Assessing the Padres' Free Agent Moves

(All statistics acquired from https://www.baseball-reference.com/)

The San Diego Padres are fresh off of a National League Championship Series appearance and are more hungry than ever to make a World Series. This is why A.J. Preller and Peter Seidler decided that they were going to go all in this off-season and spend as much money as possible in order to acquire the premium free agents. They started off with re-signing the bullpen duo of Nick Martinez (3 years/$26 million) and Robert Suarez (5 years/$46 million). Both of these deals were team friendly as the output of their previous seasons, Martinez with a 106 ERA+ and Suarez with a monstrous 160 ERA+, tend to have a larger contract output on the open market. Suarez is a flamethrower who will most likely take over the closer role after Josh Hader hits free agency next year. Martinez was a decent starter for the first part of the season, but when he was moved to a long-reliever and closer role is when he truly thrived. This is why I would like him to stay in the bullpen or as an opener. They then proceeded to sign David Dahl to a minor league contract. This was a low cost, possible high reward opportunity as David Dahl had been an All Star in 2019 and while he has cooled down a lot in the past couple years, he is till only 28 years old and has the potential to bounce back to become an above league average player again. The Winter Meetings tends to be where most big moves are made and this was definitely the case this year as well. Within the first few days, the rule 5 draft occurred where teams draft unprotected players from opposing teams' minor league organizations that they must keep on their MLB roster or the player is able to be returned to their original organization. This allowed the Padres to pilfer Jose Lopez from the Rays farm system. Adding a reliever with a plus fastball and slider to an already above average bullpen will allow a larger safety blanket to form for the starting rotation. While the Padres also added other players through the other portion of the rule 5 draft, but they don't seem like they will be impactful as they have struggled in previous years while in the minor leagues. The next move is the biggest for the Padres this offseason, signing Xander Bogaerts, one of the best shortstops in the game, to a massive 11 year, $280 million contract. This is an extremely exciting move for for the Friar Faithful as it brings an extremely substantial bat, 131 OPS+, to the lineup and moves Tatis Jr. to the outfield, which was seen as an extreme weak point in the lineup last year. It also allows for larger flexibility in other assets in order to acquire other positions that are much more needed. The most recent move happened today when they signed Matt Carpenter, who absolutely mashed last year on the Yankees before his regular season was cut short due to an injury, to a 2 year, $12 million deal with a player option for the second year. This signing will allow the team to platoon Carpenter at first base, designated hitter, or even second base as him playing at any of these positions would likely add a massive boost to the lineup. Overall, the Padres' off-season moves have been something that San Diegans have been yearning for from their professional sports organizations and is big switch up from what most of us have experienced for our whole lives.