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.

Greetings from Nashville, Tenn., where the Winter Meetings are underway, and the Padres already feel like one of the week's most fascinating teams.

Here's a look at four Padres storylines for the week ahead.

1. Juan Soto
This is the big one. Soto is one of the best hitters in the sport. He's in his prime, coming off a season in which he slashed .275/.410/.519 with 35 home runs. And, as he enters his final season before free agency, he’s available via trade.

Soto, who is owed a raise on his $23 million salary in arbitration, seems destined to hit the free-agent market next offseason. The Padres have numerous holes on their roster that need to be filled and some long-term planning to take care of.

For those reasons, the Padres are widely expected to move Soto at some point this winter. But they've reportedly set the price tag very high -- and, honestly, why wouldn't they?

If that's the case, it seems likelier that a potential trade would come to fruition later in the offseason. But that won't stop the rumors from flying all week.

2. Where do the Padres find pitching?
Even a trade involving Soto wouldn't cure all that ails the Padres on the pitching side. They'll need to add at least three starters and a handful of bullpen arms as well.

Given the sheer volume of pitching required to fill out this roster, I'd expect general manager A.J. Preller to use every avenue available. Free agency. The trade market. Heck, the Padres have roster space available ahead of Wednesday's Rule 5 Draft if they choose to take a flier on a young reliever or two.

It'll be fascinating to see how the Padres attack their need for pitching. Would they be in play for some of the bigger names on the trade market? Would they look for buy-low value types like they found in Seth Lugo and Michael Wacha last season? Can they find young rotation options worth building around in the future?

It's all possible. There's still time to build a contending rotation for the 2024 season, even if the current group features only Joe Musgrove, Yu Darvish and a handful of question marks. But if the Padres emerge from Nashville without having lined up a deal or two, they'll be left scrambling for pitching the rest of the winter.

3. Who’s available in a revamped farm system?
Once again, Preller has taken a depleted farm and built it into one with legitimate value. MLB Pipeline's midseason re-rank of the sport's systems had the Padres at No. 9. That's somewhat remarkable after Preller spent most of the past two seasons dealing from that system to acquire star talent.

So the Padres again have valuable players in their pipeline ... How do they use them? Preller has built heavily through trades in the past. But he's also been burned by a lack of big league-caliber depth at the upper levels of his system.

The next month or two should tell us a lot about the long-term path for the Padres. My guess? I think they find a comfortable middle ground. Don't expect the high-end prospects to be moved. But there are simply too many flaws on this roster right now for San Diego to contend in 2024 without at least moving some of its prospects for big league-ready contributors.

4. Mike Shildt at the helm
It's now been nearly three weeks since the Padres introduced Shildt as the successor to Bob Melvin in the manager's chair. At his introductory press conference, Shildt spoke of San Diego being squarely in its window for contention, and he spoke of his goal of winning for Peter Seidler and helping carry out his legacy.

Now that the dust has settled on the Padres’ managerial search, it's time to get into the nitty gritty. Shildt still must fill out a coaching staff -- particularly a lead hitting coach and a bench coach, with Ryan Christenson and Ryan Flaherty having left for the Giants and Cubs, respectively.

Meanwhile, Preller deflected on questions about his defensive alignment earlier this offseason, noting that it would be a discussion for his next manager. Surely, that subject has been already broached, and there’s some measure of a plan in place.

Both Shildt and Preller have their formal media availability on Tuesday. Plenty of macro storylines will hover around the Padres this week -- most notably Soto's status and the long-term direction of the organization. But this week also marks our first chance to hone in on some of the micro and get a feel for Shildt’s roster-planning and coaching-staff construction. Stay tuned.