With superstar slugger Juan Soto shipped off to the Bronx alongside center fielder Trent Grisham, the Padres suddenly have an acute need for additions to their outfield. Fernando Tatis Jr. is locked into an everyday role in right field, but Jose Azocar, who slashed just .231/.278/.363 in 91 trips to the plate with the big league club last year, is the only other outfielder on the club’s 40-man roster.
While president of baseball operations AJ Preller told reporters (including Jon Morosi of MLB Network) in the aftermath of the deal that the club has some internal options for center field to consider, including Tatis and Double-A outfielder Jakob Marsee (the latter of whom ranks as the club’s #12 prospect according to MLB Pipeline) it seems clear that some external additions will be necessary following the departures of Soto and Grisham. After all, the 22-year-old Marsee just wrapped up his first full professional season with a 16-game cup of coffee at the Double-A level. While he held his own in that first taste of upper-level minor league action and impressed with a .391/.509/.707 slash line during the Arizona Fall League last month, starting the 2024 season as the everyday center fielder would be a herculean task for a youngster with just 819 professional at-bats under his belt.
In terms of potential external options to man the outfield in San Diego next season, Jon Heyman of the New York Post suggested earlier this afternoon that the Padres could get involved in the market for star KBO outfielder Jung Hoo Lee. It’s a sentiment that has since been echoed by MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand, who suggested that the Padres have Lee “high on their wish list” and that they could act quickly regarding the KBO star now that Soto is off the club’s books.
Lee, 25, ranked 15th on MLBTR’s annual Top 50 MLB free agents list, with a projected contract of five years and $50MM. Lee has been an above-average hitter in the KBO ever since he debuted at 18 years old back in 2017, but broke out in a big way during the 2022 campaign with a .349/.421/.575 slash line in 627 plate appearances that earned him KBO MVP honors. Lee’s 2023 season was cut short by a left ankle injury that required season-ending surgery, but he nonetheless is considered one of the top free agent outfielders available this offseason. While some evaluators have questioned Lee’s ability to stick in center field at the big league level, placing him in left field alongside Tatis and either Marsee or an external center field addition could make a lot of sense for a Padres club that not long ago signed another KBO star in Ha-Seong Kim back in 2021.
Beyond the outfield, Preller indicated to reporters (including AJ Cassavell of MLB.com and Jon Morosi of MLB Network) that the club figures to continue prioritizing pitching additions, with the hope of adding more starting pitching and a late-inning reliever. The club figures utilize King as a mid-rotation arm behind Joe Musgrove and Yu Darvish, and while the duo of Randy Vasquez and Jhony Brito could at least feasible combined to handle the fifth starter spot while Drew Thorpe finishes developing in the minors, that still leaves on rotation spot left to be filled in San Diego. Meanwhile, the loss of Josh Hader to free agency last month leaves a clear hole alongside Robert Suarez at the back of the San Diego bullpen.
One potential option the Padres appear to be considering as they look for ways to add outfield and pitching help would be dealing from their infield surplus, as Feinsand notes that the Padres would be open to dealing Jake Cronenworth this offseason. That’s not exactly a surprise for the cash-strapped Padres, as Cronenworth signed a seven-year, $80MM extension last offseason that will kick in during the 2024 season. Unfortunately, Cronenworth went on to have a career-worst season in 2023, slashing just .229/.312/.378 in 522 trips to the plate. Given the hefty contract that extends through Cronenworth’s age-36 campaign and his down season in 2023, it would be something of a surprise if a rival club was interested in taking on the contract without the Padres eating significant salary.
That being said, it’s at least feasible that the Padres could look to deal Cronenworth in a bad contract swap that would net San Diego a similarly valued player who better fits the club’s roster. After all, Cronenworth is a natural second basemen who was moved over to first to accommodate an infield of Kim, Xander Bogaerts, and Manny Machado last season. If the Padres could find an infield-needy club with a starting pitcher or outfielder on a net-negative contract, it’s at least feasible that a deal could make sense for both sides.
If they get Lee, it means they’re aiming to lower payroll drastically and remain competitive without having so many marquee names, which means if they can shed Machado and/or Tatis, Jr., or even Cronenworth, with his modest $11.428M AAV, etc. the Padres will jump at those chances.
Soto was the easiest of them all to get rid of because he isn’t locked into long term big money and his value basically couldn’t go much higher than it is right this moment; meanwhile, the rest of those guys are virtually impossible to move without eating huge chunks of their salaries, which would defeat the purpose of moving them.
Should be interesting.
Rofl, shed MACHADO or Tatis? Yr joking?
Tatis is club friendly AF
340 mil is team friendly?
25 mill per year for a player of tatis caliber is very reasonable.
For a player of his caliber on steroids*
He was on steroids last year??? You’re ignorant
Sure it is, for the rest of the league.
It’s almost 2024 now. Time for you to get some new material.
I still don’t understand the Bogaerts signing for so many years and cash.
A very good player but infield/SS was not a priority at the time. Then the Padres can’t keep Soto, Snell, Hader, or sign starting pitchers.
Peter Seidler knew he was dying and wanted to push in all his chips. That’s why the Padres aggressively pursued Judge, followed by Turner, then eventually they landed on X. Seems like the plan was to get the most impactful player possible, regardless of position.
Yeah I think with Seidler at the helm and being a beloved guy, the ownership group agreed to go all in on his behalf and try to win in the short time Sielder had left. It didn’t work out that way, unfortunately and with Seidler passed, the ownership group is getting realistic and trying to shed financial bloat and recalibrate where they can (Soto), try to manage where they can’t (Boegarts, Machado, Cronenworth, Tatis, Jr. etc.)
Had the Padres signed Judge they would have fielded the exact same outfield in 2023 that the Yankees will often have out there in 2024. Pretty strange.
Juan Soto shipped off “the the Bronx?” Longfellow Deeds strikes again!
The Padres need lefties. Left handed hitters, a left handed starter and reliever.
They can always trade Machado or El Niño..
They really can’t, since I know at least Tatis has a no trade, and he’s their only outfielder, big guy
They could always void his contract if he doesn’t agree to a trade?
lol yea that’s not a thing
@sdpadsfan. Other than Thorpe, who won’t be on the roster to start the 24 season, the other 3 pitchers in the Soto deal were all RHers. Oops. The only LH pitchers likely to make the 26 man roster next year are Cosgrove and Morejon. They desperately need LH pitching, too bad they didn’t fill that need with Soto. But they did get a back up catcher with 270 OBP
LH/RH of pitchers doesn’t matter. It only matters if you can get LH/RH batters out.
of course, but typically there is an association L v R. And as any good game manager knows (exempt maybe Melvin), it’s not just whether pitcher can get opposites out, it’s about hitters ratio of success against opposite armed pitchers.
I’m pretty sure I read something that said it’s less important for pitchers than hitters but I could be wrong. For pitchers they either have the pitches to get LH/RH hitters out or they don’t.
Some hitters actually do better against same side pitchers. But I just looked up the splits. Looks like Brito clearly struggles against lefty batters much more than King or Vasquez., though sample size not huge. So far in his career, King just gets everyone out. Hope he stays healthy.
I think Kim would be a better trade piece than Cronenworth…when you move Kim you can just move Cronenworth back to second base , easy peasy. Everyone’s happy.
Everyone except Padres fans
OK, genuine question, who would you consider the best ever position player/hitter to come out of the KBO and play in the big leagues?? The first name that pops into my head is Shin-Soo Choo, former Mariner & Ranger. But I am not sure if that’s correct.
Its not, but probably the best an American can remember
Answer his question then dork
@damascusj: Who is then?
Choo never played in the kbo.
Or at least he didn’t until the end of his career can’t remember. Definitely came to America young and started here.
Well, the way you phrased the question eliminates Choo. He never played in the KBO, coming up through MLB’s minor leagues starting at 18. Ji Man Choi also came up through MLB’s minors. My guess here is Kim on San Diego and Kang, who was on the Pirates. He was excellent his first two seasons before some other issues sidetracked him. (I’m not including former MLB players who went to the KBO and returned, as I don’t believe that’s what you’re seeking.)
There’s been more pitchers who have come over, but the overall level of play in the KBO continues to rise, so we should see more hitter success in the coming years. I do believe Lee will be good after an adjustment period, similar to Kim.
They should try to hook up with the Nats again on a trade. Cronenworth could play 2nd for them and they could take on the rest of the Patrick Corbin contract ($35 million) and throw in a prospect to offset salary.
This what are you saying it actually makes tons of sense.
How about Corbin and Victor Robles for Cronenworth
That seems like a pretty reasonable trade actually. Trading a lottery ticket prospect would probably lessen the monetary aspect needed and Corbin could be a veteran that eats some innings at the back of the rotation.
The padres are shedding payroll not paying for someone else’s garbage.
Good Luck unloading Cronenworth’s contract without taking another bad contract back or throwing in prospects.
Crone is one of only a handful of players with back to back 4 war seasons before a down year last year. He’ll be fine.
Trade Cronenworth to the Pirates
Sign the Korean CF
Re-sign Sanchez
They can’t afford Sanchez, that’s why they picked up a cheap BUC from Yanks
I’m surprised the Padres didn’t ask for Jasson Dominguez but I’m very happy they didn’t. I’m glad the Yankees got to keep him.
Dominguez is probably worth two Soto’s on one year deals.
Sure. The pitcher prospect they traded is almost as highly rated as he is.
which makes him worth at least 0.25 Abrams
The Mariners have the MOST PERFECT IDEAL outfielder ready to trade to the Padres, right now…wait for it…okay, now visualize: Taylor Trammell … match made in heaven.
Padres are a mess, even more than they were last year with all those crazy deals.
Padres are in fine shape. Have a core locked up and plenty of payroll flexibility.
I don’t know, who’s getting them to the postseason?
It’s December dude. Let Preller build out the roster. Tatis is a superstar, manny can be a top 5 mvp type, X just had a 4 war season as did Kim. The roster is on good shape, just need to add pitching (as does everyone else in the league).
X won’t sustain the production at the price they paid him. They’re better off trading him too or he will be a sore thumb in two years.
The price they paid has nothing to do with his production. Lol
It does when they are cutting payroll. I just don’t see how they expect to get to the postseason when they are trading away and letting go superstars. Who do you replace superstars with?
You are making stuff up. Who else are they “cutting”? They have payroll flexibility now that they intent to use.
“ Roster Resource pegs the Friars’ payroll around $156MM, while their luxury tax number (which uses contracts’ average salaries) sits in the $209MM range. Dennis Lin of the Athletic wrote this morning the Friars prefer to keep their tax number below next year’s $237MM lowest threshold.”
That would mean they have roughly 30 million to spend.
Okay, wrong word use. Not making it up. But they’re letting Snell walk.
Honestly, I like the Padres better than the Dodgers and 22′ was such a high year but how will they replicate that or do better?
I didn’t mean to say the Padres are better than the Dodgers. I just prefer it when the Padres win because I’m sick of the Dodgers
We’ll see how Preller fills out the roster. Dude is crazy creative.
Padres have also built and broke rosters within a year, so it’s certainly possible. The Soto trade seemed like a big waste though.
I mean, did the Padres really think they could afford all these stars?
@TG19
Bingo. This trade is a more loss than gain for the Padres, unless one considers the money saved, and what Preller can do with that salary flexibility. We’ll know more in another month. What Preller can do with a little bit of money, and his scouting team, can sometimes be awesome (well, yeah, and once in a while, crap out a Hosmer).. If he pulls in Lee, another starter, maybe does a salary swap with Cronenworth to put a legit 1B thumper on the roster, the entire 2024 situation could look quite a bit different.
We’ll see what happens.
They have no payroll flexibility. They are decreasing payroll. Why are padres fans not able to comprehend this?
Their payroll is currently at 143 mill and they plan to be at 200 mill reportedly. You’re making stuff up.
Their payroll is at 203m.
Wrong.
It’s at 145.3 million currently.
145.3 mill my bad.
I’m really glad all you padre fans don’t know how to read a payroll. Their projected payroll with benefits and arbitration is currently at $203,673,678. spotrac.com/mlb/san-diego-padres/payroll/
You know the difference between current/projected, right?
In your own link it has active payroll at 149 mill. Read carefully.
You read carefully. They have player benefits and salary arbitration to do. That’s why there’s a lot more after the 149 mil.
Read my original comment you dope. They are reportedly going to have 200 mill in PAYROLL, they are currently at 150.
All you fantasy GMs like to pretend you know about competitive balance etc and know nothing about running a business.
You have zero clue on what you are talking about? They are obligated to pay arbitration and pre arbitration players. Their salaries aren’t set but the money is obligated. You are telling them to spend money that is obligated because your spreadsheet doesn’t have the bill yet.
You’ve never worked with a budget within a larger corporation. Got it. Move on.
Who did you run a budget for? Enron?
Spend more time improving yourself and less time pretending your a GM on your silly sites and maybe one day you will have a budget to manage too!
LOL, that’s what you’re doing. Keep pretending you’re important though.
I’m on here having fun. The payroll I communicated was from the SDUT – yes, I read a newspaper. I don’t pay attention to silly sites like sportrac or whatever that was. Go back to school – take care.
But whatever dude – if keeping track of orgs competitive balance situation is your kink then do you.
I love it. The Cronrnworth deal hasn’t even started and it’s already considered a “bad contract”. I have no idea what the Padres were doing last year – Boegarts, Machado, Cronrnworth. It feels like they are going to be bad for a looooooong time.
Generally as soon as players sign deals the value of the player is negative. Talking about free agents who sign at age 29 or later. Just zero surplus value along with all the small market teams instantly not interested in the player and the tanking teams. And that’s how a player instantly becomes untradable over night
Crone had one bad season while learning a new position. He’s one of like 20 players that had back to back 4 war seasons before last year. Chill out
it’s strange (but maybe not really) that Preller wants to trade Cronz to get out from under the long-term contract they just signed with him. The financial issues are deeper than even Acee knew.
Or he’s just reorging resources. Let’s see how this plays out
@Brew’88
Croneworth just had his softmore slump a year late. Plus, he was playing out of position last year. Do you recall Kim’s performance level, when they locked up Cronenworth? I don’t recall, but was Bogaerts on the roster yet?
Kim blossomed, they jumped at the opportunity to add Bogaerts, they took the loss and dumped Hosmer, so now you have a pretty good infielder that’s playing a pretty poor 1B (offensively speaking).
The only thing strange about Preller looking to move Cronie after extending him, is your lack of context, or sense of recent history.
Why wouldn’t Cronenworth be able to rebound from his 2023 season? Many (if not most) new ball players have a slump year. Why is Cronenworth the exception, i.e. a flash in the pan and gone. He’s a pretty dang good ballplayer, prior to 2023, consider a very complete ball player.
For historic context, Kim blossomed well before Cronz 2023 slump. Croney may very well rebound offensively and I wouldn’t bet against him. Why they would double down on him with the extended contract, only to send him packing is beyond my comprehension.
I’m curious what kind of season Kim has. He ended the season in a long slump where from 8/22 to 10/1 he hit:
.194/.287/.226, 31 games, 145 PA, 0 HR.
His line reached a high of .287/.382/.458 but with that slump he ended the year at .260/.351/.398
I like Cronenworth’s defense at 1b, athleticism, scooping skills and solid fundamentals are good enough to run it back out there in 2024 (the FA market offers no more appealing options).
So I hope they don’t get so hard up to move his contract that they’re sending a chunk of money or a nice prospect to make it happen. The 7m in 2024 isn’t outrageous and moving him back to 2b in the future could come in handy if they decide a big extension for Kim isn’t wise. He could be looking at 20-25m annually, just depends on the year he has. A similar end line as 2023 and maybe that’s closer to 15-18m yr.
Cronenworth hits better at Petco than the road (lot more hr too), is still solid versus LHP and has the exact same average and OPS in the 1st and 2nd half’s over his career. Consistent ballplayer in many ways. I think he’ll bounce back, he was hurt part of the time, and getting back to his roots will help the way his deal looks.
I think he has it in him to be a 3-win 1b this year and then a 4-win 2b in 2025.
If a team is interested in him and it makes sense and the Padres aren’t getting fleeced just to make him go away then that could change things. Selling low when there is a solid to likely chance his value improves in the future I don’t think would be wise.
Long winded way of saying I agree that it doesn’t make sense to give him that deal in April and now deal him 8 months later.
Trade Cronenworth to Detroit for Baez (Tigers eat some salary) and a good A ball prospect. No doubt Baez would hit 50 HR if he gets traded.
Without some significant additions, which doesn’t look likely given the strong signs the franchise is hurting for money (despite what they’ve tried to say), the Padres will be fighting to stay at .500 and likely be in 4th place in the NL west. Such a shame
lol. People love to make stuff up on this site. Going from top 3 payroll (250 mill) to top 10 payroll (200 mill reportedly) does not equal hurting for cash.
The Padres will not be hurting for money. When time finally allows for all the emotional dust to clear, that misbelief should be publicly addressed.
clearly they are hurting for money, that’s THEE reason they traded Soto for a bunch of low-level pitchers on the cheap
Lol, I learned from a very smart professor way back in college (i.e. he had 7 PH’d’s, and had written about 100 books, oh, yeah, and he picked up a law degree and ended up practicing at the international court, a.k.a. almost smarter than I could keep up with most of the time), that when someone starts a sentence with “Clearly”, or “Obviously”, you can almost be certain, it’s no such thing.
You just proved his point! 🙂 🙂 🙂
Nothing you said in that paragraph was remotely true, but hey, it has a nice sound to it, right? Low level pitchers? LOLOLOLOL!!
If he had 7 doctorate degrees it sounds like he couldn’t fix on what he wanted to be in life. Never trust a lawyer
Well, this guy was a Christian Theologian and Pastor, before he became a professor, and later a lawyer. So, I trusted him more than most. But I get your point about lawyers. Country is being run into the ground by some of them.
Myles Straw should be available for some icy hot and a bag of peanuts.
The Padres might be forced to deploy both Randy Vasquez and Jhony Brito in the rotation, but Brito looked unhittable down the stretch out of the bullpen, much less so as a starter. I’d try to keep him in the pen, but they may not have that luxury at the start.
It’s december. Everyone is still building their roster.
Hmmmm…If they can sign Lee, they’ll still need another OF..Hunter Renfroe reunion? An outfield of Lee, Tatis, and Renfroe wouldn’t be terrible..
Oh..and sign Justin Turner!
Marsee in LF (or CF), at league minimum. Will help with the budget crisis
Twins could offer Kepler to man a corner outfield spot if the Padres have some mlb pitching to send our way…
Profar had a successful left field campaign after he went to Fernando Ringworm, Sr. for some off-season tutoring. Maybe sign him to up to a bonus-laden contract.
Fernando Ringworm, Jr. was quoted as saying he wants to move to center. Fernando and Jurickson both have a good history of outfield assists.
Firing prellar. Not tomorrow today.
I feel a potential trade between the Padres and the Nats, who are rich in highly-ranked OF prospects. Makes too much sense really. SD needs OF depth, the Nats have overflowing barrels of them.
“Hey Mike! It’s AJ, um, so can we have some of our prospects back?”
Boy, I see these never-ending comments about the Padres being broke, having overspent, that Seidler pushed all his chips in cause he saw heaven’s gate approaching, and wanted to see one last championship team win (re: he grew up in the Dodger’s family). It’s also curious that most of these comments come from other-than-Padres fans, and a WHOLE lot from Preller haters.
Here are some “speculative” facts, I won’t bother linking to substantiation, because a lot of this information is likely privileged (the Pads only have to open their books to the MLB front office; the rest is proprietary info they’d rather not have other teams know about).
1) The Padres didn’t overspend, or blow their salary to help win it for Seidler. Seidler was a self-made, very successful venture capitalist. The Padres were a passion, but he also stressed running the franchise as a successful business. The spending, Soto, Bogaerts, Machado’s extension, all made good baseball sense. There were plenty of unexpected things happening that neither Padres owners nor the GM could control, e.g. the two veterans they hired for DH both crapped out, injuries occurring at inopportune times (e.g. Melvin rarely had his “big four” all in the line up). The Padres put up division and playoff winning numbers, and NO ONE can tell you why they added up to just 82 wins. That’s a fact.
2) The $50M end of season loan covered expenses that should have been paid out of the Bally contract. Bally renegged, the MLB made up some of the difference, but in the SHORT TERM, the Padres didn’t have the cash to pay the scheduled expenses. Folks, the Padres ain’t broke, not even close. They had already negotiated a ONE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLAR continguient loan, and only used $50M of it. It was a planned financial business device, nothing more.
3) Unfortunately, that -$50M put the Padres into the MLB’s debt/service ration penalty list, necessitating a short term adjustment. The $250M payroll budget for 2023 shrank to $200M (or maybe $220M, the lux tax max) by 2024. The Padres aren’t broke. They have plenty of assets to cover that loan, i.e. longer term capital investments and returns.
4) The Padres became a luxury tax payer, exceeding the MLB’s upper limits for I believe the 3rd time, and incurring not only financial penalties which the owners would be willing to pay, but draft pick and other operational penalties that will hamstring the team in the future. So, yeah, a retraction to about $200M to $220M was always in the Padres plans at some point. It’s just happening a bit earlier.
5) Trading Soto was a planned contingency from day one. I personally believe (no evidence that I know of exists thus far) that Seidler pushed in chips for Judge, Bogaerts, etc., because the Pads had already concluded that they had no chance of extending Soto. He would, could, be a 3 year rental, or a 2 year rental with some return, depending on unknowable future circumstances. Did the Pads want to trade Soto? No, they wanted to extend him, and would have done so making whatever arrangements it would take. If Soto’s agent Boras had agreed to extend him at $500M or whatever the Padres thought reasonable/affordable, they would have extended him. Soto flat out isn’t signing ANY extension with anyone. Apparently, nothing would change his mind. (Heck, maybe his dream was always playing for the Yankees, so if they make him an extension offer, he might grab it, but I doubt it.) Trading Soto made sense considering the circumstances that developed over 2022-2023.
6) Add in a word about Cronenworth. He had his “sophomore slump” a year late. One down year, playing out of position. He WILL be worth his $80M contract. He’s a core, Padres, long term infielder. Again, what’s happened since the Pads extended him, besides his down offensive year? Kim blossomed. The Pads thought he eventually would, but it took 3 years of MLB service time to do it. The Pads will try to extend Kim, more him to SS, and Bogaerts to 2B long term. That leaves Cronenworth an $80M reserve infielder, or under-performing (re: power) first baseman, neither of which are good solutions. So, yeah, if they can trade Cronenworth, affordably, they will. However, you can mark my words, the team who picks him up will see him return to his earliers career offensive numbers, and those fans will LOVE him in their infield. He’ll be a significant addition somewhere else, and the Pads will pick up a better 1B option (errr… one not named “Hosmer”!!).
Summary: There are 25 or more MLB teams who would LOVE to have the Padres so-called “problems”. The Padres have a solid, WELL FINANCIED core of players, with some gaps and question marks, and a solid (#9) rated minor league system. For Padre fans, it’s gonna work out alright. For those Padre (or Preller) haters, ya know, some of those jealous types who like to call the team “Madres”, well, enjoy your tantrums. You may be right, but I’ll bet on the Padres making good. Could Preller have done a better job over his tenure. Absolutely. However, he’s one of the longer tenured GM’s for good reasons.
Opus-out. (Sorry, but I can’t write about complicated stuff concisely).
Well done Salty. Fair winds and following seas…
A man cave in the basement?
My plan:
Sign Lee, Belt, Giolito, and Aroldis Chapman in free agency. Trade For Santander, and Edward Cabrera. Use Avila, Waldron, Vasquez, and Brito as rotation depth pieces or in the bullpen. Let Thorpe, Iriarte, and Snelling get more seasoning in the minors until their needed.
Pretty sure Florial could be a surprise pick-up for a team looking for a cheap option. He seems fungible now.