Let's make it clear that this site will not engage with every Pablo Sandoval rumor from now until the end of his career. He's gone. The Giants are better off because of it. We're moving on, I promise.
You can understand the interest with this specific team, however.
According to Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe, the Padres were watching Sandoval in Red Sox camp. If you'll remember, the Padres were the original mystery team on Sandoval, and it was before they gobbled up the hot stove league and pooped out a transaction supernova. Back then, it was more like, "What do the Padres want with Sandoval?" After their 30 trades and signings, it would have made a heckuva lot more sense.
And it totally would have fit the depressing disaster of the 2015 Padres season, too. I'm not sure if they still make the Matt Kemp trade if they have Sandoval on the books but Sandoval's 2015 season was the Padres of seasons. The Padres' 2015 season was the Pablo Sandoval of seasons. They are star-crossed, these two.
So imagine these two horrific scenarios:
1.
Sandoval stars with the Padres. He's back. He's better than ever. The extra padding doesn't hurt him at all, and he's slapping doubles on face-high fastballs from Matt Cain at the worst possible time.
2.
Sandoval continues his slow, painful decline, and we have to watch it for 18 games every year. We'll see the Padres spreading through his veins, crystallizing, his eyes deadening. "Help meeeeee," he'll croak. And we'll have to turn away, coldly, without remorse or regret, as he gets sucked into the Quilvio Veras fog, never to return.
Yeah, the second one is preferable, I know. But I don't want to see his career turn into worms. I just want to ignore it and remember Justin Verlander saying, "Wow!" Him being on the Padres isn't going to help that at all.
It's just a whisper of a rumor based on a scout doing his job. Just the Padres checking off some boxes and thinking creatively. Nothing is imminent. We're still at UGHCON 4, in which the Padres are as mildly annoying as they usually are.
But as a rumor, it's definitely an obnoxious one, even if it completely backfires on them, somehow. Good work, Padres.