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Latest On Padres-Red Sox Talks On Mookie Betts

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The chatter on Red Sox star Mookie Betts continues even as the opening of camp draws near. Three NL West organizations are reportedly engaged with the Boston organization on the exceptional right fielder, adding to the intrigue.

Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune updates the situation from the Padres’ perspective, covering quite a few notable details on the discussions. The Friars are said to be trying to structure a deal around a pair of young MLB-level players: one outfielder (Manuel Margot or Josh Naylor) and one pitcher (Cal Quantrill or Joey Lucchesi).

Supposing that aspect of the prospective arrangement meets with the desires of the Boston front office, there’s still the matter of sorting out the money. As has been reported previously, the Friars wish to offload as much as possible of the Wil Myers contract, in no small part due to the fact that Betts is set to play for $27MM in 2020. But the sides are currently deadlocked on the dollars, with the Sox “offering to assume about half” of the $61MM still owed Myers and the Pads wishing “to eat only about a quarter.”

While a ~$15MM difference is no small matter, that’s not necessarily an unbridgeable gap. (At least, assuming the teams are seeing eye to eye on the other pieces.) But the Red Sox surely don’t want to sell low on a franchise stalwart. And the Padres are understandably wary of over-extending for a rental player.

Among the clubs pursuing Betts, the Padres are in the most speculative competitive position. They’re trying to move out of the NL West cellar and chase down the Dodgers and Diamondbacks. That won’t be an easy feat, even with Betts. While there’d always be a mid-season ripcord if things fall flat, and Betts is all but assured of receiving and declining a qualifying offer at season’s end, it’s questionable whether now is the time to push a bunch of chips in on a purely win-now move.

Padres Place Matt Strahm On Injured List

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The Padres announced Wednesday that they’ve placed left-hander Matt Strahm on the 10-day injured list due to a rib strain.  They’ve also optioned lefty reliever Brad Wieck to Triple-A, recalled right-hander Cal Quantrill and reinstated righty Miguel Diaz from the 60-day injured list. San Diego has not yet announced a corresponding 40-man roster move for Diaz, but its 40-man was previously full, so another move will need to be announced in the near future.

Strahm, 27, has had a solid season with the Padres after moving from the bullpen in 2018 to a full-time rotation gig in 2019. Through 11 starts, he’s totaled 60 1/3 innings of 4.04 ERA ball. Along the way, the former Royals southpaw has averaged 8.4 K/9 and 1.6 BB/9, though his elevated 1.49 HR/9 and a below-average 36 percent ground-ball rate are less encouraging. Strahm is already just one inning shy of his 2018 total, so his workload moving forward will be worth monitoring. While the Friars are surely comfortable with a hefty step up in terms of innings count, it’s also unlikely that Strahm is ticketed for a full slate of 30-plus starts and 180-plus innings, even if today’s IL placement proves short-term.

With Strahm sidelined at least temporarily, the Padres will lean on Joey Lucchesi, Chris Paddack, Eric Lauer, Nick Margevicius and, presumably, Quantrill in the rotation. It’s an inexperienced group but one that has been mostly effective. Margevicius is the lone member of the group who has struggled substantially, but even in his case, most of the damage done against him has been confined to his three most recent outings.

In Diaz, the Padres will welcome back a hard-throwing 24-year-old righty who has been on the shelf all season so far due to a torn meniscus. Diaz hasn’t found big league success yet, but he averages better than 95 mph on his heater and picks up roughly a strikeout per inning. He has minor league options remaining, so if the control issues he’s experienced at the MLB level (5.5 BB/9 in 60 1/3 frames) persist, he can be sent down without risk of being exposed to waivers.

Padres Option Nick Margevicius, Recall Cal Quantrill

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The Padres have optioned left-hander Nick Margevicius to Double-A Amarillo and sent reliever Gerardo Reyes to Triple-A El Paso, per a team announcement. To take their roster spots in San Diego, the club recalled righty Cal Quantrill from El Paso and reinstated reliever Trey Wingenter from the 10-day injured list.

The Margevicius demotion ends his run in the Padres’ starting staff, at least for now. Although the 22-year-old is not a top prospect and had never pitched above the High-A level entering the season, he spent the first month and a half of 2019 in the Friars’ rotation. The returns were great at first, but the soft-tossing Margevicius has gone into a tailspin since mid-April. In his most recent start, a 7-2 loss to the Pirates on Saturday, he yielded six earned runs on eight hits (including four homers) in four innings. Margevicius now carries a 4.96 ERA/6.00 FIP with 6.55 K/9, 2.98 BB/9, a 43.4 percent groundball rate and a 21.2 percent HR-to-fly ball rate over 45 1/3 major league frames.

Margevicius’ struggles have opened the door for Quantrill, who will have a chance to make a case for a starting job. The promising prospect, 24, will take the ball Sunday for his third start of the season. He could eventually hand the ball off to Wingenter, who got off to an effective start this year before right shoulder inflammation forced him to the shelf two weeks ago.

Padres Promote Cal Quantrill

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TODAY: Quantrill’s contract has been selected. Reliever Phil Maton was optioned down, while righty Miguel Diaz was shifted to the 60-day injured list to create 40-man space.

YESTERDAY: The Padres will promote pitching prospect Cal Quantrill to the majors this Wednesday, according to MLB.com’s AJ Cassavell. He’s expected to start the club’s game that day in Atlanta.

Quantrill, 24, was the eighth overall pick in the 2016 draft and commanded top-100 leaguewide prospect billing entering the 2017 and 2018 campaigns. His rise up the rankings stalled out after a suboptimal ’18 effort, though there’s still plenty of reason to hope he’ll be a quality MLB hurler.

This promotion represents a continuation of the Friars’ strategy for managing their bevy of unproven young talent and designs on contention. Quantrill may only be up briefly to begin — the five members of the existing rotation are expected to continue working in a starting capacity — but could be called upon several times throughout the year to help spread innings around. It’s certainly also possible that he could command more opportunities in the majors based upon his own showing.

Quantrill has still yet to master the upper minors, which is likely why he was bypassed when the San Diego organization brought up a series of other young pitchers this year. He’s now carrying a 4.68 ERA in 25 innings over five starts on the year at Triple-A, though that comes with a solid combination of 8.6 K/9 against 2.9 BB/9 along with a 48.6% groundball rate. Quantrill should be ready for a full workload after reaching 148 innings in 2018.

In the event that Quantrill is able to command an active roster spot for the rest of the season, he could accrue as many as 152 days of service. That’d be enough to set him up for future Super Two qualification but not enough to reach a full year of service (which requires 172 days). The club will need to add Quantrill to the 40-man roster before activating him.

NL West Notes: Padres, Archer, Giants, Shark, Evans, Dodgers

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Reports yesterday indicated the Padres were checking around about a potential Chris Archer trade with the Rays, and MLB.com’s Jon Paul Morosi sheds a bit more light on those talks.  San Diego is reportedly willing to move one or two of Francisco Mejia, Luis Urias, and Cal Quantrill in an Archer deal, though its top two prospects (Fernando Tatis Jr. and MacKenzie Gore) are not available.  Even without Tatis or Gore on the table, dealing any of those other highly-touted prospects would be a major concession on San Diego’s part, and a big score for the Rays.  Mejia was only just acquired by the Padres as the return for Brad Hand and Adam Cimber, so in my opinion, it could be that the team sees the young catcher as somewhat “found money” — put another way, the Padres would be essentially dealing Hand and Cimber for Archer, which is a deal the club would’ve happily made.  Then again, the Padres are so deep in minor league talent that they can afford to move top names like Mejia, Urias, or Quantrill and still have one of the game’s better farm systems.

Scouts from the Padres and Diamondbacks (and, from outside the division, the Phillies and Cubs) watched Archer’s start last Sunday.  A source tells Morosi that at least eight teams have recently been in touch with the Rays about Archer’s availability, and while there still isn’t clear sign Tampa is considering a trade, this deep interest is one of the reasons “a deal involving Archer is more likely now than at any point in recent memory,” Morosi writes.

Here’s more from around the NL West…

  • There’s still no timetable for the Giants to welcome back righty Jeff Samardzija, though it’s not looking particularly promising. Per Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle, via Twitter, the veteran hurler is “not returning anytime soon.” Rather, he’ll continue to rest his ailing shoulder before heading out for some amount of rehab work. This continues to be a lost season for the 33-year-old, who owns a 6.25 ERA in 44 2/3 innings
  • Though Samardzija’s ongoing injury issue is one of several less-than-promising signs for the Giants, indications are that they aren’t interested in packing up and waiting for next year. GM Bobby Evans says in a chat with Joel Sherman of the New York Post that the front office is “bent toward helping our current club.”  Though Evans expressed at least some willingness to consider moving bullpen pieces, such a move wouldn’t really serve the team’s interests, particularly after the Giants previously gave up young talent to shed salary.  While the team is still within reasonable striking distance in the NL West, its place in the trade deadline picture remains unclear — though Evans did shut down any thought that the team would make a last-minute decision to make star lefty Madison Bumgarner available.
  • The Dodgers sent scouts to watch pitchers on both the Marlins and Rays when the two Florida rivals faced off last weekend, the Miami Herald’s Clark Spencer reports (Twitter link).  L.A. could have interested in any number of relievers or perhaps even starting pitchers on either roster, given how many Miami and Tampa players have been cited in trade rumors.  Interestingly, Spencer’s tweet was linked to a tweet from Michael J. Duarte of NBC Los Angeles, who said that the Marlins had scouts watching Yadier Alvarez’s most recent Double-A outing.  A consensus top prospect headed into the 2017 season, Alvarez didn’t crack the preseason top-100 lists for Baseball America or MLB.com this year (though Baseball Prospectus still had him 41st) in the wake of an unimpressive season.  Alvarez has continued to struggle in 2018, with a 5.85 ERA and 25 walks in 20 frames for Double-A Tulsa, though he’s still missing a lot of bats with his 100-mph fastball.

Padres Sign Top Pick Cal Quantrill

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TODAY: The idea that Quantrill would free the Pads to sign other choices was apparently misplaced, as MLB.com’s Jonathan Mayo tweets that he’ll actually command an over-slot bonus. His agreed-upon bonus is $3,963,045, per Mayo, which landss $332,145 above the slot value at #8.

It appears that the team cut its deal with 24th overall selection Hudson Sanchez, who agreed to a $1MM bonus that leaves plenty of meat left on the bone of his $2,191,200 slot value, per Jim Callis of MLB.com (via Twitter). The remainder of that cash appears to have been redirected to Mason Thompson, who agreed to an above-slot deal yesterday.

YESTERDAY: The Padres have agreed to terms with top draft pick Cal Quantrill, per a team announcement. The son of long-time big league reliever Paul Quantrill, Cal was selected eighth overall out of Stanford University.

It’s possible that Quantrill would have gone even higher, but he’s still working back from Tommy John surgery. That didn’t stop San Diego from betting on his top-tier talent, though there were other motivations at play for the organization, too.

With multiple early-round picks in their pocket, the Padres were looking for someone to cut a deal at that selection. It offered just over $3.6MM in bonus spending, and expectations are that some of that will go to other players — though Quantrill’s bonus remains unreported at present.

Among San Diego’s top selections were several high-schoolers — including shortstop Hudson Sanchez (#24) and righties Reggie Lawson (#71) and Mason Thompson (#85). In between, the club grabbed Kent State lefty Eric Lauer (#25) and Florida outfielder Buddy Reed (#48).

As for Quantrill, publications such as MLB.com and ESPN.com (Insider link) rated him just outside the top twenty draft-eligible prospects. His stock might’ve been higher had he returned to pitch this year — his surgery took place in March of 2015 — though some clubs were able to get a look at the talented righty in workouts. Obviously, San Diego felt that the talent was worth its top pick in a critical draft for the organization.

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