Padres News: Joe Musgrove Doesn’t Care if the Friars Buy or Sell This Deadline

Musgrove is ignoring the looming trade deadline.

The Padres opened the season as one of the favorites to win the World Series, thanks to their expensive moves in the offseason.

It's no secret that things have not gone exactly to plan, as the Padres now sit five games below .500 at the time of this writing and well outside of the NL Wild Card race.

So, with the Aug. 1 trade deadline under two weeks away, the Padres' front office has some heavy decisions to make.

They want to be buyers. They want to continue the fight for a spot in the postseason and avoid being one of the biggest 21st-century failures in Major League Baseball.

But at a certain point, the Padres might have to bite the bullet and deal some of their stars, such as starter Blake Snell or Josh Hader.

However, even if the media and fans are talking nonstop about the many possible deadline moves the Padres could make, starting pitcher Joe Musgrove says the actual players don't have it on their minds. Musgrove gave one of the most candid answers on how the players view the deadline after Tuesday night's 9-1 win.

“I don’t think many guys in here have thought a whole lot about whether we’re buying or selling,” Musgrove said. “I feel like whether we buy or sell, we’re a really good team regardless. There’s certain guys that they aren’t going to sell. And even if we do sell off — the guys that are available, Blake (and) Hader, that are going to be (free agents) at the end of the year — we have a good team in here without those guys. Obviously, we’re not the same team without them, but we do have a good team. So I feel like that’s not as much of a concern, and we’re not really thinking about that. We’re thinking about winning games one at a time and just putting as many as we can together in a row.”

(Via

The San Diego Union-Tribune

)

Whether the Padres sell or not, Musgrove believes that their core group of Ha-Seong Kim, Manny Machado, Fernando Tatis Jr. and others signed to long-term deals, have the talent to make it to the postseason.