Major League Baseball’s annual Winter Meetings have come to a close, and the biggest moves involving the San Diego Padres have involved their players leaving town.
All-Star closer Robert Suarez signed a three-year, $45-million contract with the Atlanta Braves. Starting pitcher Dylan Cease joined the Toronto Blue Jays for $210 million. Conversely, the Padres have added a trio of little-known relief pitchers for a total of $3 million.
It’s not how the Friar Faithful were necessarily hoping the first six weeks of the offseason would have panned out, but as we’ve seen with this front office, big things can happen at any time. President of Baseball Operations A.J. Preller loves to make a splash, and the rumor mill is buzzing that he’s ready to go big game hunting again.
Of course, that begs the question: How crazy is he willing to get?
To try and figure that out, let’s look at the things we know.
We know San Diego needs starting pitching and a 1st baseman/DH (or both) with serious pop. We know, after the last couple of trade deadlines, they don’t have their usual cache of prospect talent to deal from. We know they don’t have a ton of financial flexibility to throw mountains of cash at high-profile free agents. And we know they have a couple of current big leaguers who, if they’re willing to shock the sports world, could be dealt for a treasure trove of talent.
If Preller is, as MLB Network has been crowing about, cooking up trade ideas that could be considered “franchise-altering,” we should try to define what kind of moves would qualify as truly seismic.
There are very few things that could rise to that level, and they all involve trading either a veteran superstar or a young cornerstone that most of us think it untouchable. The first category consists of Manny Machado and Xander Bogaerts, but it’s hard to envision a deal involving either of them due to their massive contracts and no-trade clauses. Plus, they’re both on the wrong side of 30. I’m not including Jake Cronenworth here because it would be no surprise to anyone if he was traded.
So, assuming a Machado to Philadelphia swap is not in the cards, we have to look at the second category, and that’s where things get equal parts exciting and terrifying. There are really three Padres who could justify being part of a true blockbuster trade.
OF Fernando Tatis Jr., OF Jackson Merrill and RHP Mason Miller.
All three are generational talents under team control for several years. All three would fetch massive returns of both big league and prospect talent. And all three would really tick off the San Diego fan base unless they resulted in an immediate trip to the World Series. Let’s address them one by one.
TRADING FERNANDO TATIS JR.
The Tatis trade winds have been swirling for a while now, even if Preller said during the Winter Meetings he’s not a guy they’re talking about right now (which could simply be because nobody has made the right kind of offer yet). Preller says they need Tatis. What he means by that is they need Tatis TO PLAY LIKE TATIS and remove the maddening offensive inconsistency that’s plagued him the last few years.
If he still looked like the 2021 version of Tatis that was an MVP finalist, we never would have heard him brought up in trade rumors in the first place (and keep in mind he has a no-trade clause for the next few years). Even though he hasn’t played up to the bar he set himself, he’s one of the best defensive players in the game at any position and has stretches at the plate where nobody can get him out. At the age of 27 there’s still plenty to dream on, and that’s the hard part about this.
If other teams think he can recapture his old form they’ll give up a king’s ransom to get him, filling multiple holes on the San Diego roster and improving the overall product. The problem is, if he does end up doing that elsewhere it’s hard to conceive of any return that’s worth what peak Tatis provides, and the Friar Faithful would literally NEVER get over it (nor should they), so dealing him is certainly the scariest scenario with the widest range of potential outcomes.
TRADING JACKSON MERRILL
This is the one that popped up from out of nowhere. Merrill is entering his age-23 season, already an All-Star at a premium position with a penchant for playing well in big moments, and under an obscenely team-friendly contract through 2034.
If the Padres were to trade him they would almost certainly get even more than they gave up to the Nationals to land Juan Soto in 2022, which included All-Stars MacKenzie Gore, C.J. Abrams, and James Wood, and pitcher Jarlin Susana, who is now a Top-100 prospect. Put that into perspective real quick.
If I were to tell you trading away one player would bring back to San Diego a lefty with elite strikeout numbers, a shortstop and left fielder who will both go to the All-Star Game before the age of 25, and a 21-year-old starting pitcher with a 100-MPH fastball, you’d ask “where do I sign?” If I then tell you that one player you’re trading away is Merrill, you’d say “let’s not get hasty now, tell me more about this idea.”
Merrill is already transitioning into the clubhouse leader San Diego needs. He has the perfect ballplayer attitude and San Diego absolutely adores him. Making a move like this would be nothing short of stunning, and if it didn’t work there would be a riot at the gates of Petco Park.
TRADING MASON MILLER
Why would a closer qualify as a blockbuster trade piece? Because everyone wants impact arms and you won’t find many more dominant pitchers than Miller. Look no further than the 104.5 MPH heater on the outside corner he struck out Cubs catcher Carson Kelly with in the Wild Card series for evidence of how lethal Miller is. He also had an Immaculate Inning, striking out three hitters on nine pitches, and he didn’t even use his fastball once to pull it off (all nine pitches were sliders).
Miller has two PLUS-PLUS pitches, is just hitting arbitration for the first time, and under team control for four more years so teams would be drooling to get their hands on him. The Padres themselves gave up a truckload at the trade deadline a year ago, including top-ranked shortstop prospect Leodalis DeVries, to land Miller so any deal now would have to net AT LEAST that level of talent and fill more than a couple of needs on their big league roster.
Bullpen is a position of strength for the Friars and they could very well end up dealing from it to make improvements. That’s just smart business practice. Dangling Miller as a trade chip, however, is entering the realm of “y’all better not mess this up or we will have words.”
The odds of any of these trades becoming reality are infinitesimally small but if we’ve learned anything about Preller over the last 11 years it’s there’s nothing he can’t, and won’t, pull off if he thinks it will improve the San Diego Padres.
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