2021 MLB Trade Deadline: Padres needs

Taking a look at the roster weaknesses for the San Diego Padres heading into the 2021 MLB trade deadline.

Welcome to the all-star break! The San Diego Padres limped into it, but they made it. Let’s do a quick review to show just how bad the last couple of weeks were.

Here’s what I wrote after the Padres swept the Dodgers at the end of June:

There are 16 games between now and the all-star break for the the Padres, with about half of them being against bad teams (Rockies, Diamondbacks) and about half of them being against .500 teams (Reds, Phillies, Nationals). Going at least 12-4 over this stretch is what I’m expecting from the Padres.

So, how’d they do?

They did not go 12-4. They instead went 8-8. That sucks! They’re now 6 games back from the Giants, after having been 4.5 games back a week ago.

The Padres are in too good of a position (3.5 game lead for a wild card spot) to be sellers, and they know how good they can be, so they’re undoubtedly going to be buyers at the trade deadline. That is a good thing, because this team needs some help!

Today, I’m going to tell you where the Padres need the most help. Tomorrow, I’m going to attempt to find said help.

Starting pitcher

The San Diego Padres went into the break with four of their six starting pitchers injured (Darvish, Snell, Weathers, Lamet). The only two that are healthy are Joe Musgrove and Chris Paddack, neither of which has been lights out lately.

The Padres were probably always going to need to trade for a starter, I even wrote about it in the first week of the season, because they didn’t have enough depth there to account for the eventual injuries unless MacKenzie Gore was awesome at triple-A. He wasn’t.

After being quite healthy most of the season, the starting staff fell apart in the last two weeks and now the Padres are hoping they can just survive until A.J. Preller can find another arm (or two?) to help.

Relief pitcher

You can make an argument against this being a pressing need, and you should know by now that these are in no specific order.

After MLB started cracking down on pitchers’ use of sticky substances, the Padres bullpen looked a lot worse for a little while but seems to be rounding back into form lately. The need to replace Melancon doesn’t feel as pressing anymore.

Pomeranz was feared out forever until he came back and now he’s out again with another scary-sounding injury, but Matt Strahm (!) could be back soon and could fill that role.

Adding a really great 8th or 9th inning guy would certainly help but is probably not the top priority.

Catcher

We’ve been over this. The only thing that has changed since I wrote that last week is that Austin Nola is crushing triple-A pitching (yay!) but is incapable of fielding the catcher’s spot. He has, instead, been playing first base. More on that in a second.

It’s starting to become clear that Nola is not physically capable of playing catcher. His body just breaks down when he tries. This is the type of thing that would’ve been discovered during his time as a college or minor league catcher, except he never really was one.

To keep the entire season from resting on the exhausted shoulders of Victor Caratini, I think finding a starting-caliber catcher on the trade market should be one of the Padres’ top priorities.

Outfielder

This one is pretty simple: The Padres have been lacking outfield depth since before the 2020 season.

We don’t talk enough about how Jurickson Profar never played CF or RF until he came to the Padres. Or how his previous teams would play him in LF sparingly (he made 8 total outfield appearances in the two seasons before coming to San Diego). To put in bluntly, he’s not an outfielder…..but we can live with him as a backup LF for now.

What the team can’t afford is another mix of Pham/Profar/Mateo filling in at CF if Grisham were to get hurt or need a day off. They need a better answer at backup CF and backup RF, where they’ve been uncharacteristically lucky with Myers’ health so far.

First base?

I’m including this because I know somebody was going to ask. Sorry, but Eric Hosmer isn’t being traded or released. At least not this month.

And it’s not just because the Padres already have too many other holes to try and fill, it’s partially because Hosmer (as per usual) waited until the last possible second to do something useful and is now showing enough so that the team can’t actually move on from him.

Hosmer’s 2021 OPS is a below-average .699. But in the last two weeks, he’s on one of those rolls where his weak groundballs have turned into faster groundballs and his numbers have been kind of nuts as a result.

He’s slashing .375/.432/.525 over the last 14 days and the numbers are even better if you want to look at the last 7 days. Both small samples sizes, to be sure, and you won’t find me flying the flag of Hosmer hopeful. However, those numbers are just good enough that someone that wanted to talk themselves into his resurgence could.

The other thing to note here is Nola. Should the team add another catcher to the roster, and give him a break from catching duties, he could add a ton of value as a righty/lefty platoon with Hosmer and a big bat off the bench. The team could then head into the 2022 season with a really solid DH / utility infielder in Nola.