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Xander Bogaerts To Miss Significant Time Due To Shoulder Fracture

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The Padres announced that they have placed infielder Xander Bogaerts on the 10-day injured list, retroactive to May 21, with a left shoulder fracture. Outfielder David Peralta was selected to take Bogaerts’ place on the active roster. To open a spot for Peralta on the 40-man, right-hander Luis Patiño was transferred to the 60-day injured list.

Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune previously relayed on X that Bogaerts would be going on the IL and a follow-up tweet provided more information about the fracture. At this point, it doesn’t appear as though surgery is required, though Bogaerts will need to miss time as the bone heals, with more tests planned for today. “Late summer” is floated as a possible return time, which leaves a lot of vagaries about the months to come, though Acee says Bogaerts will be out at least two months in a column at the SDUT.

On Monday, Bogaerts appeared to injure himself when diving to field a grounder off the bat of Ronald Acuña Jr. (video link from MLB.com.) The initial imaging was negative, as relayed on X by Acee on Monday, but it seems subsequent tests have revealed a fracture.

The veteran infielder wasn’t off to a good start this year, currently hitting .219/.265/.316 for the season, but has been far better in the past. He hit .285/.350/.440 for the Friars last year and produced similarly for the Red Sox in the five prior seasons.

The Padres would have been expecting Bogaerts to right the ship in the coming months but that won’t happen now, at least not soon. The club is below .500 at 25-26 but nonetheless currently holds the final Wild Card spot in the National League. They will have to try to cling to that spot without that Bogaerts turnaround in the weeks to come.

The club recently acquired infielder Luis Arráez, largely with the plan of putting him in the designated hitter slot. But he’s played second base since Bogaerts hurt himself and could stay there for the foreseeable future. Arráez is one of the best contact hitters in the game but is generally considered a poor defender at the keystone. Bogaerts just recently moved to the position from shortstop and has -2 Defensive Runs Saved this year but four Outs Above Average.

Offensively, the club may now rotate various hitters through the DH slot if Arráez is going to be playing the field regularly. The past two games have seen Manny Machado and Donovan Solano DHing, with Jurickson Profar in there today.

The 36-year-old Peralta joins the outfield mix alongside Profar, Fernando Tatis Jr., Jackson Merrill and José Azocar. It was just over a week ago that Peralta opted out of his minor league deal with the Cubs, which led to a minor league deal with the Padres over the weekend.

With Triple-A Iowa, Peralta was drawing walks at a 14.1% rate but slashing just .217/.341/.348 for a wRC+ of 84. He’s also coming off a down year in the majors, as he hit .259/.294/.381 with the Dodgers last year for a wRC+ of 82.

But Peralta has hit .279/.335/.450 overall in his career, which translates to a wRC+ of 108. He’s also been considered an above average defender in the outfield, mostly in the corners. His lackluster results last year may have been due to a flexor tendon injury, which popped up around the All-Star break and later required surgery. The Padres will surely be hoping for Peralta to return to his pre-2023 results.

Peralta is in left field tonight as Profar is in the DH slot. As mentioned, manager Mike Shildt could give various players DH time for semi-rest days going forward. Though with the Arráez trade, president of baseball operations A.J. Preller has shown he’s not afraid of a midseason deal, even if we’re nowhere near the deadline yet. Perhaps another move will be forthcoming as a response to the Bogaerts injury. But for now, it’s a tough development for a club in an extremely tight playoff race.

As for Patiño, he underwent Tommy John surgery just over three weeks ago and is going to miss the remainder of the season.

Padres Sign David Peralta To Minor League Deal

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The Padres have signed outfielder David Peralta to a minor league deal and assigned him to Triple-A El Paso, per an announcement from the El Paso Chihuahuas (X link). The move comes just days after Peralta opted out of his previous minor league deal with the Cubs.

Peralta, 36, is very familiar with the NL West after spending all but 47 games of his 10-year big league career in the division. The veteran made his MLB debut with the Diamondbacks at the age of 26 back in 2014 and spent the better part of nine years patrolling the outfield in Arizona. A generally solid left-handed bat who could be relied on for production around 5-10% better than the league average, Peralta slashed a respectable .283/.340/.463 with a wRC+ of 111 during his time with Arizona, which included a Silver Slugger award in 2018 and a Gold Glove in left field in 2019.

Peralta’s Dbacks tenure came to an end at the 2022 trade deadline, when he was shipped to Tampa Bay in exchange for catching prospect Christian Cerda. Peralta’s power disappeared down the stretch with the Rays, however, as he failed to hit a home run throughout his Rays tenure and slashed just .255/.317/.335 in 161 trips to the plate with the club. Despite that downturn in production, the Dodgers rolled the dice on Peralta the following offseason and signed him to a one-year deal that guaranteed the veteran $6.5MM. Unfortunately, a return to the NL West did not revive Peralta’s bat as he hit a paltry .259/.294/.381 in 133 games with L.A. last season.

Looking ahead, Peralta figures to offer the Padres veteran depth in the outfield, an area where they’re severely lacking in reliable options. Fernando Tatis Jr. has locked down right field since moving off shortstop last season while journeyman Jurickson Profar is off to an incredible start for the club in left field and top shortstop prospect Jackson Merrill is taking to the center field job quite admirably while learning the position on the fly. Even so, an outfield mix of three converted infielders speaks to the lack of outfield depth in the Padres organization, leaving bench bat Jose Azocar as the only career outfielder on the club’s 40-man roster.

Given that, it’s easy to see Peralta breaking into the club’s outfield mix at the big league level should an injury the team to make a roster move. Until then, Peralta figures to act as non-roster depth for San Diego alongside fellow veterans Oscar Mercado and Tim Locastro at the Triple-A level, where Peralta. The 36-year-old will hope for better results at the Triple-A level in El Paso than he had during his time with the Cubs organization, as he was slashing just .217/.341/.348 in 20 games before he opted out.

Padres Release Matt Festa

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The Padres released right-hander Matt Festa, who’d been pitching with their Triple-A affiliate in El Paso, per the MiLB.com transaction log.

Festa, 31, has appeared in parts of four seasons with the Mariners. He inked a minor league deal with San Diego over the winter. The former seventh-round pick sports a career 4.32 ERA and 3.93 SIERA with a strong 25.3% strikeout rate against a less-encouraging 10.9% walk rate. Festa’s time with the M’s was split between the 2018-19 seasons and the 2022-23 seasons. He had an elbow injury in 2020 that eventually required Tommy John surgery, completely erasing his 2020 season and limiting him to 25 2/3 minor league frames late in the ’21 campaign.

It’s been a decent start to the season for Festa in El Paso. He’s pitched to a 4.50 earned run average — eight runs in 16 innings — while fanning 21.6% of his opponents with a 9.5% walk rate. He’s typically been a fly-ball pitcher in the past but this year sports an above-average 46% grounder rate. He’s been plagued by a .360 average on balls in play, with fielding-independent metrics pegging him about a run lower than his actual ERA.

Festa has pitched reasonably well, and mid-May is a common time for minor league contracts to include opt-out dates, so it’s possible (if not likely) that such a clause came into play here. The Padres only have three bullpen spots on the roster they can shuffle up, as none of Robert Suarez, Wandy Peralta, Enyel De Los Santos, Yuki Matsui or Rule 5 pick Stephen Kolek can be optioned. That leaves righty Jeremiah Estrada, lefty Adrian Morejon and long reliever Jhony Brito as the only players who could’ve been sent down if the Friars had wanted to select Festa to the big league roster. Each member of that trio has performed fairly well this season, however, and Festa himself is out of minor league options. As such, selecting his contract would’ve only further limited San Diego’s bullpen flexibility.

As a result, Festa will head back to the open market and look to latch on with another club seeking some experienced bullpen depth. He’s not a flamethrower, averaging just 92.6 mph on his heater in his career, but he’s nevertheless managed to miss bats at a high level. His 12.5% career swinging-strike rate checks in north of the league average, and he sat at an even heftier 14.3% in that regard from 2022-23. In parts of five Triple-A seasons (108 2/3 innings), Festa owns a 2.15 ERA, a 27% strikeout rate and a 9.5% walk rate.

NL West Notes: Rodriguez, Thomas, Musgrove, Montgomery

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The Diamondbacks sent both left-hander Eduardo Rodriguez and outfielder Alek Thomas for MRI exams last week, and Torey Lovullo told reporters (per MLB.com’s Injury Tracker) that the results of Rodriguez’s MRI were “very positive,” but that there was no update on Thomas’s status as the club plans to seek second and third opinions on the youngster’s results.

It’s excellent news for the Diamondbacks that Rodriguez is making his way toward a return, with Lovullo indicating that he’s set to begin a throwing program. Rodriguez will be sidelined through at least May 24 due to his placement on the 60-day injured list but it’s at least feasible he could return to game action not long after that if he manages to avoid further setbacks. Rodriguez’s lat injury woes have prevented him from making his Dbacks debut to this point in the 2024 campaign, but he’s coming off an excellent season with the Tigers last year that saw him post a 3.30 ERA and 3.66 FIP in 152 2/3 innings of work and should provide a major boost to an Arizona rotation that’s currently relying on Ryne Nelson and Slade Cecconi in the absence of Rodriguez and veteran righty Merrill Kelly.

As for Thomas, the lack of update from the Diamondbacks is a somewhat ominous sign regarding his hamstring. The 24-year-old was initially scheduled to be activated from the IL last week but ended up exiting a rehab outing with Triple-A due to an issue with his injured hamstring on May 5 that ultimately did not improve after a day off, prompting Arizona to delay his return and send him for testing. Once a consensus top-30 prospect in the sport, Thomas has struggled at the big league level with a .230/.273/.362 slash line in 242 career games but nonetheless figured to be the club’s starting center fielder this season. Corbin Carroll has handled center field in Thomas’s absence with Jake McCarthy stepping from the bench into Thomas’s spot in the lineup while manning right field.

More from the NL West…

  • Padres right-hander Joe Musgrove is making good progress in his return from right elbow inflammation, according to manager Mike Shildt (per MLB.com’s Injury Tracker). The 31-year-old’s initial worrisome diagnosis was described as “precautionary” when he was initially placed on the shelf last week, and it appears that description was an apt one as Musgrove has reportedly already begun light baseball activities, including playing catch. MLB.com writes that the right-hander is optimistic that he’ll be able to return “shortly after” the minimum 15-day stint on the IL, which would likely result in him returning to action sometime next week. San Diego is surely hoping that Musgrove will look more like the ace hurler who posted a 3.05 ERA in 459 2/3 innings in a Padres uniform entering the 2024 campaign than he has to this point in the season, as he struggled badly with a 6.37 ERA and 5.96 FIP in eight starts prior to his placement on the shelf.
  • The Rockies may have lost outfield prospect Benny Montgomery for the season on Friday, as MLB.com’s Thomas Harding relays that the 21-year-old underwent shoulder surgery that Rockies director of player development Chris Forbes said will keep him out until at least “toward the end of the year” if he’s able to return this season at all. The club’s first-round pick in the 2021 draft, Montgomery turned heads during the Arizona Fall League last year with a .333/.436/.500 slash line in 19 games and was hitting a solid .283/.313/.500 in his first taste of Double-A action before being sidelined by the shoulder injury.

Sean Burroughs Passes Away

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Former big league infielder Sean Burroughs passed away this week at just 43 years of age, Bob Nightengale of USA Today reports. Tragically, the former Little League World Series hero and No. 9 overall draft pick collapsed while coaching his son’s little league game.

The son of former No. 1 overall draft pick, two-time All-Star, and 1974 American League MVP Jeff Burroughs, Sean clearly had baseball in his DNA. He starred on the mound and at the plate while leading his Long Beach team to consecutive Little League World Series wins and eventually went on to be selected by the Padres with the ninth overall pick in the 1998 draft. Baseball America ranked him among the sport’s top-100 prospects in each of the next four years, including top-10 rankings each year from 2000-02. Burroughs represented the United States in the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney and won a Gold Medal.

Burroughs made his big league debut as the Padres’ third baseman on April 2, 2002 — collecting two hits in his first taste of MLB action. He struggled through the season’s first two months but returned from a Triple-A assignment to hit .377/.433/.410 in 67 September plate appearances. Burroughs was the Padres’ regular third baseman in 2003-04, hitting a combined .292/.350/.384 in 1142 trips to the plate. He struggled at the plate again in 2005 and was traded to the Devil Rays in a 2005-06 offseason deal that sent right-hander Dewon Brazelton back to the Friars.

Burroughs appeared in only eight games for the Rays plus another 37 with their Triple-A affiliate in Durham. He was out of baseball entirely for several years after that and had since candidly spoken about a subsequent spiral of drug addiction and alcoholism. In a heart-wrenching interview with ESPN’s Jim Caple in 2011, Burroughs described the harrowing experience of spending years living in cheap Las Vegas motels, eating out of trash cans and abusing virtually any substance he could find. “I would just try to fill myself with as much substances as I could, legally or illegally,” he acknowledged.

Despite that low point — which Burroughs likened to the Nicolas Cage film Leaving Las Vegas — Burroughs’ baseball career had a second act. He cleaned his life up, got a second chance from late D-backs GM Kevin Towers (who’d drafted Burroughs with the Padres), and played in 78 games with the 2011 Diamondbacks. Burroughs inked a minor league deal with the Twins that offseason and wound up appearing in ten games with Minnesota as well. Those would prove to be the final games of his MLB career, but he spent the 2014-17 seasons playing between several teams in the independent Atlantic League, as well as in Venezuelan Winter ball and in the Mexican League.

Burroughs’ big league career lasted all of 528 games and saw him bat .278/.335/.355. Despite that modest performance, he’ll be remembered as a remarkable talent — one who was thrust into a national spotlight at an early age and racked up more accolades than most players accrue in a lifetime before he even set foot on a major league field. His tragic passing will bring about immeasurable “what ifs,” but Burroughs also stands as a beacon of perseverance. Overcoming his yearslong battle with addiction to return to the major leagues and spend more than a half decade in pro ball is inspirational in and of itself — the type of story that transcends baseball and has the power to impact a far broader audience.

We at MLBTR offer our condolence to the Burroughs family and to his friends, former teammates and coaches, and countless fans around the world.

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!

Royals Showed Interest In Luis Arraez Prior To Trade To Padres

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The Marlins got a surprisingly early jump on the trade market this offseason, hammering out a rare May trade of significance when they shipped infielder Luis Arraez to San Diego last Friday in exchange for a package of four players. It’s not entirely shocking given both the Marlins’ awful start to the season and that their trade partner was the hyper-aggressive Padres, whose president of baseball operations, A.J. Preller, leaves no stone unturned when a big-name player is even remotely available. However, it seems the Padres weren’t the only club sniffing around Arraez despite the early nature of his entry to the trade market; Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports this morning that the Royals also showed interest in Arraez before the Padres pulled off that swap.

Rosenthal emphasizes that talks with the Kansas City were preliminary and did not advance far. Still, the mere interest from Kansas City is telling. The Royals had an aggressive winter that saw them spend $109MM across several free agent signings, and now that they’re out to a 20-15 start to the season, it seems they’re interested in further bolstering the club.

Arraez is a limited defender who’s below-average at second base, solid enough at first base and of course has the bat to handle designated hitter duties. The Royals presumably wouldn’t have used Arraez at first base much, thanks to the presence of Vinnie Pasquantino. In all likelihood, Kansas City would’ve given Arraez the bulk of his playing time at second base and designated hitter.

Instead, the Royals will hope for 26-year-old second baseman Michael Massey to continue his recent hot streak and look to get DH/outfielder Nelson Velazquez back to his 2023 form. Velazquez bashed 14 homers in 147 plate appearances for the Royals last year after being acquired in a deadline swap with the Cubs, but he’s hitting just .215/.284/.344 with a 30.4% strikeout rate this season as the team’s primary designated hitter.

Even looking beyond Arraez specifically, the mere fact that Kansas City was poking around the market for one of the presumably few players genuinely available on the trade market at such an early stage in the season signals that the Royals won’t necessarily be content with their offseason additions and any in-house reinforcements that might surface. It also likely signals a willingness to deal from the top end of their farm system. The Royals’ system isn’t viewed as particularly strong, so they’d have had to expend some of their most notable prospects in order to pique Miami’s interest.

Ultimately, news of interest from a team that didn’t wind up trading for a player only carries so much weight. The Royals’ interest in Arraez will be little more than a footnote that’s perhaps worth keeping in mind when he reaches free agency. But it’s also a portent for how the Royals could operate in the weeks and months ahead, and it gives some credence to the idea that they’ll be in the mix when other high-profile bats become available this summer. Whether it was expressed to the Royals that the Marlins would be willing to pay down the remainder of Arraez’s contract isn’t clear. Kansas City opened the season with a roughly $116MM payroll, per RosterResource, and has previously run its payroll as high as $143MM (under the previous ownership regime).

The Royals’ offseason activity already pointed to a win-now mindset, and so long as they remain in or on the periphery of postseason contention, it seems they’ll continue to keep their foot on the gas.

Padres Place Joe Musgrove On 15-Day Injured List

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The Padres announced that right-hander Joe Musgrove has been placed on the 15-day injured list due to right elbow inflammation.  Righty Randy Vasquez has been called up from Triple-A to take Musgrove’s spot on the active roster and in San Diego’s rotation.

More specifically, Musgrove is suffering from triceps tendinitis, as the Padres told reporters (including The Athletic’s Dennis Lin).  Since the IL placement was described as precautionary, it’s possible Musgrove could miss just the minimum 15 days if the triceps issue isn’t overly serious.  However, returning to the IL continues a rough stretch of injury-related misery for Musgrove that has now stretched across two seasons.

A broken toe suffered in a Spring Training weight-room accident delayed Musgrove’s 2023 debut until late April, and he was limited to 17 starts after a bout of shoulder inflammation returned him to the IL in late July, and ultimately ended his season.  The former All-Star still delivered a 3.05 ERA in 97 1/3 innings between these IL stints, but Musgrove has gotten off to a slow start in 2024.

No pitcher in baseball has allowed more home runs (10) or earned runs (29) than Musgrove this season, as he has lurched to a 6.37 ERA over eight starts and 41 innings.  This trouble with the long ball has naturally coincided with a huge drop in Musgrove’s barrels and barrel rate, and his strikeout and hard-hit ball rates are also below average.

It could be that Musgrove’s elbow problem contributed to these struggles, or potentially some lingering affects from his long shutdown period in 2023.  Assuming that his injury doesn’t sideline him for too long, this IL visit could be viewed as something of a chance for Musgrove to reboot his season after his time off.

Getting a healthy and effective Musgrove atop the rotation is critical to the Padres’ hopes, as Musgrove being an unexpected weak link has contributed to an overall inconsistent performance for the rotation.  Dylan Cease has been tremendous and Yu Darvish has started to stabilize after a tough start of his own, while Michael King and Matt Waldron have both been up-and-down.

Vazquez has also made a pair of starts, delivering a 5.87 ERA in 7 2/3 innings.  The 25-year-old right-hander was acquired as part of the Juan Soto trade package from the Yankees this past winter, and it remains to be seen if starting pitching will be his long-term role.  Though he has gotten the start in 92 of his 102 professional games, Vazquez hasn’t shown much at Triple-A (5.19 ERA in 95 1/3 career innings) or his 45 1/3 frames in the majors.  He’ll get another look in Musgrove’s absence, though the Padres could approach Vazquez’s starts as bullpen games if he can’t deliver a good chunk of consistent innings at the front of games.

Padres Select Donovan Solano

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The Padres announced this afternoon that they’ve selected the contract of infielder Donovan Solano. Infielder Eguy Rosario was optioned to Triple-A in the corresponding move, and San Diego’s 40-man roster now stands at 40.

Solano, 36, is a veteran of ten MLB seasons who first made his debut back in 2012. He struggled to hit at the big league level earlier in his career, with a .257/.306/.331 slash line in 370 games from 2012 to 2016, and didn’t appear at all at the major league level in 2017 or 2018. Since resurfacing with the Giants back in 2019, however, Solano has emerged as one of the more underrated utility hitters in the game in recent years. Since returning to the big leagues in 2019, Solano has slashed an impressive .296/.355/.413 (112 wRC+) without a single below-average offensive season during that timeframe. He’s been even more effective against southpaws, boasting a 119 wRC+ and just a 17.2% strikeout rate against lefty pitchers over the past five years.

On top of that strong work at the plate, Solano has offered considerable positional flexibility. He’s appeared at all four infield spots throughout his career, and while the veteran last appeared in a game at shortstop back in 2021 and has primarily played first base in recent years, he’s still more than capable of covering both second and third base as needed with Outs Above Average grading him as a scratch to slightly below average defender at both positions in each of the last three seasons.

The addition of Solano to the club’s positional mix adds yet another quality infielder to a roster deep in infield talent. With former infielders Jurickson Profar, Jackson Merrill, and Fernando Tatis Jr. now playing the outfield on a full-time basis in San Diego, the Solano figures to join the newly-acquired Luis Arraez in taking starts at first, second, and third base when necessary to back up regular infielders Manny Machado, Xander Bogaerts, Ha-Seong Kim, and Jake Cronenworth. Arraez figures to get the lion’s share of playing time at DH, though Solano figures to act as a solid right-handed complement to both he and Cronenworth to provide manager Mike Shildt with a bit of extra flexibility and protection against injuries.

Making room for Solano’s addition to the active roster is Rosario. The 24-year-old made his MLB debut back in 2022 with the Padres and has generally impressed in an up-and-down role over the past three seasons, but his most recent stint in the majors was perhaps the most impressive of all. In 52 trips to the plate that came mostly by way of platooning with Tyler Wade at third base while Machado recovered from offseason surgery earlier this year, Rosario hit a fantastic .250/.294/.542 (141 wRC+) with a whopping eight extra base hits, including three home runs.

That impressive work at the plate combined with Rosario’s ability to play both second and third base as well as shortstop figure to make him a leading candidate to return to the majors in San Diego should an injury require the club to dip into its depth options. Until then, Rosario will return to the Triple-A level where he’s slashed a solid .282/.363/.486 over the past two seasons.

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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