San Diego Padres: What players will the team deal at the deadline?

The cellar-dwelling San Diego Padres don’t have much to look forward to in the short term, but there are some interesting players they can deal by July 31.

It was well-known entering the season that the San Diego Padres had no interest in competing at all. There was no more obvious sign of their tanking then when they signed veteran players Erick Aybar, Jhoulys Chacin, Jered Weaver and Trevor Cahill to roles that they really didn’t deserve.

So it comes as no surprise that the Padres sit in last place in the NL West at the moment, accumulating a less than ideal record of 21-33.

What this means is that the Padres won’t have much to play for throughout the season with the next biggest event on the calendar being the July 31 trade deadline. This will mark the next opportunity for general manager A.J. Preller to accumulate more young talent for his full-scale rebuilding effort.

Many losing teams look forward to see what prospects they can get for some of their big league talent. However, some sellers just don’t have that much to give away that would garner a significant return.

Luckily, the Padres do have some quality major leaguers that will be interesting to some ballclubs that are looking to bolster their rosters for a postseason run.

The dilemma for all sellers is that they want to make sure they get enough value, especially when players have more than just half a season remaining on their contracts. The Padres are one of those sellers who have both obvious trade chips and some players they could hang on to.

Let’s take a look at which guys you should expect to be playing on other teams come August 1.