Jack Dickey, SI.com: "No 66–96 team in baseball history has been in as enviable yet precarious a position as the one in which the San Diego Padres presently find themselves. The farm system is as flush as any in recent memory; just days ago, MLB.com ranked 10 Padres prospects among the game’s top 100, with five of them, including No. 2 overall prospect Fernando Tatis, Jr., expected to contribute as major leaguers in 2019. Meanwhile, the big league roster (with two crucial exceptions) is essentially a blank canvas ready for general manager A.J. Preller’s paint. According to Spotrac data, only five teams have smaller total payrolls than the Padres’ $74 million, and that number factors in the $25-plus million the Padres owe in dead money. Only the Rays have less pledged to their 25-man roster than San Diego’s $49 million. Preller has made a couple of token dabs on that canvas—reaching two-year deals in December with injured Angel starter Garrett Richards, who will likely miss 2019, and 36-year-old second baseman Ian Kinsler, whose charmed career entered its decline phase two years ago—but has not yet made any sort of splash. Will he? Should he? The questions are worth asking in light of recent reports that the Padres have made a delayed play for Manny Machado and are even sniffing around Bryce Harper. (The two lead a class of still-unsigned players that also includes Dallas Keuchel, Craig Kimbrel, and Marwin Gonzalez.) The reports, on their own, don’t mean much. Presumably, every team could find a home for one or both players, and every team that isn’t owned by cheapskates or already financially overextended would gladly add one or the other at advantageous terms. But because of the unusual composition of its roster and payroll, San Diego presents an uncommonly captivating set of hypotheticals.