A.J. Preller made it very clear. All the chips are in. The Padres are going for their first World Series title this year.

There is no going around it. There is no running from it. Absolutely, there is no denying it. The San Diego Padres are all in for a World Series title in 2025.

Every baseball fan wants their favorite team to try to win a World Series championship every single year. If you look around the league, you know that isn’t always the case (my condolences to fans of the Twins, Pirates, Athletics, and a host of other teams selling off pieces to save money).

Say what you want about Padres president of baseball operations A.J. Preller. The term “madman” gets thrown around. He isn’t scared or hesitant to make the big move that other general managers shy away from. The fuel for that fire is his desire to bring late owner Peter Seidler’s vision of having a parade down the Gaslamp Quarter in the fall to life.

Of course, the MLB playoffs are something of a crapshoot. A few cold games by the lineup, and everything you worked for evaporates.

It’s fair to wonder if this strong deadline is a reaction to how the season ended last year. That being, the Padres being up two games to one on the eventual World Series champion Dodgers in the NLDS before giving it away. They want to avoid running into the buzzsaw again. The Padres want to be the buzzsaw.

Starting the morning of Thursday, July 31, the Padres brought in eight new players into the organization while jettisoning 14 players out of the franchise. Some of them are highly valued prospects who may turn into MLB studs later on, while others seem very expendable.

FULL PADRES TRADE DEADLINE (FINAL)

In:

RHP Mason Miller
LHP JP Sears
C Freddy Fermin
OF Ryan O’Hearn
OF Ramon Laureano
INF Will Wagner
LHP Nestor Cortes
SS Jorge Quintana

Out:

RHP Ryan Bergert
RHP Stephen Kolek
OF Brandon Lockridge
INF Leo De Vries
RHP Braden Nett
RHP…

— Sammy Levitt (@SammyLev) July 31, 2025

It’s not too hard to look down the list of players who were sent out of the organization and think- the Padres mortgaged their future for the “now.” Chief among them is, of course, Leo De Vries. That being the third-best prospect in all of baseball.

There is the risk that De Vries becomes a superstar after the Padres let him go for a relief pitcher. That is a massive oversimplification, of course. But it’s a possibility.

The Padres traded their top overall prospect and their top pitching prospect. That, along with plenty of depth in the minors and even on the MLB-level roster, means pushing all the chips in for 2025.

If you are feeling nervous about all the Padres surrendered to better the team this season, don’t look at their MLB Pipeline prospect rankings. Below Ethan Salas, it isn’t pretty. Whenever the next farm system rankings come out, expect the Padres to be at or near the bottom.

None of that will matter if the Padres are the ones hoisting the Commissioner’s Trophy as the lone team standing. Championships make everything else go away.

The Padres now have a World Series-caliber roster. The bullpen is easily the best in baseball, with not one but two All-Star closers in Mason Miller and Robert Suarez. That also makes four total All-Stars in the bullpen when counting Jason Adam and Adrian Morejon.

The lineup got significantly deeper. Instead of players like Martin Maldonado (.572 OPS) and Trenton Brooks (.454 OPS) getting a big portion of at-bats, they are replaced by Freddy Fermin (.648 OPS) and Ramon Laureano (.884 OPS).

Not to mention, Ryan O’Hearn injects more power into a lineup desperate for juice. They can now deploy Gavin Sheets more judiciously. The lefty slugger has struggled recently, with a .205 average and .585 OPS over his last 20 games. He especially struggles against left-handed pitchers. Now, between Laureano playing where Sheets was in left field and O’Hearn being an option at designated hitter, manager Mike Shildt can put Sheets in more spots to succeed instead of over-exposing him.

The starting rotation also got a shake-up. Gone are Stephen Kolek and Ryan Bergert, who were packaged to acquire the catcher Fermin.  Now, the Padres will rely on the eventual return of Michael King (which appears to be within two weeks) along with Dylan Cease, who was not dealt, and Nick Pivetta and Randy Vasquez. Now, JP Sears and Nestor Cortes will be filling the roles of rotation depth. Kyle Hart and Matt Waldron may also be called upon.

For a certain part of the fanbase, especially those who value prospects and get attached to following their progression through the system, this is a tenuous time. This has turned into a “you better win the World Series now” situation. That, or this was a massive mistake.

One caveat to all this is that only two of the acquisitions the Padres made are true “rentals,” set to be free agents after this season- Ryan O’Hearn and Nestor Cortes. Everyone else is set to return in 2026.  Laureano has a team option in his contract for next year at a very affordable price relative to his production.

However, Cease, Luis Arraez, Michael King, and Robert Suarez are all likely gone after this year. They will be hard to replace, especially with the Padres operating under a more thrifty budget.

This is the only time the Padres will have all of these additions paired with their current group of veterans on expiring deals.

In some aspects, the trade deadline was the easy part (although Preller himself may disagree). The hard part is getting all these new pieces to gel with the current clubhouse and create a championship-level team down the stretch.

Now it’s time to win baseball games. Because now is the time to win the team’s first World Series.

Nick Lee

Native of Escondido, CA. Lived in San Diego area for 20 years. Padres fan since childhood (mid-90s). I have been writing since 2014. I currently live near Seattle, WA and am married to a Seattle sports girl. I wore #19 on my high school baseball team for Tony Gwynn. I am a stats and sports history nerd. I attended BYU on the Idaho campus. I also love Star Wars.