Welcome to Gaslamp Ball mailbag! The regular season is over, which (unfortunately) makes this the first mailbag of the off-season. There are some great questions today, and there was a great discussion in the comments section as well.

So, without any more delay let’s just jump right into some of these questions.

What is your over/under for Padre wins next year? And why? -DiegoDuder

Oddly enough, right after the post asking for questions came out, the Gaslamp Twitter account tweeted out an over under.

86 is the official site number, so let’s roll with that. To prevent bullpen collapses, there must be an identification of the reason for the collapses, and a plan to fix it. I also think adding a starter like, say, Noah Syndergaard via trade goes a long way. But let’s not dabble in the what if’s.

The Padres bullpen during the 2019 season had some good and some bad. For example, Fangraphs splits leaderboard has San Diego relievers ranked sixth in K/9 at 9.8, which is good. The BB/9 is also tied with Minnesota for the lowest in the league at 2.9. They trail only Houston in xFIP at 4.08. All things considered, the bullpen did a decent job on the surface.

If you would like to argue anything, it could be bad luck. When flipping to the high leverage leaderboard, there isn’t a ton of difference. The strikeout numbers are still pretty good, 10.6 K/9 (5th). They are, however, tied for the sixth highest HR/9 in the league during high leverage situations with 1.6. That is likely do to the fact that they had one of the top ten highest hard hit percentages. They had the third lowest xFIP in the league at 3.85 in those high leverage situations.

To answer the question, I think one more good starter that can be relied on to go deep into games makes 86 a very reasonable mark. So, we will see.

Any truth to the Manny Machado trade rumors? -glyonax

Before you freak out, there is a link (here) that leads to a story that says Machado bought an expensive mansion in Florida. I will be as direct as I can here, there are no rumors. It’s just a house. Manny Machado is a Padre for a long time.

Will Preller continue to hoard his prospects, or will he give up a couple to make a big trade? -wegotballsley

I like this question a lot. Honestly, I don’t know. The fact that Preller traded MLB talent for Taylor Trammell at the deadline doesn’t give a true answer either. That was an awesome trade, I will die on that hill.

Here is what I can tell you, there are a lot of prospects that have a trajectory to be ready to debut in the majors towards the end of next season and the early parts of 2021. Because of that, the big trade would have to be for a pitcher that has control, or a guy they think they can extend. I’ve been campaigning for Thor who will be a free agent in 2022. I think Matt Boyd of the Tigers is also a decent candidate that Preller might go for if he’s available, he will be a free agent in 2023.

Maybe it won’t be this off-season, but the time is coming where Preller will have to shell out some prospects to bring in a difference making name. And that hurts me to say, I love this group of young guys in the farm system. But, it’s not going to be easy to dethrone the Dodgers.

Do the Padres have the financial flexibility to sign Corey Dickerson? What do you think he would cost? -JasonEg135

Sure they could. He was only worth 1.0 fWAR last year in his 78 games played, which would average out to a little over two if he had played all 162 games assuming my math is correct. On the 2019 Padre team that would place him third among position players, behind Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado. That being said, Hunter Renfroe was worth 1.9 fWAR in 140 games so there isn’t much difference there.

Dickerson would be a power bat, his 2019 ISO was .262, and he was worth runs above average with the bat. Which is good because his defensive runs above average was -7.5.

It’s an interesting idea, but it doesn’t do a ton for the team in my opinion. He was signed for 1 / $8,500,000 after two years in a row of being worth close to three fWAR. I can’t imagine his AAV goes up as he enters his age 31 season coming off a year that ended on the IL, so he would probably cost slightly less than his 2019 contract.

Thank you!

This was all I have room for today, but there were some great questions and conversations going on. So if your question was not answered, keep an eye on Gaslamp Ball for an expanded look at these questions and others! Great questions today, I hope I was able to bring something to the table. Get your questions ready for this upcoming Friday!