Padres Continue To Explore Outfield, Rotation Markets

Padres president of baseball operations A.J. Preller met with reporters on Tuesday afternoon as spring camp got underway. Pointing to a “late-developing market,” Preller made clear the team anticipated making a few more acquisitions (link via AJ Cassavell of MLB.com).

“We’ve had, honestly, trade conversations that are still ongoing. Usually at this point in the season, most teams are focused on: They have their roster, getting into Spring Training, going and playing,” Preller said. “We’ve been pretty active. … We’re always going to be looking to add and improve. The team that starts camp here in the next couple days, it’s not going to be the team that, obviously, we finish with.”

That’s self-evident given the state of the team’s outfield. The Padres have two clear openings alongside Fernando Tatis Jr. after trading Juan Soto and Trent Grisham. Light-hitting center fielder José Azocar is the only other outfielder on the 40-man roster. Jurickson Profar will join him once his one-year contract is finalized, yet he’s more of a depth option after a rough season in Colorado.

San Diego has had recent conversations with the Red Sox regarding Jarren Duran. He’s surely one of a number of possible options the front office has considered. With five years of club control, Boston figures to stick to a high asking price on the lefty-hitting outfielder. San Diego has also shown interest in Michael A. Taylor, the top unsigned free agent center fielder beyond Cody Bellinger, this offseason.

Budget constraints have been the prevailing theme of the Padres’ offseason. They allowed a number of key free agents to depart and offloaded upwards of $30MM in the Soto blockbuster. That cut their projected season-opening spending to around $160MM, as calculated by Roster Resource.

Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune reports that the team is planning on carrying a player payroll in the $180-190MM range for the upcoming season. That’d leave $20-30MM in remaining spending room, although Acee writes that the team may prefer to keep some of that in reserve for midseason acquisitions. They should be able to bring in a couple low-cost free agents but will have to rely on some internal options to take a step forward.

In the outfield, that could be top prospect Jackson Merrill. He spent much of the offseason training as an outfielder in addition to his customary shortstop work. Merrill enters camp with what appears to be a legitimate chance to make the Opening Day roster as a 20-year-old. He has all of 44 games above A-ball, however. He finished last season with a .273/.338/.444 showing at Double-A San Antonio and hasn’t played at the top minor league level. 22-year-old Jakob Marsee only has 16 games of Double-A experience but put together an impressive .273/.413/.425 showing in High-A and impressed in the Arizona Fall League.

While the outfield is the biggest concern, San Diego could use additional rotation depth and perhaps another bench bat. Preller left open the possibility of bringing in another starter. Only Joe Musgrove, Yu Darvish and Michael King are locks for the season-opening five. Jhony Brito, Randy Vásquez, Jay Groome, Pedro Avila and prospects like Jairo Iriarte and Drew Thorpe could all vie for season-opening roles. Top prospect Robby Snelling also received an invite to big league camp but seems a long shot for the Opening Day roster, as he has made all of four starts in Double-A.

That group is very light on MLB experience. Even King, who is locked into a mid-rotation role, was a reliever for the Yankees until last August. The Athletic’s Dennis Lin reported last week that the Padres were showing some level of interest in free agent starters Michael Lorenzen, Hyun Jin Ryu, and old friend Eric Lauer. Acee recently added Noah Syndergaard to that list.

Acquiring controllable pitching in trade at this stage of the offseason would be challenging. That’s particularly true if the Padres are loath to part with the likes of Snelling and Dylan Lesko towards the top of the farm system. If they were to consider dealing from the MLB roster for help in another area, middle infielder Ha-Seong Kim has been their most valuable realistic trade chip. He’s due $10MM this year and will become a free agent when his 2025 mutual option is declined (very likely by Kim) at the beginning of next offseason.

Bob Nightengale of USA Today tweets that interest in Kim from other teams remains very high. Yet Preller didn’t sound urgent to deal the Gold Glove winner, characterizing talks more as due diligence. “With the Kim situation, we were pretty consistent through the offseason. You’re never going to hang up the phone. You’re always going to listen on any player when anybody calls. But it wasn’t something we were pushing,” he told reporters (including Cassavell). “We see him as a huge part of our team. Most likely, if we’re going to play well, it’s Ha-Seong Kim in the middle of the diamond.“