Padres Acquire Matt Kemp

After a couple of weeks of rumors, the Padres have reportedly come to terms with the Dodgers on a deal that will bring Matt Kemp to San Diego.

Matt Kemp is due $107 million over the next five years, so if the Dodgers are kicking in $30 million, the Padres are essentially picking up Kemp at 5/$77M. The crowd estimated that the Dodgers would have to pick up $47 million in order to move Kemp, so the Dodgers have not only saved more money than expected, but also acquired several pieces of real talent in return.

The quick facts, then I’ll get started on a longer post analyzing the deal.

Kemp is 30 years old, so the Padres are picking up his age-30 to age-34 seasons. He has a career 128 wRC+, but a strong performance last year pushed that mark to 140, the 15th best total in MLB last year. Unfortunately, he also plays defense, and not particularly well, as Mike Petriello covered earlier this week. Kemp’s value as a corner outfielder will depend on whether he can be at least reasonable with the glove; if he can, the offensive production makes him an above average player. If he’s as bad defensively as the metrics have suggested, then Kemp is essentially an average player overall.

For the right to pay an aging, average — or maybe a bit better than average — big leaguer $77 million over the next five years, the Padres gave up Yasmani Grandal, Joe Wieland, and a third player.

Grandal is 26 and a switch-hitting catcher with a career 119 wRC+ in 777 plate appearances, though he’s been closer to above average than excellent at the plate the last two years. He controls the strike zone and has decent power, so he’s managed to be an above average hitter the last two years even as he’s run fairly low BABIPs. The big jump in his strikeout rate last year is a bit of a concern, as his contact rate fell to 75%, but at a .175 ISO, the power was strong enough to offset the rise in strikeouts.

Grandal also rates exceptionally well by catcher framing metrics, so while he’s not very good at controlling the running game, he may be a better defensive catcher than his reputation. Grandal is under team control for four more years, and will be eligible for arbitration next winter.

Joe Wieland is an interesting arm who hasn’t been able to stay healthy. He had Tommy John surgery in 2012, and then had surgery for a stress reaction in his elbow after a setback in his rehab. He’s missed most of the last two years, during which he’s been accruing Major League service time while on the DL, so he’s now a Super-Two arbitration player and will be eligible for free agency in four years.

The third player is unknown, but should probably be assumed to be a lesser piece.

2015 Steamer Projections

Matt Kemp: 555 PA, 128 wRC+, +2.1 WAR
Yasmani Grandal: 393 PA, 111 wRC+, +1.5 WAR
Joe Wieland: ? IP, 3.96 ERA, 0.0 WAR

I’ll have a full write-up on this soon, but suffice it to say that I love this trade for the Dodgers and don’t really get it at all for the Padres. They get a big right-handed slugger, but I’m not sure they got any better, and they spent $75 million for the right to be differently bad.





Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.

24 Comments
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Guest
9 years ago

I’m not sure what the Padres plan is. Do they believe they are close to contention?

Ben
9 years ago
Reply to  Guest

My assumption is that they are having a hard time convincing hitters to sign there. They want to add offense, so making a trade was the best route for them. Kemp can definitely hit still, as he showed last year.

That being said, I’m not sure why they gave up as much in return as they did. I don’t believe the prospects they are giving back will amount to much, but why give away lottery tickets unless you have to. I still think the Dodgers came out way ahead on this deal. Clears a headache for them in the OF, and gives them a young catcher to run out there.

John Hart
9 years ago
Reply to  Ben

They needed a veteran RF to draw fans and add a veteran presence to a young team. Great move for the Padres.

ElJimador
9 years ago
Reply to  Guest

I think they see themselves as sort of a west coast Mets with young starting pitching (Cashner, Ross, Despaigne) that can lead them to contention if they can just assemble any semblance of an offense. Taking into account that it’s very difficult to lure free agent hitters to Petco and if they believe there’s not immediate help on the way from the farm, a deal for a hitter like Kemp as not just a 1 or 2 year acquisition but someone they can build around longer term does make some sense to me. They probably don’t buy that Kemp is as bad defensively as UZR suggests if you just keep him in LF, they know he can hit at Petco (.867 ops in 234 career PAs there), and Grandal was expendable because they like Rene Rivera better anyway. I’ll be in the minority I’m sure but I think this is actually going to turn out to be a good deal for both teams.

Yirmiyahu
9 years ago
Reply to  Guest

The fact that it’s the Padres is the part that puzzles me. Well that, and the pieces going back to the Dodgers.

As far as Kemp’s value goes, I don’t think paying him $77M/5 is *that* crazy. He’s maybe a top-25 offensive player. The only problem is obviously his rapid defensive decline. But we know defensive stats in a small sample aren’t very reliable, so it’s very difficult to judge how much his defense actually hurts.

So let’s play a game and not consider him an outfielder at all. Over the past 3 seasons (134 wRC+), he would have been worth 3.1 WAR-per-600-PA’s if he were a league-average defensive 1Bman. If he were a DH, it’d work out to 2.5 WAR/600. That’s a pretty good player. Not worth $77M/5 plus a couple of cost-controlled youngsters. But a 3 WAR player is arguably worth $77M/5, especially when you consider the way $/WAR is working out this offseason and the fact that offense always costs more than defense.

But the Padres aren’t rich, aren’t competing, and can’t use him at DH. If this were a competitive American League team with money to burn, and the guys coming back to LA weren’t significant, it’d be reasonable for that team to be on the hook for $77M/5.