SAN DIEGO _ This is not the time for the Padres to be rash, impulsive or lose their brown-pinstriped minds as Monday's trade deadline looms. It's also not the time to sit idle for a team waiting to sniff the postseason for the first time since 2006.
The Padres are good _ legitimately good, playoff-level good, reshape-a-sad-narrative good _ with enough dependable tools in enough corners of the clubhouse to dream big.
Yet as August melts, the franchise that has experienced the playoffs just five times since it arrived in 1969, with one postseason win in the last 21 seasons, finds itself at the craziest of crossroads.
When opportunity finally arrived, financial handwringing came along for the ride.
Positioning themselves for this moment is why the Padres stripped the house down to the studs and rebuilt the farm system. It's why baseball operations burned through barrels of midnight oil to corral Fernando Tatis Jr., Trent Grisham, Zach Davies and Drew Pomeranz (again), while flat-out stealing Jake Cronenworth.
You charge ahead boldly, right? You engineer a trade to reinforce the ramparts. You make the big move all those years of smaller moves emboldened.
Then a pandemic locked the turnstiles and shuttered beer stands. The Padres remain responsible for paying Machado, Eric Hosmer and Wil Myers more than $432,000 ... every game. As Tatis' star soars, ownership is trying to figure out how to pay for him down the road.
The confluence of finally being competitive and a singular economic tsunami contorts the debate about what to do ... or not do.
Start here: Be brave, not brazen. Seize a way-too-elusive moment.
Go get a pitcher.
The Padres need another starter, especially as we learn more about Chris Paddack's wrestling matches with short rest. The bullpen continues to leak without Kirby Yates, Jose Castillo and the (hopefully) soon-to-return Pomeranz.
The offense is there, as we're reminded again and again with grand slams and seven-run walk-offs. Are you willing to let an arm or two unravel things come September or October?
General manager A.J. Preller refused to tip his hand, other than to acknowledge the Padres sit in a very different place under remarkably different circumstances as the trade deadline nears.
"We've been building here over the course of the last four or five years to get to the point where we have talent top to bottom at the Major League level," Preller said. "... That enables you to deal from a position of strength (with multiple players at positions), but you don't want to be flippant about it."
There's risk, of course. That risk is unique, as well. If you make the move and the season shuts down because of COVID-19, you're a prospect or two lighter and the bank account is strained even more. Some argue that pitching prospects MacKenzie Gore and Ryan Weathers are on the way.
The prospects vault remains robust in ways the franchise has not seen in, well, a long, long time. You also have been dangling a playoff appearance in front of a fan base with a PhD in patience.
It's about finding the right arm, not the biggest headline-grabbing arm.
The internet is jammed with conversations about the Padres considering names like Trevor Bauer or Johnny Cueto. What about someone like Zach Plesac of the Indians, who makes the league minimum with a 1.29 ERA and 0.667 WHIP (walks and hits per innings pitched) and is controllable through 2025?
It's not a pitching outlet mall out there, but Preller and his crew have shown a keen eye for the baseball futures' market as of late.
"If you get that fifth starter, they're dialed in and they pitch well, that would be great," Padres manager Jayce Tingler said. "If you get somebody in the bullpen, it all comes down to performances. I don't know. Yeah, it would be nice. But at the same time, we've got a lot of off days down the stretch.
"Do you really need a fifth starter in some of those situations?"
The argument about gambling on an arm who might give you three or four starts makes sense. Then again, you're hoping it's more starts than that, including far more important ones when October arrives.
A smart spend that includes the gravy of club control could be the perfect puzzle piece to buoy a weary and wounded bullpen, while complementing an offense making mincemeat of baseballs right now.
The last thing the Padres can afford, in the figurative but potentially literal sense, is to miss this window. The pain of wasting all the bats paving the way would linger for long time.
Paddack is struggling mightily to spot his fastball and find his way. Garrett Richards lasted just 2 2/3 innings combined in his last two starts. The sub-.500 Mariners treated reliever Craig Stammen like a batting machine Thursday before the Padres engineered a wild comeback.
The pressure on Preller to ensure things do not slip away builds by the day.
Get a pitcher.
