San Diego Padres: Reasons to buy, or sell, at the MLB trade deadline

In the midst of the MLB’s annual garage sale, we look at the San Diego Padres options moving forward in this year’s trade season. Are they buyers or sellers?

Considering where the San Diego Padres were during the All-Star break, you would have thought it a far gone conclusion as to which way A.J. Preller and company were leaning towards the deadline. However, after a 1-6 record to start the second half of the year, we must reassess the direction in which they could now go.

In a previous article, we discussed the team’s top trade chips ahead of the deadline. However, this article won’t talk about specific trade names on either side of the buy or sell equation.

Well, except for one name not mentioned in that previous article. The one person who would make a lot of sense to trade would be Craig Stammen.

Hear me out. It’s not due to his results, which by the way haven’t been as good as the previous two seasons. It’s due more to the direction in which the team plans on going over the rest of the second half — that is, going young.

More importantly, his contract is set to expire at the end of this season, making him expendable in a financial way.

There are legitimate reasons to stand pat, though that’s not the path we believe they’ll take. This is the Rock Star G.M. with Hot Talent Lava flowing at his price, and with 2020 looking more and more like the year for true contention, these next 10 days could go a long way toward the roster construction for that contention window.

Are there other names that could be mentioned as sellers? Absolutely. Aside from Stammen though, we’ll discuss the reasons for selling or buying, not specific players.

First, let’s talk about the reasons to sell.

SELLERS

Why sellers? A lot of reasons actually. Even though the team is still technically in the playoff hunt, the reason to sell has been discussed only as far as the players involved.

For instance, we could sell to shed the contracts of players who are set to become free agents, such as Stammen; or we could sell to rid ourselves of bad contracts, such as that of Wil Myers.

Mainly, we can sell to acquire a front-of-the-rotation arm that the front office seems hell-bent on getting, or to help ease the soon-to-be 40-man roster crunch that will present its own set of problems in the off-season.

Those are all good and logical reasons to do so — but is that the best thing to do at this point? Possibly. This front office makes very strategic moves for the short and long-term interest of the team.

Now that the Friars have called up both Luis Urias and Adrian Morejon, that helps a little regarding the 40-man roster; Morejon was going to need to be protected during the winter anyhow.

The corresponding moves that will be made to add each of them to the 25-man roster should provide a glimpse into what direction the front office might be leaning. It’ll be fun to see what the 40-man move will be to add Morejon, too.

Furthermore, if you’ve followed recent team news, there will soon be another move made to add Michel Baez to the team, as has been reported by multiple outlets who cover the franchise.

Could all of this shuffling around be the catalyst that leads the team to sell? The next 10 days will surely answer that question.

Or, could these transactions be leading the Friars to be buyers?