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.

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.

A better solution at starting pitcher

To be fair, the cost for starting pitching this offseason was absurd. And I’m only looking at free agents that were signed and trades that were made.

Doing that, getting Zach Davies may have actually been the best option.

But if the goal was to just get an innings eater at the back of the rotation, I would have rather seen them sign Julio Teheran.

He’s still just 29 years old and he’s thrown at least 174 innings in each of the past seven seasons with an ERA of around 3.75 during that stretch.

If you want to talk about a model of consistency and performance, Teheran is the obvious choice.

Now, I understand that Davies is younger, cheaper, and more controllable. But you also don’t have to give up two promising prospects to get Teheran.

The Anaheim Angels signed Julio to a one-year deal worth $9 million, which takes up a good bit of our remaining money.

Other options they could have considered include Alex Wood at $4 million, Rich Hill at $3 million, or Ivan Nova at $1.5 million.

Wood has a lot of upside, but probably not the guy we’re looking for if you want somebody to eat up innings.

I would have been all for Hill or Nova as guys to eat up innings at the back of the rotation, and they would have been cheaper than Teheran and Davies.

But for the sake of this exercise, let’s go with Julio, which leaves us $4-6 million to find another outfield bat.

What would this look like

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• Padres barely missed out on high-end veteran starting pitcher

In complete fairness to A.J. Preller, he really didn’t have much to work with this offseason. Twenty-four million dollars is not a lot when you’re trying to plug multiple holes.

And again, that’s mainly his own fault because of bad signings/extensions that are hampering him.

But to recap, I would have done the Pomeranz signing, the Pham trade, and signed Teheran.

Here is what that lineup would look like:

Tatis Jr – SS

Pham – LF

Machado – 3B

Hosmer – 1B

Cordero – CF

Myers – RF

Urias/Cronenworth – 2B

Mejia/Hedges – C

That’s not too terribly different than what we actually have now, and it’s certainly not an improvement.

But we do still have Allen, Urias, Reed, and Lauer as trade assets, as well as an additional $4 million.

Here is what the rotation would look like:

Paddack

Richards

Teheran

Lamet

Lucchesi

Again, not too terribly different than what we actually have, but I do like the dependability of Teheran in the rotation over Davies.

If anything, I think this exercise just shows you how difficult it was for Preller to maneuver this offseason.

With only $25 million to spend in the offseason, there was never really a chance to make a huge splash.

He did what he could to make moves on the margins, but in the end I think he would have been better served to stick with what we already had in place.

Looking back, the Pham trade is really the only move this offseason that made a significant difference.

Perhaps Profar bounces back and has a big year, but I’m not banking on that happening. And maybe Grisham breaks out in his first full season, but I’m not counting on that either.

Not that I love the prospects we gave up in those deals, but I think they could have been used more wisely to make more significant moves.

But again, Preller didn’t have much to work with this offseason and he did what he could to put a winning team on the field, and I think he has.

What would you have done differently this offseason? Let us know in the comments below.