Juan Soto, This is Not: Padres Acquire Barlow From Royals

AJ Preller couldn’t keep it going forever. For years, he had his fingerprints on every major trade and free agency signing. He got Juan Soto! He got Josh Hader! He made a last-second pass at Aaron Judge before signing Xander Bogaerts. He built up a solid farm system and then lovingly tore it apart for established major leaguers, and he did it so frequently that he seemed to be in on every last deal.

This deadline, Preller finally rested. Earlier in the day, he engaged in some light veteran-snagging activity, adding Rich Hill and Ji Man Choi in exchange for a prospect sampler platter. A bit later, he swapped Ryan Weathers for Garrett Cooper and Sean Reynolds, but there was no seismic move to follow. The Padres’ last involvement with the trade deadline was another modest swing. They acquired Scott Barlow from the Royals in exchange for prospects Henry Williams and Jesus Rios.

I’ll level with you: this one won’t move the needle much. Barlow is a reliever archetype, reliably unreliable thanks to devastating stuff and lackluster command. He had a 3.62 FIP last year and checks in at 3.63 so far this year. Consistent like you wouldn’t believe! But he had a 2.18 ERA last season and has a ghastly 5.35 mark so far this year, so whoops.

That ERA can be attributed to a .340 BABIP and a teensie strand rate, but to be honest, watching Barlow pitch doesn’t give me the vibe of a mid-3.00s ERA reliever. He’s been quite hittable thanks to his lack of command. He’s often so far behind in the count that he’s laying one in there. When he doesn’t do that, he’s often missing his target and leaving the ball over the middle anyway. His slider and curveball are both excellent, and he’s going to get his fair share of strikeouts no matter what, but he feels like a constant implosion risk. Guys like him go from effective to can’t-buy-a-strike faster than you’d think sometimes.

That sounds like an uninspiring trade pickup, but look at it this way: he’s probably not worse than Brent Honeywell. Honeywell has pitched his way down the bullpen hierarchy all year. Tim Hill isn’t far behind him; he’s gone from lefty specialist to maybe-we-can-try-him-against-righties to just bad in fairly short order. Tom Cosgrove is eating away at Hill’s lefty specialist playing time already, which makes Hill’s roster spot somewhat superfluous. With two relievers who look DFA-worthy, adding Barlow will help the Padres clean out the chaff in addition to hopefully providing more wheat.

I think the relatively light return on Kansas City’s side says a lot about how the league views Barlow’s risk of ruin. Relievers with closer stuff have been in hot demand this trade deadline. Barlow didn’t fetch that kind of return. Williams is more or less a lottery ticket, a post-TJ recovery project who clearly hasn’t recovered just yet. A 5.90 FIP, even in the Cal League, is not what you like to see. He’s also walking a lot of batters for someone whose command is a selling point, and he’s sitting 90-92 mph so far this year, well off his pre-surgery form.

There are interesting parts of Williams’ profile, no doubt. He has a wonderful curveball and a delightful delivery, so you can imagine him honing his command and turning into one of those feel-over-stuff starters that every team needs. The first year after TJ can be rough; maybe there’s another gear in him somewhere. But uh… maybe it’s the cynic in me, but I can’t see the Royals being the team to unlock that as-yet-unseen form in him. They don’t have a history of getting the most out of their minor league pitchers, to put it mildly.

Rios, the second pitcher headed to Kansas City in the deal, is a 21-year-old pitching in the Dominican Summer League. Per Eric Longenhagen, he’s a broad-shouldered righty with a repeatable delivery who throws a heavy sinker in the 92-94 mph range. He complements it with a changeup and a cutter, both of which live in the upper 80s. That’s all I have for you, to be honest. Guys that old don’t usually pitch in the DSL, and he only has 18 innings worth of results there anyway. The odds of him making a difference in the major leagues are miniscule.

All things considered, I think this is a solid trade for the Padres, but one that’s more of a small victory than a season-changer. They found themselves caught between reloading and adding, only five games out of the playoffs and with the third-best run differential in the NL. That’s not teardown-worthy, but the team really wants to compete next year as well given its current construction, so spending meaningful prospect capital on rentals didn’t make much sense either. Barlow will be around next season and he didn’t cost much, two points in his favor.

If we take the fact that San Diego was going to make some move as a given, I think this one shows admirable moderation. You don’t have to make waves at every opportunity, no matter what Preller’s former behavior might indicate. Sometimes it’s okay to tinker around the edges. If the Padres are good enough to make the playoffs, it won’t be because of this trade; it’ll be because of all the heavy lifting they did in the past. This is merely a tiny supplement at a low cost.

On the Royals side of things, they surely regret hanging on to Barlow for so long. He’s been a trade target for years now, and they ended up dealing him for a return that would have felt light last year. I still think they did the right thing by trading him, and trading him for speculative future value instead of whatever that Nicky Lopez trade was. But make no mistake about it: things are not good in Kansas City, and they don’t figure to get good anytime soon. The big league team is bad, the farm system is 28th out of 30, and it’s not like they have more trades to make to replenish their minor league ranks.

None of that makes this Barlow trade a failure. It doesn’t even have much to do with Barlow, in fact. The point is this: the Royals are in such a hole that it will take far more than a few reliever trades to dig them out of it. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t make those trades, but it’s a helpful reality check. When you’re delving this deep into the trade deadline mine, no one’s getting rich, or even dying trying. They’re still necessary moves – just, this is more rearranging the deck chairs than turning the boat.