The San Diego Padres are still looking to make a few additions on offense ahead of Opening Day. President of baseball operations A.J. Preller revealed the front office isn’t finished inking deals.
“I think still looking to add,” Preller told reporters on Thursday. “In [Gavin] Sheet’s case, it’s kind of getting back to what we saw a few years and seeing if we can unlock a few things there. With [Connor] Joe and [Jason] Heyward, they’re kind of guys we know what they’re bring to the table from a veteran presence standpoint and hopefully a production standpoint, from those guys.
“We’re going to continue to look and see if can add to the offense as well in the next couple of weeks.”
For a majority of the offseason, the Padres had been relatively quiet aside from the Roki Sasaki sweepstakes. However, the arrival of February brought a more aggressive San Diego to the mix. Preller made it sound like this would be the case earlier in the offseason.
“We’ve seen offseasons where we’ve been really aggressive and been able to line up on moves early in the offseason and other years, like last year, where it was later in the process,” Preller said. “… We’ve got a really good core and good foundation we like a lot, and we’ve got some needs as well.”
In a span of a week, the Padres engineered three signings. The first was the signing of outfielder/first baseman Connor Joe. Shortly thereafter, San Diego inked a deal with veteran outfielder Jason Heyward. And finally, the Padres signed Gavin Sheets to a minor league deal with an invitation to spring training.
The following week, the Padres signed the top free agent pitcher available on the market. San Diego snagged right-hander Nick Pivetta on a four-year, $55 million deal, which appeared to secure a solid rotation (pending any trades). Pivetta will join Yu Darvish, Dylan Cease, Michael King, and potentially someone like Stephen Kolek as the Padres’ starting pitchers.
The Padres’ offseason has quickly transformed from unnervingly quiet to extremely active. As Opening Day quickly approaches, the Padres will likely pick up another player or two in order to cement the championship roster for 2025.
