The Padres swung yet another trade for an established big-league starter, using the fruits of their deep farm system (which has become shallower this offseason) to acquire Joe Musgrove from Pittsburgh for five players, with one of those five then going to the Mets in a side trade that netted Pittsburgh a promising catching prospect too.
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Musgrove has evolved substantially as a pitcher since the Astros first acquired him in the 10-player trade in 2012 that sent J.A. Happ to Toronto, and improved even more quickly when he went to Pittsburgh in the Gerrit Cole trade in January 2018. He could always spin a breaking ball, but his four-seamer can still be too true, and until he got to Pittsburgh his changeup was an afterthought in his arsenal. It’s become a better pitch for him, enough that his platoon split, while still there, is modest enough for him to be a mid-rotation starter, although he may be best served as a twice-through-the-order guy in the same way Tampa Bay used Blake Snell.
The Padres’ rotation had a lot of questions entering the offseason, with Mike Clevinger out for 2021 after Tommy John surgery, Dinelson Lamet still dealing with a tender arm and Chris Paddack coming off a disastrous 2020 campaign. Now San Diego has three veterans at the top of the rotation in Yu Darvish, Snell and Musgrove, so they can ease Lamet back in if needed, pushing Paddack to the fourth or fifth spot. They can also let their three top young lefties — MacKenzie Gore, Adrián Morejón and Ryan Weathers — develop in Triple A or the big-league bullpen until they’re absolutely ready to contribute in the rotation. All three project as good big-league starters but are probably better served with more time in the minors or, if there are no minor-league games, at an alternate site before they start games in the majors in 2021.
The Pirates received a package that’s more quantity than quality, although they did land one prospect likely to make my top 100 later this month, outfielder Hudson Head. The No. 5 prospect in the Padres’ system at the time of the deal, Head has elite bat speed and has shown flashes of above-average power already, just needing to fill out more to get to that consistently. He’s a plus runner as well and should be able to stay in center field with at least average defense there. In his pro debut in the summer of 2019, he handled the bat well, with a solid contact rate and 15 walks in 141 plate appearances, which was enough to get teams to start asking for him in trades last offseason. He’s the one potential star in the deal for Pittsburgh, with a ceiling of a power/speed hitter with good on-base skills who can handle center field.
Right-hander Drake Fellows was the Padres’ sixth-round pick in 2019 out of Vanderbilt, where he was the Friday night starter for his last two seasons, but has yet to make his professional debut after a very long 2019 championship season for the Commodores led the Padres to shut him down for the rest of that summer. He’s a fastball/slider guy, up to 95 mph as a starter in college, with below-average command and control, and may not have the third pitch he’d need to start.
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Southpaw Omar Cruz is a potential fifth starter who has had success in low A at a young age, striking out 41 percent of hitters at that level in 10 starts in 2019, but his fastball is fringy and he doesn’t offer any projection. The fact that he’s left-handed and throws strikes could help him get to the back of a rotation at some point despite the lack of a clear out pitch, although it’s possible the breaking ball will become more of one as he pitches more.
David Bednar is a great draft success story, a 35th-round pick who became the first player from Lafayette College in 25 years to reach the majors. He has a decent splitter but didn’t get the same tumble on the pitch in 2020, leaving him without his best weapon. But when that pitch is on he’s been able to get lefties and righties out at similar rates, which gives him a good shot to be a middle reliever in the new era of the three-batter minimum.
The Pirates weren’t quite done, though, and a second move improved their results. The Mets jumped into the deal in a peculiar fashion, trading a promising catching prospect, 20-year-old Endy Rodriguez, to the Pirates for left-hander Joey Lucchesi, who came from the Padres in the original trade.
Lucchesi had a solid year in 2019 in the Padres’ rotation, but he was a big beneficiary of their home ballpark in his tenure with San Diego; across his major-league career, he allowed a .494 slugging percentage on the road, contributing to a 5.54 ERA away from home. His sinker doesn’t generate enough groundballs, and the pitch doesn’t have the velocity or movement to keep hitters from hitting it hard and in the air. He was durable in 2018-19 and could give the Mets some innings as a swingman, but he might be too homer-prone to be their fifth starter. In exchange for Lucchesi, the Pirates got a very promising catch-and-throw prospect who has shown some life with the bat already in Rodriguez. He hit well in the Dominican Summer League and Gulf Coast League, both complex-level leagues, in 2019, with good bat control, and looks like he could get to average power between his swing and some projection in his six-foot frame. He’s never played above the complex leagues, so there’s definitely risk here, but the catch-and-throw tools give him a higher chance of eventually reaching the majors than most prospects with this little experience. If I’m the Pirates, I’d much rather roll the dice on Rodriguez developing more at the plate and becoming a regular than take Lucchesi just for the innings, and I think this side move makes the entire deal much more balanced for Pittsburgh in the end.
(Photo of Musgrove: Norm Hall / Getty Images)
