The San Diego Padres were the busiest team at the MLB trade deadline, adding Juan Soto, Josh Hader, Josh Bell and Brandon Drury to a roster that already featured plenty of star power.
President of baseball operations and general manager A.J. Preller certainly lived up to his reputation as one of the most aggressive executives in baseball as he traded away a slew of the organization’s top prospects to complete the deals.
By going all-in, the Padres have their sights on a deep postseason run. “We fully expected it. A.J. and his crew, they’re really good at what they do and really aggressive,” Los Angeles Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said of the Padres’ moves to not only acquire Soto but others as well.
“They made their team way better in the last couple of days. And we look forward to that competition. It wasn’t surprising to us.”
At 61-47, the Padres currently trail the Dodgers by 12.5 games in the National League West standings. However, San Diego currently holds one of the three Wild Card spots and expect to get Fernando Tatis Jr. back within the next two weeks to pair him with Soto and Manny Machado atop their lineup.
The Dodgers and Padres are set to play each other 12 more times during the regular season, split evenly with matchups at Dodger Stadium and Petco Park. L.A. is 5-2 against San Diego this year.
Friedman declines comment on Soto trade
By trading for Soto, the Padres not only added another superstar to their lineup, but also kept him from going to the Dodgers. L.A. was believed to be one of three finalists for Soto but fell just short of acquiring him.
“Obviously it’s hard for me to get into specifics on that,” Friedman said when asked how far negotiations with the Washington Nationals came along. “I think everyone knows us well enough to know that we’ll be aggressive pursuing different things.
“But out of respect to to Washington, and also San Diego, it’s hard to get into specifics there. But I think our track record would suggest that obviously we would have been aggressive in trying to figure something out.”
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