San Diego Padres: Reviewing the offseason and what could have been

Now that the offseason is pretty much complete, we look back on the moves the San Diego Padres made and how things could have gone differently.

It was a very active offseason for the San Diego Padres as GM A.J. Preller hopes to put a winning team on the field in 2020.

But now that we’re gearing up for spring training, it’s a good time to go back and look at the moves that were made and the ones that weren’t made.

Going into the offseason the biggest needs for the Padres were finding a frontline starting pitcher and some big bats — primarily in the outfield.

They also opened up a need at second base when they traded away Luis Urias.

But the biggest move of the offseason came when they signed reliever Drew Pomeranz to a four-year deal worth $34 million, but only $6 million of that goes towards the 2020 payroll.

And then they traded Urias, Eric Lauer, and either cash or a player to be named later to the Milwaukee Brewers for Trent Grisham and Zach Davies.

San Diego effectively took on $5.25 million towards the 2020 payroll in that deal with Davies. And while he isn’t the frontline starter we were hoping for, he does give them solid depth in the rotation.

And Grisham helps fill a hole in the outfield and is a good on-base guy, which the front office seems to be targeting.

Now with the vacancy at second base, they traded catcher Austin Allen and a player to be named later (Buddy Reed) to the Oakland Athletics for Jurickson Profar.

They took on $5.7 million in this deal with Profar, which means at this point they have added nearly $17 million to the 2020 payroll.

Then Preller made perhaps the best trade of the offseason (at least before the Mookie Betts trade) by acquiring Tommy Pham and Jake Cronenworth from the Tampa Bay Rays for Hunter Renfroe, Xavier Edwards, and a player to be named later.

This deal adds another $4.6 million towards the 2020 payroll. But it also gives the Padres a big bat in the outfield.

And don’t sleep on Cronenworth who is getting great reviews as a possible two-way player at the big league level as early as the 2020 season.

Finally, the Padres made another move to improve the bullpen by signing Pierce Johnson to a two-year, $5 million deal.

We know they tried hard to trade Wil Myers this offseason to free up money, but it doesn’t look like that will happen. And Preller was in on almost every big trade target but was unable to work a deal.

All-in-all, he spent about $24 million this offseason. That’s the amount of money we’ll use for this exercise to see how it could have been spent better.