SAN DIEGO -- It’s stating the obvious to say this will be an eventful Trade Deadline in San Diego. With A.J. Preller as general manager, they all are.
Still, there’s much riding on the direction Preller chooses over the next three weeks. The Padres are currently tied in the loss column for the final playoff spot in the National League. They have a roster laden with superstars. They also have several glaring holes.
Earlier this week, Preller discussed his Trade Deadline plans publicly for the first time in an interview with MLB Network Radio. Here’s what we learned:
‘Adding a bat or two’
“You’ve got to be deep one through nine,” Preller said. “And I think probably adding a bat or two is something that we’re going to look at here in the next few weeks to try to help our team get to October.”
As things stand, the Padres are not currently deep, one through nine. The final two spots in their lineup have been a source of much consternation. Entering play Wednesday, the Padres’ .567 OPS in the No. 8 spot ranked 27th in the Majors. Their .543 OPS in the No. 9 spot ranks 28th.
Yes, there are issues at the top. Jackson Merrill is mired in the worst slump of his career and was recently dropped to the No. 5 spot. Xander Bogaerts and Fernando Tatis Jr. have both endured prolonged slumps as well this year, too.
Add it all up, and the Padres’ offense just hasn’t been good enough after its hot start. Since the start of May, San Diego’s .672 team-wide OPS ranks ahead of only Pittsburgh among NL clubs.
‘Rounding out the depth’
Nonetheless, Preller expressed confidence in the big bats at the top. The solvable issues -- at least from his perspective -- are at the bottom.
“On the offense side, it’s probably [about] rounding out the depth of the lineup,” Preller said. “The top of the lineup should be strong. … You’ve got to be deep.”
So what, exactly, does that mean the Padres will be looking for? The two positions where they’re clearly lacking on offense are left field and catcher. They’ve gotten a bit of a boost in left since Gavin Sheets moved there part-time -- and Sheets launched a moonshot of a 437-foot homer in the Padres’ 8-2 loss to the Diamondbacks on Wednesday night -- but Sheets is quite clearly playing out of position.
The Padres almost certainly will be adding a left fielder -- a righty hitter, in all likelihood. But they probably won’t stop there. “A bat or two,” Preller said.
Publicly, the Padres maintain that their catching situation is fine because of the value Elias Díaz and Martín Maldonado bring in terms of run prevention. Plus, catchers who hit are hard to come by -- and hard to assimilate into a team midseason. Still, if there’s another spot the Padres could upgrade, it’s at catcher.
The other option is to add a bench bat, giving Shildt better options to pinch-hit with (presumably for one of those catchers in a big spot). His top bench bat is often the light-hitting Trenton Brooks. Lately, Shildt has resorted to batting for Maldonado as early as the fifth inning -- which he did on Wednesday. He was later asked how sustainable that would be.
"As far as sustainable, listen, the parts are the parts, and you manage them to the best of your absolute ability," Shildt said.
Unless those parts change, of course.
Adding to a strength?
Preller was less clear about his plans on the pitching side. That’s largely because of the uncertainty surrounding two of the team’s most important starters.
Yu Darvish only just returned from right elbow inflammation on Monday and threw 63 pitches in his season debut. Michael King, meanwhile, is ramping up after being sidelined by a right shoulder/long thoracic nerve injury.
“Getting Darvish, King back would be huge,” Preller said. “The bullpen’s been strong. We’ve got a lot of different weapons in the ‘pen. You could add to a strength.”
Preller has done that before. Right now, the bullpen is again an obvious strength. But in the past three Trade Deadlines, Preller has made trades to add Jason Adam, Tanner Scott and Josh Hader to bullpens that were already strong.
If -- and it feels like a sizeable “if” at this point -- the Padres are comfortable with the health of King and Darvish, perhaps they’d look to add to their bullpen, rather than reinforcing the back end of their rotation.
Whatever they choose, you can bet Preller will keep things interesting.
“We feel like we have a pretty good pulse on the league and who’s out there,” he said. “It doesn’t always mean you’re going to make great decisions. But I think we’re in position with talented players in the organization at the Major League and Minor League level to at least be in these conversations.”