Padres Editorial: What if The Off-Season Is A Failure?

So who had the San Diego Padres doing all of this in the off-season? I certainly didn’t and I don’t believe they are done quite yet either with all of the extra outfielders they have and some extra depth in the rotation. The Padres still have some holes. Who’s on third? What is Yonder Alonso? Can Wil Myers play center effectively?

Many teams have had huge off-seasons on paper. The Boston Red Sox got Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford in 2011 and found themselves dumping them to the Dodgers in 2012. The Miami Marlins went and signed Jose Reyes and Mark Buehrle and almost got Albert Pujols. They sent them to the Blue Jays the next off-season. The Blue Jays made the big trade with the Marlins and also got R.A. Dickey from the Mets. They haven’t made the playoffs yet. 

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The Padres have made huge moves this off-season. There are questions though as I said earlier, so what if it all goes wrong like with those other teams? What if James Shields gets hurt? What if Matt Kemp gets hurt? What if they just don’t put it all together?

Well, they can do it all again.  Justin Upton, Ian Kennedy, Carlos Quentin and Joaquin Benoit all come off the books next year. If it doesn’t work, any or all those guys can be flipped for prospects to help reload the farm system, especially Upton.

A.J. Preller has made the Padres relevant and he clearly won’t be afraid  to make more changes. They could still add Yoan Moncada to the farm system. They still have three extra outfielders they could deal.

In his latest column, Fox Sports Ken Rosenthal compared Preller to Billy Beane in their fearlessness and boldness in deal making.

If the new era of Padres baseball fails this year, Preller will do his best to reload and won’t be afraid to do so. Even it fails, he had to try.

Part one was making the Padres relevant in the baseball landscape. That’s been done. Now let’s see if it succeeds on the field.

Next: Ranking the NL West First Baseman

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