As it was in the offseason, predicting exactly what Padres General Manager A.J. Preller will do next remains an exercise in futility.

This much, however, is clear:

The Padres’ key decision-makers realize it is getting extremely late to make a run up the standings.

Still, even as a majority of Preller’s winter splashes haven’t panned out, they feel as strongly as ever about their first-year GM.

In short, the next few weeks could be nearly as interesting as last December.

“We think he’s done an outstanding job,” Padres president and CEO Mike Dee told the Union-Tribune. “The major league club is one part of it; it’s a big part of it. We all wish we were winning more games, but listen, you’ve got to swing to hit, and (Preller) took a big swing this season with this team.

“This was a franchise that was stuck in neutral for the last 10 years, so I give A.J. a lot of credit for rolling the dice to see if we could add to this year’s team to compete, to compete with this group, and I think we still may. If we don’t, then we’ll reassess and reshuffle the deck and see if we can find a different chemistry, a different combination, that can improve the roster.”


Realistically, the latter direction is more probable. At 39-48, the Padres are foundering precisely where they were a year ago.

“We’re way disappointed in this year to date,” Padres executive chairman Ron Fowler said Wednesday. “We’ve been evaluating the team very closely. ... We fully hope that they’re going to play better for the remainder of the season.”

To reach the postseason, the Padres would have to play roughly .650 baseball the rest of the way. FanGraphs.com projects the odds of that happening at 3 percent.

“For every game we don’t gain on .500, that doesn’t bode well for that .647 number,” Fowler added.


A franchise in desperate need of stability, San Diego won’t undergo a massive shift from the aggressive direction it adopted in the offseason. But even in the absence of a teardown, Preller has full latitude to make moves by the deadline, and judging by his level of offseason activity, the Padres easily could be one of the most active teams before August.

“We’ve got a lot of our scouting group on the road, seeing players we could add to the mix,” Preller said this week while evaluating the big-league club at PNC Park. “Then we’re also considering situations where we kind of change the look of the club a little bit. ... The biggest thing we preach to our scouts is to just be prepared for all different scenarios.”

Sources indicate the Padres are prepared to sell and buy simultaneously. Free-agents-to-be Justin Upton, Ian Kennedy, Joaquin Benoit and Will Venable are obvious trade candidates. Club-controllable pitchers Andrew Cashner and Tyson Ross intrigue many teams, while closer Craig Kimbrel has pitched just twice in July. Meantime, the Padres continue to be on the prowl for such commodities as an everyday shortstop, more balance for a right-handed-heavy offense and young, major league-ready talent in general.

“It’s obviously not where we want to be,” Preller said of the Padres’ current position. “We were hoping that we’d be in a better place in the standings and just in general playing better, more consistent baseball. We’ve seen flashes of it early in the year. The offense had some explosive moments; we put some runs on the board in a hurry. The pitching wasn’t as good at that time. Now it’s kind of a flip, vice versa.”


Even so, Preller wasn’t ready to concede the season.

“I still think that this team, especially the way we’ve pitched the last few weeks, you could make the case that we’re going to get to the finish line in a way that can be competitive,” he said. “I think we have some components that can help us get there. We’ve got to improve a lot of areas; we need a more consistent offensive approach and attack. ... I think in a lot of ways the team will tell us as we get going, and I think we get a better sense of where we stand in the next 10 days, two weeks.”

But if the Padres don’t go on their long-awaited winning streak by then - and, to date, they’ve yet to show signs of real consistency - Preller may be forced to do more selling than buying. Certainly, the farm system, depleted during the Padres’ offseason revamping, could use restocking.

Whichever direction Preller chooses, he’ll have strong backing from the the owners, who’ve been enamored with Preller’s tireless approach to player development and scouting, both stateside and abroad.


“We’re ecstatic with the collaborative environment, the creativity, the will to win, the competitive nature,” Dee said. “Some of the things we’ve done to this point haven’t worked out, but we’ll jump right back on it and keep swinging.”

While the Padres currently have more than $60 million committed for 2016 to just four players - Kimbrel, Matt Kemp, James Shields and Melvin Upton Jr. - sources say they are prepared to be active in free agency. That would suggest that, after San Diego opened this season with a club-record $108 payroll, another substantial hike is possible.