The Padres head into the second half with one obvious star and one obvious question.
Mason Miller is San Diego’s lone representative at Tuesday night’s MLB All-Star Game in Philadelphia, and he’s earned the stage. In his first full season with the Padres, the 27-year-old closer has been overpowering, piling up a 0.91 ERA and 25 saves across 38 games. He’s been the kind of weapon that can steady a bullpen and change the feel of a game in one inning.
But his name also sits right in the middle of the Padres’ trade-deadline conversation.
San Diego is 48-48 at the break and seventh in the National League wild-card standings, a far cry from the promising start that once made this season look headed in a different direction. That leaves president of baseball operations A.J. Preller with another tough call ahead of the Aug. 3 deadline: push in or pull back.
When asked during the MLB Draft, Preller didn’t commit to either path.
“We’re going to go into the process open-minded to see what’s there and see what can help our club,” Preller said. “We’re going to go in open-minded about whether it’s acquiring players or looking at it if we have to go another direction. All those things are on the table.”
If the Padres decide to sell, Miller would be one of the biggest names available. He’s under club control for three more years after the team avoided arbitration in his first year, which only adds to his value around the league. Any return would be significant, though it would still have to measure up against what San Diego gave up to get him in 2025, when the package included No. 3 prospect Leo De Vries.
Preller was careful when the subject came up again.
“Let’s go get ready for Day 2 of the Draft [Sunday], and let’s go win a couple more games and hopefully put our team in a better spot,” Preller said. “Obviously, Mason is the best in the game. So you’re always going to have people that are going to be interested in somebody that’s the best in their craft and at what they do.
“Since we made the deal last year, he’s performed as good as you could want somebody to perform. We made the deal with the intention that Mason is going to be here for a long time.
He’s done an unbelievable job. And our intent is still the same as when we made the deal last year.”
The numbers back up the hype. Miller leads every reliever in baseball with a 119 proStuff+, and he’s paired that with a 0.91 ERA and no home runs allowed in 39 innings. Louis Varland is next on the stuff leaderboard at 114, while Jeff Hoffman is also on the list with stuff that hasn’t fully translated yet.
For now, the Padres still control the story. A strong stretch after the break would keep Miller in San Diego and quiet the deadline noise. If the losses pile up, though, the calls on the All-World closer will start coming in.
In Other News...
Padres Just Made An Outfield Move Fans Saw Coming
The Padres kept working to shore up their outfield depth this week, making another low-risk addition in Dustin Harris. The 26-year-old has already surfaced with Triple-A El Paso, giving San Diego a fresh name to monitor at a position that has been thinned out by injuries and left the club searching for more coverage behind the big league group.
Harris arrives with a track record that helps explain the interest, having put together a solid minor league resume and a strong season at the plate. For the Padres, the move is less about splash and more about necessity, with the organization trying to protect itself against further attrition while keeping one more capable outfielder in the pipeline if the depth chart gets tested again. [Read more 🡒]
Padres Fans Are All Saying The Same Thing After This Ump Show
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The Padres also had to deal with the fallout on their own bench, where hitting coach Steven Souza Jr. was ejected after arguing over a challenge-related sequence tied to one of Pawols calls. Later, another controversial ruling went against Toronto and helped San Diego on the scoreboard, but by then the bigger story had already become the same one that seems to follow too many games these days: the strike zone and the umpire behind it. [Read more 🡒]
Padres Cant Keep Ignoring The Lineup Decision Luis Campusano Is Forcing
Luis Campusano has spent the summer making the Padres catcher situation harder to ignore. With Freddy Fermin out, Campusano has taken over behind the plate and kept forcing his way into the conversation with his bat, giving San Diego a much-needed offensive spark at a time when the club is hovering around .500 and trying to stay relevant in both the NL West and Wild Card races.
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 🡒]