The San Diego Padres are making moves this offseason. The team acquired 2018 AL Cy Young winner Blake Snell from the Tampa Bay Rays and are set to land right-hander Yu Darvish from the Chicago Cubs in a separate seven-player deal.
While some fans are thinking these two could be the final pieces of the puzzle for the Padres to make a serious World Series run, David Samson isn't putting them ahead of the Los Angeles Dodgers quite yet.
"I'm a little worked up about this trade," Samson, the ex-Marlins president, said Tuesday on his podcast "Nothing Personal with David Samson."
"Congratulations to the Cubs for finding a moron to take Darvish's contract," Samson said. "And I don't mean that as a personal word toward [Padres GM A.J.] Preller, I mean that as a general description of the Padres organization."
He continues saying Preller is the king of offseason acquisitions, but he wins the offseason and nothing more.
From Chicago's side, he runs through why this trade happened in the first place.
"The Cubs needed to get rid of Darvish. Why? When you've got three years left on a six year deal that they signed Darvish for $126 million, which was a horrible deal when it was signed and a horrible deal now," Samson said. "The Cubs needed to shed salary."
Samson complimented the Padres for their offseason moves, but looked at the bigger picture.
"I'll tell ya right now the Padres won the offseason. They won it. Congratulations. How many rings do you get for winning the offseason?" the podcast host said. "Every team that wins the offseason underperforms in the regular season. It's math. It's definition."
Concluding, he gives a "wait to see," guaranteeing that the Dodgers will win the NL West for the ninth year in a row in 2021.
