San Diego Padres: 5 trade targets from the NL West

We continue our division-by-division break down of potential trade targets for the San Diego Padres looking at teams in their own division.

It’s rare for teams to make a big trade within their own division, but it’s certainly not unheard of. We’ll see if the San Diego Padres matchup with anyone from the NL West.

And in case you missed our first two installments of this series, here they are:

NL East

NL Central 

Going into 2020 the Padres are actually in a pretty good spot to contend in the NL West as the Arizona Diamondbacks, San Francisco Giants, and Colorado Rockies appear to be in a transition stage.

But at the same time, you have to deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers who are trying to win a World Series every season.

Dodgers

With the report on Friday (subscription required) that Kenta Maeda is not happy with the way the Dodgers are using him, they could look to trade him this offseason.

Maeda has gone back-and-forth from being a starter and a reliever, but no matter the role he’s been in, he’s been very effective.

He has a career ERA of 3.87 in 589 innings with 641 strikeouts and a WHIP of 1.15.

This past season he made 26 starts and had 11 relief appearances with a 4.04 ERA in 153.2 innings with 169 strikeouts and a spectacular WHIP of 1.07.

If LA does decide to deal him, he could make a lot of sense for the Padres rotation, and he’s under team control for four more seasons at just over $3 million a year (but he does have some bonuses in his contract).

The Dodgers are pretty loaded in the outfield and have been rumored to shop Joc Pederson before (although we haven’t heard any mention of that this offseason … yet).

The 27-year-old would give the Padres the left-handed bat they desperately need, and he would add a ton of power to the lineup.

He hit 36 home runs in 2019, but he’s just a career .233 hitter and will be a free agent after the 2020 season.