Carry on.

The Padres made a significant trade Tuesday and a smaller one at the last minute Wednesday.

They then turned their attention toward the rest of this season (to see what they have) and the offseason (to see what they can add).

“I’m looking forward to having the deadline behind us and getting back to playing some meaningful games,” Padres General Manager A.J. Preller said Wednesday afternoon, a couple hours after a swap of relievers brought Carl Edwards Jr. from the Cubs in exchange for Brad Wieck.


Preller repeatedly referred to “meaningful games” left in this season during a conference call with reporters and several times indicated his expectation the Padres (50-57) will be in the thick of the wild card race (in which they trail eight teams).

The conviction of that expectation is far less concrete than the Padres’ commitment to their 2020 vision — a belief they will be bona fide contenders next season.

That means some short-term pain and the requirement of more long-term faith.

“We had a big-picture perspective of what we’re trying to do,” Preller said. “... We were not going to short circuit the build to take a run at the next six to eight weeks and do something that was going to set us back the next six to eight years.”


The Padres tried to do more in the way of adding immediate help. Preller even acknowledged, “It would be nice to go down to that clubhouse and feel like we added a piece that improved our club.”

A number of Padres players were at one time or another included in talks with other teams. At least two that got serious would have resulted in the Padres acquiring an outfielder, one already in the major leagues and another on the verge, a source said.

“It wasn’t for a lack of conversation and being prepared to try to do something,” Preller said. “But overall we feel like the two moves we made set us up for now and definitely in the future.”

The deal on Tuesday brought them the Reds’ top prospect, 21-year-old Taylor Trammell, who the Padres will put in center field in Double-A Amarillo for the final five weeks of the Sod Poodles’ season. That Trammell bats from the left side fulfilled one of the Padres’ main aims as they went about trying to make deals the past month.


“We have a fairly right-hand heavy big-league club this season, and the top level of the minor leagues we have a few left-handed bats,” Preller said. “We’re looking for somebody who balances out the lineup. Looking for somebody who gets on base, a guy who is a two-way player, offense and defense.”

The Reds had made Trammell off limits in talks this past offseason, but the Padres continued to scout him and believe his batting average dipping to .236 this season is due to his youth and some issues with pitch selection as he moved up a level.

Getting Trammell, who had a .349 on-base percentage for Chattanooga, required the Padres sending popular and hard-hitting outfielder Franmil Reyes and left-handed pitcher Logan Allen to the Indians as part of the three-team deal.

The Padres felt they have a number of pitchers at least as good as Allen they can put at the back of their rotation or in the bullpen. Letting go of Reyes, who was second on the team with 27 home runs but was a defensive liability and had regressed in some areas, was described as a painful decision.


“Ultimately, you’d love to keep everybody,” Preller said. “If you’re getting back something you need, you have to give up something.”

Edwards, a 27-year-old right-hander, was added just before the deadline along with $500,000 in international bonus pool money. The Padres sent the Cubs Wieck, a left-handed rookie reliever who had a 6.57 ERA in 24 2/3 innings for them and spent the past four weeks in Triple-A.

Edwards’ .152 batting average against from 2016 to ’18 was second lowest in the National League. He posted a 3.03 ERA in that span and pitched in eight postseason games in the Cubs’ 2016 World Series run. He has a 5.87 ERA in 15 1/3 innings this season, still allowing just a .151 BAA, and has spent time in Triple-A and on the injured list.

“It’s a guy who has obviously been one of the better relieves in the National League the last four years,” Preller said. “There’s been a drop in performance this season. … We felt like it was an opportunity to gain a guy who has some experience at a young age still with a high ceiling and upside. That was a project we wanted to take on and see where it lands us in the next few months.”


Teams called about closer Kirby Yates, the major league saves leader, and the Padres did more than listen. Yates was at one point included in what one source termed a “mega deal” that fell apart.

The Padres sought an immediate big-league return for Yates, because they see him as an anchor for them in years when wins matter even more. The team recently began discussing extending the 32-year-old right-hander beyond the end of his current deal.

The other chief aim over the past several weeks had been the addition of a starting pitcher.

Word that Noah Syndergaard was pulled from the trade table Wednesday did not surprise teams who had been in talks with the Mets. Their asking price for the 26-year-old right-hander was high to begin with and kept getting higher.


The Padres will go into the offseason in search of a pitcher they can confidently call a No. 1 or No. 2 starter. They believe they have several in-house candidates — Garrett Richards, Dinelson Lamet, Chris Paddack — but would like depth of assurance.

“We like the group of starters we have in the organization, we like the group that is at the big-league level,” Preller said. “We’ve talked about supplementing that from the outside, whether it be in free agency or be in trades. … We’ll get to the offseason, it will still be a focus.”

For now, there are two months (55 games) remaining to assess pitchers and see what certain catchers and outfielders can try to prove and whether manager Andy Green has his young team headed promisingly enough in the right direction.

One immediate benefit in letting Reyes go was freeing up playing time for Wil Myers and Josh Naylor. Myers has recently shown signs of emerging from a nearly season-long slump, and Naylor is expected to be recalled from Triple-A for the series against the Dodgers that starts Thursday in Los Angeles.


“There’s still a lot of belief in Wil in this building,” Preller said. “This is an opportunity for Wil to get back on the field and earn playing time and being part of a winning club. Seeing the progression of Hunter Renfroe and seeing the way Manny Margot has played the last month and seeing Wil Myers, knowing he’s got a lot of good swings there and seeing what he’s done the last couple weeks and what we believe in him — having some excess (in the outfield), the deal opens up spots for those guys.”

There had long been thought within the organization that this was about how July would go. This season has always been partly about development and, despite Preller’s optimistic talk of the remaining “meaningful games,” that a team seven games under .500 had shifted into just trying to play better and see who could be a part of doing so going forward.

“You’re always looking to try to improve at the big-league level,” Preller said. “The name of the game is winning at the big-league level. There’s a lot of internal improvement from the group. We’ve been pretty realistic since the offseason, after the (Manny) Machado acquisition, that a big part of our development is going to be seeing the improvement of players that are in house that we believe in.

“That part has been our focus — the development of that crew. If we’re going to have success, it’s because of those guys. You want to be opportunistic and be open-minded. We were very open-minded seeing if we could add talent from outside the organization. It just didn’t quite line up.”