Padres Acquire Nestor Cortes

The Padres and Brewers have agreed to a trade that will send left-hander Nestor Cortes, shortstop prospect Jorge Quintana, and cash considerations to San Diego in exchange for Brandon Lockridge.  Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune reports that the Padres will only owe Cortes the prorated MLB minimum salary over the remainder of the season, as the Brewers will be covering the remainder of the approximately $2.4MM owed to Cortes.

Cortes is on the move again after being dealt from the Yankees to the Brewers in December, and the southpaw’s Milwaukee tenure ends with just two starts in a Brew Crew uniform.  Cortes had a 9.00 ERA over his eight innings in 2025 before a left elbow flexor strain sidelined him for the bulk of the season.

With his rehab assignment nearing an end, the Brewers had to make a decision about activating Cortes or perhaps dealing him elsewhere, given the club’s crowded pitching situation.  The result was a trade to San Diego, as Cortes will now provide some depth to a rotation that was thinned when Ryan Bergert and and Stephen Kolek were dealt to the Royals earlier today in the Freddy Fermin trade.

However, the Padres didn’t move Dylan Cease despite multiple rumors and acquired JP Sears as part of the Mason Miller blockbuster, leaving the club’s rotation as Cease, Sears, Yu Darvish, Nick Pivetta, and Randy Vasquez.  Cortes and the injured Michael King should likely supplant Vasquez and Sears when they return from the IL, but the bottom line is that the Padres’ plethora of deadline moves has seen the team shuffle but not really overhaul its core rotation mix.

“Nasty Nestor” emerged as a relief weapon and then as a starter with the Yankees during the 2021 season, then seemed to fully break with a tremendous 2022 campaign that saw finish eighth in AL Cy Young Award voting.  Injuries unfortunately limited him to 63 1/3 frames in 2023, and he bounced back to toss 174 1/3 frames in the regular season before a late-season flexor strain surfaced.

Since Opening Day 2024, Cortes had a 4.09 ERA over 237 2/3 innings and good enough secondary numbers to make him still a solid rotation option, but New York opted to deal from a crowded rotation and sent Cortes and Caleb Durbin to Milwaukee for Devin Williams.  Cortes is earning $7.6MM in his final year of arbitration eligibility, and he doesn’t have a ton of time left in the season to re-establish some value heading into free agency.

Since the Brewers will end up eating pretty much all of Cortes’ salary, the Williams trade hasn’t worked out to date, yet the deal will ultimately be judged down the road depending on how Durbin and now Lockridge or Quintana develop as big leaguers. Lockridge has seen some time in the majors already, though with only a .210/.248/.280 slash line to show for 59 games and 107 plate appearances over the 2024-25 seasons.  He is 10-for-11 on stolen base attempts in the bigs, and he topped the 40-steal plateau in both the 2023 and 2024 minor league seasons.

Capable of playing all three outfield positions, Lockridge is an average-to-capable defender all over the grass.  His Triple-A numbers have perhaps been inflated by the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League over the last two years, but Lockridge has a .299/.398/.396 slash over 712 career PA with the Padres’ and Yankees’ Triple-A affiliates.  The Brewers seem likely to give Lockridge a look in the majors right away, as Jackson Chourio’s hamstring injury is probably going to result in a stint on the injured list.

Quintana is an 18-year-old lottery ticket of a prospect who was a member of Milwaukee’s 2024 international signing class.  He has hit .257/.355/.392 over 467 career plate appearances, all at the Rookie League levels.

The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal was the first to report on the Cortes deal, while the New York Post’s Joel Sherman reported that Lockridge was heading to Milwaukee in the return and Jeff Sanders of the San Diego Union-Tribune reported Quintana’s involvement.