Well, that happened. There are busy trade deadlines, and then there's what AJ Preller and the San Diego Padres pulled off over the course of several frenzied hours on Thursday afternoon. It began with the shocker of all shockers: San Diego sent Leo De Vries, not just its top prospect but arguably the top prospect in all of baseball, plus three more Minor League arms to the Athletics in exchange for star closer Mason Miller and lefty JP Sears.
But Preller was just getting warmed up. Speculation began to swirl that the Miller deal was in preparation for dealing away righty Dylan Cease and closer Robert Suarez, each of whom can hit free agency this winter. Instead, the Padres kept both — and added a ton, hell-bent on finally supplanting the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL West pecking order. Freddy Fermin came to fill the hole at catcher. Ramon Laureano and Ryan O'Hearn brought much-needed upgrades in the outfield and at DH, respectively. Nestor Cortes brings more rotation depth. Heck, even the bench got a touch-up courtesy of Blue Jays utility man Will Wagner.
It was ... a lot to keep track of, to say the least, and it cost a ton of prospect capital to make it all happen. So, now that the dust has settled, where do things stand? Just who is still on this team, and what does the depth chart look like? And most importantly, how will it stack up against the Dodgers and the NL's other heavyweights? Let's break it all down.
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Projected Padres lineup after adding Freddy Fermin, Ryan O'Hearn, Ramon Laureano
Order | Player | Position |
|---|---|---|
1 | Fernando Tatis Jr. | RF |
2 | Luis Arraez | 1B |
3 | Manny Machado | 3B |
4 | Jackson Merrill | CF |
5 | Xander Bogaerts | SS |
6 | Ryan O'Hearn | DH |
7 | Ramon Laureano/Gavin Sheets | LF |
8 | Jake Cronenworth | 2B |
9 | Freddy Fermin | C |
We'll with the lineup, which plugged multiple glaring weaknesses on Thursday. San Diego's situation at catcher and in left field were among the very worst in the entire sport, hardly becoming a team with legitimate World Series aspirations. Now, though, they could be strengths: Laureano is having a career season and will form a perfect platoon in left, while even spelling Jackson Merrill in center in a pinch. Fermin supplants Elias Diaz behind the plate. O'Hearn, meanwhile, will stabilize the DH spot, with Laureano potentially sliding there against tougher left-handed pitchers.
Does it have all the firepower of, say, L.A.? Probably not. But unlike yesterday, it's now legitimately deep one through nine, without any obvious landing spots for opposing pitchers. If Bogaerts and Cronenworth can keep on defying Father Time, this has the chance to be a legitimately dangerous unit moving forward, one with answers against both righties and lefties.
Projected Padres rotation after Dylan Cease trade
Order | Player |
|---|---|
1 | Michael King |
2 | Nick Pivetta |
3 | Yu Darvish |
4 | Nestor Cortes |
5 | Randy Vasquez |
6 | JP Sears |
Things are still a bit in flux here. King is set to finally begin a rehab assignment this weekend, although he'll likely need three or four outings before he returns to the Majors. Cortes, meanwhile, is almost back from the elbow injury that's held him out since April. If those two come back healthy and firing, though, then suddenly San Diego has a pretty solid starting staff.
Of course, those are more "ifs" than you'd ideally like, and we haven't even gotten to whether Yu Darvish can finally get back on track or Randy Vasquez can continue succeeding despite his poor underlying metrics. But King, Pivetta and an in-form Darvish would give you a puncher's chance in any postseason series, especially considering that this bullpen added Miller to a group that was already far and away the best in baseball. It's clear what formula Preller envisions come October: Get a couple times through the order from your starter and then let the cavalcade of flamethrowers commence. Whether things work out that way remains to be seen, but there are certainly worse ideas.
Padres top prospects after flurry of deadline deals
There's no such thing as a free lunch, as the saying goes, and that holds doubly true at the trade deadline. The cost of all of this mayhem can be felt in San Diego's farm system, which was already a bit shallow and now just lost one of the brightest young talents in the Minors in De Vries.
But while the Miller trade was a truly massive outlay, Preller actually did pretty well to avoid spending a ton on his other moves; while the O'Hearn/Laureano trade featured a six-player package, only two of them ranked in San Diego's top 10, and both are still in A-ball. This is not a good farm system, but there is still some help to be had here in the near future. Here's a look at the Padres' current top five, per MLB Pipeline's latest rankings.
1. C Ethan Salas
2. RHP Humberto Cruz
3. LHP Kash Mayfield
4. RHP Miguel Mendez
5. RHP Bradgley Rodriguez
Salas remains the catcher of the future, someone who could start making noise in San Diego as soon as next year. If there's a concern beyond that, it's the loss of near-Majors pitching depth, as Braden Nett, Ryan Bergert and Henry Baez all could've factored into the team's rotation for 2026 (or, in Bergert's case, helped down the stretch of this season). It's likely that San Diego is going to be hurting a bit moving forward, as contracts come off the books without a ton of ammo to replace them. But hey, flags fly forever, and you have to admire Preller for going for it one more time.