Aging stars and a massive payroll fuel San Diego's urgent pursuit of October baseball. Will they contend or collapse?
The San Diego Padres are in a tough situation this offseason with significant financial limitations, an aging core, and departing talent. General manager A.J. Preller certainly has his hands full this winter trying to retain talent and bring new talent in under the current circumstances.
The club frankly doesn't care how hard it may be for Preller, as they want to be one of the best teams in baseball in 2026. San Diego made the postseason in 2025, but lost in the Wild Card round to the Chicago Cubs in five games. With two consecutive seasons of 90+ wins, they failed to result in anything further than an NLDS appearance.
Don’t expect the goals to change in San Diego, however. There’s no doubt that the Padres will be shooting for the postseason again in 2026, although their roster may look significantly different. It’s why the Padres ranked eighth in the MLB on Bleacher Report’s meter ranking team’s desperation to win now.
“The Padres, on the other hand, started spending recklessly a few years ago and have completely gutted their farm system in the name of holding this contender together for as long as physically possible,” Bleacher Report’s Kerry Miller wrote in a recent article.
“This might be their last year before things start going downhill in a Los Angeles Angels sort of way where they are just stuck with a top-15 payroll for a decade's worth of losing seasons. And if you wanted to argue for them at No. 1 because of that, you might be right.”
So far this offseason, the Padres have lost starting pitcher Dylan Cease, reliever Robert Suarez, and first baseman Ryan O’Hearn in free agency. In response, they were able to bring back starter Michael King and sign Korean infield talent Sung-Mun Song.
It hasn’t been an offseason that’s filled Padres fans with a ton of hope about a deep postseason push in 2026. With reports that reliever Mason Miller and starter Nick Pivetta may be traded, the Padres' roster next season is truly up in the air. We don’t know how they’ll go about it, but San Diego’s plan isn’t a secret: maintain its status as a playoff contender.
With so much roster shakeup anticipated by the start of spring training for San Diego and playing under a first-time manager in 2026, it’s hard to predict where the Padres will end up by the end of the 2026 campaign. With its aging core that is taking up a huge chunk of its payroll, the Padres are getting more and more desperate to win now than ever.