San Diego Padres: 3 more moves to win the NL West

With the Winter Meetings underway this week, we look at three moves the San Diego Padres still need to make to finish the offseason.

A.J. Preller has already been very active this offseason in improving the San Diego Padres roster for the upcoming 2020 season and beyond.

Going into the offseason two areas of need were outfield and starting pitching.

Preller has made moves to improve both of those positions with the additions of Trent Grisham, Tommy Pham, and Zach Davies.

It’s starting to look like the Padres won’t be able to sign any of the top free agents like we were hoping when the offseason began.

And because of that, Preller has had to move a lot of prospects to try and improve this team for 2020 through trades.

The payroll for 2020 is already around $140 million, which is what the Opening Day payroll is projected to be.

If that’s the case, then there is obviously not much room to do anything else this offseason.

And that’s why I think the Padres will have to subtract in order to add.

With the moves that have been made, I don’t think anyone is ready to crown this team the favorites to win the NL West.

In order for that to happen, they still need to acquire a big bat for the outfield and a frontline starter.

I’m not sure they’re going to be able to pull that off this offseason. So the question for A.J. Preller the rest of this offseason is — do you want to build a Wild Card contender or an NL West contender?

If the goal is just to stay competitive and compete for a Wild Card spot, then not much else needs to be done.

But if you want to make a splash and compete for an NL West crown, then here are 3 moves to help get that done.