The post-COVID draft is half as long as it was before the pandemic shut down baseball in the spring of 2020, but the A.J. Preller -led Padres see such circumstances as an opportunity to out-hustle the competition in the undrafted free agent market.

Frameworks of deals are often in place the moment a draft ends.

Take, for instance, the 2024 class.

A 22-year-old outfielder with a 6-foot-6 and 260-pound frame from Hofstra slipped through the 20-round draft after using 70- to 80-grade raw power to pair 11 homers with a .893 OPS. But he was firmly on area scout John McNamara’s radar, performed in the college draft league after the season and then ran a 6.5-second 60-yard dash at a Padres pre-draft workout.

Loud tools and traits, to be sure, so Alex McCoy was Objective No. 1 when last

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