Headed into the last week of June, the San Diego Padres were two games over .500 and just 2½ back of the D'Backs in the NL West. Their surprise surge in the standings seemingly put them in a good position to acquire some rental players at the trade deadline if they could hang on through the All-Star break. Well... so much for that.
Padres rumors: San Diego no longer interested in rental players
The Friars’ recent fall into last place in the NL West has taken them off the market for half-season acquisitions. Whether or not that means they’re in full sell mode remains to be seen.
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The Padres lost 18 of 22 games in the three weeks leading up to the Midsummer Classic, and now have absolutely no interest in acquiring temporary upgrades at the trade deadline, reports Jeff Sanders of the San Diego Union-Tribune.
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Baseball has a new beacon of truth, and it's the same guy who was history's arch-nemesis 52 years ago. General manager Josh Byrnes iterated that the deadline is too complicated a process to definitively say that San Diego will be sellers in the coming weeks, but that it certainly "doesn't make sense" to go after rental players. What the "no rentals" ultimatum does right away is take the Padres out of the running for Cubs right-hander Matt Garza, who will be a free agent at the end of the season.
Byrnes added that the club could still be in the market for a long-term acquisition -- i.e. someone who has a few years of control left -- and Sanders speculates that starters like Bud Norris, Kyle Lohse, Yovani Gallardo, Hisashi Iwakuma, or Kevin Correia could fit that bill.
Once so close to the top of the division, the Padres now sit at 42-54 on the season, 8½ back of Arizona.
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