Can the Padres buy AND sell at the Deadline?

This story was excerpted from AJ Cassavell’s Padres Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

The Trade Deadline looms less than a week away, and nobody seems to know what direction the Padres are going to choose. Are they buyers? Are they sellers?

Here’s an intriguing possibility: What if they did both?

It was three weeks ago that general manager A.J. Preller noted that his team’s situation would dictate his strategy. There are only five days left until Tuesday’s Deadline -- and after today’s off-day, only four games until meaningful decisions must be made.

That’s really not much time for the Padres to change their situation. Whatever happens before Tuesday, here are some truths about the team’s Trade Deadline reality:

1.This is a flawed roster in need of upgrades on the pitching staff and toward the bottom of the lineup.

2. For all the flaws on the fringes of the roster, there’s still enough elite talent for the Padres to blossom into the contender they feel like they are (if they could only fix a few of those flaws).

3. The standings are the standings, and the Padres sit 6 1/2 games back in the NL Wild Card race. Their odds of missing the postseason are better than their odds of making it, but not so low as to write off the possibility.

If the Deadline were, say, two weeks later, the Padres might be able to get a better idea of the path they should take. But they can only work with the data they have -- and that paints them as a team that could use a few upgrades but probably shouldn’t pay too steep a price.

"I’m always in the camp that we have enough here to go where we want to go," manager Bob Melvin recently said. "I definitely think we do. If it ends up [we’re] adding, then great. But I like our team."

Which brings us to the possibility that the Padres might buy and sell over the next few days. Blake Snell and Josh Hader are the two biggest names mentioned as trade pieces, and for now let’s focus on a Hader hypothetical.

Hader’s an elite closer. Perhaps the best closer in baseball. He’s also in the final year of his contract, and the Padres could fetch a sizable haul for him. (What playoff contender wouldn’t want a shutdown closer like Hader?)

Now, if the Padres were to focus that haul on big league-ready players, it might help them in both 2023 and beyond. Perhaps they could improve their ultra-thin bench in the trade while also adding a prospect or two. That’s something they’d at least have to consider.

Of course, they would also have to consider filling the void left by Hader. It’s obviously not easy to replace a pitcher of Hader’s caliber. But the Padres could move a now-healthy Robert Suarez to closer and potentially move Seth Lugo to the bullpen to serve as Suarez’s setup man. Or they could trade for a different reliever with multiple years of control, while keeping Lugo in the rotation.

That particular Deadline strategy addresses the Padres’ deficiencies in the short- and long-term, while allowing them to recoup some value for Hader. It might not be the likeliest path. But it’s one to keep an eye on.