Archive for Padres

When the Padres added Mike Clevinger to their starting rotation, they were bolstering what was already a team strength. San Diego’s rotation had cumulatively put up the fourth-best FIP in baseball through the end of August, and that mark has improved from 3.92 to 3.64 in just a few weeks’ time. Their rotation is now the second-best in baseball by FIP and fourth-best by ERA. Dinelson Lamet has led the way with his 2.12 ERA and 2.70 FIP, but their second-best starter might not be who you expect. It’s not last year’s phenom Chris Paddack (4.74 ERA/4.66 FIP) nor is it the finally healthy Garrett Richards (4.27/4.28). It is Zach Davies and his 2.69 ERA and 3.68 FIP.

Acquired from the Brewers in November in the same trade that netted them Trent Grisham, a budding superstar in his own right, Davies has been a surprising source of quality innings for the Padres. A command artist armed with a diving changeup and an 88-mph sinker, he put together a solid-if-unspectacular career in Milwaukee over 600 innings. Despite well-below-average fastball velocity, he’s managed to succeed with a pitch-to-contact mentality by avoiding hard contact.

In late March, Davies discussed his pitch mix in an interview with David Laurila, titled, “Zach Davies Plans to Rely Less on Changeups.” Here’s how he explained it:

“I was getting guys out in any way possible. Going into last year, I was coming off injuries [rotator cuff inflammation and lower back tightness] and wasn’t guaranteed a starting spot. I wasn’t able to go into spring training and work on pitches, and the best way for me to get outs was fastball-changeup. That’s why the numbers were skewed. This year there will be a lot more of a mix.”

Davies threw his changeup 31.3% of the time last year, more than twice as often as he had in 2018 and good for the highest rate of his career. After struggling with his health the year before, he lost the feel for his curveball last year and leaned on his fastball-changeup combo to great effect. He posted the lowest ERA of his career, even though it was a little more than a full run lower than his FIP. Read the rest of this entry »

San Diego’s big move at the deadline involved acquiring Mike Clevinger. Of course, they made a number of smaller moves as well, adding relievers Trevor Rosenthal and Taylor Williams, catcher Jason Castro, and designated hitter/first baseman Mitch Moreland. All of those deals made a ton of sense, but the one that jumps out, the deal that makes you wonder what exactly is going through A.J. Preller’s head, involved giving up a good prospect in Taylor Trammell, along with a few other useful players, for a package headlined by 30-year-old catcher Austin Nola and his 377 big league plate appearances. I suspect it caused many to ask, “Who is Austin Nola?” and “Why was he so valuable?”

Before we get to Nola, let’s first acknowledge that our evaluations of Taylor Trammell might be a bit off. He graded out as a 55 Future Value-level prospect when traded from the Reds a year ago, but he fell to a 50 on the Padres list this season, projecting to be an average regular. That’s a very good prospect, and one of the top 100 in the game, but he isn’t a surefire starting left fielder. As such, it’s possible Trammell’s trade value is slightly lower than the prospect consensus. Of course, we also need to mention that the Padres sent multiple other players to Seattle in power reliever Andres Muñoz, potential role player Ty France, and 24-year-old catcher Luis Torrens, whose development has been slow since joining the Padres as a Rule 5 pick before the 2017 season. And while the Padres did get two other relievers in Austin Adams and Dan Altavilla, explaining the Nola-Trammell swap as resulting from a drop in Trammell’s value doesn’t quite do enough, as even with a dip, he still provides a decent amount of value and the other players included add more to the trade. To really explain the deal, we need to explain Austin Nola, a player any team could have signed less than two years ago.

Nola was a fifth-round pick by the Marlins back in 2012 and signed for $75,000. This is what Baseball America had to say in their report:

Austin Nola has been drafted twice already, never higher than the 31st round. He was playing at a higher level as a senior, having played with younger brother Aaron, a right-hander who should be a high draft pick in 2014. The 6-foot, 188-pound shortstop plays with confidence, especially on defense, where his hands are sure and his feet surprisingly nimble considering his below-average speed. He lacks impact with his bat, though he has improved his plate discipline and contact ability slightly over the course of his career. He’s a career .296 hitter who gives consistent effort and performance while lacking upside.

Already 22 years old when he was drafted, by 2014 Nola was playing in Double-A and putting up an average hitting line. In the Arizona Fall League, he captured the attention of Carson Cistulli and on the 2015 Marlins prospect list, he merited mention by Kiley McDaniel as “a solid utility type that’s just good enough at shortstop to play there for stretches while he hits liners gap to gap.” There was little to no power in his game and after a nondescript 2016 season, the erstwhile editor of FanGraphs noted that Nola “continued in 2015 to exhibit the sort defensive value and contact skills typical of the overlooked prospect. The almost complete lack of power in both cases, however, renders [Nola] unlikely to provide much value in the majors.” Read the rest of this entry »

Dave Raymond knows the West. The team he does play-by-play for, the Texas Rangers, not only competes in the American League West, their inter-league schedule this year comprises solely the National League equivalent. As a result, Raymond has been getting regular looks at two of the game’s most talent-rich divisions. In terms of powerhouse clubs and marquee players, the West is arguably baseball’s best.

How would Raymond rank the teams and players he’s seen this season? That was the crux of a conversation I had with the TV voice of the Rangers prior to last night’s game.

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David Laurila: Which is the best team you’ve seen this year?

Dave Raymond: “I’ve been really impressed with the Padres. They looked really good against us [in mid-August]. We may have gotten them right on the way to their peak — and that might have been us headed right to the trough — but they were really impressive. They have so much great young talent. There are guys like Jake Cronenworth who are hardly even noticed in the shadow of Fernando Tatis Jr. I mean, Cronenworth has to be the top rookie-of-the-year candidate right now, and he doesn’t even stand out on that team.

“Even Manny Machado. It looked like the energy of some of the young players is lifting him a little bit. He made some plays against the Rangers that were were pretty neat. You got a glimpse again of that young Manny Machado who won a Gold Glove and was more of the all-round player.

“But here’s my thought about the Padres: if you look at that lineup, find me the homegrown guy. He’s not there. It’s made up of all these pieces that were plucked from different organizations in trades and free agent signings. In kind of a perverse way, it’s really remarkable. I don’t think anybody sets out to build a championship team almost exclusively from other teams, but that’s kind of what they’ve done. And we just saw them, at the trade deadline, going out and aggressively bringing in even more guys from other organizations. Read the rest of this entry »

After their huge seven-player swap on Sunday night, the Padres and Mariners returned to the same well and struck a smaller deal in the waning minutes before the trade deadline. Taylor Williams is headed to San Diego to join his former bullpen-mates Austin Adams and Dan Altavilla, while the Mariners receive a player to be named later — though the player has already reportedly been named: right-hander Matt Brash. The framework of the Williams deal was established during the negotiations for the bigger trade, but the trigger didn’t get pulled until just before the 4pm EST deadline.

Even though they had acquired Trevor Rosenthal, Adams, and Altavilla in the last few days, the Padres were still looking to improve their bullpen. The health of Adams’ knee is still a question mark and the inconsistent Altavilla is more of a work-in-progress than a sure-thing. In Williams, the Padres get a reliever who can contribute right away. He had been the Mariners de facto closer for much of this season and had shown some promise as a high leverage reliever. He had pushed his strikeout rate over 30% this season and lowered his FIP to 3.50. But he doesn’t come without a few warts. His command leaves a lot to be desired as he’s been prone to overthrowing in particularly stressful situations.

The biggest driver of Williams’ success this year has been an increased reliance on his wicked slider. He’s now throwing his breaking ball more than ever and it’s been extremely effective for him. Opposing batters are whiffing almost 50% of the time they offer at the pitch. What’s even more encouraging is he’s using it more often earlier in counts to steal called strikes while still burying it for whiffs with two strikes. Read the rest of this entry »

Early this morning, the Padres and Indians officially consummated a much-rumored deal surrounding starter Mike Clevinger, one significant enough to demand multiple pieces of analysis, the prospect-centric slice of which I’ll serve you here. The broad strokes analysis of Cleveland’s prospect package is that in addition to the big league pieces they received, they added 20-year-old shortstop Gabriel Arias, yet another candidate to be the club’s long-term shortstop in the event that Francisco Lindor is either traded or leaves in free agency, and two other prospects, Joey Cantillo and Owen Miller, who fit archetypes that the org has often targeted and developed well.

He doesn’t have the highest ceiling of the group (Arias does), but I think Joey Cantillo is the best prospect in the trade. He entered 2020 coming off a breakout 2019 during which, at age 19, he struck out 144 hitters in 111 combined innings at Low-A Fort Wayne and Hi-A Lake Elsinore. It was a meteoric rise for a teenager who was less than two years removed from being a 16th round pick ($300,000 signing bonus) out of a high school in Hawaii, and Cantillo’s strikeout totals were especially confounding because he doesn’t throw all that hard, only living in the 87-90 range, touching 92. How does he do it? This piece has some specifics about how a fastball with below-average velocity can still miss bats in the strike zone. Cantillo also has an impact changeup. From his scouting report on The Board, where you can already see how the new Indians prospects rank in the system:

Not only does it have bat-missing movement but Cantillo’s arm speed really sells hitters on the notion that they’re getting a fastball; A-ball bats flailed at it in 2019. The carry on his fastball enables Cantillo to compete for swinging strikes in the zone, and that, plus his ability to throw lots of competitively-located changeups mean he can work back into any count. His breaking ball usage is ahead of its quality, something that might change if Cantillo does start throwing harder and adds power to his curve. The breaking ball and development of velo are now the two variables driving Cantillo’s potential future FV movement, but for now I think he has the tools to go right at hitters and be a No. 4/5 starter.

Read the rest of this entry »

The San Diego Padres and Cleveland Indians reached a whopper of an agreement on trade deadline day, with Cleveland sending pitcher Mike Clevinger, outfielder Greg Allen, and a player to be named later to the Padres for shortstop Gabriel Arias, catcher Austin Hedges, pitcher Cal Quantrill, first baseman Josh Naylor, pitcher Joey Cantillo, and shortstop Owen Miller. A nine-player trade is a significant deal, and with so many familiar names and a legitimate major league ace in the mix, this is one that will be looked back on for a long time, regardless of how it works out for either side.

The Padres have seen the wisdom of pushing in all of their chips for some time, though not always with the right cards in their hand. Just a few months into A.J. Preller’s stint as the general manager, the team decided to go all-in coming off a 77-85 season, bringing in Matt Kemp, Justin Upton, Wil Myers, James Shields, Derek Norris, and Will Middlebrooks in a two-month period over the 2014-2015 offseason. Problem was, the team wasn’t holding a high pair in that particular card game, and with the team’s talent otherwise generally unimpressive, San Diego actually won fewer games in 2015 than in 2014. Those moves cost them money, time, and players such as Yasmani Grandal, Trea Turner, Max Fried, Joe Ross, and Zach Eflin. That the team later turned a bag of lemons into liquid gold by landing Fernando Tatis Jr. for a struggling James Shields was a nice post-credits vignette for this tale of tragedy and heartbreak, but was hardly a reasonable expectation at the time of these moves.

In 2014, the Padres traded players they needed for players they didn’t.

2020 is a whole different story. This time around, the Padres are indisputably a serious contender, a 21-15 team, one that our projected standings now peg with a 98% chance of making the playoffs. Nor does this kind of performance appear to be any kind of fluke, at least in the eyes of the ZiPS projections. ZiPS saw Wild Card upside for the Padres in 2019 — which didn’t happen — but forecast an even better team in 2020, one it projected with an 87-75 record and a 52% chance of making the playoffs back before the season’s postponement. Read the rest of this entry »

A year ago, Cleveland traded Trevor Bauer to Cincinnati, with the Padres also involved to complete the deal. A little over a year later, another very good pitcher is on the move and San Diego and Cleveland are again both involved. Mike Clevinger was sent home earlier this season after violating COVID-19 safety protocols and now he’s heading to San Diego for a monster haul, with Robert Murray reporting that Clevinger was on the move first. The full deal according to Ken Rosenthal is:

San Diego Receives:

• Mike Clevinger
• Greg Allen
• PTBNL

Cleveland Receives:

• Gabriel Arias
• Joey Cantillo
• Austin Hedges
• Owen Miller
• Josh Naylor
• Cal Quantrill

Read the rest of this entry »

Catcher valuation, like Maria, is a difficult problem to solve. The San Diego Padres took a stab at it on Sunday night, trading for Seattle backstop Austin Nola in a seven-player swap. Jake Mailhot took a look at the calculus behind that decision, which completely revamped San Diego’s catching depth chart while also sending a big-name prospect to Seattle, which Eric Longenhagen covered.

But that wasn’t the entirety of the deal — not by a long-shot. A.J. Preller tacked on a swap of relievers in much the same way you or I might grab a pint of ice cream at the grocery store — “Well, since I’m already here, I might as well get this.” Relievers Austin Adams and Dan Altavilla are headed to San Diego as part of the Nola deal as well.

You’ve probably heard Austin Adams’ name before. It might even be the right Austin Adams — there’s another righty reliever by the same name in the Twins organization. You might not know just how excellent he is though. In a short 32-inning stint in the big leagues last year, he blew the competition away, striking out 40% of his opponents. He also walked 12%, which isn’t great, and had surgery to repair a torn ACL last September, so it’s not like he’s peak Craig Kimbrel without the name recognition. But he’s seriously great.

Adams sports the classic origin story for a good reliever: the Nationals traded him away for pitching help. In 2019 (!), they sent Adams to the Mariners for minor leaguer Nick Wells. Roughly a week later, the Mariners called him up, and after a debut featuring all three true outcomes — three strikeouts, a walk, and a home run in five batters — he rounded into being their best bullpen weapon. Read the rest of this entry »

Sunday’s seven-player deal between the Mariners and Padres was the deadline’s biggest trade so far, impacting this year’s playoff race and both teams’ roster construction for years to come. While the most immediate effects will be seen in San Diego, the Mariners continued to collect talented, young players with their spyglass fixed on a long-term rebuild by acquiring Taylor Trammell, Ty France, Andres Muñoz and Luis Torrens (covered here) in a trade centered around catcher Austin Nola.

The headline prospect of the package is Trammell, a 23-year-old 50 FV prospect (meaning I expect him to be a an everyday player who generates around 2 to 2.5 annual WAR — commensurate with a good everyday player — over the course of his pre-free agency seasons) who was with San Diego’s big league club throughout spring training, then played during summer camp intrasquads, and has since been at the Padres’ alternate training site at the University of San Diego. Trammell spent all of 2019 at Double-A, albeit with two different orgs because he was also part of last year’s massive, three-team Trevor Bauer deadline deal that sent Trammell from Cincinnati to San Diego; Seattle is his third organization in 13 months.

Trammell is ranked toward the top of the 50 FV tier of prospects, 68th in all of baseball, because a) he’s fairly close to the big leagues and b) he has a few core attributes that I consider especially important. Chiefly, Trammell has a good idea of the strike zone, and he’s a good athlete who has good on-field makeup/competitiveness. I know the latter two sound hokey and perhaps antiquated, but they do drive some of my thinking related to prospect floor or certainty because, anecdotally, I think good athletes who try hard tend to turn into good players.

A career .270/.363/.406 hitter, Trammell has the ball/strike recognition (12% career walk rate) and contact potential to one day be a leadoff man. I say contact potential because I don’t think his bat is quite as polished as it appeared to be at the lower levels. He’s a short-levered hitter who can turn on pitches on the inner third of the plate, and he grinds out long, tough at-bats, but while Trammell has some all-fields spray ability, he struggled with velocity up and away from him during the spring and summer intrasquads. To my eye, he has done some tinkering with his hitting footwork, which may have been an attempt to tease out more in-game power, though I’m skeptical that will ever be part of the profile. I think a contact/on base-oriented approach fits best with Trammell’s swing and physical ability, though admittedly punting on his power potential (those Futures Game rockets he hit a few years ago were highly unusual) caps his ceiling. It’s tough to be an impact player without thump, which is part of why I have a solid regular FV on Trammell rather than a big, star-level one. Read the rest of this entry »

The flurry of deals made by the San Diego Padres on Sunday culminated with a massive trade with the Seattle Mariners. The headlining player headed to Southern California is catcher Austin Nola, along with two relievers, Austin Adams and Dan Altavilla. Ben Clemens will address the newest additions to the Padres bullpen and Eric Longenhagen will have the analysis of the prospect/recently-prospect haul the Mariners received from the Padres — Taylor Trammell, Andres Muñoz, and Ty France — a little later this morning. The fourth player headed to the Northwest, Luis Torrens, is likely to take Nola’s place on the Mariners roster as their starting catcher.

With the Padres acquiring Jason Castro from the Angels earlier in the day, the addition of Nola completes an overhaul of the Padres catching corps. As a group, the Padres catchers had put up a collective .146/.228/.291 slash line, good for a 45 wRC+ and -0.3 WAR. They weren’t the worst hitting group of backstops in the majors this year, but it was a clear need for the Padres, who have their eyes on a deep postseason run.

Castro is a fine offensive upgrade in his own right but the easy answer to the Padres problem was to simply add the best hitting catcher in the majors in 2020. That’s exactly what they’ve done in adding Nola. His .380 wOBA ekes out J.T. Realmuto by just a single point, his 145 wRC+ is six points higher than the star Phillies backstop, and they’re tied with 1.2 WAR apiece. Read the rest of this entry »