Who Could San Diego Padres Look to as Sellers at Trade Deadline

As the trade deadline approaches for the San Diego Padres we look at which teams could actually be sellers at this point in the season.

It speaks to the craziness of this 2020 season that we’re trying to determine sellers for the trade deadline just 25-30 games in. But that’s where we are and the San Diego Padres — as buyers — might not have much to work with.

I’m not going to focus so much on players who may be available at the trade deadline right now. Instead, on want to focus on the teams who might be willing to trade and the teams who could slip into that category with a bad week.

As I’m writing this there are still six days worth of games before the deadline. And as the Padres have seen, a week can make a world of difference.

If a team goes on a five-game win streak then suddenly their back in the playoff picture with 16 teams making it this year.

On the flip side, if a team loses six straight they might decide to pack it up.

Let’s start with the teams we know are out of it and will be willing to trade away some of their better players.

Definite Sellers: Boston Red Sox, Detroit Tigers, Kansas City Royals, Seattle Mariners, Los Angeles Angels, and Pittsburgh Pirates.

That’s just six teams that we can say for certain are out of the playoff hunt at this point and would be willing to deal.

Now let’s take a look at teams that could be sellers with a bad week.

Potential Sellers: Baltimore Orioles, Texas Rangers, Cincinnati Reds, San Francisco Giants, Arizona Diamondbacks, and Colorado Rockies.

There are six more teams we could potentially add to the mix by the end of this week.

Baltimore is certainly in a rebuild and has exceeded expectations thus far. They’d have to be crazy not to entertain trade offers that help them in the future as it would be shocking if they made the postseason this year.

It’s going to be hard for Texas to pull the plus as they felt like they’d be contenders this year, but if they have a bad week it would be hard for them not to listen for offers on Lance Lynn and Mike Minor.

The NL East is crazy with every team in four games of each other. All of those teams feel like they can win that beat up division at this point so I don’t see any of them selling before the deadline.

Cincinnati is another team similar to Texas that will have a hard time pulling the plug as they came into the season with high expectations — even higher than the Rangers.

The Reds likely come down to the wire with a big series against the division-leading Chicago Cubs over the weekend. They might not become sellers until the day of the deadline.

San Diego winning seven straight kind of put a huge gap between them and the rest of the division. But crazy enough, it’s the Rockies and the Giants that would be the last two teams into the postseason if the season ended today.

There are seven NL teams within a game-and-a-half of each other for those last two playoff spots.

Point being, there may not be a lot of teams willing to sell at this deadline. Fourteen of 15 teams in the NL are within 1.5 games of making the postseason.

There is a lot more clarity in the American League at this point, and that’s probably where most of the focus should be when looking for trade targets.

Now that we’ve identified the teams who are — or could be — sellers, what players should the Padres be targeting from those teams?