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

Moves I would take back

I don’t want to overly criticize Preller here because I think he had a pretty good offseason, but I would take back several of these moves he made knowing what I know now.

The one obvious one for me to take back is the Profar trade. That seemed like a knee-jerk reaction after trading away Urias.

I get that Preller apparently has a man-crush on him, but I didn’t love that trade then, and looking back I hate it even more. You gave up two prospects for one year of a questionable bat.

And you could have gotten guys like Joe Panik or Asdrubal Cabrera for much less in free agency.

Or, they could have just let the guys in-house compete for the spot in Spring Training and be just as good at the position.

If I could go back, I wouldn’t do that trade at all and would let the young guys battle for the second base job in Spring Training.

The Pomeranz deal is OK, and I get wanting to beef up the bullpen with the young rotation. Plus, if you’re not going to be able to re-sign Kirby Yates after this season then you already have someone in place who could potentially take his spot.

But the Pierce Johnson move makes little sense as I’m not even sure he’s good enough make the Padres bullpen. That signing I could do without.

The trade for Grisham and Davies never made sense to me and still doesn’t, so I would take that trade back as well. Which means I still have a second base (even though now he’s hurt).

As I look back, the only two moves I would keep are the Pham trade and the Pomeranz signing. And the Pomeranz signing is still questionable.

So with keeping those two deals, I now only have $13 million to fill the starting pitching void and find another bat.