1-Man’s Opinion on Sports-Thursday “PADRES–GOOD OR BAD NEWS”
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PADRES…GOOD OR BAD NEWS
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The Padres front office is coming home from Nashville. The Winter Meetings have concluded.
The Juan Soto trade is in the process of being reviewed, as the Friars evaluate the medical records of those coming in.
To recap, Juan Soto, his booming bat and his OPS stats head to Yankees Stadium, along with Gold Glove centerfielder Trent Grisham.
Padresville has to be disappointed. They traded for Soto for 3-pennant races. They gave up after 1-really good 3-month span in 2022, and a summer of underachieving disappointments in 2023..
Soto himself wasted his 2022-season, doing virtually nothing. He had the horrid start in 2023, but from June 1st on, played like the slugger we saw in Washington.
The Padres gave up on Grisham,much like the Brewers did. Gold Glove, could go get anything-anywhere on the field with his glove. Could not hit a lick. An occasional home run was off set by sub .200-stretches of hitting and lots of strikeouts.
So the Padres created two holes in their outfield. They delete a power bat in the middle of the order. They clear approximately 38M-in budget space. Please don’t show me the baseball cards of Jurickson Profar nor Jose Azucar.
Now your roster is missing 9-pitchers from last summer, virtually all their first basemen, and what’s missing in that outfield at Petco.
But the deal is much more than Soto to the House that Ruth built.
You have to add in what the Padres gave up to the Nationals to get Soto. Look at the Nationals roster and you see bright young SS-CJ Abrams. That is MacKenzie Gore at the front of the rotation. Add in hot young minor leaguers James Wood-Robert Hassel, who have hit everywhere along the farm systems they have played in. Still to be delivered is young pitcher Jarlin Susana, plus throw in DH-Luke Voit, who is now gone from Washington.
End result, the calculus shows you just traded Soto and Grisham, plus 6-other younger players and what you have will be a group of young pitchers from the Yankees plus a backup catcher.
It wound up being 8-for-4. The Yankees pitchers coming this way are young, and some have had success, but Soto is elite and you don’t have anyone coming to San Diego equal to what he was, that you just dealt away.
The Yankees ledger shows pitching talent, but no dominance, not the type of dominance Soto would give you in San Diego brown and gold.
..P-Michael King (4-8)..(2.75-ERA)
..P-Drew Thorpe (14-2) in Class A-AA
..P-Jhonny Brito (9-7)..(4.28-ERA)
..P-Randy Vasquez (2-2) 2.87
..C-Kyle Higashioka (.236-10HRs)
A package of decent young arms, but none of those arms helped the Yankees into the postseason.
Not in the package, top pitcher Clark Schmidt or infielder Gleyber Torres, a multi position guy who can hit and has some power. Two top tier players in the Yankees lineup, and the Rock-Star GM couldn’t pry either one from New York for an elite bat going to the Pinstripes.
Not getting what I wanted, and adding in what Preller gave to Washington, just does not make it like this was a ‘win-win’ deal for both teams.
Yes they have budget space to use. Yes they may make a run at OF-Jung Hoo-Lee of Korea and Japanese pitcher Shoto Ignama, but those players don’t make them scary additions to the Padres roster.
Argue with me, yell at me, sales-pitch me, the Padres are a better team now than before the Winter Meetings?
Good deal or bad? Can’t fully decide till we see what else they bring in. But this off season has not started like I wanted. Star slugger gone. Bunch of young arms, some unproven, coming.
How does that make the Padres a better team at this hour?
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Hacksaw
We both know this HAD to happen. Keep him one more year and lose him to free agency? That doesn’t make any sense
and certainly no guarantee he takes them to the World Series.
The Angel’s kept Othani a year to long and got nothing in return.
Just think of the return they could have gotten had they acted a year or two earlier. (no one believes Angels will resign Him either)
Let’s face it Soto was a costly rental from the beginning and the Padres were never going to pay him with the ‘big 3’ already on the payroll for years to come. Yankees too are paying big for a ‘rental’ as of now. Did the Pads have any real leverage in negotiating? Who else was bidding for Soto anyway? No one that I heard of.
Good article but this is the best outcome for now.