As fans look forward to the inevitable post-lockout transaction bonanza, those hoping to see their favorite teams add to the starting rotation are often focused on the Reds and Athletics as potential trade partners — and with good reason. Both Oakland (Sean Manaea, Chris Bassitt, Frankie Montas) and Cincinnati (Sonny Gray, Luis Castillo, Tyler Mahle) have three pitchers whom they could feasibly trade in order to cut payroll and add some young talent to the organization. The Marlins, too, are an oft-suggested trade partner for teams needing starting pitchers, even after already dealing Zach Thompson to the Pirates in December’s Jacob Stallings swap.
That said, while those three teams draw much of the focus, the asking prices there will be high. Teams will want alternatives, and the Padres are likely to receive a good bit of interest from those clubs. That’s not because San Diego is embarking on any sort of rebuilding effort, but rather because of the team’s plethora of rotation options and the ever-aggressive, never-rule-anything-out nature of president of baseball operations, A.J. Preller.
Since taking the reins in San Diego, Preller has taken multiple offseasons or trade deadlines by storm with a flurry of activity. The “rock star GM” moniker bestowed upon him by Matt Kemp has become infamous, but Preller repeatedly lives up to the spirit of the nickname by demonstrating a flair for bold, dramatic strikes that reshape the organization.
The Padres staff struggled through injuries and some surprising ineffectiveness in 2021 but is still deep with arms who either have ample big league success or considerable upside. San Diego’s 2022 rotation currently projects to include Joe Musgrove, Yu Darvish, Blake Snell, Mike Clevinger and NPB returnee Nick Martinez, who agreed to a surprising four-year, $20MM contract prior to the lockout after a dominant showing in Japan.
Beyond that quintet, the Padres could have another full rotation’s worth of intriguing arms, albeit some of whom have had some recent struggles and/or injuries. Right-hander Dinelson Lamet has had the most recent success of the bunch, utterly dominating in the shortened 2020 season — 2.09 ERA 34.8% strikeout rate, 7.5% walk rate in 69 innings — before a UCL strain kept him from contributing in the postseason. He missed much of the 2021 season on the injured list and wasn’t as effective upon his return, but he’d be a front-of-the-rotation talent if his arm held up. The Padres may use him in relief this season, but there’s a big ceiling to dream on with Lamet, who’s controlled via arbitration through 2023.
Righty Chris Paddack has yet to regain the form he showed in a 2019 debut campaign that saw him in Rookie of the Year contention before falling to injury. He was diagnosed with a slight UCL tear late last season but is expected ready for the ’22 campaign. Paddack registered a pedestrian 4.95 ERA in 167 1/3 innings from 2020-21, but he’s still only 26 years old and boasts one of MLB’s lowest walk rates, in addition to a fastball that averages nearly 95 mph. He’s controlled through 2024.
Lefty Adrian Morejon, one of the prize signings from Preller’s international signing blitz during the Padres’ rebuild, will be returning from Tommy John surgery in 2022. His MLB experience is limited, but he’s still just 22 and ranked among the sport’s top 100 prospects for a half decade while rising through the system. He’s still under club control through 2025.
Another southpaw, Ryan Weathers, was the No. 7 overall draft pick back in 2018. Though he only recently turned 22, Weathers debuted in the Majors this past season and held his own early on before a rocky finish. Weathers carried a 2.73 ERA (albeit with shakier peripheral marks) through 62 2/3 innings before being clobbered over the final two months and closing out the season with a 5.32 earned run average. It was a rough finish, but Weathers is a 22-year-old former top pick and top prospect with a strong (albeit brief, thanks to the wiped-out 2020 season) minor league track record.
Twenty-five-year-old right-hander Reiss Knehr doesn’t come with the prospect fanfare that some others in the system do, but he still rode a strong minor league effort to his Major League debut late in the season. A 20th-round pick in 2018, Knehr notched a 3.57 ERA with strong ground-ball rates through 75 2/3 innings between Double-A and Triple-A before getting the call to the big leagues. His 4.97 ERA and 20-to-20 K/BB ratio in the Majors won’t wow anyone, but it was only 29 innings for a 24-year-old rookie who’d never pitched above A-ball coming into the season.
Most enigmatically, southpaw MacKenzie Gore remains in the Padres’ system but has seen his stock plummet. A former No. 3 overall pick who entered the 2020 campaign ranked among the top 10 prospects in all of baseball, the 22-year-old Gore (23 next month) has yet to receive a call to the big leagues even as the Padres have repeatedly dealt with injuries and tapped into the depths of their system.
Gore got out to a dismal start with Triple-A El Paso in 2021, struggling enough for the Padres to push the reset button by taking him out of games and sending him to their spring facility to work on refining his mechanics. When he took the mound again late in the season, Gore looked stronger, posting a 2.67 ERA with a 43-to-16 K/BB ratio in 30 1/3 innings (six starts) across Rookie ball, Class-A Advanced and Double-A. He’s fallen completely off Baseball America’s Top 100 prospects list, but Gore is still young and teeming with raw talent. A few sharp months in Triple-A would have him right back on the cusp of the Majors.
That’s not even the full extent of San Diego’s near-MLB depth, either. Righty Pedro Avila may ultimately end up in the bullpen but has had some Double-A/Triple-A success and already gotten his feet wet in the Majors. Right-hander Adrian Martinez, 25, was selected to the 40-man roster prior to the lockout after dominating in Double-A and reaching Triple-A for the first time in 2021.
Thanks to a slew of win-now trades, the Padres’ farm system isn’t what it once was, but the wealth of pitching depth they’ve accumulated is nevertheless impressive. It also provides Preller and his lieutenants with fodder to make virtually any type of trade imaginable, and history has shown us that more often than not, Preller’s Padres will do just that. The nice part, however, is that there’s no pressure to move any one specific individual. Each of Paddack, Morejon, Weathers, Knehr, Gore, Avila and Martinez has minor league options remaining, so there’s no “on-the-bubble” pitcher who runs the risk of being exposed to waivers at the end of Spring Training.
With so many rotation options on hand, there’s any number of avenues the Padres could pursue following the transaction freeze. Holding onto the lot is, of course, a perfectly defensible route to chart, but even if the Padres aren’t actively shopping pitchers, other teams will come calling. Pitching-needy teams like the Nationals, Twins, Rangers, for instance, might like to get their hands on someone like Paddack or Weathers — a controllable arm without an immediate path to regular innings on the MLB roster in San Diego.
It’s also worth recalling the multiple points at which it was reported that the Padres had explored the possibility of getting out from under the remainder of Eric Hosmer’s contract. Both the Rangers and the Cubs at least entertained the possibility of taking on Hosmer as part of a deal that would net them a high-end prospect, and while there’s no guarantee those specific talks will be rekindled, it’s easy to dream up scenarios where Hosmer would be packaged with some young pitching to help facilitate a deal. Similar scenarios with Wil Myers make some sense, too.
To be clear, the Padres don’t need to move any of their rotation depth. Beyond the fact that all of the candidates listed here have options remaining (outside of the projected Opening Day quintet), San Diego will soon have a need for some new blood in the starting staff. Both Musgrove and Clevinger are free agents after the 2022 season. Snell and Darvish are signed through 2023 (the same point at which Lamet can first become a free agent). They’ll need some of these young arms to step up and solidify themselves as long-term options.
Still, the Padres are typically among the most aggressive and active clubs in baseball, and few teams have such a deep reserve of near-MLB rotation candidates. At the very least, other clubs throughout the league are going to be trying to pry some pitching loose from San Diego — particularly now that the free-agent market has been largely picked over. There’s a whole lot of focus on the available starters in Oakland and Cincinnati, but asking prices will be high there, and teams still in need of pitching are going to be mining the market for alternatives. San Diego has more of those than most.
The Cubs make a lot of sense if they take on Hosmer’s contract, get a young pitcher in return and send the Pads a marginal minor leaguer.
Breaking News on CBS sports. Tennessee Titans star #1 wide receiver says he wants to play pro baseball. He has told the Padres all he needs is one tryout. The Padres drafted Brown in the 19th round several years ago. My guess; s he would have been drafted higher if it wasn’t so obvious he was going to the NFL. AJ Brown used to hit behind Bo Bichette in college. I’m surprised MLBTR hasn’t said anything about this yet. It may never end up happening but it’s definitely a story that would get a lot of clicks. At least he has played baseball at a high level before. He also promises to “be better than Michael Jordan.”
Bichette didn’t go to college, that was a high school game.
And brown just tweeted jokingly about it in response to a story about Bo. Maybe he’s “serious” but it really didn’t sound like it
You could be right. CBS took it seriously enough to do an article on it. And he was actually drafted by the Padres so it doesn’t sound too outlandish. If Michael Jordan could do it I don’t see why a guy who was actually drafted can’t. Deion Sanders, Bo Jackson and Tim Tebow did it, too. Good heads up on the high school thing. I thought it was college. What are the chances Bo Bichette and star NFL wide receiver played on the same high school team? And batted next to each other in the lineup? I figure he must’ve been pretty good to be considered the best guy to protect Bichette in the lineup.
jordan doesn’t really “count” the ws only called him up to put butts in the seats from what i remember jordan was a horrible bb player.
How does Preller still have a job with the money spent and the results so far?
CBS’s goal is clicks and advertisements. They only modestly focus on likelihood or truth in the event that most people will find a different news avenue rather quickly. In this case, he said it (therefore, ‘fact’), so they ran with it. Today, even CBS is clickbait. Welcome to online journalism, ha.
I start my baseball news here every day for that very reason. Yet to see a take that included a misleading headline.
This is the same question I have. He’s been there 7 years, is on his 4th manager and the next time the Padres win 80 games will be the first for Preller. I really thought another losing season this year with all of the expectations would have cost him the job, but I guess the Padres ownership has a lot of patience if nothing else.
Detroit_SP9 hours ago
CBS’s goal is clicks and advertisements.
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That’s been the system for so long as there’s been BB. And it’s a great system.
The BB fans want to read about baseball. BB writers need something to write about. Owners want free publicity. Writers will write up any rumor the team wants them to write, as long as said writer gets first notice when something real actually happens.
That’s the amazing he’s clearly a bozo
At first I thought you were kidding. Then I read the article. It looks like a little personal pub considering he was responding to the tweet about Bo Jackson. Man, Bo was talented…that man had a lot of gifts.
Why would the Padres a team who missed the playoffs primarily because of rotation injuries trade away rotational depth pieces. Not likely. I find it hilarious the Padres are trying to shed some payroll a year after “going all in” as all the simpletons like to say so much. Best way to never win anything is to make a bunch of flashy moves the fans love.
From my perspective, the only simpletons are the ones saying the Pads are looking to dump payroll. I suspect whomever started that rumor is still laughing from their close-proximity-to-Chavez-Ravine domicile. The simple fact is they’re trying to upgrade Hosmer; if he doesn’t happen to be involved in changing his address, then I suspect Hos will be the 1B (or semi-fulltime DH if an upgrade does happen at first base.)
It makes sense for the Cubs. I don’t think it’s worth for the Padres. With all their pitching, they were scraping the bottom of the barrel last July. They desperately need the depth in their pitching.
Anthonyd
I’m sick of your young players, I want a MLB ready top 10 prospect. You got away with murder in Darvish and Catarini.
And in return you will get a 17 year old and see how you like that.
I would think—with all of last year’s injuries to the pitching staff—that the Pads would hold on to all of them.
i was thinking the same thing pitching last season was sd undoing, if i was sd i would hold onto my pitching for when someone goes down. every year ever mlb staff will get hit by injuries or ineffectiveness and having a good reserve will help lessen the blow.
Exactly. That surplus turned into a shortage quickly. And with as many guys as they have coming back from injury, it might be smart to limit their innings early in the year and bounce a couple of the young guys back and forth from AAA.
What the Padres have, is depth.
What the Padres DO NOT have, is RELIABLE, high upside arms. What the Padres also lack, are any excess of open 40 man roster slots.
The author paints a far too rosy picture, all upside with little context about each of these sure-fire, TOR pitchers. That’s OK, because upside matters just as much as the downside risks.
What would lead to a trade would be a team offering the Padres a quality upgrade, a near-ready, healthy, successful pitching prospect or a quality veteran starter, for a young veteran like a Paddack, maybe a Morejon, plus perhaps a quality reliever like Pagan, Adams, Pomeranz (salary dump), or even a flier on a guy like Javy Guerra. Obviously, the Pads have excess position players that could factor into a trade, as well as a few needs (OF).
That kind of trade could carries both risks and rewards for both teams. I guarantee that fans of neither team would love the trade, but it would reduce the question marks in the Padres rotation while enriching the staff of the trading partner with high upside pitching.
It’s EXACTLY like Preller always stresses, i.e. a matter of match ups. That’s where Preller sparkles. He’s not a riverboat gambler style GM like Kevin Towers, but he (and his ops organization) identifies the needs of other teams well and finds ways to satisfy them, while adding talent to the Padres roster (not always “winning” in those trades, but not routinely losing, either).
Except for Musgrove and maybe Cronenworth and Grisham Preller has routinely lost every trade he’s made since around the 2019 trade deadline.
so other than 25% of them, he’s lost every one.
how are Franchy Cordero and Ronald Bolanos doing these days btw? A reliable, high-leverage, late-inning, left-handed reliever named Tim, who can get out righties too, would like to know.
Losing 75% of your trades isn’t good.
Obviously. But beyond the awkward delivery of the claim that I was poking fun at, the claim itself may not be exactly accurate either. Tim Hill trade is a clear win, and a few should be considered washes, not losses. It’s more like 4 clear wins (OP mentioned 3 + Tim Hill), 3 washes (Profar, Hudson, Frazier), and 3 clear losses (Pagan, Nola, Snell). That leaves the Clev trade, Yu trade, and Marisnick trade, which are not yet in a clear win/loss/wash category in my opinion. A bearish view that puts those last 3 in the loss column still doesn’t get you into “routinely loses every trade” territory. Far from it.
Hudson, Frazier, Clevinger and Marisnick are in the “clear loss” category. With Clev being particularly egregious. You also forgot the Taylor Williams trade, the Mitch Moreland trade, the Jorge Mateo trade, the (first) Taylor Trammell trade and maybe a few others in the clear losses.
Trammel was in the Nola deal, Mateo was the Profar deal. Yeah ok i’ll give you the Hudson, Fraz, Marisnick as losses, my logic was they gave the padres about as much as they gave up, aka a wash. But the obvious expectation of more + whatever the given-up prospects do later can get me to the loss column on those. I am by necessity an irrational optimist on the Clev trade. I have already forgotten about Hedgy and Naylor. And an all-star ’22 from Clev might make me forget about Quantrill’s innings-eater #4 upside. Still seems like pretty standard variance on these things. Per capita, Preller is probably right in the middle of the won/lost trade outcomes metric..
I was talking about the first Trammell trade. Ya know, the one that sent Franmil Reyes and Logan Allen to Cleveland?
The Clevinger trade is the worst trade Preller has made since his first offseason.
And since when was Jorge Mateo ever traded for Jurickson Profar????
The Clevinger trade is almost a sure loss at this point. Quantrill had a 3.9 bWAR and four seasons left. Arias’ ranking is either #67 or #100, depending on which service you use. Cleveland is likely to win that trade by at least ten WAR.
The Grisham trade is not a clear win. It is a marginal loss, with the potential to be a much bigger loss. You got a 3.3 Grisham for 5 years. The Brewers got the 2.1 Lauer for 4 years, and the 3.1 Urias for 5 years.
Yeah, you will never find anyone that isn’t a Padres fan who thinks the Clevinger trade wasn’t a loss for SD.
IMO, Preller is the worst trader in baseball. To the point where I look forward to hearing about his trades. The team comprised of all the guys he traded away is only slightly worse than the team he has, and would be 75% cheaper.
Tatie is the only reason he isn’t working at Burger King right now.
That Allen & Reyes is about all Cleveland has too. Not including Plesac and Ramirez & maybe the kid Tristen something.
That’s what happens when you try and hotshot your way to a WS victory. Teams need to grow by themselves and make the playoffs. If you gotta sign 5 huge free agents and spend 200 mil just to make the playoffs you close your own window faster and might not even make the playoffs unless there’s 8 teams. They ain’t making this year either if there’s only 5 teams.
Thelegendaryharambe:
The Clevinger trade is a Clear loss because he got injured.
First…that is a tough “loss” to give a GM considering you can’t predict when,or if,a player will get injured.
Second…this happens all the time to even the best GM’s.
Preller is still in SD because the seats are filled,the team is exciting,and they go into every season now as a favorite to make the Payoffs.
As a Padre fan from Day 1,this is something we have rarely had in over 50 years.
@mrpadre19 Yeah? You also couldn’t predict that Tatis and Cronenworth would break out the way they did. If Preller gets the credit for buying those two right before their big breakouts he also has to take the blame for Clevinger.
And do you really think the seats wouldn’t be filled and the team wouldn’t be exciting if they were winning games and making the playoffs year-in and year-out? At the end of the day the goal is to win games, not be “exciting.” I’ll take a team like the A’s that nondiscriminately makes the playoffs almost every year over a team like the Padres that goes for the flashy, headline grabbing moves but never makes the playoffs (2020 notwithstanding) every year.
What the don’t have is reliable arms. Full stop.
They don’t have depth. If they did, they would not have had the issues that crippled their season once the inevitable injuries struck last season.
Pads Fans/Koamalu is correct in this instance.
I wonder what Paddack’s market value is. Thoughts? Lets use the Angels and Yankees prospects so we can get totally reasonable, non emotional well thought out takes.
How’s that small tear in his elbow? His value rides on that. I hope its better than Lamets’ was last year.
Idk if “depth” is a word I would use to refer to the Padres’ rotation.
Technically “depth” can mean that the bottom drops out into a never-ending abyss.
They have a ton of starters that many teams would be interested in
How many can reliably pitch 160+ innings with ERA’s under 4 in 2022?
Only 27 pitchers in all of baseball did that in 2021. If that’s your criteria, then no team other than the Brewers has sufficient rotation depth.
That is a sad stat.
It also needs context. Nobody pitched close to 160 innings in 2020 so teams weren’t going to push guys all that hard in 2021.
However, my statement rings hallow if the number is anywhere near 27 in 2019.
not a lot of teams with even half a rotation of those types these days.
It was 37 in 2019. I think the drop is only partially attributable to monitoring workloads post-Covid season, as well.
Teams are just less and less inclined to let guys go 6-7 innings. They also rely far less on a true fifth starter and lean heavily on 10-day IL manipulation to keep bullpens fresh.
How the game has changed…..50 years ago, 1971, Mickey Lolich leads the league with 376 innings, Wilbur Wood follows with 334 innings and a 1.91 ERA but he doesn’t win a CY because of a kid named Blue who had a 1.82 ERA over 312 innings!! 69 pitchers had sub 4 ERA’s and over 160 innings, MLB had 24 teams, just shy of 3 per team. Fast forward, and in 2021 there wasn’t even 1 per team….and for the 4 guys who threw over 300 innings….well, no analytics team will ever allow that again.
A year later, 1972, the season is cut short due to players strike. They missed 8 games, playing a 154 game season. Wilbur Wood starts 49 of his teams games throwing 376.2 innings with a 2.51 ERA. He was started almost 1/3 of their games, had they played the missing 8 he would have had 2 if not 3 more starts and might have reached 400 innings! ….the game has changed!
Thanks for looking that up.
Starters are generally 5-6 innings nowadays and as you pointed out, getting fewer starts overall.
If you go to Spring Training there’s a group of older players who hang out and sign autographs, often at A’s games. Vida Blue is there more often than not.
Great guy whose MVP/Cy Young year is criminally overlooked IMO. Dude was basically Mariano Rivera for 312 innings. And in those days AL pitchers hit so managers were leaving his weak bat in the lineup late in games.
There were 38 in 2019. 42 in 2018.
$673487558 for zero championships
At least tourists come for the beaches and the zoo…
We get it, San Diego is too expensive of a place for you to live. $15 an hour doesn’t buy much these days, especially given these current economic times with prices going up.
Actually, I think the city looks legit. They just have zero championships.
When I read post like yours. I wish everyone can have their favorite listed next to their handle. This way we would now how exactly how good or bad your team has been doing when criticize another MLB team or it’s fan.
My team won the 2021 World Series.
Oddly enough thats also the year you became a fan of said team.
Ha ha. Touché.
I’ve been a fan my entire life.
At least the Padres haven’t followed the Clippers and Chargers to Los Angeles.
Paddack should be a reliever
agree, two great pitches
Paddack’s OPS against numbers 1st, 2nd and 3rd time through the lineup are .659, .761, .702, none of which are bad. Where he has shown issue is in days of rest. OPS against for 4, 5 & 6 days are .819, .669, .689.. Angels have said they are going with a 6 man rotation and they need starters. Instead of moving him to the bullpen, move him to a team that will put him in a position to be most successful.
gore’s fall from grace is severely overblown. I would start him over the guaranteed money given to nick martinez. nick has a ceiling of a no. 5, gore has a ceiling of…..it’s higher. if gore doesn’t work out for a few months, and you need a 5, go with martinez
Nah – not right away at least. Give him a couple months in El Paso to build confidence and in the meantime Martinez won’t kill you.
El Paso isn’t going to help Gore’s confidence.
actually it might it’s not a bad ideal to have him spend a little time down there and work on some things. also in aaa he can get some more hands on coaching to fix some of his issues, it’s a lot harder to coach guys at the mlb level because of all the planing and game plans that the team has to come up with for each game/series
He might as well be pitching on the moon
imo it’s more prospect fatigue than anything. his run in A+ in 2019 was much better than he’s done at most stops in his minors career. i think that run simply overinflated his hype as a prospect.
so a blip and some really good numbers otherwise have underinflated it compared to the previous overhype?
To start the 2021 season, Gore was coming off a full season without pitching in games.
In 2021 Gore had blisters. Blisters that effected his control. So he walked more guys. Then when he gave up hits like every pitcher does, they were with men on base far too often. His K/9 rate was good. Not phenomenal, but he was moving up a level at age 22. He was missing bats.
The Padres also felt that his arms were too high in his windup to repeat his mechanics. Niebla is a proponent of pitchers doing what comes natural to them, so maybe the Padres will stop screwing with what has worked for Gore.
Fix the blisters and see what this young man can do in a season at AAA.
Padres have had multiple situations in the past two seasons where they were so desperate for pitching. The fact they gave Arrieta and Vince Velasquez innings shows how little they think of Gore
@amk1920 Yes, because we all know how well rushing their other young pitchers has worked out for them.
High school to the majors in 4 years is not rushing. In 2022 he’s behind schedule.
@amk1920 High school to the majors in 4 years IS rushing. Development is not, nor has it ever been, linear.
also one of those 4 years he didn’t pitch at all and he wasn’t the only one, also the kid is 22 way to young to just write off yet as a bust. if gore was 25 or 26 i would consider him a bust but he’s not also look at randy and mad max there first few years in mlb weren’t all that great and one is a hof and the other is most likely going to end up there.
Perhaps the Rangers are willing to take all of Myers’s contract for LeClerc and Martin with Morejon, Weathers, or Paddack added from SD side.
brett martin? or is there a more recent martin i’m missing? I’d think myers even attached to a good young pitcher would be a steep pill to swallow and would not even justify leclerc. though i could see the rangers taking wil’s 1 year in what will not be a very competitive year. i had to look it up, i thought wil had 2 or more that would have cut into the rangers’ competitive window. 1 year i’d be alright with.
Myers has one year at I believe $22.5m and then a $1m buyout of his club option for 2023. Definitely overpaid but only for one more year.
A lot of teams might be willing to take Myers this season, as his CBT hit is only $13M. If they could get SD to pay $7.5M of the $23.5M owed to him, they would be on the hook for $16M is salary, but only ~$5.5M would count against the CBT. Texas could certainly afford to take on Myers this season. Even a team like KC could potentially afford Myers so long as SD is willing to attach a prospect in the deal.
I wouldn’t eat more than maybe $5-6m or attach any relevant prospects to move Myers. It’s not like they have a replacement for him in-house and ready to go.
@harambe That’s why I don’t think they’ll actually move Myers unless they have a replacement lined up.
If they trade him they’re losing a prospect for the opportunity to reallocate the money owed to Myers, but they still have to replace his production. Myers is significantly overpaid but he’s still a decent OF and they’re already in need of a LF, so trading him away just creates another hole to plug in RF.
Myers will have a good year. Its a walk year with low expectations for him personally, new batting coach and good supporting line up with much improved managing.
Why in the world would the Padres trade for LeClerc who hasn’t pitched since 2020? Why would they trade for a reliever when they need starters?
If Friedman or Farhan had the Padres’ SPs, they would be looking to add more pitching.
Good piece as usual Steve, but what would have made it better is if you had included some areas of need for the Fathers. What would they theoretically be looking for in return?
1. Corner OF
2. 1B
#1 – Starting pitchers
#2 – LF
#3 – Anyone who will take Hosmer off their hands
The Padres need a starting corner OF and pitching depth. The aren’t going to trade you Myers, their only starting corner OF AND give you pitching along with it.
If someone is willing to take Myers I think they let them have him with the logic that he can be replaced in FA for cheaper. But yeah, they’re not giving up pitching to dump a guy who is only overpaid for one more year and ostensibly fills a need.
Who exactly in FA is both cheaper than Myers and put up a 113 OPS+ or better
Kyle Schwarber is still available. Mark Canha checked in slightly below a 113 OPS+ in 2021 and got a little more than half of Myers’ AAV over 2 years with a club option for a third.
Kyle Schwarber will cost multiple years and much. much more than $20 million. Try $75 million for 4 years. Canha is not a FA anymore. Want to try again?
That would still be a lower AAV than what Myers will make in 2022.
Canha might not be a free agent anymore but he is a better player if we go by fWAR and he didn’t get anywhere near a $22.5m AAV.
In fact… Over the last 4 seasons, Wil Myers’ average fWAR per 162 games played is 1.632. Mark Canha’s is 3.086. So nearly double.
If they have learned anything at all they will not start Gore in AAA this year. El Paso is where pitchers go to die.
And will people stop it with these ridiculous “Hosmer for Olson” trade proposals? Please? We’re begging…
El Paso. I spent a month there one night.
El Paso, I fell in love with a Mexican girl there.
At Rosa’s Cantina?
Nice to know there are still some civilized people in the world.
I was also in a little café just the other side of the border. Things didn’t work out much better there either.
South of the border you just had to run without the girl.
Coming down off the hills overlooking El Paso, 17+ mounted cowboys shot you to pieces.
I know, I know, I should’ve styed in Gatlinburg.
I’d keep that depth if I was San Diego. Let the first couple of months play out and see if I need it for this year or if I need to trade a bit for something else. Trying to figure out what you’ll need six months from now is difficult.
That said, I’d love for Arte to remember he’s a billionaire with two generational talents on his team and try to buy some of it by taking on Hosmer. If SD is even willing to discuss it.
Randy Watson would love to have Hosmer on the Angels too. But I’d trade Upton for Meyers and pay the Padres the difference in salary.
Upton has a full no trade clause so he would have to approve any deal. He might consider San Diego since it is fairly close to home for him but by all accounts he loves being in Anaheim and it might be difficult to get him to agree to any trade. Plus I’m not sure SD would be interested in this deal at all. One of the main reasons for trading Myers and Hosmer is for some salary relief. SD appears to be willing to attach some prospects to make this happen and eat a little bit of salary too, but an even swap of salaries for two flawed players does not appear to be what SD is looking for in order to move either of these players.
Exactly. And Upton is not what the win now Padres are looking for.
Hosmer is sunk cost. If you can afford to absorb it and the Padres are willing to throw in some pitching to help it go down easier, that could help put the Angels in more of a win now mode.
Lamet is by far the most intriguing member of this group but I’m worried that he’s one pitch away from season ending Tommy John Surgery. They’ve tried everything else with him already: rest, rehab, plasma rich injections, etc. but he’s been shut down in both 2020 & 2021 and put on the IL. Unfortunately, this has a Chris Sale feel to it where instead of having surgery at the end of this past September, they are holding out hope he can rehab again. Much like Sale, there’s a good chance he ends up going under the knife in April or May and missing close to 2 seasons instead of just one. When healthy, Lamet is very close to being an ace, with a floor of an excellent #2 starter. The injury factor makes him an unreliable option for them.
Nailed it. Highest upside, highest injury risk. I wish he went under the knife in ’20 playoffs… but here we are treading water whilst holding our bated breath.
Dervish for Levi Stoudt and Juan Then. Mariners are in danger of breaking their streak of at least one Japanese player on their roster that dates back to Mac Suzuki in 1995. Get it done, Jerry.
You can’t even spell his name so I should take whatever you comment with a grain of salt. That being said, the Padres are not taking the Mariners garbage for Yu Darvish.
Stoudt is not garbage and I am not responsible for the crappy autocorrect.
Yes. Yes you are. You decided to post it with misspellings. Stoudt is not even a top 10 prospect on his own team, let alone a good prospect. Hasn’t sniffed top 200, let alone top 100. Padres have a guy just like him named Knehr.
Having a current payroll crunch, if I was the Padres, I would wait to see how the young cheap pitchers are progressing this year, and if things work out, trade an expensive one at the deadline.
Can I assume the ‘Padres swindled the Cubs in the Darvish deal’ discussions are over?
Past that, the Padres should not trade any of these guys. It’s likely that Paddack, Weathers, Lamet and Morejon are all at bargain basement prices.
And imo, they hardly have a surplus of arms. Darvish, Weathers, Musgrove and Paddack mostly stunk in September, and while Snell pitched well, he only pitched 7.2 innings. IMO, the Pods rotation is suspect.
That said, Preller’s MO is to trade young guys at low prices.
The Darvish trade just goes to show that, when evaluating a trade, one must completely tune out name value/prestige value.
Folks need to ignore the recency factor. He was great in 2020, but that was a short season. Given his mediocre 2018-2019, his injury history, and his age, there was a lot of unacknowledged risk.
I beg to differ with the headline, “The Padres depth at starting pitcher should draw trade interest”. The Padres may need that depth. Outside of Joe Musgrove and Blake Snell the starting rotation is loaded with heath question-marks. Nick Martinez looks like he could be a solid #5, but Japan isn’t the NL West. I believe in the young arms of Weathers, Morejon and Gore but they may need more time in the minors to develop. Last season was a lesson for the Padres, YOU CAN NEVER HAVE TOO MUCH PITCHING.
How can you beg to differ with a headline that suggests that other teams will have interest in Padres pitching. – because that’s all it says!
What a ridiculous misreading of the authors words. I mean, you quoted the headline yourself!
Other teams will 100% be asking them about their pitchers, especially given Preller’s “aggressive and active” reputation. And BTW, in the article itself, Adams says the Pads don’t need to trade away ANY of this depth.
Why do so many commenters just routinely project false premises against the words of the columnists they read?
Goob, My original post wasn’t a “ridiculous misreading of the authors words”. The crux of my original post was that the Padres starting pitchers have several health question-marks. This leads me to two conclusions: First, that the Padres will need that depth and likely not trade it away, Second, other teams won’t have “Ample Trade Interest” in it.
@Jasona9 says
I beg to differ with the headline, “The Padres depth at starting pitcher should draw trade interest”.
The headline says “The Padres depth at SP should draw interest.” Not “The Padres should be interested in trading from their SP depth.”
When you have SP depth there are always idiots fans from other teams who hope to pick them up cheap. I have seen plenty of fans of other teams suggesting trades of their minor league trash for the Guardians Plesac since the Guardians supposedly have “SP depth.” It doesn’t mean that the Guardians, or the Padres, want to make these trades.
Snell is a health question mark.
Pads Fans, Do you listen to Coach John Kentera on 97.3 FM The Fan? He covers the Padres well on local sports/talk radio. According to him the health of Blake Snell should not be a “question mark” heading into the 2022 season. I hope he is correct.
A former football coach who is on the radio is saying Snell is healthy? That seals the deal for me. Snell will obviously pitch 200 innings in 2022. We should just ignore the fact that he has never made 33 starts in a season in his career because of consistently being injured because Coach Kentera said so.
One account is the simple solution. But apparently it is not the easy solution.
I wouldn’t put much faith in Martinez til he actually pitches for the Padres. Miles Mikolas has been spotty at best for the Cardinals, when he’s been healthy. Merril Kelly has been a solid #5 for the Diamondbacks. Josh Lindblom has been awful for the Brewers.
Paddack or Lamet are probably the most tradeable. I wouldn’t trade Weathers or Gore. Darvish, Snell, Musgrove, and Clevinger are who they are banking on to front the rotation
All this talent with nothing to show..Padres LOL
Very articulate, well thought out statement dubtastic.
Did you not watch last season? The Padres pitching depth or lack thereof is what torpedoed their season.
Padres need more starting pitching They don’t have a plethora of it. The depth is lacking. Nothing coming up the pipe other than Gore either.
Joe Musgrove – Just had career year with 3.18 ERA and 3.70 FIP. Solid #2
Yu Darvish – Coming off 4.22 ERA/3.90 FIP season. Has missed 30 starts in last 3 full seasons
Blake Snell – Coming off 4.20 ERA/3.82 FIP season. Has missed 20 starts in last 3 full seasons including 6 last season. Only 1 season in his career where he didn’t miss more than one in 8 starts. Ended 2021 season injured.
Mike Clevinger – Coming off 2nd Tommy John surgery. 44 guys have done that. Two have returned as starters and pitched at MLB average. None have done well in their first season back nor have any pitched a full season.
Chris Paddack – Coming off 5.07 ERA season that he ended with a UCL tear late last season.
Nick Martinez – Is 35 years old. Has a career 4.77 ERA in the majors.
Dinelson Lamet cannot stay healthy.
Weathers – 5.32 ERA/5.44 FIP and a troubling 6.8 K/9
Adrian Morejon – might be ready in the 2nd half of 2022 as he recovers from Tommy John surgery.
Other than Gore there is no help close in the minors.
The Padres have no need to trade any starters unless its to dump salary. What they need to do is add another Musgrove type. A solid, healthy inning eater that can anchor the middle of the rotation with a sub 4 ERA
Sign Matt Boyd. He will be ready by June or July. He is better than a lot of those guys the Padres rolled out last year.
Injured. 5 career ERA. Not sure that is the type of pitcher the Padres need after all their injury problems last season.
Paddack was one of the nost overhyped young players in 2019. He has a fastball that can’t break glass and no one chases his offspeed.
“but he’s still only 26 years old and boasts one of MLB’s lowest walk rates, in addition to a fastball that averages nearly 95 mph.”
fangraphs.com/players/chris-paddack/20099/stats?po…
baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/chris-paddack…
“He has a fastball that can’t break glass and no one chases his off speed.”
No need to let reality ruin your rant.
Then how do you explain his mediocre last 2 seasons? How do you explain the Padres not using him against the Dodgers in the playoffs with their rotation in shambles. Paddack is a bust.
It seems to me there is still alot of free agent starters out there that wont cost you prospects!
The Padres need to hold onto their pitching depth. Last year, the Padres were desperately picking starters off the waiver wire because too many of their pitchers were injured.
Injuries and AJ Preller’s terrible, losing trades crashed the Padres playoff hopes last year.
AJ Preller is every GM’s favorite trade partner….dumping old, overpriced, underperforming veterans on Preller and the Padres for bunches of top young players and prospects has become every MLB GM’s delight…Preller is a sucker for any and all over the hill
ex Rangers players with bad contracts.
Is it too late to fire AJ Preller?! Or reassign him to the scouting department and bring on a GM who builds a better roster and makes smart trades?!
This article seems to make zero sense. Why would the Padres trade away pitching depth when that was their problem last season? If you’re a team that hopes to win a title trading rotation depth is pointless these days. The lockout has brought about a plethora of silly articles that I have to think would never be written under any other circumstances.
Why would another team want the pitching they have? Their pitchers are like a box of broken toys.
@Mystery
Naw, it’s you making ZERO sense – NOT – this article.
Here, let me help you out – you reading-comp genius.
“Holding onto the lot is, of course, a perfectly defensible route to chart,”
“To be clear, the Padres don’t need to move any of their rotation depth. Beyond the fact that all of the candidates listed here have options remaining (outside of the projected Opening Day quintet), San Diego will soon have a need for some new blood in the starting staff. Both Musgrove and Clevinger are free agents after the 2022 season. Snell and Darvish are signed through 2023 (the same point at which Lamet can first become a free agent). They’ll need some of these young arms to step up and solidify themselves as long-term options.”
(I’ll translate these for you, since you shouldn’t be expected to understand their actual – you know – meaning.)
He’s saying the Pads might best be served by not dealing away any of their (perceived) pitching depth – even if/when other teams ask about them (and they will)! Hey…what do you know, how ’bout that! If only there was somebody…somewhere, who very much agrees with that very idea.
As anyone can see, this article ALREADY answered the questions you posed, making strong arguments in favor of your very own POV.
There’s nothing silly about the article. I’ll tell you what’s silly – a guy who tries to make himself sound smart by disagreeing with an author who he doesn’t seem capable of understanding – who then compounds his own dumb*uckery by casting shade, indiscriminately, against a group of people who are demonstrably smarter than he is, and who also provide him with free content, under somewhat challenging circumstances.
Under ANY circumstances, this author covered the bases, thoroughly and sensibly.
Will Myers and Blake Snell to Seattle for a couple of lower level prospects. San Diego pays half of Myers and Snell’s salary
That’s about as likely to happen as Wil Myers for Julio Rodriguez and George Kirby.
Myers and Snell with the Padres paying half their salaries comes out to $26.3m surplus value on BTV. That’s enough to get them Matt Brash back with someone like Zach DeLoach thrown in as well.
BTV? Really? I didn’t realize that I was arguing against holy scripture.
You do realize that the Padres are in a win-now mode right? How does trading a needed current starter and their only returning corner OF help them? For a minor league outfielder with huge risk, no certainty and a minor league reliever that the Padres already had before? For taking on 1/2 salary?
It’s not just about what you want. The other team’s need must be met as well or the trade will not happen.
Yeah. Really. You and Biff are both clearly biased towards your respective teams. BTV is not.
Matt Brash will be in MLBPipeline’s top 100 prospects for 2022 when the list is released.
And leave the sarcasm to those of us who are good at it buddy.
You can add it up in your head however you want, the fact is that the Padres would have zero interest in your proposed trade. The Padres want to compete in 2022. Matt Brash will not help them next year. Blake Snell will.
Never said they would or wouldn’t be interested. Was simply looking at it from a value-for-value perspective.
“PLETHORA OF ROTATION OPTIONS?”
Steve, were you drinking when you wrote that?