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Marlins Select Tristan Gray

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The Marlins announced this morning that they’ve selected the contract of infielder Tristan Gray. In corresponding moves, the club optioned right-hander George Soriano to Triple-A and transferred righty JT Chargois to the 60-day injured list.

Gray, 28, was a 13th-round pick by the Pirates in the 2017 draft but was traded to the Rays alongside Daniel Hudson in the deal that brought Corey Dickerson to Pittsburgh back in 2018. Gray worked his way through the minor league system with the Rays to reach the Triple-A level in 2021, but ultimately stalled out at the level thanks in part to Tampa’s deep cache of infield talent across the past two seasons.

After slashing a solid .235/.312/.485 in 132 games at the level last year, Gray finally got his first big league opportunity in the form of a two-game cup of coffee with the Rays in September. The 27-year-old made the most of his time in the big leagues, going two-for-five with a home run and zero strikeouts, but was outrighted off the club’s 40-man roster back in November nonetheless.

That lead Gray to sign a minor league deal with the Marlins this offseason, and after the longtime minor leaguer clubbed ten home runs in 34 games with Triple-A Jacksonville to open the year it appears Miami plans to give him a shot at the big league level. Gray has plenty of experience at all four infield spots and should get the opportunity to contribute to the Marlins, who have received below average production all around the infield except at second base, where the club recently traded away Luis Arraez and is now left to rely on Vidal Brujan and Otto Lopez.

Whether Gray will be able to seize upon this opportunity is an open question. His power potential is self-evident, as he’s walloped 73 homers at the Triple-A level since the start of the 2022 campaign with isolated slugging percentages of .250 or more in each of the past three seasons. That proclivity towards the long ball comes with a worrisome amount of swing-and-miss, however. Gray’s striking out in a whopping 36.4% of his trips to the plate in the minors this year, and his 29.5% strikeout rate back in 2021 was the only time he’s struck out less than 30% of the time in a season at the Triple-A level.

Making room for Gray on the roster is Soriano, a 25-year-old righty who pitched to solid results in multi-inning relief for the Marlins last year. In 52 innings of work across 26 appearances, Soriano posted a 3.81 ERA and 4.37 FIP while striking out 22.8% of batters faced. The wheels have come off for the right-hander this season, however, as he’s been lit up to the tune of a 9.26 ERA with a 6.76 FIP in 11 2/3 innings of work this year. Walks have been a major problem for Soriano this year, as he’s offered free passes to a whopping 13% of batters faced across his ten appearances. The righty figures to try and get his command back under control at the Triple-A level going forward and could return to the Marlins later this season should he get things back on track.

As for Chargois, the right-hander has been out since February with neck spasms and last appeared in a rehab game on April 26. The 33-year-old righty has a respectable 3.55 ERA and 3.85 FIP in 195 innings of work when healthy enough to take the mound and would surely improve the club’s pitching staff once healthy enough to return, though it’s unclear what his timetable for returning to action might be.

NL East Notes: Luzardo, Ortiz, Johnson, Nationals

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Jesus Luzardo was reinstated from the Marlins’ 15-day injured list today, with right-hander Eli Villalobos optioned to Triple-A in the corresponding move.  Luzardo struggled to a 6.58 ERA over his first five starts and 26 innings before a mild left flexor strain (initially diagnosed as elbow tightness) sent him to the IL, so the three-week layoff between starts can hopefully set as a refresh of a tough season to date for the 26-year-old.  The returns of Luzardo and Braxton Garrett this weekend will help the injury-riddled Marlins rotation, though Edward Cabrera has now also gone down with a shoulder impingement.

Beyond the immediate help that Luzardo will bring to Miami’s pitching staff, today’s start figures to reignite the trade rumors that have swirled around the left-hander for months.  If Luzardo recaptures his 2021-22 form, he would be a very hot commodity at the trade deadline, as he is arbitration-controlled through the 2026 season.  The Luis Arraez trade has already signaled that the Marlins are in sell mode, but while the team pulled the trigger early on that deal, Luzardo’s suitors will want to see a larger sample size of healthy and productive starts before moving what would have to be a very substantial trade package to pry him away from Miami.

Some more from around the NL East…

  • Phillies reliever Luis Ortiz is set to restart his throwing program today after he was shut down due to right shoulder inflammation.  “We don’t think it’s anything, but we’re just taking it easy on him,” Phils manager Rob Thomson told MLB.com and other media.  A sprained ankle in his first game of the season sent Ortiz to the 15-day IL back on March 31, and he made Triple-A rehab appearances on both April 23 and 25 before his new shoulder issue popped up.  Ortiz had a 3.32 ERA in 19 relief innings for Philadelphia last season, amidst many shuttles up and down from the majors and Triple-A.
  • Braves manager Brian Snitker told reporters (including Justin Toscano of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution) that Pierce Johnson is “looking really good” as he works his way back from a bout of elbow inflammation.  Johnson was placed on the 15-day IL a week ago, but is already doing some low-intensity mound work, and appears to be on pace to miss only the minimum 15 days.  Johnson has emerged as a key piece of Atlanta’s bullpen after being acquired by the Rockies at the last trade deadline, and the Braves extended the right-hander on a two-year deal worth $14.25MM in guaranteed money back in October to keep Johnson off the free agent market.
  • Nationals fans received positive updates regarding a pair of injured young righties recently. As relayed by MLB.com’s Injury Tracker, manager Dave Martinez told reporters that both Josiah Gray and Cade Cavalli threw off a mound in their rehab processes yesterday. Gray hit the shelf with a flexor strain just two starts into his 2024 campaign and reportedly looked good in his 35-pitch bullpen session, throwing 32 of the pitches for strikes. Cavalli, meanwhile, threw 45 pitches in 2 2/3 simulated innings as he works his way back from last year’s Tommy John surgery. Gray appears to be closer to a return to action than Cavalli, who Martinez indicated is on track for a return sometime next month. Washington has relied on left-hander Mitchell Parker, who has posted a strong 2.67 ERA in five starts this season, to round out the club’s rotation in Gray’s absence.

Guardians Acquire Darren McCaughan From Marlins

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The Guardians announced today that they have acquired right-hander Darren McCaughan from the Marlins. The latter club, who designated the righty for assignment on the weekend, receive cash considerations in return. The Guards optioned McCaughan to Triple-A Columbus and transferred Gavin Williams to the 60-day injured list to open a 40-man roster spot.

McCaughan, 28, spent his entire career with the Mariners until he was designated for assignment in February. He was traded to the Marlins for cash and was sent to Triple-A Jacksonville to start the year. He made five starts there with poor results, posting a 6.14 earned run average despite average-ish peripherals. He struck out 22.2% of batters faced with an 8.1% walk rate, but with a .338 batting average on balls in play and 52.8% strand rate.

The Marlins called him up to the big leagues last week. In Saturday’s game against Oakland, Trevor Rogers allowed eight earned runs in 2 1/3 innings. McCaughan came in for some long relief, throwing 4 2/3 but also allowing eight earned runs on the way to a 20-4 loss. McCaughan was designated for assignment the next day.

The Guardians are undoubtedly interested in McCaughan based on his work in previous seasons. From 2021 to 2023, he tossed 408 2/3 innings for Triple-A Tacoma, in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League. He had a 4.98 ERA in that time as well as a 21.4% strikeout rate and 6% walk rate.

Cleveland has less pitching depth than other recent seasons. Shane Bieber required Tommy John surgery while Williams has been on the IL all year due to elbow soreness. Their rotation currently consists of three youngsters in Triston McKenzie, Logan Allen and Tanner Bibee, as well as two veterans in Carlos Carrasco and Ben Lively. McKenzie hardly pitched last year due to a sprain of his UCL and is currently getting by with diminished stuff. Allen has a 6.41 ERA on the year, Bibee 4.91 and Carrasco 5.67. Lively is down at 2.08 in only four starts. He was at 5.38 last year with the Reds, his first MLB action since 2019.

Despite the lackluster results from the rotation, the club is 24-13 and leading the American League Central. To help keep things afloat, they have been actively trying to bolster the starting depth. They acquired Zak Kent from the Rangers on Opening Day and later grabbed Wes Parsons from the Blue Jays, sending international bonus pool space away in both cases. With the acquisition of McCaughan, they have now added three optionable starters to their system in the past two months.

As for Williams, as mentioned, he’s been on the injured list all season due to elbow soreness. This transfer is backdated to his initial IL placement, meaning he’s ineligible return until late May. He recently resumed a throwing program but will need to build up a full starter’s workload and isn’t going to be ready in the next month or so regardless.

Former Top Outfield Prospect Monte Harrison To Play College Football At Arkansas

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Former second-round pick and top outfield prospect Monte Harrison hasn’t appeared in the majors since 2022 and apparently isn’t pursuing a return to the big leagues at this point. Rather, he’s now committed to the University of Arkansas’ football team as a walk-on wide receiver, as first reported by Richard Davenport of WholeHogSports.com.

Harrison, who’ll be 29 next fall, will be the oldest player in college football when the season gets underway. A three-sport star at his Missouri high school, he’d committed to play football for Nebraska before the Brewers selected him in the second round of the 2014 MLB draft (No. 50 overall) and offered a $1.8MM signing bonus. Harrison opted to forgo his NCAA commitment and turn pro in baseball.

Royce Boehm, Harrison’s high school coach, tells Mitch Sherman of The Athletic that even at the time he was being selected in the second round of the MLB draft, “My whole thought back then was that he’s an NFL player, but he was stuck on baseball.” Sherman spoke to Boehm and University of Nebraska baseball coach Will Bolt about Harrison’s long-shot football bid and freakish athleticism.

Though Harrison came to professional baseball with plenty of pedigree, drew ample top prospect fanfare and ultimately reached the majors, his MLB career certainly did pan out as he’d hoped. After Harrison coupled his preternatural athleticism with a .272/.350/.481 line between two Class-A levels in 2017, he emerged as a consensus top-100 prospect in the sport. Then 21 years of age, Harrison was one of the key pieces sent from the Brewers to the Marlins in the Christian Yelich blockbuster that significantly altered the trajectory of both franchises.

Yelich broke out with an MVP showing in his first season in Milwaukee, finished second in NL MVP voting his second year there, and signed a franchise-record $215MM contract ($188.5MM in new money) that runs through the 2028 season. The Marlins saw all of the prospects acquired in that trade — Harrison, Lewis Brinson, Isan Diaz and Jordan Yamamoto — struggle immensely in Miami. None of the four are with the organization anymore.

Harrison played parts of two seasons with the Fish (2020-21) and had a nine-game cup of coffee with the 2022 Angels as well. He tallied just 76 major league plate appearances across those three seasons and batted .176/.253/.294 with a 48.7% strikeout rate. His bat never fully broke through even at the Triple-A level, where he slashed .238/.322/.398 with a 36.5% strikeout rate in parts of four seasons (1179 plate appearances). His speed was still on display, however, as he swiped 90 bags in 105 tries (85.7% success rate). Overall, Harrison stole 210 minor league bases and was caught only 39 times — an excellent 84.3% success rate.

Even though his baseball career has fizzled out, Harrison still checks in at an imposing 6’3″ and 220 pounds. An eventual NFL emergence is an obvious long shot, but Harrison’s journey will be a fun story to track in the months ahead as he fights to keep his professional sports dream alive.

MLBTR Podcast: Luis Arráez To San Diego, Other Marlins Trade Candidates And Discussing A Potential Automated Strike Zone

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The latest episode of the MLB Trade Rumors Podcast is now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts! Make sure you subscribe as well! You can also use the player at this link to listen, if you don’t use Spotify or Apple for podcasts.

This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Anthony Franco of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss…

Plus, we answer your questions, including…

  • When can we expect to see Paul Skenes called up by the Pirates and when do you think Jackson Holliday will be brought up again by the Orioles? (17:10)
  • I’m looking ahead at robo umps calling balls/strikes. Do you think it will dramatically affect counting stats for hitters while affecting pitchers stats negatively in the other direction? (20:55)
  • What measures can be implemented to stop teams like the Tigers from continually rebuilding and why do the Tigers hesitate to send struggling players to the minors? (31:50)

Check out our past episodes!

The podcast intro and outro song “So Long” is provided courtesy of the band Showoff.  Check out their Facebook page here!

Marlins Place Edward Cabrera On Injured List

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The Marlins announced today that right-hander Edward Cabrera has been placed on the 15-day injured list due to a right shoulder impingement. Left-hander Braxton Garrett was reinstated from the IL in a corresponding move.

Though the Marlins once had a rotation surplus, they have been struggling to keep their starting staff together this year. Pablo López and prospect Jake Eder were each traded last year. Sandy Alcántara required Tommy John surgery at the end of last season and Eury Pérez required the same procedure early in the 2024 campaign. Garrett has also been on the IL all season due to a shoulder impingement. A.J. Puk and Jesús Luzardo have also gone on the injured list recently, due to shoulder fatigue and elbow tightness, respectively. The club is planning to move Puk back to the bullpen once he’s healthy.

Max Meyer made three good starts for the club earlier in the year but was optioned to the minors as the Marlins look to monitor his workload. He missed all of 2023 due to his own Tommy John surgery and will be facing limitations this year. His three big league starts went five, six and six innings but his Triple-A starts have been three, four and three. Roddery Muñoz had a couple of decent starts at the big league level but allowed six runs in 4 2/3 innings against the Dodgers on Monday before getting optioned.

Manager Skip Schumaker recently said that Garrett and Luzardo were likely to return to pitch May 11 and 12, per Christina De Nicola of MLB.com. Those two give the club four healthy starters for now, alongside Ryan Weathers and Trevor Rogers. The club has an off-day tomorrow but will need a fifth starter by Tuesday of next week with Cabrera no longer available.

Sixto Sánchez could perhaps be an option, since he has started his last three outings, getting up to four innings pitched in the last two. George Soriano is also on the roster and capable of pitching multiple innings, logging three frames his last time out. Yonny Chirinos, Kyle Tyler and Kent Emanuel are throwing multiple innings in Triple-A, though none of that trio is currently on the 40-man roster. Since Muñoz was just optioned, he can’t be recalled for 15 days unless it’s for someone else going on the IL.

As an organization, the Marlins are clearly more focused on the future than on the present. They spent their offseason doing little to upgrade the roster, seemingly devoting more resources to their scouting and player development. Their slow start has spurred them to get a jump start on a midseason selloff, as they have already flipped Luis Arráez to the Padres for prospects.

It seems fair to expect any other player on the roster could be attainable this summer as well. Now that Garrett is healthy, he could be on the table if he’s in good form in the coming months. He tossed 247 2/3 innings over 2022 and 2023 with a 3.63 ERA, 23.8% strikeout rate and 5.1% walk rate. He’ll reach arbitration this winter and can be retained for four more seasons.

Cabrera would also be a trade candidate if he can get back on the mound in the coming months. He has a 4.32 ERA in his career with strong strikeout and ground ball rates of 26.8% and 49.4% respectively, though his 14% walk rate shows a problematic lack of command. Like Garrett, he’s on track for Super Two status this winter with four additional seasons of club control.

Marlins Place Xavier Edwards On 60-Day Injured List

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The Marlins reinstated reliever Huascar Brazoban from the restricted list this evening. The Dominican-born righty was out of action for the first six weeks after visa issues delayed his arrival to Spring Training. Miami optioned him to Triple-A but needed to reinstall him onto the 40-man roster. To create space, the Fish moved infielder Xavier Edwards from the 10-day to the 60-day injured list. Miami also optioned Roddery Muñoz and recalled George Soriano before tonight’s game in Los Angeles.

Edwards, acquired from the Rays a couple years ago, has yet to make his season debut. He opened the season on the IL after battling a foot infection during Spring Training. According to the MLB.com injury tracker, Edwards has been gradually progressing through baseball activities at the team’s complex in Jupiter. There’s no indication of when he might go on a rehab assignment.

The 60-day minimum reverts to the date of the original IL placement, three days before Opening Day. Edwards won’t be eligible to return until the final week of May, although it doesn’t seem likely he’ll be ready by then anyhow. The 24-year-old appeared in 30 games for Miami as a rookie. He hit .295 but didn’t draw many walks or hit for any kind of power.

Edwards is coming off an excellent season in Triple-A, as he turned in a .351/.429/.457 batting line with nearly twice as many walks as strikeouts over 433 plate appearances. Once he’s healthy, he should have a decent path to regular playing time on a rebuilding team that just subtracted Luis Arraez from the infield.

Marlins Select Eli Villalobos

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The Marlins announced this afternoon that they’ve selected the contract of right-hander Eli Villalobos. Right-hander Darren McCaughan was designated for assignment in the corresponding move. If Villalobos appears in a game with the club, it’ll be his major league debut.

Villalobos, 26, came up through Miami’s minor league system and was added to the club’s 40-man roster in November 2022 to protect him from the upcoming Rule 5 Draft but found himself squeezed off the club’s roster early in the 2023 season, at which point he was claimed by the Pirates. He was later DFA’d by the Pirates to make room for top prospect Henry Davis on their 40-man roster and was promptly claimed by the Marlins in late June, ending his three-month sojourn out of the organization. Villalobos was once again designated for assignment by Miami shortly thereafter but this time cleared waivers and was outrighted to the minor leagues, where he has remained ever since.

Now, Villalobos will once again get a spot on the Marlins’ 40-man roster and this time will receive an active roster spot to go with it. The right-hander is more or less a pure relief prospect who hasn’t started a game since the 2019 season but has been relief on for multi-inning appearances at the Triple-A level this year, where he’s pitched to a 4.73 ERA in 13 1/3 innings of work across nine appearances while topping out at 51 pitches in a single outing. That ability to pitch multiple innings could make Villalobos a long relief option for the Marlins behind today’s starter, Sixto Sanchez, who is still building up his pitch count and threw just 68 pitches last time out.

It’s a role that McCaughan occupied with the club in recent days. The 28-year-old was a 12th-round pick by the Mariners in the 2017 draft and pitched fourteen innings for his original club from 2021 to 2023 before joining the Marlins this offseason. He was selected to the club’s roster last week to fill the role of long man in the bullpen and struggled through 4 2/3 innings against Oakland last night, allowing eight runs on nine hits and three walks while striking out just two. The brutal outing brings his career ERA at the big league level to 9.16, and the righty’s 5.26 ERA in 89 career games at the Triple-A level inspires little confidence in his ability to be more than a depth option at the big league level going forward. The Marlins will have one week to trade McCaughan or attempt to pass the righty through waivers.

Marlins President Peter Bendix Discusses Luis Arraez Trade

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Marlins president of baseball operations Peter Bendix spoke to reporters, including Jordan McPherson of the Miami Herald, earlier today to discuss last night’s blockbuster trade of infielder Luis Arraez to the Padres and the Marlins’ outlook moving forward after the deal.

In his comments, Bendix indicated that he and the rest of the organization is “very disappointed” about the team’s brutal 9-25 start to the 2024 season and acknowledged that the team is “unlikely” to make the playoffs this year after doing so for the first time in a full season since 2003 last year.

“We’re very disappointed,” Bendix said, per McPherson. “I know the players are very disappointed. Everybody here is very disappointed about that. But it is also something that we can’t change right now.”

In light of the club’s challenging path to the postseason, Bendix said that he felt the deal offer by the Padres was “too good to walk past,” with Craig Mish of the Miami Herald adding that Bendix noted he was concerned that the deal may not have still been on the table had the Marlins waited until later in the calendar to make the move. Bendix’s willingness to strike early on the trade market extends back to 2021 during his time as GM of the Rays, when the club traded shortstop Willy Adames to the Brewers as part of the other May blockbuster in recent memory.

Bendix went on to praise the return the club received for Arraez services, which consists of 2023 first-rounder Dillon Head, Double-A outfielder Jakob Marsee, Double-A first baseman Nathan Martorella, and reliever Woo-Suk Go. Both Head and Marsee rank in the top 10 on lists of top Padres prospects from both Baseball America and MLB.com, though Go is an established professional on a two-year, $4.5MM deal with seven KBO seasons under his belt despite not yet having made his big league debut.

Given the fact that none of the players joining the Marlins in return for Arraez have played above the Double-A level in stateside ball, it’s fair to wonder what sort of timeline for competitiveness Miami brass envisions for the club. Bendix avoided specifics during his conversation with reporters, however. While he made clear throughout his comments that the club’s long-term goal is to win “90-plus games year-in and year-out”, he refused to label the club’s current trajectory a “rebuild” while simultaneously noting that there isn’t a “definitive timeline” for a return to competitiveness.

That foggy outlook appears to extend to the club’s plans going forward. While Bendix made clear that the Arraez move was the first in a “series of difficult decisions” the club would be making in service of a longer-term outlook, he didn’t get into specifics about what other players the club could look to shop from the big league roster. For his part, Bendix seems to have no desire to commit to retaining any of the big league club’s current players. The club’s top baseball ops official indicated to Andy Slater of Fox Sports 640 that he “doesn’t know what to expect” when asked whether or not 2022 All Star Jazz Chisholm Jr. who is just 26 years old and is under team control through the end of the 2026 season, would remain in the organization through the end of the season.

Pending free agents such as first baseman Josh Bell, shortstop Tim Anderson, and left-hander Tanner Scott all seem like good bets to move at some point this season given Bendix’s acknowledged plan to prioritize future value over the current season, but Arraez’s departure and Bendix’s unwillingness to commit to Chisholm both indicate that the club is not averse to dealing more controllable players as well. Looking beyond Chisholm, the Marlins frequently flirted with dealing from their starting rotation over the winter and it’s easy to imagine any of Jesus Luzardo, Edward Cabrera, and Braxton Garrett being made available this summer should they be healthy and effective enough to command a significant return. MLBTR’s Anthony Franco explored the club’s trade candidates in detail earlier this week, prior to the Arraez deal.

Padres Acquire Luis Arraez

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12:21PM: The Marlins are eating almost all of the roughly $8.5MM owed to Arraez this season, ESPN’s Alden Gonzalez reports (X link).  San Diego will owe Arraez only the MLB minimum salary for the rest of 2024, so between this arrangement and moving Go’s salary, the Padres look to have actually reduced their luxury tax number with this trade.

TODAY, 9:34AM: Both teams have officially announced the trade, and the Padres will also be receiving cash considerations from the Marlins.  This will lower the Padres’ financial hit, and give them a bit more breathing room under the luxury tax threshold.

MAY 3: The Padres and Marlins have lined up on a rare May blockbuster. San Diego is reportedly acquiring two-time batting champ Luis Arraez from Miami for four players: prospects Dillon Head, Jakob Marsee and Nathan Martorella, as well as reliever Woo-Suk Go.

Arraez’s tenure in Miami ends after a season and five weeks. The Fish swapped Pablo López to the Twins to acquire him over the 2022-23 offseason. Arraez played up to expectations in the first season. He flirted with .400 for a few months, and while he didn’t maintain that otherworldly pace, he cruised to a second straight batting title and helped Miami to the playoffs. Arraez finished with a .354/.393/.469 line through 617 plate appearances.

As the batting titles would suggest, Arraez has developed into perhaps the game’s best pure contact hitter. He has walked more often than he’s struck out over the course of his career. The Venezuela native has punched out in only 7.5% of his plate appearances in the big leagues. That’s down to a meager 6.4% clip going back to the start of 2022. That leads qualified hitters by more than three percentage points. Guardians left fielder Steven Kwan is the only other player to strike out less than 10% of the time in that span.

Arraez has tallied 148 plate appearances over 33 games this season. His production is down slightly, as he’s hitting .299/.347/.372 without a home run. That’s not much of a concern for San Diego. Arraez is still making contact at an elite rate. He has never been a huge power threat, topping out at 10 longballs a year ago. It’s unlikely that San Diego feels differently about Arraez than they did during Spring Training, when they reportedly made a push for both him and starter Jesús Luzardo.

Going back to the start of 2022, Arraez is a .331/.380/.437 hitter in nearly 1400 plate appearances. He has hit at the top of the lineup in Miami and should do the same with the Padres. San Diego has been using Jurickson Profar in the leadoff spot of late. While Profar’s out to a fantastic start to the season, he can slide down a few spots in a suddenly deeper lineup.

As great a hitter as Arraez is, his game isn’t without flaws. He’s at best a fringe defender at second base. Defensive Runs Saved has generally graded him around league average with the glove, though it has soured on his work in 281 innings this season. Statcast has long panned him as a defender, grading him negatively in all but one year of his career. Statcast estimates he’s been 24 runs below average in nearly 2700 career innings at the keystone.

The Twins played Arraez more frequently at first base back in 2022. He rated better there defensively, although he doesn’t have the traditional power profile expected at the position. That doesn’t seem to be much of an issue for the Padres. Incumbent first baseman Jake Cronenworth is also a hit-over-power player who began his career in the middle infield.

Arraez could see occasional reps at first and second base, but he’s likely to get the bulk of his at-bats as a designated hitter. The Friars have Cronenworth, Xander Bogaerts, Ha-Seong Kim and Manny Machado as their projected starting infield. Machado was limited to DH for a couple weeks as he recovered from last fall’s elbow surgery. He made his return to third base last Friday, and while he has continued shuffling between the hot corner and DH since then, he’ll eventually work back to everyday third base reps.

Machado’s return to third base would have left the Friars without a clear everyday option at designated hitter. Rookie Graham Pauley has gotten some reps there, but he has hit .125/.125/.313 to start his MLB career. Arraez should solidify that spot while still having enough defensive flexibility to allow manager Mike Shildt to rotate other infielders through the position when they need a break on defense.

Padres president of baseball operations A.J. Preller has never shied away from pursuing star talent, so it’s not particularly surprising that they’d keep an eye on Arraez. The timing of the trade, though, is a stunner. It’s incredibly rare to see players of that caliber moved this early into a season. Perhaps the best recent comparison is the May 21, 2021 swap that sent Willy Adames and Trevor Richards from the Rays to the Brewers for Drew Rasmussen and J.P. Feyereisen.

Peter Bendix was serving as Tampa Bay’s general manager (#2 in the front office hierarchy) at the time of the Adames deal. He’s now in charge of baseball operations in Miami. Bendix is evidently not averse to making a major splash at an atypical time if the opportunity presents itself.

The Marlins followed up a quiet offseason with an absolutely terrible April. They enter this weekend’s series in Oakland with a 9-24 record. Whatever slim chance they had of repeating last year’s surprising playoff berth has all but evaporated. Miami was going to be a deadline seller, so there’s sense in moving early if another team put the right offer on the table.

Miami felt that was the case with a four-player return centered around San Diego’s 2023 first-rounder. The Padres selected Head 25th overall out of an Illinois high school. A left-handed hitting center fielder, he split his first professional season between rookie ball and Low-A. Head ranked eighth among San Diego prospects at Baseball America and fifth on Keith Law’s organizational write-up at The Athletic.

Both outlets credit Head with excellent speed and the chance to be a plus defensive center fielder at his peak. BA writes that he’s likely to be a contact-oriented offensive player without a ton of power, but Law wrote that professional scouts were impressed by the bat speed he showed after being drafted. Head has spent his age-19 season at Low-A Lake Elsinore. He’s out to a relatively slow start, hitting .237/.317/.366 with a 24% strikeout rate.

While Head is a long-term development play, Marsee has an outside shot at getting to the big leagues in 2024. A sixth-round pick out of Central Michigan two years ago, he dramatically improved his stock with a .274/.413/.428 showing between High-A and Double-A last season. Marsee followed up with a massive performance in the Arizona Fall League. There was even some speculation he could compete for the Opening Day center field spot, but it quickly became clear that Jackson Merrill was above him in that discussion.

Marsee, 23, ranked between 10th and 12th on the respective organizational prospect lists at BA and The Athletic. He’s credited with advanced plate discipline and instincts but without a ton of power potential. Marsee has played almost exclusively center field in the minors and likely projects as a fourth outfielder. He has spent this season at Double-A San Antonio, where has slumped to a .187/.337/.333 slash through his first 22 games.

Martorella, who is also 23, was a fifth-round pick out of Cal in that 2022 draft. The left-handed hitter has a career .269/.373/.447 batting line in nearly 800 professional plate appearances. He’s out to an excellent .294/.392/.435 start with a pair of homers and six doubles through 102 trips to the plate in San Antonio. Martorella is limited to first base or designated hitter, so he’ll need to hit a lot to be a regular, but he has shown a well-rounded offensive profile in pro ball.

Rounding out the return is Go, whom the Padres just signed out of Korea last winter. San Diego inked the 25-year-old righty to a two-year, $4.5MM deal. He’s playing this season on a $1.75MM salary. He’ll make $2.25MM next year and is guaranteed a $500K buyout on a $3MM mutual option for 2026. As is the case with most players signed out of a foreign professional league, his contract stipulates that he return to free agency at the end of the deal even though he’ll be well shy of six years of MLB service.

Go has yet to pitch in the major leagues. The Padres optioned him to Double-A after he struggled in Spring Training. He has tossed 12 2/3 innings there, allowing seven runs (six earned) on 14 hits. Go has fanned 15 hitters while issuing four walks. He was a closer for the KBO’s LG Twins before making the jump to MLB. He turned in a 3.18 ERA over parts of seven KBO seasons. Go missed plenty of bats in Korea but struggled to consistently throw strikes. Scouting reports before his signing generally suggested he projected as a middle reliever at the MLB level.

It’s the first of what is likely to be a handful of trades for the Marlins over the next few months. Miami seems set to kick off at least a retool, if not a full-scale rebuild. Luzardo, Trevor Rogers, Tanner Scott and Jazz Chisholm Jr. are among a number of players whom the Fish could put on the market. It’s unlikely the Arraez trade will open the floodgates three months before the deadline, but it’s clear Miami is already willing to engage in conversations.

Making trades well in advance of the deadline would also allow the Marlins to offload a greater portion of players’ contracts. Budgetary constraints are always present for a franchise that annually runs payrolls in the bottom third of the league. Miami essentially sat out free agency until taking a $5MM flier on Tim Anderson (which hasn’t worked out) at the beginning of Spring Training.

Arraez was one of the higher-paid players on the roster. He’s making $10.6MM this season after losing an arbitration case in February — the second straight year he and the team went to a hearing. Around $8.5MM is yet to be paid. Assuming there are no cash considerations involved, they’ll offload that but assume around $1.4MM of Go’s salary. That amounts to just over $7MM in savings. The team’s estimated player payroll now sits around $92MM, as calculated by RosterResource.

The Padres absorb that money, which is no small matter for a team that spent most of the offseason cutting spending. RosterResource estimates their actual player payroll around $174MM. Their competitive balance tax number is far higher, reflecting their slate of backloaded contracts. RosterResource calculates their CBT in the $232MM range. They’re around $4.5MM below this year’s $237MM base threshold, a marker they were reluctant to cross last winter.

A team’s CBT calculation isn’t determined until the end of the season. This surely isn’t the last of the Padres’ trade activity. Their deadline direction could go in a number of ways depending on how the team performs over the next few months. It’s not even out of the question the Padres fall out of the race and put Arraez back on the trade block in July, though that’s surely not what the front office currently intends.

Even if Arraez finishes the 2024 season in San Diego, he could be a trade candidate next offseason. He’ll go through arbitration once more before hitting free agency during the 2025-26 offseason. The two-time All-Star is likely to command a salary in the $14-16MM range for his final year of club control. The Padres could ostensibly plug him in at second base and move Bogaerts back to shortstop if Kim departs as a free agent, but that’s not something with which the team will concern itself in the short term.

For now, they’ll plug Arraez at the top of the lineup as they push for a playoff spot. They’ll get a few more months of production than they would’ve had they waited to make a traditional deadline move, albeit at the cost of a trio of mid-level prospects and around three-quarters of Arraez’s 2024 salary. There may not be any more huge moves in the next couple weeks, but it’s a precursor to what should be busy summers in both South Florida and Southern California.

ESPN’s Jeff Passan first reported the Padres were nearing agreement on an Arraez deal for three prospects and a reliever. Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic confirmed there was an Arraez trade in place. Craig Mish of SportsGrid was first to report the Marlins’ return.

Images courtesy of USA Today Sports.

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