No Sandoval? No Tomas? Here’s Plan C, D, E, F.

Padres’ fans back in November had their minds blown hearing rumors of World Series Champion third baseman Pablo Sandoval and Cuban star Yasmany Tomas were in talks of coming to San Diego. Then the usual suspects like the Boston Red Sox smashed those dreams with an even bigger pocket book by signing Panda. Okay, plan B.. Yasmany Tomas, maybe the next Yoenis Cespedes? Nope. D-Backs signed him right after that.

This off-season was quickly turning into a disappointment, here we go again, a chance to change this team now is looking like another boring season at Petco Park.

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As Jay-Z said “on to the next one”, there is no surrender with the “Rock Star” G.M. “You’ve got to be prepared to move on to Plan B, C, D or F or Z. We don’t have a [front-office] group that dwells on things too long,” Preller said. “We want players that want to be here, and if it didn’t work out, then we’d go to the next thing and try to get better.” (h/t, Corey Brock of MLB.com)

So Preller explored those other plans and dug into the trade market during the winter meetings. One day you had Matt Kemp from the Dodgers rumors, “Yeah right, I’ll believe it when I see it.” said every Padres fan. That became official later. “It actually happened?” Said every Padres fan after that. Then (in no particular order) Justin Upton from the Braves, Derek Norris from the A’s and Wil Myers from the Rays, “No [insert R-rated word] way!” said Padres fan. Rock Star found a way to get it done! No doubt one of the most talked about Padres off-seasons ever!

Now suppose the Padres won the bids for Pablo and Tomas? Would the Padres still have traded for the new look outfield and backstop? That’s something we’ll never know. “Each decision takes you down a slightly different path,” Preller said. “If it was Sandoval or any of the other things we discussed, it would have been a different path, but in general, we were trying to go down a few [paths] to try and make the team look better. If we had signed Pablo, it would have changed our course a little bit. That’s just the nature of the offseason.”

There are no signs showing Preller has hit the brake pedal completely. Rumors are still lingering of talks with Rancho Bernardo High School alum Cole Hamels from the Phillies and/or Dillon Gee from the Mets. Maybe not getting Pablo or Tomas was a blessing?

That’s also something we won’t know yet.