The Padres swung three trades between Sunday and Monday, one of which included their No. 5 prospect, Taylor Trammell, as they tried to shore up their rotation and bullpen and to address their offensive void behind the plate. It’s a huge set of moves for the Padres, who are on track to reach the playoffs in A.J. Preller’s sixth year as general manager, as they use the tremendous depth in their farm system to improve their major-league roster — which is exactly what you do when you have a system like they compiled.
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The first big trade sent Trammell (No. 43 overall), right-hander Andres Muñoz, catcher Luis Torrens, and utilityman Ty France to the Mariners for catcher Austin Nola and relievers Dan Altavilla and Austin Adams. The inclusion of Trammell is the big surprise here, as the Padres had just acquired him last July and seemed very high on him, especially since they worked with him to restore his old swing from before the Reds had tried to alter his launch angle. He’s limited to left field by his arm, but he’s a very intelligent, disciplined hitter with good bat and foot speed and strong instincts on the bases. His 2019 was a disappointment, however, as he struggled in the first half with the swing change, and after the trade showed more power but continued to strike out at a much higher rate than he had before. He’s one of the top prospects who was most hurt by the lost minor-league season, as he needed reps to work on restoring his old swing and to demonstrate to the industry that his 2019 season was an outlier. The Reds and Padres both raved about his makeup and his overall feel for the game, and it’s possible or even likely that the Mariners just did what the Padres did last July, buying low on a top prospect who hasn’t produced and in this case didn’t even get a chance to produce for his new organization. With Jarred Kelenic and Julio Rodriguez potentially manning center and right, respectively, in the future, the Mariners have an entire outfield of Top 50 overall prospects on the way.
Muñoz is out while recovering from Tommy John surgery, but he is a high-upside reliever who’s been hitting 100+ mph since he was 18 years old and throws plenty of strikes, missing bats with a plus slider in the mid-80s. France is a useful bench piece who can fill in at multiple corner spots with above-average power He’d posted a .395 BABIP in 61 PA this year for the Padres, so his line really isn’t indicative of his offensive ability, although he should hit enough to hold down a reserve role.
Torrens made his professional debut in 2013, but still has fewer than 2,000 pro PA due to a shoulder injury that wiped out his 2015 season and the way he’s been used since he was a Rule 5 pick before 2017. He’s barely played in the majors since his Rule 5 year, but he raked in Double A last year and I don’t see any reason why his swing wouldn’t work against major-league pitching, including good velocity. He’s also thrown better as time has gotten him further away from the surgery, and if the Mariners just let him play regularly he still has the upside of an everyday catcher who gets on base with some pop.
That seems like a strong return for the Mariners for players who weren’t likely to contribute to their next playoff team, although all three help the Padres right now. Austin Nola is an organizational catcher gone good, as he went from a senior sign in 2012 who didn’t hit for an average over .261 until his sixth year in pro ball or slug .400 until his seventh. He has developed average power in his late 20s (he’s 30 this year) and as he’s gotten stronger his high contact rates have translated into more production. He’s just keeping the spot warm for prospect Luis Campusano, but as the Padres try to break their postseason drought and perhaps get a higher seed in the playoffs, Nola’s a big upgrade over the below replacement-level production they’ve gotten so far from Austin Hedges, Francisco Mejía, and Torrens.
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Adams is returning now from knee surgery but is expected to be able to join the major-league roster shortly, and he was dominant last year for the Mariners with a plus-plus slider that hitters swung and missed on 23 percent of the time. He could be a big weapon for a Padres bullpen that lacked a knockout right-handed option, and his addition likely made it easier for them to include Cal Quantrill in the Clevinger deal. Altavilla hasn’t thrown enough strikes to be more than an up-and-down reliever, but it is interesting that he has a career-long reverse platoon split despite being a hard-throwing fastball/slider guy.
The Padres then swapped six players to Cleveland for starter “Typhoid Mike” Clevenger, outfielder Greg Allen, and a PTBNL, but they did what smart teams do in these situations — they dealt from the middle of their farm system, rather than from the top, trading quantity to avoid giving up any of their elite prospects. That makes it a solid return for Cleveland but perhaps a little underwhelming for fans of the team-that-must-change-its-name who hoped they’d at least land a marquee young player in return for one of their best starters.
Cleveland netted the Padres’ No. 7 prospect, shortstop Gabriel Arias; No. 9 prospect, infielder Owen Miller; No. 13 prospect, lefty Joey Cantillo; and major-leaguers Josh Naylor, Cal Quantrill, and Austin Hedges. (All rankings are from prior to the season and don’t include this year’s draft.) This could turn out to be a huge haul for Cleveland if Arias and Naylor hit their ceilings, but I think a median forecast would be that they get good value spread across the entire package without any one player really “making” the deal. Arias is a plus defender at short who has already come into above-average power at age 19 and should see more, but he has a lot of holes in his approach, with just 23 unintentional walks last year in High A (where he was one of the youngest regulars). If one guy in this trade turns out to be someone we can’t believe Cleveland got in the return, I’d bet it’s him — he has youth, tools, and good feel on the defensive side of the ball all working in his favor.
Naylor might be the biggest individual beneficiary, as he gets away from the logjam of Wil Myers, Eric Hosmer, and now Mitch Moreland, and ends up in the same system as his younger brother Bo, a top 100 prospect who was Cleveland’s first-round pick in 2018. Naylor is a patient hitter with power who got crushed by Petco — he slugged 104 points better on the road since his recall last year, and even had an 86 point OBP split — but who has everyday upside even if he ends up as a DH. He worked hard to improve his conditioning before 2019 and Cleveland should send him out to left field for now, since they’ve gotten no production there while their DH, Naylor’s former teammate Franmil Reyes, has been solid at that spot thanks to a big jump in his BABIP this year.
Miller should at least develop into a utility infielder but has the upside to be a regular at second base with his ability to make contact, although he lacks the home run power to be more than an everyday guy. Cantillo is a deception lefty with a very funky delivery and plus changeup, more likely a swingman or reliever but worth developing as a starter for now to see how this unusual combination works as he moves up the ladder.
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Quantrill has moved to a one-inning relief role and has shifted to more of a sinker/slider approach from his prior four-seam/changeup plan. His slider has crept up to be more than an average pitch and his sinker is definitely more effective than his flat four-seamer, and I’d stretch him out a bit more than one inning at a time since he has a plus changeup and can use it effectively against lefties. Hedges is what he is at this point, a premium defensive catcher with power who has never posted even a .290 OBP in the majors, making him a very good backup but not someone who should play every day.
The Padres’ rotation has been a disappointment even as the team as a whole has played well, with just two starters, Zach Davies and Dinelson Lamet, producing at or above league-average levels. Chris Paddack has struggled with the long ball, in part because he still doesn’t have an average breaking ball and right-handed hitters are sitting more on his four-seamer. Clevinger immediately becomes their No. 1 starter even if, as seems likely, he’s more like his 2017-18 self than the 2019 version. He was off to a rough start for Cleveland; in four starts this year he’s had more trouble keeping hitters off his four-seamer, giving up five of his six homers off the pitch and missing fewer bats with it than he did last year. He’s moving to a better pitchers’ park, at least, and four starts is a small enough sample that it shouldn’t weigh too heavily given that his velocity and other pitch characteristics seem the same. Allen is a great extra outfielder and pinch-runner but lacks the bat to play semi-regularly, perhaps more of a tactical weapon for the team in the playoffs than someone they’d use often in the regular season.
Before those two deals, the Padres swung a smaller one to grab Mitch Moreland from the Red Sox for two lesser prospects, neither of whom was in San Diego’s preseason top 20.
Wil Myers has destroyed left-handed pitching this year, with a .429/.487/.943 line in 39 PA so far, and Moreland can be his platoon partner from the other side, as he has long shown he can hit right-handers for power and has been even better against them since the start of 2019. The Padres are good enough on the offensive side that they should be thinking this way, trying to patch any small weaknesses (or large ones, like behind the plate) by using excess prospect depth from their farm system.
Hudson Potts was a first-round Padres pick in 2016, a year when San Diego had three picks in the top 25, and after this week’s binge they’ve now traded all three of them (Potts, Quantrill and Eric Lauer) as well as their fourth overall pick from that year, Buddy Reed. Potts has real power but just fringy bat speed, and Double-A pitchers started attacking him with velocity inside, especially up and in, to which he couldn’t adjust. He’s a mediocre defender at third who probably has to move to first. He’s 21 years old, but if his bat speed is the real issue here, that’s not something that just improves with age, and he hasn’t shown the propensity to make real adjustments in the last few seasons. Jeisson Rosario is a plus defender in center who controls the zone but has grade-35 power, if not less, slugging just .314 last year in a good hitter’s park in Lake Elsinore. He drew 87 walks in 2019, the third-highest total in the minors, but that’s not going to stand up if he doesn’t show he can drive the ball and pitchers realize they can attack him with impunity in the zone.
(Top photo of Clevinger: Hannah Foslien / Getty Images)
