Even with the MLB Draft concluding, major publications do not view the Padres’ farm system as one of the strongest in baseball. 

San Diego made a litany of high-upside selections, and their farm system has many players with high ceilings who are having breakout campaigns (Braden Nett and Miguel Mendez have entered the chat).

Even with their farm system’s performers, San Diego is in a position where they need to be more conscious of the future. Manny Machado is 32 going on 33, Yu Darvish is showing signs of age (per his own words), and several positions on the roster do not yet have long-term solutions. However, that’s not to say that some have emerged. 

Obviously, Jackson Merrill and Fernando Tatis Jr are homegrown cornerstones for the franchise.

Ryan Bergert has shown that he can be a long-term starter and has pitched well in his time with the big league club. David Morgan and Sean Reynolds have flashed late-inning potential, with Morgan earning more and more late-inning opportunities in his rookie campaign.

Down on the farm, players like Brandon Valenzuela, the aforementioned Braden Nett, and Henry Baez are in the midst of career seasons that have them knocking on the door to the major leagues.

Even in the lower levels, the Padres have players whose stock is on the rise. Arms like Miguel Mendez, Kash Mayfield, Boston Bateman, and Eric Yost are flashing gobs of potential coming up the ranks. Outside of the headlining talent of Leo De Vries, young batters like Brandon Butterworth, Braedon Karpathios, Cobb Hightower, and Victor Figueroa lead a replenishing position player core at the lower levels of the farm.

And then there’s the relief pitching, by golly, the relief pitching. Tyson Neighbors, Garrett Hawkins, Ryan Och, Eduarniel Nunez, Bradgley Rodriguez, and more. 

With many prospects on the rise, one could say that it is the perfect time to sell off. However, there is also an adage that says, “Just because you have money, it doesn’t mean you have to spend it”. A.J. Preller got his team to a contending position in 2024 without making a ludicrous addition in the offseason, instead shrewdly adding Michael King, Jhony Brito, and Randy Vasquez in a trade while adding Jeremiah Estrada on waivers. Replenishing depth allowed him to part ways with Jairo Iriarte, Samuel Zavala, Drew Thorpe, and Steven Wilson to bring in Dylan Cease. So what does this mean for the 2025 Padres. 

A.J. Preller unloaded a plethora of top-end prospects to bring in Tanner Scott, Jason Adam, Bryan Hoeing, and Martin Perez. The Padres still have prospect capital to make additions to this roster, but considering where they are at with their roster, Preller and his staff ought to consider a more prudent approach. There are players in this system that have the potential to be future cornerstones (Salas and De Vries), roster regulars, and role players. Interestingly, the Padres’ farm system has a large amount of depth on the mound from which they could make trades, but the position player crop is still on the rise. 

Henry Baez, Braden Nett, and Jagger Haynes are all less than a year from the Majors, and Ryan Bergert is already making an impact at the MLB level. Michael King and Dylan Cease are free agents after this season, and Yu Darvish is not getting any younger. With only Nick Pivetta, Darvish, and Ryan Bergert seemingly penciled into the 2026 rotation, some of the rising arms in the farm system could fill those vacant slots.

Trading one of the three aforementioned starting pitching prospects for a veteran arm who would most likely be a rental add would be executive malpractice. Tyson Neighbors, Bradgley Rodriguez, and Francis Pena could be the next wave of dominant Padres relievers for a franchise that produces relievers on an assembly line, so sending one of them off for an aging reliever (see the Daniel Hudson trade) would be a downgrade for the organization. Trading away young position players like Hightower, Butterworth, Kale Fountain, or Romeo Sanabria for an overperforming bat with obvious signs of regression on the horizon (like the Adam Frazier trade, sigh) would be a move that’d create more holes long term. Now, the team should not be scared of making such a move, but high-risk additions with low floors should be avoided for the team’s long-term contention. 

There is no doubt that the Padres need to make additions to the roster to stay in the thick of a surprisingly tense NL Wild Card race with a chance at a division title, despite what those up the road would say. San Diego has prospects aplenty, having good seasons, both by traditional and sabermetric analysis. The Padres have locked in their status as buyers, but with this stance, the team ought to avoid purging the farm system again. Nobody builds farm systems quite like A.J. Preller, and he more than anyone should know that the Padres’ future can be bright with their homegrown players. 

There are deadlines at which to shove all the chips to the center of the table, as a championship is priceless. This season’s trade deadline, meanwhile, is not one to unload.

Diego Garcia

A born and raised San Diegan, Diego Garcia is a lifetime Padres fan and self-proclaimed baseball nerd. Diego wrote about baseball on his own site between 2021-22 before joining the East Village Times team in 2024. He also posts baseball content on his YouTube channel “Stat Nerd Baseball”, creating content around trades, hypotheticals, player analyses, the San Diego Padres, and MLB as a whole.

A 2024 graduate of San Diego State, Diego aims to grow as a writer and content creator in the baseball community.