Jim Bowden sees a Padres team that should start tearing things down. The problem is San Diego hasn’t quite reached the point where that kind of move makes clean sense.
On a recent appearance on “Front Office Unfiltered,” the longtime baseball executive said the Padres should be willing to shop Mason Miller and Michael King ahead of the trade deadline, with the goal of “quickly try to reboot this thing,” as the clip shared by @FoulTerritoryTV put it. The case for a reset is easy enough to understand. San Diego is hovering around .500, sits 13 games behind the Dodgers and holds third place in the NL West.
But there’s one number that complicates the whole idea: the Padres are only two games out of a Wild Card spot.
That doesn’t make them a true contender. It does mean they’re still hanging around, and that matters.
Trading King is a serious move. Turning Miller into a trade chip is a much bigger swing, especially for a club that already paid a steep price to get him.
The Padres gave up Leo De Vries and three pitching prospects for Miller and JP Sears, and they did it with the expectation that Miller would be part of the future. De Vries has kept developing into one of baseball’s top prospects, which only sharpens the sting of reopening that deal so soon. If San Diego were to move Miller now, the return would have to be enormous.
There’s also the control factor. Miller is under club control through the 2029 season, and he remains one of the most dominant relievers in baseball. He’s also the Padres’ lone All-Star, which says plenty about both his value and the rest of the roster around him.
The bigger truth is that Bowden is not wrong to question where this team stands. A club with Fernando Tatis Jr., Manny Machado, Jackson Merrill, Xander Bogaerts, King and Miller should not be sitting below .500 in late July. This roster was built to chase the Dodgers, not to be peeking at the Wild Card board and hoping the math breaks right.
Still, the Padres are stuck in the middle in the worst possible way. They’re expensive, top-heavy and short on prospect depth. They’ve spent years pushing future value into the present, and that kind of approach can leave an organization with no easy exit ramp.
That’s why a Miller sell-off feels so extreme. It wouldn’t be a true reset, because the Padres aren’t positioned for a full rebuild. It would just be a rebuilding-type move layered onto a roster that can’t really rebuild in the first place.
In Other News...
Padres Bullpen Shakeup Just Raised The Stakes For A Fringe Contender
A one-run loss to Atlanta only sharpened the scrutiny around a Padres bullpen that has already been in motion. Chris Sale handled San Diego for six innings, punching out 11, and then the front office moved quickly afterward, dealing reliever Ron Marinaccio as the club continued to sort through the back end of the staff.
The bigger question now is how far that reshaping goes before the deadline. Reports have already put closer Mason Miller in the trade conversation, and the Padres are also weighing Griffin Cannings place on the roster, which leaves this fringe contender trying to balance urgency with uncertainty at the exact moment every bullpen decision feels magnified. [Read more 🡒]
Padres Bullpen Just Took Another Brutal Jason Adam Setback
Jason Adams absence is starting to linger in a way the Padres would rather not see from one of their most trusted bullpen arms. The right-hander has been out with a shoulder strain, and what had looked like a possible mid-August return now feels much less certain. Before the injury, Adam had been a steady late-game option for San Diego, working to a 2.51 ERA across 36 appearances and giving the club a level of reliability it has leaned on all season.
For a bullpen that has already had to absorb some wear, the timing makes the setback sting a little more. Jeremiah Estrada is expected back soon after getting through a Triple-A outing during his recovery from a knee injury, which at least offers a potential reinforcement in the near term. Even so, Adams situation leaves the Padres waiting on one of the arms they count on most, and the next step in his recovery still matters as much as anything else in the relief mix. [Read more 🡒]
Padres Suddenly Linked To One Tigers Star Fans Feared Losing
The Padres are expected to spend the run-up to the August 3 trade deadline looking for help in the rotation, and that search has now produced a name that would instantly change the conversation. Tarik Skubal, the Tigers left-hander who has become one of the most coveted arms in the sport, has been linked as a possible target if Detroit decides to listen, giving San Diego a high-end option in a market where starting pitching always comes at a premium.
Detroits place in the playoff race is what makes the situation so tricky, because the Tigers are not operating like a club eager to sell. Even so, Skubals looming free agency keeps the door from shutting completely, and for the Padres the appeal is obvious: a chance to chase a frontline starter with impact now, even if the price would be steep and the fit far from simple. [Read more 🡒]