{"id":680420,"date":"2026-04-21T15:49:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T15:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/680420\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T15:49:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T15:49:10","slug":"padres-have-clear-need-for-a-j-preller-to-target-at-mlb-trade-deadline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/680420\/","title":{"rendered":"Padres have clear need for A.J. Preller to target at MLB trade deadline"},"content":{"rendered":"

The San Diego Padres<\/a> are competing with the Los Angeles Dodgers<\/a> for the top spot in the NL West through the first few weeks of the MLB season.<\/p>\n

Currently, the Padres are 15-7 while the Dodgers are 16-6. San Diego could easily climb and surpass the Dodgers this season. But, in order to do so, they will have to make a few roster moves by the trade deadline.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, with A.J. Preller, the Padres swinging a few trades is not out of the question at all. And as Joel Reuter of Bleacher Report<\/a> highlighted, there is a very clear need for Preller to target at this year’s deadline: starting pitching.<\/p>\n

A.J. Preller has clear Padres trade target in starting pitching<\/p>\n

“The Padres sit in the middle of the pack with a 3.76 ERA from their starting rotation, but the staff feels like a house of cards,” Reuter writes. “With Nick Pivetta nursing a flexor tendon strain, things could get ugly quick.”<\/p>\n

Nick Pivetta’s injury is a bit of a concerning one, and the Padres would already be in need of starting pitching with this injury in mind.<\/p>\n

But, even if he’s healthy, the team could use more pitching. Michael King looks great with a 2.28 ERA, but he had injury issues last year. Joe Musgrove is coming back from injury and might not be up to full strength this season.<\/p>\n

Randy Vasquez has been a pleasant surprise this year with a 2.49 ERA through four starts. But there’s no telling if such success can be sustained for a full season.<\/p>\n

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

German Marquez has bounced back after a shaky start with a 3.86 ERA through four starts, while Walker Buehler has a 4.58 ERA in four starts this season.<\/p>\n

The Padres, if they want to compete with the Dodgers not just for the NL West title, but for a World Series, will need to add more starting pitching help.<\/p>\n

There are bound to be some interesting pitchers available for trade this season, with Sandy Alcantara once again being one of the best who could be on the move.<\/p>\n

Preller has a knack for swinging massive trades, and if he could acquire a top-tier starter this season, the Padres’ chances in the division and the postseason would look a lot better than they do now with a shaky rotation.<\/p>\n

More MLB news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The San Diego Padres are competing with the Los Angeles Dodgers for the top spot in the NL…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137649,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2407],"tags":[5,4,43,137,18,4339,4338],"class_list":{"0":"post-680420","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\/116443491314719469","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680420","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=680420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680420\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}