San Diego Padres are Now a Serious World Series Contender

The San Diego Padres aren’t just happy with breaking into the postseason this year, they’re going it all and hoping to win a World Series.

You don’t make a trade like the San Diego Padres did in acquiring someone like Mike Clevinger just with the hopes of making the postseason, the Padres already feel like a safe bet to do that for the first time in 16 years.

But you make that move when you believe you have the talent to win it all.

It also helps that Clevinger has two more years of control when the Padres already expected to be contending for World Series titles.

But does this trade, and the other flurry of trades, make this team a World Series team in 2020?

That was certainly the talk after the trade deadline as Dennis Lin of The Athletic (subscription required) quoted Padres general partner Peter Seidler saying, “We absolutely believe this is a World Series-competitive team.”

The Padres acquired nine players over the last few days that certainly will help this team not just reach the postseason in 2020, but give them a shot at making a deep run.

We talked about the two areas of weakness for this team were in the bullpen and a catcher.

AJ Preller fixed that by acquiring Trevor Rosenthal, Austin Adams, Dan Altavilla, Taylor Williams, Jason Castro, and Austin Nola.

The offense was already one of the best in baseball, but they went out and added a big left-handed bat in Mitch Moreland.

And the starting rotation was certainly good enough to get this team to the playoffs, but Preller decided that wasn’t good enough and he reeled in the biggest fish at the deadline in Clevinger.

They now have a rotation of Clevinger, Lamet, Paddack, Davies, and Richards. That’s one that can certainly hold up in the postseason.

I was looking at the averages of the Padres’ lineup on Monday night and the first eight batters in the lineup all had an OPS of .814 or higher (that included newcomers Moreland and Nola).

And batters 2-8 all had an OPS over .900.

That’s a tremendous amount of depth, which is exactly what you’re looking for to compete in the postseason.

Now, let’s pump the breaks a little and realize they still have to get past the Los Angeles Dodgers. They have a three-game series with them September 14-16 and it will be fun to size them up at that point.

But if you were to ask me a couple of days ago if I thought this team could win a World Series my honest answer would have been no. However, you can’t deny the improvements that were made and I could definitely see this team making  deep run in October.