SAN DIEGO -- About an hour before first pitch on Saturday, Padres general manager A.J. Preller spoke with reporters on a video call from the Petco Park front office.
The focus, Preller insisted, would remain on the Draft for at least another 24 hours. San Diego made its first five selections on Saturday. There are 16 more still to come. Only then, Preller said, would he turn his focus to the Trade Deadline.
When he does, it’ll come with some difficult questions this year. The Padres are in limbo. They’d like to approach the Deadline as buyers. (Who wouldn’t?) But their recent performance says otherwise.
Even after a tense, 8-7 victory on Saturday night, the Padres have dropped 11 of 15. Having spent most of the first half in the National League playoff picture, they’ve fallen 4 1/2 games back of the final Wild Card spot.
“There’s been some good,” Preller said when asked to assess his team’s first-half performance. “There’s been some things that we’ve got to improve on. We’re in position where we could potentially get to October. But we’re going to have to get better.”
The Deadline strategy
In short, Preller doesn’t really have one yet.
“We’re going to go into the process open-minded to see what’s there and see what can help our club,” he said. “We’re going to go in open-minded about whether it’s acquiring players or looking at it if we have to go another direction. All those things are on the table.”
Translation: The Padres might buy. They might also sell. And it might depend on how they play and where they stand over the next couple of weeks. (It’ll also depend, as always, on the market itself.)
The Padres begin the second half with a 10-game road trip through Kansas City, Atlanta and Miami. The last two stops come against teams they’re looking to chase down in the NL playoff picture.
“That first road trip … we’ll see a couple teams that are in the playoff chase with us and in front of us.” Preller said. “We’ll take it all in. You don’t want to overreact from game to game, but you get more information over those 10 days. That’ll all be part of our process and making our decisions here as we get to the Deadline.”
It’s clear Preller isn’t keen on selling, considering the investment in the current roster and the aging core. But when he says “all those things are on the table,” it was essentially an admission that he might have to.
The Mason Miller question
If the Padres were to sell, they have no shortage of players who other teams might covet. But there’s no asset more valuable than Mason Miller, who is headed to next week’s All-Star Game as the sport’s premier closer.
The Padres, of course, acquired Miller at last year’s Deadline for a sizable haul, headlined by top prospect Leo De Vries. They did so envisioning Miller locking down the ninth inning in October for years to come. Not with plans to move him the following summer.
But the Padres would at least have to listen, right?
Asked about Miller, Preller first made it clear that he doesn’t want to entertain the notion right now. But -- in a winding response -- he didn’t rule it out. Here was Preller’s response in full:
“Let’s go get ready for Day 2 of the Draft tomorrow, and let’s go win a couple more games and hopefully put our team in a better spot,” Preller said. “Obviously, Mason is the best in the game. So you’re always going to have people that are going to be interested in somebody that’s the best in their craft and at what they do.
“Since we made the deal last year, he’s performed as good as you could want somebody to perform. We made the deal with the intention that Mason is going to be here for a long time. He’s done an unbelievable job. And our intent is still the same as when we made the deal last year.”
Support for Stammen
As the Padres have faltered recently, there’s been plenty of criticism to go around. First-year manager Craig Stammen has taken his share. But Preller threw his support behind Stammen and even called out his own roster construction in doing so.
“Overall, for Craig, he’s done a lot of really good things in terms of his process, the way he goes about things with his staff,” Preller said. “He’ll be the first to tell you that, from a win-loss standpoint, he’d love to be better. I’ll be the first to tell you that it’s not a perfect roster he has. … The biggest thing with Craig -- why he’s good at what he does, why he was a good player, why he’s going to continue to learn as a manager -- is that he’s open to learning and growing.”
There were always going to be growing pains with a first-time manager. Stammen is navigating those in the middle of a season in which the Padres have been hit hard by injuries. Preller, clearly, has maintained his belief.
“Hired him for a reason,” Preller said. “We believe in what he brings to the table. He’s been in this organization for a long time. We’re very familiar with him. Again, I’m expecting us to play well in the second half with him leading the group.”