San Diego Padres trade targets from the AL West

Athletics

What the Oakland Athletics do from offseason-to-offseason is anyone’s guess, but you can bet they’ll be active in trying to put together the winning formula for 2020.

One player who could be available is Jurickson Profar.

If the Padres wanted to possibly upgrade their bench bat and have someone push Luis Urias at second, they could make a move for Profar.

He’s only under team control through arbitration for one more season and is coming off a down year in which he hit just .218.

But he has hit 20 home runs in each of the past two seasons and is a very solid defender wherever he plays across the infield.

Profar was a 2.8 WAR player in 2018 and could get back to those numbers in 2020.

However, he is projected to make almost $6 million in 2020, so that would be a little pricey for a bench player.

Reliever Blake Treinen could be a buy-low candidate after he posted a 4.91 ERA in 2019 –a season after being the best relief pitcher in all of baseball with a 0.78 ERA in 80.1 innings with 100 strikeouts.

The overuse in 2018 likely led to him taking a step back this past season. He’s definitely a bounce-back candidate, but he wouldn’t come cheap as he’s projected to make close to $8 million in his final year of arbitration.