SAN DIEGO -- It’s officially offseason season. The Padres held their end-of-season press conference with manager Craig Stammen and general manager A.J. Preller on Wednesday, looking ahead to a winter full of crucial decisions.
Here are four of the biggest questions the Padres face in their offseason roster construction:
1. How do the Padres get over the hump?
Unquestionably, this is the most successful era of Padres baseball. They’ve reached the postseason in each of the last three years, winning 90-plus games in all of those seasons.
They’ve also been eliminated before the end of the National League Division Series in all three seasons.
There were bad breaks, sure. Not to mention that, in the week after they eliminated the Padres, the Brewers completely dismantled the Dodgers in the NLCS. Essentially, these Padres went toe to toe with the team that looks like the best in baseball.
And they lost. Like they did in the Wild Card Series last year. Like they did in the NLDS in 2024.
“Obviously a very competitive series against the Brewers,” Preller said. “It’s a game of inches, and that series was defined by that. Again, I think we all understand we have a few more steps we need to take, and the ultimate goal is to be playing at this time of year, to be playing on the big stage in a World Series.”
It would be unwise to chalk up the end of the season exclusively to a few bad breaks. The offense went cold, and the pitching staff was running on fumes by the end. There probably aren’t major changes ahead. But there should be changes.
“We all know we’ve got to get a little bit better,” Preller said. “That pursuit has started already here at Petco [Park]. Looking forward to having a good offseason.”
2. How do they sort out the rotation?
The Padres always seem to enter the winter with major rotation questions, but even by those standards, this year’s questions feel extremely pronounced. Preller is certainly taking a glass-half-full view of that uncertainty.
“The idea that we have a little bit of a blank canvas and have some flexibility, I think we see that as an opportunity,” Preller said. “There’s some good pitching available on the market. We have some good pitchers that we like here at Petco that are coming back for us.
“Every year we talk about it: You’ve got to be willing to revamp your pitching staff. This offseason will be no different. We’ll have some opportunity, I think, this offseason to build a staff that we think is a championship staff through free agency, trades and continuing to develop.”
