Padres fans must be really excited and can’t wait for the 2021 season. They fell short in 2020, but now they have Yu Darvish, 2020 NL Cy Young runner-up, and Blake Snell, 2018 AL Cy Young winner. It seems that A.J. Preller, Executive Vice President and General Manager of the Padres, made two great trades that make the Padres a highly possible World Series contender.
A.J. Preller joined the San Diego Padres on August 6, 2014. Since then, Preller has made 78 trades.
Among these trades, there are 8 deals between the Padres and the Mariners. Jerry Dipoto, who became the general manager of the Mariners in 2015, and Preller successfully agreed a deal before last year’s trade deadline, a deal that the Padres sent Taylor Trammel, Ty France, Andres Munoz and Luis Torrens to the Mariners and acquired Austin Adams, Dan Altavilla and Austin Nola. Meanwhile, the Braves and the Indians are the top trade partners since Preller made 6 deals with each team. Also, before last year’s trade deadline, Preller made a big trade that the Padres acquired Mike Clevinger, Greg Allen and a player (Matt Waldron) to be named later from the Indians, at the same time, the Padres sent Gabriel Arias, Joey Cantillo, Owen Miller, Austin Hedges, Josh Naylor and Cal Quantrill to the Indians. In addition, Preller made 5 trades with the Red Sox and the Rays each.
In total, Preller made 13 trades in 2020. He was busy before the last trade deadline since he made 8 trades last August and he was working on two blockbuster trades last December. Making a blockbuster trade was not easy, but Preller made two in December.
In these two blockbuster trades, the Padres acquired two top arms, Yu Darvish and Black Snell, and catcher Victor Caratini, who’s primarily Darvish’s personal catcher.
There are still around two and a half months before the opening day. The Padres still have some time to finally set up their rotation. As we can see, Yu Darvish, Blake Snell and Dinleson Lamet will be the core 3 in the Padres rotation. Chris Paddack fell into a sophomore slump last season and the Padres will surely need him to bounce back. Since Mike Clevinger will miss the 2021 season due to Tommy John surgery, top young left-handed pitchers Adrian Morejon and Ryan Weathers will probably have more responsibilities in the new season.
A.J. Preller aggressively made 9 trades from December 2014 to April 2015. From these trades, the Padres acquired players such as Craig Kimbrel, Matt Kemp and Justin Upton. However, it didn’t work. The Padres didn’t have a winning season from 2015 to 2019. But, the Padres also acquired top players such Fernando Tatis Jr., Chris Paddack and Tommy Pham via trade in these years. There are always many factors to consider before making a trade. A win-win trade will benefit two teams. A trade that didn’t work out might force a team to change its plan. How will the two blockbuster trades this offseason impact the Padres in 2021? Is Preller going to make more trades before the opening day?
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