The Padres will head into the 2026 MLB All-Star Game with just one player of their own in Mason Miller, and that alone would be enough to sting. But the bigger jolt is seeing how many familiar names are wearing different colors in Philadelphia.
Juan Soto and CJ Abrams were voted in as National League starters. James Wood joined Abrams as a Nationals reserve.
Dylan Cease is the American League’s starting pitcher. So while the Padres are represented by Miller, a whole line of former talent is scattered across the All-Star stage for everyone else.
It’s a rough snapshot for San Diego, especially at .500. The club once had a pile of elite talent in its hands, and now four players with Padres ties made the roster - three of them tied directly to the Juan Soto trade tree.
Abrams and Wood were part of the package sent to Washington in 2022 for Soto and Josh Bell. The Padres also gave up MacKenzie Gore, Robert Hassell III and Jarlin Susana in that deal.
At the time, the logic was clear. San Diego was pushing hard for a title with Manny Machado, Fernando Tatis Jr. and a roster built to win right away.
Soto was supposed to be the final piece. He helped get them to the 2022 NLCS, the deepest postseason run in franchise history since 1998.
But the cost of that kind of swing shows up eventually.
Abrams has grown into an All-Star shortstop. Wood has turned into the big middle-of-the-order bat people imagined when he was still coming up through the Padres’ system. Both will be in Philadelphia for Washington.
Soto’s path out of San Diego created another layer to the reunion. The Padres moved him to the Yankees after the 2023 season because payroll had to come down and he was nearing free agency.
In return, they got Michael King, Randy Vásquez, Jhony Brito, Drew Thorpe and Kyle Higashioka. Thorpe later became part of the package used to land Cease from the White Sox.
That sequence of moves made sense on paper under tough circumstances. King became a useful starter. Cease gave San Diego another frontline arm and even threw a no-hitter in a Padres uniform.
Still, the image is hard to miss: Soto starting the All-Star Game for the National League, Cease starting for the American League, and the Padres watching a parade of former stars take center stage somewhere else.
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The bigger question now is what the Padres do when the catching picture gets crowded again. Campusanos production has been too loud to treat as a temporary fill-in, and the case for keeping his bat in the lineup does not stop at one position. San Diego may have to get creative to keep finding him at-bats, because the alternative is letting one of its most productive hitters sit too often. [Read more 🡒]