so, consider this: everything means something. The term meaningless is the most unnecessary word in our language. An act, in this case roster moves – means something good, something bad or maybe in between. Never is an action “meaningless”.
Ask Odor if it was “meaningless”.
One more thing….bring back Trader Joe and Dick Williams
Trader “Jack” is 92. I’m sure he’s more Mr. Pibb than Mr. POBO at this point.
Those two would make those brats cry.
I gotta give A.J Preller some credit; I now watch 3-4 times as many Padres games than I did 5+ years ago; the excitement level around that team has increased exponentially and we’ll all see if it’s sustainable over the long term.
I’ll credit ownership with that more than AJ. Imagine what they could do with that budget and better GM…
I can’t really disagree. Before, I’d only watch the Friars when I was watching the Dodgers put a beat down on them, but now I catch them 3-4x a week on MLB.TV
@benhen77 Yeah, they’re afflicted with a disease similar to the one plaguing the Mets, though there it’s clearer: Steve Cohen wanted to play GM, and Eppler is his beard.
Had Cohen assembled a smart FO and told them when he bought the team in October 2020 that payroll would grow to $360 million during the offseason prior to his third season owning the team, that FO could have built a juggernaut without having to lunge at Lindor, Scherzer, Verlander, and Marte. They’d have a rotation of Cy Young contenders in their early 30s from the offseasons when such contenders were going for 5./110, They’d still have Giminez at SS making $800k since even a $360m payroll won’t cover star FAs at every position, and take your pick of brilliant OFers to keep them warm while Crow-Armstrong grows up.
Cronenworth should be optioned next….long term deal was a big mistake…..Hosmer and Myers-like.
You haven’t seen many Friar Games. Granted his average is lower than Normal. There is a strong chance Jake get a Gold Glove at First Base.
The Padres are getting less 1b production than almost any other MLB team. I too thought “Crone Zone” was headed towards stardom a couple yrs back, but by almost all accounts, it just hasn’t happened.
He’s coming off two very strong years in 2021-22, almost AS caliber (and he even managed to sneak onto the team both years, somehow), so this is just a one year dropoff–so far, and 1B isn’t the best use of his talents, so he may shake it off in 2024.
He’d better, for the Padres’ sake. They locked in a MI’er for seven years and made him a 1Bman. Not the brightest move I’ve ever seen.
With Campusano almost every walk is a double, but if he fixes that issue and proves bat worthy in MLB — He could turn into an above average C
Agree my poolside liberation impacted my submission. Trader jack a legend….dick Williams molded a group that of misfits into a champion team. Meaningless references this seasons pursuit of the prize. Such high expectations… such disappointing results. My guess is the race for the bus…
Surprised Odor lasted that long.
Compusano should have been the starting catcher 1-2 years ago.
Preller drafts and finds talent well.
They, he, routinely, ships most of it off in one sided deals to help other ballclubs:
Cleveland, Seattle, Tampa and other ballclubs get some of their best, young talent
after “hosing” AJ Preller in trade deals with San Diego.
Preller stockpiles utility players whose best career years are in the rearview mirror.
Preller did trade for Juan Soto, a huge mistake that cratered the Padres farm system and depth.
Soto is talent who is finally hitting after a 3-4 month slump dating back to last year.
But, Soto cannot play 3-4 positions at once and he cannot pitch.
The Padres need a smarter, more savvy GM like Diamondbacks GM Mike Hazen
who has stated he will make deadline deals, but only deals that help his team both short and long term. Hazen will not blow up the DBacks farm system like AJ Preller did with the Padres.
I really like Campusano. He has not shown yet that he deserves to be a starting catcher in the majors. Maybe he will given the chance now. 2-3 starts a week at catcher, 2-3 starts at DH, and see how he does.
Soto is outperforming all the players in that trade all by himself and he wasn’t the only player that came to SD in the trade. Bell was a huge part of it.
Abrams and Gore are below league average. Gore is actually regressing as the season goes on. Robert Hassell is looking like a bust as he struggles for a 2nd straight season. Susana is having control issues and can’t go beyond 4 innings. If he makes the majors it will be as a reliever. Wood is striking out 35% of the time this season which is a huge red flag.
No. That was a VERY good trade for the Padres and would have been even better if Bell had been able to contribute even a little bit.
Padres farm system has 4 or 5 players in the top 100 now depending on the list and I would not be surprised to see them end the season with 7 on all of them. The Diamondbacks have 3 and one will graduate soon.
Preller has said that the Padres will only make deals at the deadline this year that will help the team short term and long term.
Padres were in the playoffs last season and nearly every game is sold out this season, so what Preller did, worked.