This past Sunday, general manager AJ Preller said on MLB Network Radio that the Padres “wanted to focus during the beginning part of the offseason on improving (their) ballclub and then get to the new year” before they started working on a contract extension for Fernando Tatis Jr.
“We’ve had preliminary-type conversattions just letting each other know that there’s interest there. Hopefully we’re on common grounf to work something out at some point before the season.”
Well, Preller did just that by making a trio of big-time transactions, including trades for pitchers Blake Snell and Yu Darvish.