The Freddy Fermin Trade We’ve All Been Waiting For

This, my friends, is the A.J. Preller we were promised. Mere hours after swinging a massive deal for closer Mason Miller and even fewer hours before trading for Ryan O’Hearn and Ramón Laureano, Preller made what you could argue – in one specific, absurd way – represented San Diego’s biggest upgrade of the day. Earlier this afternoon, ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported that the Padres have traded starters Ryan Bergert and Stephen Kolek to the Royals in exchange for catcher Freddy Fermin. How could Fermin, a 30-year-old catcher with roughly average framing numbers who’s underperforming his career 91 wRC+ this season, possibly be a bigger addition than Miller or O’Hearn, let alone worth the two major league pitchers the Padres gave up for him? Just you wait.

It would be hard to overstate both how ugly the catcher position has been for the Padres this season and how predictable that outcome was. Coming into the season, the Padres ranked dead last in our Positional Power Rankings at catcher. We expected them to get just 0.8 WAR from the catcher position, a hair behind the Rockies. And that was before our projections knew how bad things really were. Shortly after the those rankings came out, the Padres demoted Luis Campusano, who had the best projection on the team. Instead, they rolled with Elias Díaz and Martín Maldonado. (I’m sure the Padres have their reasons for being so out on Campusano, but I have no idea what they are. For what it’s worth, he has slashed .298/.410/.555 with 15 home runs in Triple-A El Paso this season, good for a 130 wRC+. In 27 PA as a designed hitter for the big club, he’s 0-for-21 with two walks, but even so, right now at this very moment, ZiPS sees him as the best catcher of the three.)

Díaz and Maldonado have caught every single inning for the Padres this season, and the results have been even worse than expected. (Following the initial publication of this piece, the Padres DFA’ed Maldonado.) Both players have put up negative WAR. Maldonado has a 62 wRC+, while Díaz is at 67. In all, the Padres have put up -0.6 WAR from the catcher spot, and the only reason that’s not the worst mark in baseball is that the Nationals spent the first half of the season challenging for the worst team catching season of the century. Things have been even worse lately, as Díaz has put up a 38 wRC+ in the month of July.

Enter Freddy Fermin, as quickly as humanly possible. Fermin will reach arbitration next year, and is due to be a free agent entering the 2030 season. He’s running a 78 wRC+, and his framing and blocking have graded out just a bit above average. The only thing he really does well at the plate is avoid strikeouts. Backing up Salvador Perez in Kansas City, he has put up 0.4 WAR over 67 games and 208 PA. That makes him the 45th-most valuable catcher this season. If we make that a rate stat and limit ourselves to the 45 catchers with at least 150 PA, he ranks 29th, on pace for 1.1 WAR over 500 PA. On that same list, though, Díaz ranks 42nd, on pace for -0.3 WAR, and Maldonado ranks dead last, on pace for -2.3. If Fermin can remain an average catcher, he would represent a radical upgrade for this Padres team.

So yes, you can make the ridiculous argument that for this particular team at this particular moment, Fermin represents a bigger upgrade than adding Mason Miller to a bullpen that leads baseball in ERA, FIP, WAR, and saves, and maybe even than adding O’Hearn to a team in dire need of an everyday DH. Miller adds further to a strength. O’Hearn reinforces a weakness. But Fermin patches at least part of a hole so wide you could drive a bus through it. It’s a ridiculous argument for a ridiculous situation.

In exchange for their cromulent backup catcher, the Royals have landed two current big league pitchers. Bergert is the bigger prize. The right-handed starter is 25, and has bounced up and down between San Diego and El Paso this season. Back in June, Eric Longenhagen ranked Bergert third in the Padres system and put a 45 Future Value on him, noting that the number would jump to a 50 if and when he figured out how to add a good changeup. As Eric predicted, Bergert soon settled into a fourth or fifth starter role, running a 3.13 ERA and 4.42 FIP over his seven starts in San Diego.

In the short term, the Padres can patch this hole with JP Sears, whom they landed in the Miller trade. As Ben Clemens noted in his writeup of the Miller trade, the Padres won’t want Sears starting a playoff game, and with Nick Pivetta, Dylan Cease, Yu Darvish, and (soon) Michael King, there’s little danger that will happen. He will enter arbitration next season, so he can stick around for as long as Preller likes him as a fifth starter.

The Royals can use Bergert as their own patch right now, while Kris Bubic, Michael Lorenzen, Alec Marsh, and Cole Ragans recover from their various ailments. Still, the long term is what makes Bergert interesting. He looks like a fourth or fifth starter right now, and should he add that good changeup, or see his velocity tick up again like it did this season, he could start looking like even more.

The Padres picked up Kolek from the Mariners in the Rule 5 draft in 2023, and although he ran a 5.21 ERA over 42 relief appearances in 2024, his 3.57 FIP, a result of an excellent 5.7% walk rate, offered the possibility of more. Kolek moved to the rotation this year, making six starts in El Paso and 14 in San Diego, with a 4.33 xFIP in both stops. The 28-year-old leads with a sinker and induces tons of groundballs, which should serve him well now that he’s pitching in front of Maikel Garcia and Bobby Witt Jr. Because he doesn’t miss bats or limit hard contact, he may not have Bergert’s celing, but he could be useful.

Both pitchers have three more options; Bergert has six years of team control, while Kolek has five. Even if Kolek ends up back in the bullpen or Bergert never develops into the kind of pitcher you’d want starting a playoff game, they’re still very useful pieces who will be affordable for a long time. This is a real price to pay for a catcher who’s about to enter arbitration at age 31 and who mainly serves as a Band-Aid on a gaping wound, but it’s better than bleeding out.