Padres need trade deadline help, but the market is already working against them

If you’re not sure what the problem with the Padres is, you’re not paying attention. The offense has been a season-long problem, the rotation has been held together and did well for a while before recent struggles, and the bullpen has continued to bail everyone out because what else are they supposed to do? 

Is that enough for a front office to justify going all-in? It’s a fair question that probably does have a right answer, but a strong argument could be made either way. But assuming they turn things around from their recent struggles, they’ll be buying, so what’s left is figuring out how to pull it off. And that’s the hard part.

The Padres have a shopping list, but so does half the league

On MLB Network's "MLB Now," former general manager Steve Phillips made the case that the Padres still have the talent to make a real run if they add in the right spots.

He pointed to their bullpen as one place with actual surplus and mentioned Mason Miller as the most valuable chip on the roster. He’s not wrong about that. The Padres do have enough pieces that a couple of additions could change how this season is remembered. It’s not that they don’t have enough to work with internally, though. It’s that there might not be enough to acquire.

Jim Bowden laid out the Padres’ shopping list in The Athletic a few weeks back, and there really isn’t much change. They need starting pitching, a corner outfield bat, a lefty power hitter, and catching depth. The second and third needs could theoretically fit into one player, but they could use two bats. Overall, that’s four real needs on a roster stretched thin to begin with, and they mostly line up with a hole the offense hasn’t been able to fill all season long. Manny Machado, Fernando Tatis Jr., and Jackson Merrill are all having rough years to varying degrees, so one bat isn’t going to do the trick.

The bigger problem for the Padres is what’s going on everywhere else. CBS Sports laid out how muddled the landscape is this year,and the Padres are pretty much the perfect representation. They’re fighting the Diamondbacks for second in the NL West, and both teams are facing the same dilemma. Pittsburgh has Paul Skenes and Braxton Ashcraft and isn’t selling. Boston, Baltimore, Houston, Texas, the Athletics, Washington, and St. Louis are all hovering close enough to the Wild Card race that nobody is willing to wave the white flag. 

When this many teams believe they’re in it, the sellers get scarce, and those that do exist know it. That’s not a market that favors a team with as many needs as the Padres and with as thin of a farm system after recent trades have weakened it.

It’s a big reason why the case for the Padres to buy has always been more complicated than it looks on paper. This isn’t a team that is just one piece away. They just traded away their top prospect for Miller and kept him instead of selling high over the winter. Now there isn’t much of a path to reset. That means that while it should be more complicated, buying is no longer optional. It’s the only direction they can go.

Look at the rotation to see how tight the margins are. Walker Buehler was their most reliable starter. Until he got lit up in his last two starts. Michael King has been good, but not great. Names like Tarik Skubal, Freddy Peralta, and Sandy Alcantara have all been mentioned as fits, but starters like that don’t come cheap. Adding someone like Skubal would require something the Padres likely no longer have. A deal could probably be pieced together for someone else, but it would further weaken the farm system.

There is a winkle that might help. With the Padres’ new ownership group reportedly willing to loosen payroll restrictions, maybe money won’t be the obstacle it’s been in years past. Still, money only solves so much when the actual supply of available players is the problem. The Padres (and the whole world) know what they need. Whether the rest of the league offers a path to get it is a different question, and the answer isn’t looking great.

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