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MLBTR Podcast: Mutiny In The MLBPA, Blake Snell Signs With The Giants And The Dylan Cease Trade

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The latest episode of the MLB Trade Rumors Podcast is now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts! Make sure you subscribe as well! You can also use the player at this link to listen, if you don’t use Spotify or Apple for podcasts.

This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Steve Adams of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss…

  • The recent news of the divide in the MLBPA (2:15)
  • The release of J.D. Davis and its impact on the MLBPA situation (8:45)
  • Recent collective bargaining agreement history and its relation to current MLBPA strife (11:30)
  • Giants sign Blake Snell (17:25)
  • Padres acquire Dylan Cease from the White Sox (23:15)

Plus, we answer your questions, including…

  • Will the Blue Jays make a run at Juan Soto when he hits free agency next year? (33:35)
  • I don’t understand some of the outfielder signings this offseason. How does Hunter Renfroe command $6.5MM when Adam Duvall only gets $3MM? Why would the Twins trade for Manuel Margot when they could have just re-signed Michael A. Taylor? Is there a logical explanation? Or did the Twins and Royals front offices just screw up? (39:45)
  • Do you think that Emmanuel Clase could be traded at the deadline if the Guardians out of it? If so, what do you think he’d fetch at full strength? (43:00)

Check out our past episodes!

The podcast intro and outro song “So Long” is provided courtesy of the band Showoff.  Check out their Facebook page here!

Padres Select Jackson Merrill, Tyler Wade

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The Padres announced their active roster for the upcoming Seoul Series against the Dodgers. As was previously reported, San Diego officially selected the contracts of prospects Jackson Merrill and Graham Pauley. The Friars also added minor league signee Tyler Wade to their 40-man roster, which is up to 39 players.

San Diego placed a trio of players on the injured list. Infielder Tucupita Marcano landed on the 10-day IL. He tore his ACL last August and is nowhere near ready. Pitchers Luis Patiño and Glenn Otto each went on the 15-day injured list. Otto has a teres major strain in his throwing shoulder; Patiño is battling elbow inflammation. San Diego also optioned reliever Woo-Suk Go to Triple-A El Paso. He won’t be on the roster for the team’s series in his home country after allowing six runs in 4 1/3 innings this spring.

Merrill, 20, will open the year as San Diego’s starting center fielder. The top prospect earned that assignment with a .351/.400/.595 showing in 13 Spring Training contests. Merrill hit .277/.326/.444 with 15 homers in 511 plate appearances between High-A and Double-A a season ago. That’s impressive production given his youth, and Merrill was regarded as one of the better pure hitters in the minors.

There’s nevertheless plenty of risk with the move. Merrill didn’t log a single inning in center field in his minor league career and has yet to play above Double-A. San Diego hasn’t been afraid of aggressively promoting its top minor league talents in recent years. Merrill should slot between Fernando Tatis Jr. and Jurickson Profar in the Opening Day lineup. San Diego is still looking into the possibility of a left field upgrade, as they were reportedly in contact with Tommy Pham over the weekend.

Wade, 29, gets back to the majors for what’ll be the eighth straight season. The lefty-hitting utilityman has primarily worked off the bench over his career with the Yankees, Angels and A’s. He appeared in 26 games with Oakland last season, hitting .255/.309/.314. Wade has a middling .217/.293/.300 batting line in just over 700 major league plate appearances.

He earned a season-opening roster spot with an impressive showing this spring. Wade hit .294/.351/.471 over 14 exhibition contests. The Padres aren’t counting on him to make much of an impact offensively, but he provides a speed and defense element off the bench. Wade can play virtually anywhere aside from catcher. He’ll offer a complement to Pauley at third base and Merrill in center field late in games. Wade is out of options, so now that he secured a 40-man spot, the Padres would need to expose him to waivers if they wanted to take him off the major league roster.

Rule 5 pick Stephen Kolek nabbed a spot in the Opening Day bullpen. He should soon get an opportunity to make his major league debut, perhaps against the team that drafted him. Kolek was an 11th-round pick of the Dodgers in 2018. L.A. dealt him to the Mariners for cash early in the 2021 campaign. Kolek turned in a 3.76 ERA over 69 1/3 innings of relief between the top two minor league levels last season. He tossed 5 2/3 scoreless frames this spring, albeit with four walks.

Padres Select Graham Pauley

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Infield prospect Graham Pauley made the Padres’ Opening Day roster, reports Dennis Lin of the Athletic (X link). San Diego will need to formally select his contract. They have multiple vacancies on the 40-man roster to do so.

Pauley will join Jackson Merrill in making his major league debut, perhaps as soon as tomorrow morning. Like Merrill, he’ll make the jump directly from Double-A. Pauley is in his second full season as a professional. The Padres selected him in the 13th round of the 2022 draft. That looks like an excellent find, as the Duke product quickly hit his way to the majors.

A left-handed batter, Pauley raked across three minor league levels a year ago. He started with a .309/.422/.465 slash with as many walks as strikeouts over 62 games in Low-A. While he didn’t maintain that pristine strikeout and walk profile upon a bump to High-A, his power numbers exploded after his move to the Midwest League. He popped 16 home runs in just 45 games to earn another promotion to Double-A. Pauley continued to impress, closing the season with a .321/.375/.556 slash in 20 contests.

Overall, Pauley finished his first full minor league schedule with an excellent .308/.393/.539 line in 551 plate appearances. He ripped 32 doubles, five triples and 23 homers. As a college draftee, he should acquit himself well against low minors pitching, but his production was so strong that it put him firmly on the prospect radar. Baseball America and The Athletic’s Keith Law each ranked him 11th among San Diego prospects this winter, praising his advanced offensive ability. Eric Longenhagen of FanGraphs slotted Pauley sixth in the system in January — he’d be up to fourth after the inclusion of Drew Thorpe and Jairo Iriarte in the Dylan Cease trade — and similarly praised his overall offensive aptitude.

The 23-year-old picked up where he’d left off this spring, hitting .314/.400/.486 with five walks and nine strikeouts in 40 trips to the dish. He convinced the front office of his readiness to take on major league pitching. Prospect evaluators are less enamored of Pauley’s defense, with reviews on his glove ranging from average to well below. Pauley is primarily a third baseman but has limited experience at second base and in the corner outfield.

He should get run early in the season at the hot corner. Manny Machado is expected to work as a designated hitter early in the year as he continues to build back after undergoing elbow surgery last October. Pauley should step in as the primary third baseman, with Eguy Rosario and Tyler Wade on hand as potentially superior defensive options late in games.

Giants Sign Blake Snell

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The Giants have made another Spring Training strike. San Francisco has officially announced the signing of Blake Snell on a two-year, $62MM contract that allows him to opt out after the upcoming season. The Boras Corporation client will receive a $15MM salary in 2024 and has a $17MM signing bonus that will not be paid until January 2026. Snell will receive the bonus even if he opts out, so that decision essentially amounts to a $30MM player option for the ’25 season. If Snell does not opt out, half of his salary for the second season would be deferred until 2027.

San Francisco adds the defending NL Cy Young winner to the top of a staff that also includes last year’s runner-up, Logan Webb. A two-year deal certainly isn’t what Snell had in mind at the beginning of the winter. The 31-year-old hit free agency coming off an otherworldly finish to the 2023 campaign. Snell’s platform season actually started shakily, as he allowed 15 runs over his first 23 frames. From the start of May onward, he was the best pitcher in the majors. Snell allowed only 1.78 earned runs per nine through 27 starts and 157 innings after April.

Despite the tough first month, the southpaw finished the year with an MLB-best 2.25 ERA across 180 frames. He punched out 31.5% of opposing hitters, a mark surpassed by only Spencer Strider and Tyler Glasnow among pitchers with at least 100 innings. No other starter missed more bats on a per-swing basis. Opponents made contact on just 64.2% of their swings against Snell, narrowly better than Strider’s 64.3% figure for the lowest rate in the majors.

As a result, Snell cruised to the second Cy Young of his career. He received 28 of 30 first-place votes. He’d won the American League Cy Young as a member of the Rays five seasons earlier behind an AL-leading 1.89 ERA over 31 starts. He joined Max Scherzer, Clayton Kershaw, Justin Verlander and Jacob deGrom as active pitchers with multiple Cy Young wins.

The 2018 and ’23 seasons are, rather remarkably, the only seasons in which Snell has appeared on Cy Young ballots. That points to some amount of inconsistency over the course of his career, which is mostly attributable to scattershot control. Snell has walked nearly 11% of batters faced over his seven-plus big league seasons. Last season’s 13.3% walk percentage was the highest rate of his career. Snell led the majors with 99 free passes, the first pitcher to do so in a Cy Young-winning campaign in more than 60 years.

Snell has never been a bad pitcher, but the inconsistent strike-throwing has kept him from turning in ace production on an annual basis. He posted an ERA ranging from 3.24 to 4.29 in the four seasons between his award-winning campaigns. While Snell fanned over 30% of opposing hitters every year, working deep counts kept him from logging massive workloads. He has averaged a little less than 5 1/3 innings per start over the course of his career. He reached the 180-inning mark in each of his Cy Young campaigns but didn’t surpass 130 frames in any other season.

It seems the market didn’t value Snell as a clear-cut ace despite the strength of his platform year. The only other publicly reported offer which he received was a six-year, $150MM proposal from the Yankees back in January. When Snell didn’t accept, New York inked Marcus Stroman to a two-year deal. USA Today’s Bob Nightengale tweets that the Yankees took their offer off the table last month and declined to reengage over the weekend.

Given that Snell ultimately settled for a two-year guarantee at a marginally higher annual rate, there’s a strong argument that his camp erred in not accepting New York’s offer. At the very least, he’s taking more risk in going with a short-term pact for the chance to retest the market next winter. Still, it’s not all that surprising he didn’t jump on a $150MM guarantee.

That’s well below the seven-year, $172MM deal which Aaron Nola secured from the Phillies earlier this offseason. It’s also shy of the six-year, $162MM pact that Carlos Rodón landed from New York a year ago. Snell and Rodón are broadly similar pitchers — power lefties with questions about their ability to consistently log huge innings totals — but the former was coming off a better year than Rodón posted in 2022.

It’s possible Snell received similar or better offers from other teams that went unreported. In any case, he clearly didn’t find the kind of long-term pact that he envisioned. That seemed increasingly unlikely the longer he remained unsigned. The incumbent Padres were never a factor as they sliced payroll this winter. Teams like the Mets and Red Sox jumped out of the market fairly quickly. As the offseason dragged along, more teams downplayed the possibility of making a top-of-the-market splash. Beyond the Yankees, Snell reportedly drew interest from the Angels. The Astros were a late entrant last week before balking at an annual commitment above $30MM.

Snell joins fellow Boras Corporation clients Cody Bellinger and Matt Chapman in settling for guarantees well below what most people expected entering the offseason. They’ll all have the ability to retest free agency next winter. Bellinger and Chapman inked three-year deals with opt-outs after 2024 and ’25. Jordan Montgomery, the last unsigned member of the so-called “Boras four,” has reportedly continued to hold out in search of a long-term deal. With a week and a half until Opening Day, it remains to be seen if he’ll be able to find anything close to that.

It’s yet another huge free agent strike for the Giants, who have attacked the late stages of free agency with a vengeance. After a few offseasons of missing out on their top targets, San Francisco has successfully slow-played this year’s market. Since the beginning of Spring Training, they’ve added Jorge Soler, Chapman and Snell. Soler’s three-year, $42MM deal was around pre-offseason expectations. The latter two contracts were well below what the Giants could’ve envisioned in November.

Snell puts the finishing touch on a winter that also saw San Francisco shell out $113MM for KBO star Jung Hoo Lee and $44MM for reliever turned starter Jordan Hicks. The Giants also pulled off a major trade with the Mariners that sent Mitch Haniger and Anthony DeSclafani to Seattle for rehabbing starter Robbie Ray. The 2021 AL Cy Young winner won’t be a factor until around the All-Star Break, but he could eventually add another high-ceiling arm to the rotation.

It’s still a potentially top-heavy group, but there’s now a ton of upside. Snell and Webb should form an excellent 1-2 punch. Top prospect Kyle Harrison will occupy the #3 role. Giving Hicks a starting job despite his injury history and below-average control is a gamble, but his power arsenal at least makes that an intriguing flier. Veteran righty Alex Cobb could be back from last fall’s hip surgery by May. Prospects Keaton Winn and Mason Black are back-of-the-rotation depth options early in the year.

Snell’s late signing date could have him a bit behind schedule. He has been throwing and reportedly tossed four simulated innings in front of scouts last week. There’s not a ton of time to build rapport with catcher Patrick Bailey before Opening Day, but that shouldn’t be an issue too deep into the season. Snell is at least plenty familiar with manager Bob Melvin, his skipper for the last two years with the Padres.

San Francisco’s late-offseason aggressiveness has pushed them into luxury tax territory for the first time since 2017. While the delayed payment of the signing bonus reduces the team’s commitment in the short term, the $31MM average annual value is the relevant number for tax purposes. RosterResource calculates the club’s competitive balance tax number right around the $257MM line that marks the second tier of penalization. For teams that didn’t pay the tax the preceding season, the fees are fairly modest. In contrast to the Yankees (who would’ve been taxed at a 110% rate as a third-time payor that is in the top bracket), the Giants are only hit with a 20% fee on spending between $237MM and $257MM.

The Snell deal comes with a roughly $4MM tax bill. They’ll be taxed at a 32% clip for future spending up to the $277MM mark with escalating fees thereafter. While it’s likely this marks their last major investment of the winter, they’re surely hopeful of being in a position to add at the trade deadline.

Snell declined a qualifying offer from the Padres. The Giants already forfeited their second-round pick and $500K of international bonus pool space to add Chapman. They’ll lose their third-rounder (#87 overall) and another $500K from their international bonus pool for Snell. San Diego paid the CBT a year ago, so they’re limited to the lowest compensation for losing a qualified free agent: a selection after the fourth round. The Padres received the #135 pick for losing Josh Hader and will now get another selection in that range.

Paying the CBT and parting with draft capital are costs the Giants are happy to pay to get Chapman and Snell on short-term deals. San Francisco was comfortable with similar contract structures for Rodón and Michael Conforto in previous offseasons. Both players could walk next offseason for nothing — they’re ineligible to receive another qualifying offer in their careers — but that’s a risk worth taking to continue loading up in a division full of star talent with four legitimate threats to make the playoffs.

Jon Heyman of the New York Post first reported Snell and the Giants agreed to a two-year, $62MM deal with an opt-out. Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle reported the signing bonus and salary breakdown.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Offseason In Review: San Diego Padres

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It’s rare for the same team to be on opposite ends of blockbuster trades within one offseason. This Padres front office isn’t afraid to break convention. San Diego was the traditional “seller” in the winter’s biggest trade as they shed a lot of money. That didn’t stop them from dealing a trio of well-regarded prospects to upgrade their rotation in a late-spring strike.

Major League Signings

2024 spending: $9.35MM
Total spending: $50MM

Option Decisions

Trades and Claims

Notable Minor League Signings

Extensions

  • None

Notable Losses

Under A.J. Preller, it’s fair to presume the Padres are in for a headline-grabbing offseason. Yet while the past few years had been defined by major acquisitions, most of this winter was about departures. Late in the 2023 season, it emerged that the Padres were planning to cut spending. That came on the heels of Diamond Sports Group abandoning their local broadcasting contract midseason and amidst reports about the Padres falling out of compliance with MLB’s debt service ratio.

San Diego had key free agents Blake Snell, Josh Hader, and Seth Lugo; option decisions on Nick Martinez and Michael Wacha which they’d decline; and Juan Soto projected for the largest arbitration salary in league history. (Hader and Snell declined qualifying offers, so the Padres landed two draft choices after the fourth round for their departures.) It was clear there’d be a lot of roster turnover. Before they could even address that, the organization needed to settle on its leadership structure. Tension mounted between Preller and manager Bob Melvin towards the end of their underwhelming season. While they made some effort to smooth the relationship going into the winter, everyone decided a break was ultimately in the organization’s best interest.

The Padres allowed Melvin to interview for and accept the managerial role with the Giants without demanding any compensation from their division rivals. They reportedly considered former Angels skipper Phil Nevin and previous Cubs manager David Ross but ultimately stayed in-house. San Diego moved Mike Shildt from an advisory position in the front office back to the dugout, giving him his second managerial opportunity at the big league level. Bench coach Ryan Flaherty also interviewed for the position. When San Diego went with Shildt instead, they let Flaherty depart to serve as Craig Counsell’s top lieutenant with the Cubs. The Padres left the position vacant for 2024.

Of course, one would be remiss to discuss the Padres’ leadership structure without mentioning Peter Seidler. The San Diego owner passed away at age 63 in the middle of November after a battle with illness. Few owners were as widely respected around the league and by their fanbase as Seidler, who consistently approved star acquisitions and ran the organization’s player payroll as high as third in the majors entering last season. This was a franchise that ranked among the league’s bottom-five spenders throughout most of the 2010s. It didn’t always work, but there was little questioning Seidler’s commitment to giving the team a chance to win. Eric Kutsenda took over as the organization’s control person.

It surely wasn’t easy for the front office to step right back into daily operations after Seidler’s death, but the calendar unfortunately didn’t afford them much time. That week, they were faced with a handful of key arbitration decisions. The Padres made the easy call to non-tender Austin Nola after a disappointing tenure in San Diego. Whether they might’ve done the same with reliever Scott Barlow won’t be known, as the Friars found a taker for the righty just before the non-tender deadline.

San Diego flipped Barlow to the Guardians for Enyel De Los Santos. It was a one-for-one bullpen swap that saved the Friars around $6MM. De Los Santos doesn’t have the kind of swing-and-miss potential that Barlow offers and is probably better suited for middle relief, but he was a capable reliever for Cleveland over the past two seasons. Given their payroll restrictions, adding a more affordable reliever whom they control for three years was a tidy bit of business for San Diego.

Once the non-tender deadline passed, much of the league’s attention turned to two players: Shohei Ohtani and Soto. (The Padres were never serious threats for the former.) The chance for a second Soto blockbuster in less than 18 months was one of the offseason’s biggest storylines. It quickly became clear that the Yankees were the favorites. The sides pulled off the massive deal at the Winter Meetings.

San Diego packaged Soto and center fielder Trent Grisham to the Bronx for a pitching-heavy return. They added Michael King, who excelled in a limited stint out of the New York rotation late last season. He stepped into the staff behind Yu Darvish and Joe Musgrove. Righties Jhony Brito and Randy Vásquez have big league experience and could battle for spots at the back end of the rotation. At the time, it seemed that pitching prospect Drew Thorpe might soon join them at Petco Park. The Friars also landed Kyle Higashioka as a backup to young catcher Luis Campusano, allowing them to let Gary Sánchez depart in free agency.

Any Soto trade was unquestionably going to make the Padres worse. With so many gaps to plug on the roster, they weren’t prepared to carry him on an arbitration salary that eventually landed at $31MM. The volume approach allowed them to backfill some of the rotation depth they lost in free agency, but it subtracted two-thirds of their starting outfield. The Padres were never going to be able to replace Soto with a player of comparable quality. Yet they also opted against the traditional rebuilding return, pursuing a quantity-driven package of major league ready talent whom they control cheaply for multiple years.

Prioritizing pitching meant leaving massive questions in the outfield. The Padres never really answered them. They were linked to star KBO  center fielder Jung Hoo Lee, but it quickly became clear his asking price was going to be well beyond their comfort level. He eventually ended up with the Giants on a $113MM pact. San Diego also showed reported interest in Adam Duvall and Michael A. Taylor but, thus far, their only major league outfield transaction was to bring back Jurickson Profar on a $1MM deal.

Profar will likely be the Opening Day starter in left field. Tommy Pham remains unsigned and has been linked to a San Diego reunion throughout the winter. His camp and the Padres are reportedly discussing a deal in the $3-4MM range. If Pham signs, he’d bump Profar down a peg on the depth chart. That obviously won’t happen before tomorrow’s regular season opener in South Korea, though.

Whoever is in left field will share time with Fernando Tatis Jr. and 20-year-old Jackson Merrill. San Diego is calling the latter directly from Double-A on the heels of a monster Spring Training. He’ll be the team’s starting center fielder despite never playing there in a minor league game. It’s a risky move borne partially out of necessity after the Padres missed on their other center field targets. At the same time, it’s not an uncharacteristic roll of the dice for an organization that hasn’t shied away from aggressively promoting its top prospects. José Azocar is likely to occupy the fourth outfield role, although minor league signee Tyler Wade could also see some time on the grass.

While San Diego’s pursuit of Lee didn’t get far, the Padres remained one of the league’s more active teams in Asia. After successfully pursuing players like Ha-Seong Kim, Robert Suarez and Martinez in previous offseasons, San Diego made another pair of acquisitions from the Asian pro leagues. They added one player apiece from Nippon Professional Baseball and the Korea Baseball Organization to their bullpen.

Left-hander Yuki Matsui was the bigger signing, as he landed a surprising five-year, $28MM guarantee that allows him to opt out after years three and four. Matsui is coming off three straight sub-2.00 ERA showings with plus strikeout rates in Japan. Evaluators are split on whether his stuff translates to a late-inning role in MLB, but the Padres clearly expect him to find success. While Matsui was a little behind in camp with back tightness, he should be on the Opening Day roster and could compete with Suarez for the closer role.

Woo Suk Go signed a two-year, $4.5MM pact after a seven-year run in the KBO. He’s young and throws hard, but the modest price tag reflects a general agreement that he projects more as a middle reliever than a high-leverage arm. Go was a closer in the KBO but had inconsistent command.

The bullpen overhaul didn’t stop there. The Padres added ground-ball specialist Wandy Peralta to the middle innings. They signed the former Yankee to a four-year, $16.5MM contract that allows him to opt out after each season. The contract length and overall guarantee were above expectations, but that’s a tradeoff San Diego made to keep his annual salaries low. Peralta has been particularly effective against same-handed hitters over the past couple years, providing a matchup option for Shildt in the middle to late innings.

San Diego also made a trio of waiver claims. They snagged Jeremiah Estrada from the Cubs, brought back former top prospect Luis Patiño from the White Sox, and grabbed righty Logan Gillaspie from the Red Sox. The Padres selected Stephen Kolek out of the Mariners system in the Rule 5 draft. They might not be able to keep everyone from that group. Patiño is out of minor league options and seems likely to be designated for assignment, as he wasn’t included on San Diego’s travel group to Seoul. Kolek can’t be sent down because of his Rule 5 status. Pedro Avila is out of options himself.

Even if the Padres move on from Patiño, they could have five or six new faces in the relief corps. Matsui, Go, De Los Santos, Peralta and Estrada all seem ticketed for key roles. In addition to the free agent departures of Hader, Martinez and Luis García, the Padres subtracted a couple relievers in trade. They flipped Ray Kerr to the Braves to get Atlanta to take on $4MM of Matt Carpenter’s underwater deal. Steven Wilson seemed ticketed for a middle relief spot as recently as last week, but he was an ancillary part of a late-offseason stunner.

Trade talk surrounding Dylan Cease had quieted going into Spring Training. That changed last week, as Chicago reengaged with teams like the Rangers and Yankees in an effort to move the righty before Opening Day. The Padres were initially viewed as more of a peripheral team in the Cease market, but Preller and his staff pushed back in for another star player.

Thorpe’s stay in the organization lasted all of a few months. The key prospect received in the Soto trade wound up headlining a Cease package that also included upper minors righty Jairo Iriarte, Low-A outfield prospect Samuel Zavala, and Wilson. Cease steps into the upper half of the rotation and adds a third established arm alongside Darvish and Musgrove. King slides into the fourth spot, leaving one season-opening role available for Brito, Vásquez, Avila or Matt Waldron.

San Diego dealt a trio of quality but not top-tier prospects and a decent reliever with four years of club control. Cease is making an $8MM salary that fit within their reduced budget. He’s eligible for arbitration once more. Even if he doesn’t recapture the form that made him Cy Young runner-up in 2022, Cease has been exceptionally durable over the past few seasons. He owns a 3.58 ERA going back to the start of 2020 and has a power arsenal that misses bats at an above-average rate. Cease should be a fixture in the San Diego rotation for the next two years, although it’d be foolish to count out San Diego pivoting and putting him back on the market this summer or next offseason if the team doesn’t perform up to expectations.

The one area of the roster that was not dramatically overhauled, at least in terms of personnel, was the infield. The Padres floated Jake Cronenworth in talks but didn’t find a trade partner. That’s no surprise, as he’s coming off a down season and entering the first year of the seven-year extension that he signed last spring. Kim was a much more in-demand trade target heading into the final season of his four-year deal.

The Padres decided not to move him, at least not to another team. San Diego is pushing Kim back up the defensive spectrum to shortstop, however. Xander Bogaerts is flipping to the other side of the bag, as he’ll become a second baseman for the first time in his career. It was always expected that Bogaerts would move off shortstop fairly early into his 11-year free agent deal, although few would’ve predicted that to happen after only one season. Manny Machado will eventually slot back in at third base. He’s likely to be limited to DH duty for the first couple weeks as he continues working back from last fall’s elbow surgery.

San Diego has Eguy Rosario and Matthew Batten as short-term options to cover third base, but they may turn to yet another prospect. Former 13th-round pick Graham Pauley has dramatically elevated his stock in pro ball. He’s coming off a .308/.393/.539 batting line between High-A and Double-A. The Duke product continued to rake this spring, turning in a .314/.400/.486 slash over 16 games. The Padres included Pauley in their travel group to Seoul, suggesting they’re considering jumping him directly from Double-A, just as they plan to do with Merrill.

The “offseason” work might not be 100% complete as they try to push a Pham deal across the finish line, but the Padres are a few hours from kicking off the regular season. They’ll do so with a team that looks a lot different than the one that finished 2023. Most outside expectations aren’t as high as they were at this time last year, but the late push for Cease shows that the organization still expects to compete for a playoff spot. Plenty of top-end talent remains. The question is whether the roster is deep enough to hold up over a 162-game stretch.

Padres To Name Jackson Merrill Opening Day Center Fielder

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The Padres are poised to name top prospect Jackson Merrill the club’s Opening Day center fielder, per a report from MLB Network’s Jon Morosi. The news comes just days before the club is set to face the Dodgers in a two-game regular season set in South Korea as part of MLB’s Seoul Series. Game 1 of that set is scheduled for 5:05am CT Wednesday morning, or 7:05pm local time that evening. The club will need to select Merrill’s contract before then, but won’t need to make a corresponding 40-man roster move as the roster currently stands at 36.

Merrill, 21 in April, was the club’s first-round pick in the 2021 draft and is a consensus top-20 prospect in the sport. The youngster is something of a surprising choice for the role, at least on paper. He’s not yet played a game above Double-A in his big league career, having slashed a solid but unspectacular .277/.326/.444 in 114 games split between the High-A and Double-A levels last year. Perhaps even more importantly, Merrill had never appeared in center field in a professional game until camp opened last month. His professional outfield experience to that point consisted of 45 innings of work in left field that season. Prior to that, his professional work had come almost exclusively at shortstop, though he also made brief cameos at both first and second base.

With all that being said, the club’s decision to go with Merrill in center field on Opening Day is certainly a defensible one. Prospect evaluators around the game are unanimous in their belief in Merrill’s talent, with Baseball America lauding him as a future middle-of-the-order threat who figures to have the power for 30 homers a year while Fangraphs describes him as having “one of the prettiest swings in the minors” with excellent contact abilities. Furthermore, while his lack of upper-level reps at the plate and professional time in center field will certainly raise some eyebrows, Merrill has clearly done everything he can to prove himself ready for a big league opportunity this spring. In 40 plate appearances across 13 games during camp, Merrill slashed an excellent .351/.400/.595 while playing solid defense in center.

Of course, the decision to roster Merrill as the club’s Opening Day center fielder is also the results of a host of other decisions outside of Merrill’s control. Chief among them is the club choosing to part ways with superstar Juan Soto alongside Trent Grisham in a trade with the Yankees that removed two of the club’s three Opening Day starters in the outfield last year from the roster back in December. Since then, the club has been tied to external outfield options including Michael A. Taylor, Kevin Kiermaier, and Tommy Pham. The likes of Taylor and Kiermaier have since signed elsewhere, however, and while there may be some momentum toward a deal with Pham, the 36-year-old veteran hasn’t appeared in center field on a regular basis since 2018, with just 15 starts up the middle in the years since then.

That lack of clear options for the center field job led the Padres to look toward their internal, non-roster pieces for their next center fielder. Fellow prospect Jakob Marsee as well as veterans such as Oscar Mercado and Tim Locastro all joined Merrill as potential solutions in center when camp began last month, though of that group only Mercado was able to keep up with Merrill’s blistering performance this spring and the club recently tipped their hand regarding their decision by including only Merrill, corner bats Jose Azocar and Jurickson Profar, and right fielder Fernando Tatis Jr. as outfielders on their 31-man travel roster for the Seoul Series.

It’s possible Merrill won’t be the only rookie with minimal upper-minors experience on the club’s Opening Day lineup, as the club also included Graham Pauley on their travel roster for the coming series. The Athletic’s Dennis Lin indicated last week that Pauley was likely in position to fill in for veteran third baseman Manny Machado at the hot corner to open the season, as Machado will begin the season at DH while he recovers from elbow surgery, which he underwent back in October. Pauley, 23, was a 13th-round pick by the Padres in the 2022 draft and enjoyed a breakout season last year as he slashed a whopping .308/.393/.539 in 127 games split between the Single-A, High-A, and Double-A levels.

Padres, Tommy Pham Discussing One-Year Deal

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According to Bob Nightengale of USA Today, the Padres are “in talks” with free agent Tommy Pham and “could be moving closer” to an agreement. It would be a one-year contract in the $3MM to $4MM range. Nightengale also reports that the White Sox are interested in the veteran outfielder if his negotiations with the Padres fall through.

Pham has been linked to San Diego through several recent reports. Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune wrote that the team remained “engaged in conversations” with Pham earlier this week, while Jon Heyman of the New York Post noted the Padres were “among teams eying Tommy Pham.” Other outfielders linked to the Padres, namely Adam Duvall and Michael A. Taylor, have now signed elsewhere, while other teams linked to Pham, such as the Diamondbacks and Pirates, have gone in a different direction.

The fit for Pham in San Diego is clear. Jurickson Profar is currently slated to get most of the playing time in left field. The Padres are surely hoping Profar bounces back from his career-worst season in 2023, but it would be nice for manager Mike Shildt to have another option if that doesn’t happen. The team will also need a designated hitter once Manny Machado is ready to return to third base; Pham played 44 games at DH last year for the Mets and D-backs.

Pham previously played for San Diego in 2020 and ’21, and Annie Heilbrunn of the San Diego Union-Tribune reported earlier this offseason that he would be open to a reunion.

As for the White Sox, they should be set in left field and at DH with Andrew Benintendi and Eloy Jiménez, respectively. However, the left-handed rookie Dominic Fletcher could use a platoon partner in right field, and Chicago could use a right-handed bat for the bench. Presumably, Pham is looking to be more than a bench bat and the short side of a platoon; he said as much earlier this winter. Yet, at this point in the offseason, he may have to settle for a limited role, especially if he wants to get in some spring training games before the regular season begins. What’s more, if he plays well for the White Sox, he can earn more playing time, and he can expect to be dealt to a contender before the trade deadline.

Padres Acquire Dylan Cease

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The Dylan Cease saga has come to an end. The Padres announced the acquisition of the right-hander from the White Sox for four players: prospects Drew Thorpe, Jairo Iriarte and Samuel Zavala and big league reliever Steven Wilson.

Cease has been a trade candidate at least as far back as last summer’s deadline. While Chicago took him off the market at that time, first-year general manager Chris Getz made clear that he was willing to consider offers on virtually everyone on the roster going into the offseason. That made Cease one of the top names of the winter.

Chicago fielded offers early in the offseason before pulling back. The Sox indicated they wanted to wait for the free agent rotation market to play out before aggressively shopping the star righty. Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery have lingered in free agency longer than anyone anticipated. With Opening Day two weeks away, Chicago seemed to find more urgency to make a move. They’d reportedly talked with the Yankees and Rangers within the past few days, but it is San Diego that gets the deal done.

It’s a massive strike for them just a week before they’ll open the regular season with a two-game set against the Dodgers in South Korea. For much of the offseason, the Padres have gone in the opposite direction. They faced significant payroll constraints that led to the free agent departures of Josh Hader, Seth Lugo, Nick Martinez and Michael Wacha. Snell seems likely to follow.

The biggest loss, of course, came via trade. The Padres dealt Juan Soto to the Yankees before his final year of team control. That both offloaded his arbitration salary — which eventually checked in at $31MM — and brought back a number of controllable starting pitchers to compensate for the free agent departures. Michael King will step into the middle of the rotation. Jhony Brito and Randy Vásquez are candidates for a back-end role. Thorpe came over in that trade and would have been in the rotation mix as well, but he’s now headed to Chicago before throwing a regular season pitch for the Padres.

Despite targeting upper level pitching in the Soto return, San Diego had a largely unproven rotation. Joe Musgrove and Yu Darvish were locked into the top two spots. King was ensured of a job after a strong finish last season with the Yankees, but he’d been a reliever for most of his major league career. He only moved to the starting staff for his final eight appearances beginning at the end of August. The rest of the starting pitching options in the organization have limited MLB experience of any kind.

Cease addresses that lack of experience. The former sixth-round pick has been a fixture of the Sox’s rotation since 2020. Aside from a brief virus-related absence in ’21, he hasn’t missed any time as a major leaguer. Cease leads the majors with 109 starts over the last four seasons.

At his best, Cease has paired that pristine durability with a top-of-the-rotation ceiling. He was dominant two seasons ago, turning in a 2.20 ERA with an excellent 30.4% strikeout rate through 184 innings. He was runner-up behind Justin Verlander in that season’s Cy Young balloting and received some down-ballot MVP consideration.

The 28-year-old didn’t replicate that ace-caliber production last season. He had a pedestrian 4.58 ERA across 177 frames. While some level of regression from a 2.20 mark always seemed likely, his earned run average more than doubling wasn’t expected. That’s partially a reflection of a dramatic swing in Cease’s batted ball fortune. Opponents hit only .260 on balls in play against him in 2022; that spiked 70 points a season ago.

Beyond the ball-in-play results, Cease was a little less overpowering in ’23 than he’d been the previous season. His swinging strike rate dipped from 15% to 13.6%. He lost three percentage points off his strikeout rate, which fell to 27.3%. The average velocity on both his fastball (95.6 MPH) and slider (86.3 MPH) dropped a tick. Those are all still better than average marks but not quite as impressive as his 2022 metrics.

As is often the case, Cease’s true talent ERA very likely falls somewhere in the middle. Going back to the start of 2020, he carries a 3.58 mark in just shy of 600 innings. That has come in a tough home ballpark for pitchers in front of generally lackluster defenses.

At the same time, Cease has never had pristine control of his high-octane stuff. He has walked more than 10% of batters faced in three of the past four seasons, including his Cy Young runner-up campaign. He issued free passes at a 10.1% clip last year. That inconsistent command has kept him from blossoming into a true ace and is part of the reason he’s “only” 16th in innings pitched over the last four seasons despite topping MLB in starts.

It’s debatable but largely immaterial where Cease slots alongside Darvish and Musgrove among San Diego’s top three starters. King moves to the #4 spot, while the Friars now have only one Opening Day rotation job up for grabs. Brito, Vásquez, knuckleballer Matt Waldron and the out-of-options Pedro Avila could each be in the mix for the role.

It’s a renewed push for contention by a San Diego front office that has never shied away from dealing for star talent. Cease becomes the defining addition of the Padre offseason, largely enabled by his affordability. He and the White Sox had agreed to an $8MM salary to avoid arbitration. He’s under control via that process through the 2025 campaign. The Padres can plug him into the rotation for the next two years for what’ll likely be between $20MM and $25MM overall.

RosterResource calculates San Diego’s 2024 player payroll around $167MM, including Cease’s salary. The trade pushes their luxury tax number around $224MM, roughly $13MM below this year’s lowest threshold. The Friars have worked to stay under the tax line after exceeding it in each of the past three seasons. They still have questions about the overall roster depth — particularly in the outfield — but they have some flexibility to continue adding either this spring or at the deadline without pushing into CBT territory.

Landing a pitcher of Cease’s caliber and affordability required parting with a few fairly well-regarded young players. San Diego was never going to trade Ethan Salas or Jackson Merrill and managed to keep young pitchers Dylan Lesko and Robby Snelling out of the deal. Thorpe, Zavala and Iriarte were all generally regarded in the next tier of Padres talents. Baseball America ranked all three between fifth and ninth in the San Diego system. The Athletic’s Keith Law had those players in the 6-9 range on his organizational prospect list.

As a key piece of the Soto return, Thorpe is probably the most well-known of the bunch. A second-round pick in 2022 out of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Thorpe had a breakout showing in his first full minor league season. The 6’4″ right-hander worked to a 2.52 ERA in 23 starts between High-A and Double-A last year. He fanned more than a third of opposing hitters against a modest 7.1% walk rate.

Thorpe doesn’t light up radar guns with a fastball that sits in the low-90s. Evaluators credit him with a plus or better changeup and an above-average breaking ball, though. He has shown advanced strike-throwing acumen, although Law writes that his precise command (the ability to spot pitches where he wants them) isn’t as impressive as his control (hitting the strike zone consistently). Baseball America, FanGraphs and ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel all placed Thorpe in the back half of the league’s Top 100 prospects this winter. He’s a potential mid-rotation arm who could impact the Sox as soon as this year.

Iriarte, a 6’2″ righty from Venezuela, could also be part of the major league pitching staff at some point in 2024. The 22-year-old worked 90 1/3 frames across 27 appearances between High-A and Double-A last season. He allowed 3.49 earned runs per nine behind a 33.2% strikeout percentage. He also walked almost 12% of opposing hitters, but there’s clear bat-missing potential.

Evaluators credit Iriarte with upper 90s velocity with a plus slider and a promising but inconsistent changeup. The chance for three above-average to plus offerings gives him significant upside, although evaluators are split on whether he’ll stick as a starting pitcher. He’ll need to refine his secondary stuff and continue to improve his control, but his athleticism gives him the opportunity to do so. FanGraphs slotted Iriarte in the back half of their Top 100 list. The Sox can take their time to afford him plenty of reps in the upper minors.

Zavala, 19, is a further away development flier. The lefty-hitting outfielder was one of the better prospects in the 2020-21 international signing period. He spent most of last season at Low-A Lake Elsinore. Zavala’s .267/.420/.451 batting line is impressive for a player his age, but prospect evaluators are divided on his long-term upside. Law suggests he’s unlikely to stick in center field, while most reports question his pure contact skills. Zavala took plenty of walks but also struck out at an alarming 27.2% clip in Low-A.

Wilson might be the fourth piece of the return, but he should step directly into the big league bullpen. The 29-year-old righty has been a quality reliever in each of the last two seasons. Wilson owns a 3.48 ERA across 106 career innings. He has fanned just over a quarter of opposing hitters against a 10.9% walk rate. Wilson leans heavily on a low-80s breaking ball and sits in the mid-90s with his fastball.

That profile has led to better strikeout and walk numbers versus right-handed batters, but Wilson has gotten decent results against hitters of either handedness. He could step into high-leverage work in a completely open Sox bullpen. The Santa Clara product has exactly two years of service. Chicago controls him through at least 2027, depending on whether they option him to the minors at any point. He won’t be eligible for arbitration until next offseason.

The White Sox had named Cease their Opening Day starter. That’s no longer on the table as they commit even further to a retool. KBO returnee Erick Fedde is perhaps the top pitcher in what might be the weakest rotation in the American League. Michael Soroka, Chris Flexen, Michael Kopech, Garrett Crochet and Jared Shuster are among the other possibilities. Thorpe figures to open the season in Triple-A but could pitch his way into the mix before long.

Chicago could go outside the organization to try to backfill some of their lost innings. Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic reported last night that the Sox had interest in Michael Lorenzen as a potential Cease replacement. Zack Greinke, Jake Odorizzi and old friend Johnny Cueto also remain unsigned.

Iriarte and Wilson are each on the 40-man roster. Thorpe and Zavala won’t be eligible for the Rule 5 draft until the 2025-26 offseason, although Thorpe seems likely to pitch his way onto the MLB roster well before that point. Chicago designated outfielder Peyton Burdick for assignment to open the necessary 40-man spot.

ESPN’s Jeff Passan first reported the Padres were finalizing a trade for Cease. Jon Heyman of the New York Post confirmed a Cease agreement was in place. Jon Morosi of MLB.com was first to report the White Sox were acquiring Thorpe and Iriarte. The Athletic’s Dennis Lin first reported Wilson’s inclusion. Bob Nightengale of USA Today was first with Zavala being in the deal.

Images courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Padres, White Sox Have Recently Discussed Dylan Cease Trade

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Trade talk surrounding White Sox righty Dylan Cease has apparently rekindled in full. Jon Morosi of MLB Network reports that the Padres and White Sox have recently discussed the 2022 AL Cy Young runner-up, which aligns with yesterday’s report from Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, wherein he noted that the White Sox have had several members of their front office present to get first-hand looks at the Padres in recent days. The Friars join the Yankees and Rangers as clubs prominently linked to Cease in the second act of his offseason trade candidacy.

By now, the merits and risks regarding a trade for Cease have been well documented. He’s an affordable — $8MM in 2023, arb-eligible in 2025 — 28-year-old righty with two years of team control who demonstrated his upside with a second-place Cy Young finish in 2022 but struggled through a down year in 2023, when he notched a 4.58 ERA with slightly diminished (but still far better than average) strikeout and velocity numbers. Cease has worse command than one would prefer from a top starting pitcher, which has long been an issue, but he and other Sox hurlers have also been harmed by perennially poor defensive alignments behind them.

Last year’s pedestrian ERA notwithstanding, Cease is a durable power pitcher whom other organizations undoubtedly view as a playoff-caliber starter — if not a true No. 1 then at least a strong No. 2-3 option in a postseason rotation. No pitcher in baseball has started more games than Cease’s 109 dating back to 2020 — his first full season at the MLB level. Even if one were to assume that Cease’s 2022 season was an outlier, career-best campaign while his 2023 ERA was somewhat fluky in nature, a look at his entire body of work over the past three seasons reveals strong overall numbers: 526 2/3 innings of 3.54 ERA ball with a huge 29.8% strikeout rate against an elevated 10.1% walk rate. Fielding-independent metrics tend to support the idea that Cease’s talent level lands somewhere in the mid-  to upper-3.00s.

In terms of pure team fit, the Padres are as strong a match as one could conjure up. The Friars’ offseason has been something of a financially motivated reset, but the team isn’t about to enter a full-scale rebuild with Fernando Tatis Jr., Manny Machado, Xander Bogaerts, Yu Darvish and Joe Musgrove all signed long-term. The Padres only have three clear starters at the moment in Musgrove, Darvish and trade acquisition Michael King, who came over from the Yankees in the Juan Soto swap.

Adding Cease to the rotation and cementing the top four spots would create a fifth-starter battle including Matt Waldron, Randy Vasquez, Jhony Brito, Pedro Avila, Jay Groome and others. The team’s chances of competing with that group vying for only the final spot in the rotation, obviously, would be far greater than needing to rely on two names from that unproven group to carry the back end of the staff. (Some of those names, of course, could be included in a theoretical trade package with the White Sox.)

The affordable nature of Cease’s contract surely appeals to a San Diego club that has slashed the present-day cost of its roster by nearly $100MM. That’s doubly true in that Cease’s $8MM salary wouldn’t put the Padres anywhere particularly close to the $237MM luxury-tax threshold they’re clearly hoping to avoid. RosterResource projects San Diego at just over $216MM in luxury obligations. Cease would be a net $7.26MM in luxury considerations, bringing the team to around $223.5MM. That’d still leave some room if president of baseball operations A.J. Preller wants to add Cease and pursue one more free agent outfielder, as has been rumored; the Padres were connected to Adam Duvall, Michael A. Taylor and old friend Tommy Pham earlier this week.

While Preller’s years of frenetic activity on the trade market lead to constant churn in the farm system, the Padres remain strong in that regard. Each of MLB.com, ESPN and Baseball America rank the Padres among the sport’s top six farm systems, due largely to strong drafting and international scouting, in addition to replenishing some of their lost depth in the trade that sent Soto and Trent Grisham to New York. Top prospect Jackson Merrill looks on track to be the team’s Opening Day center fielder and is surely all but untouchable alongside ballyhooed catcher Ethan Salas. But the Friars have as many as six other prospects who’ve drawn top-100 fanfare, in addition to a slew of near-MLB-ready talent that could entice the ChiSox to part with Cease.

Shildt: Merrill Traveling With Padres For Korea Series

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Over the past few weeks, it has become increasingly likely that top prospect Jackson Merrill would break camp with the Padres. While the team has yet to make that official, manager Mike Shildt implied this evening the 20-year-old was trending towards a spot on the Opening Day roster.

“Jackson Merrill is going to Korea,” Shildt told reporters, in reference to San Diego’s season-opening series in Seoul against the Dodgers next week (link via AJ Cassavell of MLB.com). “He’s earned his way on the plane. He’s earned what’s coming after the plane.”

That’s not quite a declaration that the Padres are calling him up. San Diego and Los Angeles are allowed to bring 31 players with them to Seoul, although only 26 will be on the active roster for games. That theoretically leaves open the possibility of Merrill traveling with the team and not being activated for the series. Yet Shildt’s not particularly subtle nod to “what’s coming after” the flight is all but a formal announcement that he will break camp. As Cassavell notes, the Padres would likely have had Merrill continue working in minor league camp this week if they weren’t planning to call him up.

A first-round pick out of a Maryland high school in 2021, Merrill is on track to be San Diego’s Opening Day center fielder. That’s a position he has never played in a minor league game. He made five starts in left field with Double-A San Antonio a year ago. Other than that, his entire professional experience had come on the infield. With San Diego having far more infield depth than outfielders, Merrill spent the offseason working as an outfielder. He has played on the grass in Spring Training and evidently impressed the organization enough defensively.

Merrill has limited experience facing upper level pitching. He has never played in Triple-A and only had 46 games of Double-A experience. Merrill put up a solid .273/.348/.444 line in 211 plate appearances in a pitcher-friendly setting at that level. He has impressed in Spring Training, punctuating a recent hot streak with an opposite-field homer off Zac Gallen this afternoon. Merrill is now up to a .343/.395/.600 slash with three walks and strikeouts apiece in exhibition play.

The Padres entered camp with only three outfielders on the 40-man roster: Fernando Tatis Jr., José Azocar and Jurickson Profar. San Diego would need to select Merrill’s contract but can do so without a corresponding move, as they only have 37 players on the 40-man roster.

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