Padres: What’s holding up Craig Stammen signing, is a move coming?

As this offseason lingers and we constantly check Twitter for San Diego Padres updates, let’s get into some speculation.

It’s been almost a week since the announcement that the San Diego Padres are bringing back relief pitcher Craig Stammen.

And before we go any further and before I get killed in the comments, this is a pure speculation article. So if you don’t like that kind of stuff, I apologize, and please come back for our non-speculation articles.

But we’re in the “dog days” of the baseball offseason as we’re caught in between the big moves of the offseason at the Winter Meetings and being not too far away from pitchers and catchers.

January has always been my least favorite month of the year — and it just happens to be the month my birthday is in…

While we wait for deals to happen and warmer weather to get here, we have nothing to do at this point but speculate.

What’s holding up the Craig Stammen deal? 

The most logical and most likely answer is that players are on vacation this time of year and the team and Stammen just haven’t setup the time to do the physical and sign the papers.

But maybe there is more to it than that. Maybe A.J. Preller has another move lined up.

That’s what this bored freelance writer is hoping for anyway.

Once the Stammen deal is made official, someone will have to come off the 40-man roster — that much we know.

Whatever may be holding this up, we know it will involve a corresponding move.

Who could be cut? 

It’s most likely going to be a pitcher who gets the ax if the Padres do have to DFA someone along with the Stammen signing.

The problem is all of the Padres arms are so good and have so much upside that it would be hard to let one of them go.

Gerardo Reyes or Javy Guerra would probably be my choices, but even letting go of them for nothing would hurt.

That’s why I think Preller could be setting up to make a trade.

Is there a trade coming? 

If I had to make a guess, and this is a speculation article so everything is essentially me guessing, Preller is working on a trade.

However, I don’t believe it will be anything major.

He’s most likely trying to see if someone is interested in whoever the Padres would have to DFA to sign Stammen to make sure they don’t lose that player for nothing.

And if that is the case, they’d have to trade for someone that didn’t need to go on their 40-man roster. We’re talking about a C-level prospect here.

The Padres did the same thing a couple of years ago when they needed to clear 40-man space and traded Colten Brewer to the Boston Red Sox for Esteban Quiroz. That’s starting to look like a really good deal.

To give you another example, the Miami Marlins were reported to have signed Francisco Cervelli all the way back on December 23. That move didn’t become official until today (Jan. 9) as they DFA’ed Austin Dean.

Preller is likely holding out as long as he can to see if he can avoid having to DFA a good player.

Again, just speculating, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what is going on here. Preller is trying to make a minor trade to avoid having to DFA a good player and lose them for nothing As always, let me know your thoughts in the comments below.