The Rafael Devers Trade Could Spell Further Doom For San Diego Padres

Ahead of the 2025 season, the consensus was that the National League West is the best division in baseball. That has largely proven to be true.

The Los Angeles Dodgers continue to win, despite having more than a dozen pitchers on the injured list at any given moment. The San Francisco Giants recently heated up to pull even with said Dodgers atop the division before falling back over the weekend. Even the Arizona Diamondbacks remain within striking distance despite myriad bullpen woes & pitcher injuries. But it's that middle squad that, at present, delivers a rather significant problem for the San Diego Padres. 

The Padres have been in the mix for the NL West lead since the jump. Depending on who you ask, that may or may not be a surprise, mostly due to their overall lack of depth. Despite featuring one of the worst offenses in baseball over the last month, they still remain only three games back of the division-leading Dodgers. The Giants, however, remain sandwiched between the two of them. Given the trade they pulled off on Sunday, they may entrench themselves there for the foreseeable future. 

San Francisco acquired Boston Red Sox star Rafael Devers for a package that includes a struggling Jordan Hicks, a currently fringe-y Kyle Harrison, and two prospects. In other words, such a deal only adds to their 2025 roster. Which is potentially very problematic for the Padres specifically. 

The Giants' offense has not been entirely dissimilar from the Padres' this year. Each club has been fairly middle-of-the-road in terms of run production, and since the May 16th threshold where San Diego's offense fell off, the Giants are in front of them by only one run. But the Devers trade illustrates the potential for a sharp break between the two. 

For his part, Devers is in the middle of another strong year despite an almost-unbelievable slow start. He's reaching base at a clip just over .400 and has a wRC+ of 148 on the year, both of which would represent career highs. Which brings me, dear reader, to the point of this: the San Diego Padres are in trouble. 

Winning the division was always going to be a stretch. The Dodgers are the Dodgers, after all. And despite their offensive struggles for the past month, the Giants have scored the league's seventh-most runs over the past two weeks. They already represented a more balanced — and slightly deeper — club in challenging the Dodgers for the top spot in the NL West as much as any one team can. 

Meanwhile, the Padres continue to struggle to score runs. Even on two of the four occasions in which they scored seven runs in the past week, their pitching faltered in the way to losses. The margin for error is small given how top heavy the roster is. It's an unsustainable way to win games over the long-term. The Devers addition threatens to leave the Padres behind entirely in matters of the division. Which could mean that it's time for the Padres to instead shift their attention toward a wild card. 

It also amplifies the need for A.J. Preller to make additions to the current roster. The issue there is, of course, the depleted farm system from such moves over the last handful of years. So the Padres are now in a position where their need is even greater but the resources aren't quite where they need to be. To say nothing of the report that the team was apparently interested in Devers as well (though we don't know to what extent their actual interest existed nor said lack of resources hurt them in any hypothetical talks). 

Ultimately, it's another deflating moment in a stretch of deflating moments over the past month. The Padres were already in a certain degree of danger given how hard they've had to work to scratch wins for roughly the last month combined with the nature of having the Dodgers in their division. Now, the urgency picks up. But — and not be too dramatic here — the magnitude of the deal their other division rival just made could mean it's already too late.

Despite the narrow gap at present, Wild Card City may be the team's best hope for a postseason destination.