MONDAY: USA Today’s Bob Nightengale tweets that the Padres will indeed sign Cahill to a one-year deal worth $1.75MM. Cahill had interest elsewhere as a reliever but passed on those opportunities for a chance to work out of the rotation in San Diego, he adds.
Cahill can earn up to $1MM in total incentives, per Heyman (via Twitter). There’s also a $250K trade bonus in the deal.
SATURDAY: Cahill still needs to take his physical to complete his deal with the Padres, ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick tweets. First, though, he’ll travel to the White House to celebrate the Cubs’ World Series victory with the rest of his old team.
FRIDAY 8:50am: Cahill’s deal, if completed, will come with a guarantee in the vicinity of the $1.75MM guarantees received by Richard and Chacin, tweets Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports. Richard’s deal came with additional incentives based on games started, and it’s possible that Cahill could be eyeing a similar setup.
7:17am: The Padres are closing in on a contract with right-hander Trevor Cahill, reports Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union Tribune. The 28-year-old is expected to be given the opportunity to win a job in the rotation, according to Lin.
A second-round pick by the A’s back in 2006, Cahill reached the Majors as a 21-year-old in 2009 and by 2011 had inked a five-year, $30.5MM contract with Oakland on the heels of a 2.97 ERA across 196 2/3 innings in his sophomore season. From 2010-13, Cahill pitched like a solid mid-rotation arm for the A’s and the Diamondbacks (following a trade), logging a 3.72 ERA and averaging 30 starts and 188 innings per season. While he was never a prolific strikeout pitcher (6.3 K/9 in that successful stretch), Cahill routinely ranked among the league-leaders in ground-ball rate, mitigating some of the lack of strikeouts.
Cahill’s career looked to be headed in the wrong direction a couple of years ago, though, as he experienced a rapid decline with the D-backs and pitched poorly enough to be released by the Braves following a 2015 trade. However, he reinvented himself as a reliever in the Cubs’ bullpen late in the 2015 season and pitched quite well with Chicago in a bullpen role again in 2016. In the past two seasons with the Cubs, Cahill has worked to 2.61 ERA with 9.6 K/9, 4.4 BB/9 and a 57.4 percent ground-ball rate. Given his youth — Cahill is still just 28 (29 in March) despite being an established name for quite some time — there’s plenty of reason to believe that he can return to form.
ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick reported back in December that Cahill’s preference was to land somewhere that came with an opportunity to return to the rotation, and his strong relief work with the Cubs was enough to convince the Padres to make that offer, it seems. He’ll join a muddled rotation picture that has little in the way of clarity in San Diego.
Right-hander Luis Perdomo’s solid second half in 2016 likely earned him a spot in the 2017 rotation, and lefty Christian Friedrich appears poised for a rotation spot despite struggling in the final three months of the 2016 campaign. San Diego also re-signed left-hander Clayton Richard with an eye toward returning him to the rotation following a successful nine-start stint (2.41 ERA) to finish out the year. Right-hander Jhoulys Chacin, too, signed a low-cost one-year deal with the Padres this winter and figures to be in the rotation mix, as does right-hander Paul Clemens, who fared well in a dozen starts with San Diego late last year.
Also in San Diego’s rotation competition will be right-hander Jarred Cosart, who has struggled in the past two seasons and underwent surgery to remove loose bodies from his elbow following the 2016 campaign. Waiver claim and former top prospect Tyrell Jenkins could also get a look in Spring Training despite struggling in his MLB debut and in Triple-A last season.
Photo courtesy of USA Today’s Sports Images.
going to miss him in a Cub uniform
Just another guy that couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
Good luck Trevor and thanks.
While reading about him I was sorry to find this about former Cubs catcher Chris Cannizzaro.
link to sandiegouniontribune.com
He should be the last pitcher added by the Padres.
Why? Cheap deal and if he proves he can start again he’ll have a ton of trade value. This is exactly the type of player the Padres should be adding.
He means that the padres rotation is now full
No team ever has a “full” rotation. The Dodgers started last season with ten starters. They ended up trading for two starters during the season. because of injury and ineffectiveness.
There’s depth, but there’s always room for more. Assuming Cahill slots into the rotation, this gives the team Cahill, Richard, Chacin, Friedrich, Cosart, and Clemens as starters with no minor league options. That’s six guys who, if all are healthy, either forces a roster move, a six-man rotation, or a man into the bullpen. With Richard and Cahill having extensive recent experience in that role, it’s likely that one or both becomes a swingman. That said, the chances of all six starting the season healthy aren’t great.. Behind them is a promising group of Perdomo, Zach Lee, Tyrell Jenkins, Cesar Vargas, and Walker Lockett to provide depth in AAA. I’m not feeling so scared of a dreadful rotation this year.
Zach Lee has lost a lot of his promise but he definitely has the ability to turn things around if the stars line up
That group may be mildly interesting, but certainly not promising. And the same is true of the six guys you list above them.
This still lines up as a historically bad rotation, but now it includes guys whose names are somewhat recognizable.
Recognizable doesn’t equal good. I think that if we can keep Spangy on the field and get a better defensive shortstop that these worm killer starters can keep the team ERA down pretty well. Not big on predictions, but I am pretty confident that this won’t be a historically bad rotation even in terms of team history. That 2009 starting rotation was pretty stinky. Correia, Gaudin and Geer were our #1, #2, and #3. In the 1st half they put up an ERA over 5.00. Last season the Dbacks and Twins starters put up an ERA over 5.00. These guys will do better than that. In fact I believe they will do better than the 4.61 the Padres starters put up last season.
It’s a dreadful rotation. We probably shouldn’t fool ourselves. Bad pitchers who put the ball in play plus bad defense isn’t a formula for success.
He’s a reliever now. Padres need bodies to stand at mound.
Based on that collection of starters I would say they need bodies in the pen as well.
Looks like they’re adding another veteran arm to the pile. If he doesn’t make it in the rotation, perhaps he can contribute in the bullpen.
Damn, under $2M??? That’s low. He probably is looking to pad stats in SD’s pitchers park and hit the market next year to grab a bigger multi-year deal – especially if he can still be a SP.
Yeah, I think he was mostly looking for a team to give him sp reps, and since sd’s rotation is a dumpster fire anyway, they probably figured, “what the hell”
Smart moves by Preller. If Chacin and Cahill have somewhat successful starts to the season padres could get a decent package back from contenders if its a sellers market like last year. By no means are any of these deals breaking the bank. And if Capps returns to dominant form Preller could get a haul for him as well.
Now just bring back Peavy and shift him to the pen. Cahill Richard Chacin Friedrich could all be traded mid season.
Major discount, he’s coming off a strong season and signing for cheap.
I wouldn’t call it a strong season. His peripherals were not that impressive at all.
The results were, so who cares?
Because bad peripherals generally mean a pitcher’s results will regress,
This could be a nice pickup for the Padres if Balsley can help Cahill iron out a couple of things. With the Padres 40 man being full, with 3 rule 5 guys and a couple of lottery tickets in Lee and Jenkins, I wonder if Preller and Co. has a trade in the works? If not, I wonder who they will be taking off the 40 man roster?
I would guess they’ll try to outright someone in order to sneak Jenkins or Blash down to the minors, maybe Zach Lee.
Quackenbush or Keith Hessler would be my guess.
The Cubs seem to have ironed out his problems increasing his 4 seamer up in the zone and by dumping his slider and increasing use of the knucklecurve and changeup.
he got crushed when he went up in the zone last year, almost a .400 BAA.
By no means am I saying this rotation is going to be any good, but I am impressed that they were able to get Richard, Chacin, and now Cahil for roughly 5.25M total. Those guys plus Friedrich at around 2M and Perdomo at .5m means the starting 5 will likely make less than 8M total. Padres did a decent job of filling this rotation out on the cheap.
Very true, and if even only one of them turns it around and nets us 2-3 prospects, that would be the best deal/scenario possible.
Yes, 8 million dollars for 5 replacement-level pitchers is good. But those pitchers are really bad.
I always thought Cahill would be successful under Searage in Pitt.
It’s going to be a long year for Padres fans.
I’d take Cahill in this situation for that deal a thousand times over what the Marlims gave Jeff Locke. Like I said, Locke should have got a NRI to ST on a minor league deal at best
Cahill is from SAN Diego County, welcome home!
The Padres should sign Phillip Rivers too! Unmechanical delivery, but we’ve seen that before.
I wish him the best, he provided a lot of solid innings the past couple of years.
Why would they pay this useless jerk? Firdt lff the guy is terrible and 2nd them Padres arent going nowhere. Instead of hiring cahill they should have hired a high school pitcher and pocketed the money.
Tell us how you really feel Pepe
Hopefully the corresponding transaction to free up a spot on the 40-man is designating Kevin Quackenbush for assignment. Aside from Amarista, Quackenbush has somehow been able to slither his mediocre abilities on the roster each and every year for the past 3-4 years. So hopefully it’s bye-bye to him just like it was for the little ninja lol. The only other name on the 40 that makes sense to DFA is Keith Hessler but we shall see, he will be next to go if we indeed sign Peavy or Aybar before spring training starts.
A trade could be another option. Agreed on Quack being the first name on the DFA order.
Yeah I could see a deal to free some 40-man space as well. Quackenbush, Hessler, Blash are all guys I feel are on the end of the chopping block & could be the first to get traded or just DFA’d.
He looks like an old version of what the kid on 2 and a half men looked like when he was young.
Glad he got his chance to start, will be interested to see how he does out of the rotation
3 5th starters for $1.75m each is an incredible deal for a rebuilding team with a chance at getting some minor trade value from them.
Talk about a pay cut. Made $4.25M last year. hell of a deal for the Padres. He’s shown at the very least he can be a solid reliever. I was expecting him to sign elsewhere as a starter but thought for sure he’d get a 1 year deal worth about $7-8M. He was a pretty good starter from 2010-2013. He sucked in 2014. Struggled mightily with the Braves in 2015, but was pretty friggin solid since coming to the Cubs the last month+ of 2015 and all of 2016. I mean looking at what other pitchers have been fetching I find this incredibly low. Solid 4th starter for less than $2M. At least earlier in his career he posted QUALITY stuff for a 4th starter….. 2010-2013 #s: 3.72 ERA, 121 starts, 4.09 FIP, 1.31 WHIP, 6.3 K/9, 3.4 BB/9………. I’d take that from my 4th starter. I mean, sh**….. those numbers aren’t too far off what Greinke did in 2016…. if not better. If he can return to that form he is a pretty attractive trade candidate I’d imagine for a team thinking they can compete. I mean look what the Cubs got for flipping Scott Feldman (and Steve Clevenger) for in 2013 – Jake Arrieta and Pedro Strop (plus cash). Feldman was nothing special….. just a decent starter. At the time Arrieta was looking pretty bad, sure. But he did have upside and even still – Pedro Strop was a pretty solid reliever for Baltimore. Him being a solid set up man was no surprise. I mean even if the Padres just flip Cahill for a long term, solid bullpen arm it’s just one less thing to worry about.
Solid move Padres. Solid move.