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.

Subtract to add

In order to make a big splash and build a division title contender in 2020, the first thing that needs to happen is the Padres need to shed some payroll and get rid of some bad contracts.

I’m pretty sure I’ve written about this in every article this offseason, but Wil Myers has to be traded this offseason anyway possible.

The $22.5 million that he’ll make over the next three seasons is not worth the 1 WAR seasons that he’s likely to put up.

Ian Kinsler is set to make $3.75 million in 2020 and needs to be moved as well. Those two are taking up $25 million of the 2020 payroll and really aren’t giving you much in return.

Preller has to find a way to move both of these players to shed some money, and to do that he’s either going to have to take on a bad contract in return or give up some good prospects.

It really doesn’t make much sense to take on a bad contract in return unless it’s someone like David Price who can be a frontline starter, so let’s look at attaching some prospects to them.

The team I’m looking at is the Detroit Tigers.

That’s the team I was able to work out a Wil Myers trade with in our Mock Winter Meetings.

But for the sake of this experiement, I’m going to be a little more greedy and try to dump Myers and Kinsler on the Tigers.

Detroit has had a high payroll in the past, and they aren’t expected to contend for at least two or three more seasons. At that time Myers will be off the books, as will Jordan Zimmermann for them. And they’ll have just one more year of that terrible Miguel Cabrera contract.

Package Myers and Kinsler with a couple of top prospects (maybe Trammell or Morejon and another top 15 prospect in the Padres system — the cost will be high) and I think you can get a deal done.

And depending on the prospect package, the Padres might still have to eat some of Myers’ contract.

But with this move, the Padres now have the flexibility to go out and make major improvements this offseason.

The final outfield piece

More from Friars on Base

• Padres fighting with hated rival to sign quality veteran relief pitcher
• Jurickson Profar free agency update likely rules out Padres reunion
• Fernando Tatis Jr. may not take to outfield move after Xander Bogaerts addition
• Padres News: Fernando Tatis Jr. trade rumors, Seth Lugo chase, Manny Machado
• Padres barely missed out on high-end veteran starting pitcher

With the bad contracts moved and the frontline starter on board, now we just need to finish the outfield rebuild.

To me, there are three trade options out there to finish this off: Mitch Haniger, Trey Mancini, and Clint Frazier.

All are set to make less than $6 million in 2020. I really like Frazier in this exercise as he’s still pre-arbitration eligible and I think he has a lot of upside.

But Haniger makes a lot of sense as well and might be easier to get done with a Mariners team that is clearly rebuilding.

And I really like Mancini, but he’s more expensive and is a defensive liability.

Let’s say for this exercise the Padres trade for Haniger with a package headlined by Luis Campusano. And let’s also say we throw Manuel Margot in the deal to save a couple of million.

Now let’s look at what our NL West contending roster could look like.

1. Tatis Jr. – SS

2. Pham – LF

3. Machado – 3B

4. Hosmer – 1B

5. Haniger – RF

6. Profar – 2B

7. Mejia/Hedges – C

8. Grisham – CF

1. Strasburg

2. Paddack

3. Richards

4. Lamet

5. Davies

Payroll: $150 million

I really like that lineup and rotation. You’d still be banking on players like Grisham and Lamet to take huge steps forward, and hoping Profar and Richards bounce-back (Richard coming off an injury, Profar off a down season).

But if all of those players play to their potential, I think that’s a roster that should definitely at least earn a Wild Card spot, and one that could push the Dodgers in the NL West.

This is certainly a dream scenario that is not likely to happen, but there is at least a path to get it done if there is a willingness from Preller and the front office.