8:43pm: Outfielder Jakob Marsee is the ultimate prospect within the deal, Mish reviews (X hyperlink).
8:40pm: Reliever Woo-suk Go and prospects Dillon Head and Nathan Martorella are headed again to Miami, reviews Craig Mish of SportsGrid (on X).
8:37pm: San Diego is buying Arraez, tweets Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic.
8:34pm: The Padres are nearing settlement on a commerce for Marlins second baseman Luis Arraez, reviews ESPN’s Jeff Passan (X hyperlink). Miami will purchase three prospects and a giant league reliever, Passan provides.
Arraez’s tenure in Miami ends after a season and 5 weeks. The Fish swapped Pablo López to the Twins to amass the defending AL batting champion over the 2022-23 offseason. Arraez performed as much as expectations within the first season. He flirted with .400 for just a few months, and whereas he didn’t keep that otherworldly tempo, he cruised to a different batting title. Arraez completed with a .354/.393/.469 line by means of 617 plate appearances.
Because the batting titles would counsel, Arraez has developed into maybe the sport’s finest pure contact hitter. He has walked extra usually than he’s struck out over the course of his profession. The Venezuela native has punched out in solely 7.5% of his plate appearances within the massive leagues. That’s all the way down to a meager 6.4% clip going again to the beginning of 2022. That leads certified hitters by greater than three proportion factors. Guardians left fielder Steven Kwan is the one different participant to strike out lower than 10% of the time in that span.
Arraez has tallied 148 plate appearances over 33 video games for Miami this season. His manufacturing is down barely, as he’s hitting .299/.347/.372 and not using a residence run. That’s not a lot of a priority for San Diego. Arraez continues to be making contact at an elite fee. He has by no means been an enormous energy menace, topping out at 10 longballs a 12 months in the past. It’s unlikely that the Padres entrance workplace feels in another way about Arraez than they did throughout Spring Coaching, after they reportedly made a push for each him and starter Jesús Luzardo.
Going again to the beginning of 2022, Arraez is a .331/.380/.437 hitter in almost 1400 plate appearances. He has hit on the prime of the lineup in Miami and will do the identical with the Padres. San Diego has been utilizing Jurickson Profar within the leadoff spot of late. Whereas Profar’s out to a implausible begin to the season, he can slide down just a few spots in a abruptly deeper lineup.
As nice a hitter as Arraez is, his recreation isn’t with out flaws. He’s at finest a fringe defender at second base. Defensive Runs Saved has usually graded him round league common with the glove, although it has soured on his work in 281 innings this season. Statcast has lengthy panned him as a defender, grading him negatively in all however one 12 months of his profession. Statcast estimates he’s been 24 runs beneath common on that aspect of the ball in almost 2700 profession innings on the keystone.
The Twins performed Arraez extra regularly at first base again in 2022. He rated higher there defensively, though he doesn’t have the normal energy profile anticipated on the place. That doesn’t appear to be a lot of a difficulty for the Padres. Incumbent first baseman Jake Cronenworth can be a hit-over-power participant who started his profession within the center infield.
Arraez might see occasional reps at first and second base, however he’s prone to get the majority of his at-bats as a delegated hitter. The Friars have Cronenworth, Xander Bogaerts, Ha-Seong Kim and Manny Machado as their projected beginning infield. Machado was restricted to DH for a pair weeks as he recovered from final fall’s elbow surgical procedure. Machado made his return to 3rd base final Friday, and whereas he has continued shuffling between the new nook and DH since then, he’ll ultimately work again to on a regular basis third base reps.
Machado’s return to 3rd base would have left the Friars and not using a clear on a regular basis choice at designated hitter. Rookie Graham Pauley has gotten some reps there, however he has hit .125/.125/.313 to begin his MLB profession. Arraez ought to solidify that spot whereas nonetheless having sufficient defensive flexibility to permit supervisor Mike Shildt to rotate different infielders by means of the place after they want a break on protection.
Padres president of baseball operations A.J. Preller has by no means shied away from pursuing star expertise, so it’s not significantly shocking that they’d regulate Arraez. The timing of the commerce, although, is a stunner. It’s extremely uncommon to see gamers of Arraez’s caliber moved this early right into a season. Maybe one of the best latest comparability is the Might 21, 2021 swap that despatched Willy Adames and Trevor Richards from the Rays to the Brewers for Drew Rasmussen and J.P. Feyereisen.
Peter Bendix was serving as Tampa Bay’s basic supervisor (#2 within the entrance workplace hierarchy) on the time of the Adames deal. He’s now answerable for baseball operations in Miami. Bendix is evidently not averse to creating a significant splash at an atypical time on the calendar if the chance presents itself.
The Marlins adopted up a quiet offseason with a fully horrible April. They enter this weekend’s sequence in Oakland with a 9-24 report. No matter slim probability that they had of repeating final 12 months’s shocking playoff berth had all however evaporated. Miami was going to be a deadline vendor, so there’s sense in shifting early if one other crew places the correct provide on the desk.
Miami felt that was the case with a four-player return centered round San Diego’s 2023 first-rounder. The Padres chosen Head twenty fifth general out of an Illinois highschool. A left-handed hitting middle fielder, he cut up his first skilled season between rookie ball and Low-A. Head ranked eighth amongst San Diego prospects at Baseball America and fifth on Keith Regulation’s organizational write-up at The Athletic.
Each retailers credit score Head with wonderful velocity and the prospect to be a plus defensive middle fielder at his peak. BA writes that he’s prone to be a contact-oriented offensive participant and not using a ton of energy, however Regulation wrote that skilled scouts had been impressed by the bat velocity he confirmed after being drafted. Head has spent his age-19 season at Low-A Lake Elsinore. He’s out to a comparatively gradual begin, hitting .237/.317/.366 with a 24% strikeout fee.
Whereas Head is a long-term growth play, Marsee has an out of doors shot at attending to the large leagues in 2024. A sixth-round select of Central Michigan in 2022, he dramatically improved his inventory with a .274/.413/.428 exhibiting between Excessive-A and Double-A final season. Marsee adopted up with an enormous exhibiting within the Arizona Fall League. There was even some hypothesis he might compete for an Opening Day middle discipline spot, but it surely rapidly turned clear that Jackson Merrill was above him in that dialogue.
Marsee, 23, ranked between tenth and twelfth on the respective organizational prospect lists at BA and The Athletic. He’s credited with superior plate self-discipline and instincts however and not using a ton of energy potential. Marsee has performed virtually solely middle discipline within the minors and sure initiatives as a fourth outfielder. He has spent this season at Double-A San Antonio, the place has slumped to a .187/.337/.333 slash by means of his first 22 video games.
Martorella, who can be 23, was a fifth-round choose in that 2022 draft. The left-handed hitter has a profession .269/.373/.447 batting line in almost 800 skilled plate appearances. He’s out to a wonderful .294/.392/.435 begin with a pair of homers and 6 doubles by means of 102 journeys to the plate in San Antonio. Martorella is restricted to first base or designated hitter, so he’ll have to hit lots to profile as a daily, however he has proven a well-rounded offensive profile in professional ball.
Rounding out the return is Go, whom the Padres simply signed out of Korea final winter. San Diego inked the 25-year-old righty to a two-year, $4.5MM deal. He’s enjoying this season on a $1.75MM wage. He’ll make $2.25MM subsequent 12 months and is assured a $500K buyout on a $3MM mutual choice for 2026. As is the case with most gamers signed out of a international skilled league, his contract stipulates that he return to free company on the finish of the deal although he’ll be nicely shy of six years of MLB service.
Go has but to pitch within the main leagues. The Padres optioned him to Double-A after he struggled in Spring Coaching. He has tossed 12 2/3 innings there, permitting seven runs (six earned) on 14 hits. Go has fanned 15 hitters whereas issuing 4 walks. He was a better for the KBO’s LG Twins earlier than making the soar to MLB. He turned in a 3.18 ERA over components of seven KBO seasons. Go missed loads of bats in Korea however struggled to constantly throw strikes. Scouting reviews earlier than his signing usually recommended he projected as a center reliever on the MLB degree.
Extra to return.
