{"id":657559,"date":"2026-04-01T22:40:31","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T22:40:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/657559\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T22:40:31","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T22:40:31","slug":"padres-linked-to-nationals-31-homer-all-star-in-potential-full-circle-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/657559\/","title":{"rendered":"Padres linked to Nationals 31-homer All-Star in potential full-circle trade"},"content":{"rendered":"

The San Diego Padres<\/a> are competing with the Los Angeles Dodgers<\/a> for the NL West title, and it will be very tricky to supplant the star-studded Dodgers.<\/p>\n

To turn the corner, they could look to acquire a star at the trade deadline, and there could be a very fitting, and full-circle trade target for the Padres in the form of a Washington Nationals<\/a> All-Star who was acquired from the Padres in the Juan Soto trade.<\/p>\n

Bleacher Report’s Zachary D. Rymer<\/a> linked the Padres to this 31-homer outfielder in James Wood as a possible trade landing spot this season. With the need for more help on offense, this could be a fun way to bolster the roster.<\/p>\n

Padres linked to trade for Nationals’ James Wood<\/p>\n

“There hasn’t been anything solid about the Nationals potentially shopping James Wood, but speculation began to trickle out during spring training,” Rymer writes. “… Potential landing spots: San Diego Padres, Cincinnati Reds<\/a>, San Francisco Giants<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

While the Nationals might not be eager to trade Wood, especially since the 23-year-old is yet to reach his arbitration years, there could be a trade on the horizon for the young lefty power-hitting outfielder.<\/p>\n

He had 31 home runs in 2025, made the All-Star team, and was also a participant in the Home Run Derby. Wood is a player that any team in need of offense or outfield help would surely want to acquire.<\/p>\n

More:\u00a0Shohei Ohtani deemed more valuable than Aaron Judge in recent ESPN discussion piece<\/a><\/p>\n

There is one major issue with Wood’s game that could lead to a trade: his league-leading 221 strikeouts from last year.<\/p>\n

For a team like the Padres, that’s starting Nick Castellanos consistently, turning one of the lineup spots into Wood instead would be a no-brainer move if they could acquire him without giving up too much in a trade.<\/p>\n

Adding Wood isn’t out of the realm of possibility for the Padres, as A.J. Preller has a knack for swinging blockbuster trades.<\/p>\n

This would be a fun move for the Padres and would be a full-circle moment for Wood as he returns to the Padres after being drafted in the second round of the 2021 MLB draft.<\/p>\n

More MLB news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The San Diego Padres are competing with the Los Angeles Dodgers for the NL West title, and it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":337361,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2407],"tags":[5,4,43,137,18,4339,4338],"class_list":{"0":"post-657559","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego-padres","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-padres","11":"tag-san-diego","12":"tag-san-diego-padres","13":"tag-sandiego","14":"tag-sandiegopadres"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116331860846628686","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}