San Diego Padres Acquired Snell, Kim, Darvish, and Your Favorite Uncle
A.J. Preller, general manager of the San Diego Padres, was growing tired of not seeing his name trending on Twitter. With the new year lurking around the corner, he could feel the walls closing in around him, and realized that he had to make a bunch of deals right now or risk becoming a mere averagely active MLB executive. That must have been what was going through his head when he went off on Monday, pulling the trigger on a series of deals that catapults the Padres from being playoff contenders to World Series-or-bust. We’ll work through each player that the Padres acquired and lay out how the team got better on Monday.
In the first and arguably most important move of the trio, he swung a deal with one of his favorite trading partners – the Tampa Bay Rays – for Blake Snell. It was only a year ago when the Padres acquired Tommy Pham and Jake Cronenworth in exchange for Hunter Renfroe and Xavier Edwards. Some assumed the Rays wouldn’t sell off any of their moderately priced building blocks coming off of a World Series appearance in 2020. If you assumed that, well, clearly you forgot the Rays’ entire identity.
Snell, the 2018 AL Cy Young winner, is still only 28 years old and under team control for the next three years at a team-friendly price tag of $39 million. He’s exactly the kind of asset you’d think a team with a limited payroll and in the middle of their competitive window would want to keep, but the Rays do things by their own playbook. They don’t care about your feelings, as they proved when they pulled Blake Snell in Game Six of the World Series after just 73 pitches. There’s plenty to dislike about the Rays’ methods, but more often than not over the last decade plus, they do work. A long history of shrewd sell-high trades has helped the Rays stay consistently competitive with a bottom-of-the-barrel payroll. The Padres, meanwhile, are a bit more partial to moves of the headline-grabbing variety.
In the Snell trade, the Padres acquired an Ace who has posted a 2.85 ERA across 337.2 innings over the last three years. In addition, the lefty has proven he can shut down the Dodgers’ lineup on the biggest stage there is – which certainly means something to Preller and the Padres. The Padres might have been Wild Card favorites had they sat on their hands and done nothing this offseason. Despite what should be growth from their young core, the Dodgers were still the team to beat in the NL West. A big move for an Ace like Snell was a necessity, particularly after midseason acquisition Mike Clevinger – who was supposed to be that guy for them – was lost to Tommy John surgery.
Like any appealing asset, though, the price paid for the Padres acquired Ace acquisition cost for Snell wasn’t cheap. Four young players are packing their bags for Tampa, and if the Rays organization identified these four guys as being difference-makers, it’d be foolish to bet against them. Remember Randy Arozarena? Luis Patiño, the #10 prospect in all of baseball and the Padres’ second-ranked prospect, is the biggest piece heading to Florida. The bad news is he’s only thrown 25 innings above A-ball to this point, but most of that came in the majors this past season, and if there’s an organization that can help young pitchers translate raw talent into on-the-field results it’s certainly the Rays.
Switch-hitting catcher Francisco Mejía, the second piece in the deal, was once one of the top prospects in baseball himself but has lost some of his luster since being traded from the Indians to the Padres. He’s had a poor showing at the plate in his 128 games at the big-league level, compiling only a .225/.282/.386 line in parts of four seasons, and it’s an open question whether his subpar defense will eventually force him to move to another position. Still, switch-hitting catchers who put up 50-game hitting streaks in the minor leagues don’t grow on trees, so if he can improve his skills as a receiver there’s a good chance he could still be an average starting catcher. The Rays had virtually no catching depth behind Mike Zunino before this swap, so pilfering Mejía and prospect Blake Hunt from the Padres will go a long way towards helping them cover the position. The fourth piece of the return, Cole Wilcox, was only drafted this year but received a $3.3 million signing bonus thanks to his high-90s fastball.
Just a few hours later, the Padres gave up an additional four prospects plus righty Zach Davies in exchange for Yu Darvish and Victor Caratini from the Cubs. None of the prospects, which include two shortstops and two outfielders, were among the Padres’ ten highest ranked prospects. Still, the Cubs added a stockpile of hitters to their system while swapping out Darvish for a cheaper option in Davies, who only has one year of control left. San Diego will be paying the brunt of the $59 million owed to the 34-year-old Darvish over the next three seasons, but if Darvish can come anywhere close to the level of production he gave the Cubs this season, it would still be a bargain. Darvish was the runner-up for the NL’s Cy Young award this year, and Preller is plenty familiar with him, having been part of the Rangers’ front office when they signed Darvish out of Japan before the 2012 season. Speaking of familiarity, Cubs GM Jed Hoyer was the GM of the Padres at that time, though obviously none of the five players he acquired from San Diego in this trade were there at that time.
The other piece leaving the Friendly Confines, Victor Caratini, will help compensate for the catching depth the Friars traded away in the Snell deal. Like the departed Mejía, Caratini is also a switch-hitting, bat-first catcher who hasn’t fully reached his potential at the plate to this point. However, his career line of .250/.327/.372 is superior to Mejía’s and perfectly reasonable for a backup catcher. Caratini will presumably stay in a reserve role behind Austin Nola with top prospect Luis Campusano is also waiting in the wings if he can clear up his legal troubles first.
Last but not least was the free agent signing Preller snuck in between his two trades. Infielder Ha-Seong Kim signed with the team for four years and $25 million in a calculated gamble bringing the shortstop over from the Korean Baseball Organization. Since 2019 with the Kiwoom Heroes, Kim has batted .307/.393/.500 with 49 home runs and 56 stolen bases in 62 attempts. He’s been 42 percent better than a league-average hitter there going by wRC+, and he’s still only 25 years old. The Blue Jays were rumored to have put in an offer before he signed with San Diego and the Rangers also showed a lot of interest, so plenty of major league teams seem to think he’s the real deal. While Yu Darvish started his career in Japan and not Korea, perhaps he can also function as a mentor to help guide Kim in his transition to the American version of the game.
According to Joel Sherman of the New York Post, the Padres plan to utilize Kim at second base and move 2020 Rookie of the Year runner-up Jake Cronenworth to left field. This would create a bit of a logjam in the corner outfield with the presence of Tommy Pham and Wil Myers on the roster, but having excess depth in the infield and outfield isn’t the worst problem a team can have. This excess depth approach mirrors what the Dodgers have been doing for years. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
If Preller decides he’d like to wheel and deal some more this offseason, he’d always have the option of using one of Cronenworth, Pham, or Myers as a trade chip – though Myers would probably only depart in a salary dump situation thanks to his burdensome contract.
Padres fans wake up today with a lot better roster than they had on Monday morning. They were already good, and now they’re better. They’ll be going into 2021 with a rotation consisting of Snell, Dinelson Lamet, Darvish, Chris Paddack, and Adrian Morejon, with uber-prospect MacKenzie Gore providing a midseason reinforcement. I certainly wouldn’t raise an eyebrow if that turned out to be the best rotation in baseball next season, and I doubt many other people would be surprised either. As if that weren’t scary enough, Mike Clevinger will join the group in 2022. A rotation that deep, augmented by a deep and dynamic lineup led by Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado, is a recipe for a lot of wins.
The Braves have also improved themselves with the additions of Charlie Morton and Drew Smyly, but the series of moves ultimately the talent that the Padres acquired should fairly well cement the Friars as the consensus second-best team in the league behind the Dodgers. The NL West is going to be discussed often in 2021. On Monday, the Padres ensured that they will be in the conversation.
