*This is a prediction*
With the MLB Winter Meeting fully underway, information surrounding teams’ plans for the offseason are starting to become clear. For the St. Louis Cardinals, their main goal was going to be to trade some key players to look to restructure the team going forward while also creating more financial space.
One of the rumored players that could be traded was Willson Contreras, and comments from St. Louis’ manager in Oli Marmol, reinforced this. Marmol told A.J. Pierzynski when asked about Contreras’ trade potential, “He feels at home in St. Louis but at the same time if it makes sense, then it’s a conversation, we’ll see kind of where that leads.”
It seems likely that Willson Contreras will be traded, and if this is the case, the San Diego Padres make complete sense to trade for him.
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St. Louis Cardinals Trade Willson Contreras to the San Diego Padres
The San Diego Padres are faced with an interesting 2026 offseason. They have talent like like Fernando Tatis Jr, Manny Machado, Jackson Merrill, and Xander Bogaerts, but their offensive production didn’t reflect their talent as they finished 13th in baseball in wRC+ as a team and 18th in runs scored.
The Padres clearly lacked the firepower needed to score runs at a high level, making it necessary for San Diego to find a way to address this in the 2026 free agency period. In addition, Luis Arraez and Ryan O’Hearn are free agents, leading to the Padres having a void at first base.
With trading for Willson Contreras, he would fix both needs for the Padres. With adding Contreras, he can fit right in at first base, while also providing the hard hitting ability they need in their lineup as he is coming off a season in which he had a .257/.344/.447 slash line with a 123 OPS+, 20 home runs, and 80 RBIs.
With the Padres being a contending team, it would be a spot that makes sense for Willson Contreras, and a team he would be willing to waive his no-trade clause for.