San Diego Padres: What the Starling Marte trade means for the NL West

With the Arizona Diamondbacks seemingly going for it in 2020 they could serve as a serious threat to the San Diego Padres in the NL West.

Going into this offseason I thought the San Diego Padres would be a pretty clear favorite to finish second in the NL West behind the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The San Francisco Giants are in an obvious rebuild, there have been talks of the Colorado Rockies tearing things down to rebuild, and after trading their two best players one just assumed the Arizona Diamondbacks were going to rebuild.

But that doesn’t appear to be the case as they’ve signed Kole Calhoun and Madison Bumgarner this offseason, and they just acquired Starling Marte from the Pittsburgh Pirates.

San Diego was also rumored to be involved in trade talks for Marte, but those talks never really seemed that serous.

However, nobody was linking them to the Diamondbacks who seemingly came out of nowhere to grab him. And as a result they’ve really made themselves a legitimate contender in the NL West this upcoming season.

Let’s assume that the Dodgers remain the clear favorite atop the division. And if the Rockies hold onto Nolan Arenado and Jon Gray, suddenly the NL West is one of the best divisions in baseball with four very good teams.

You’d have four teams seemingly going into 2020 looking to earn a playoff spot.

Looking at the Diamondbacks specifically with Marte, they now have a pretty strong middle of the order with Ketel Marte, David Peralta, Christian Walker, and Eduardo Escobar.

All five of those players had an OPS over .800 last year giving them an elite offense.

The only question for Arizona now is how the back-end of the rotation will hold up and will the young guys like Zac Gallen and Luke Weaver take another step forward.

If they can, then this team might even give the Dodgers a run for their money in the division.

At this point I’d have to say the Diamondbacks are better suited to make the postseason in 2020 over the Padres. It was very close before the Marte trade, but with him that definitely puts them over the top.

This is a huge trade for the Diamondbacks and will definitely shake things up in the NL West.