{"id":336742,"date":"2025-12-10T12:09:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T12:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/336742\/"},"modified":"2025-12-10T12:09:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T12:09:07","slug":"padres-not-inclined-to-trade-high-leverage-relievers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/336742\/","title":{"rendered":"Padres Not Inclined To Trade High Leverage Relievers"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Padres are getting calls on their high leverage relievers, according to to a report from Kevin Acee of The San Diego Union-Tribune<\/a> yesterday afternoon. Mason Miller<\/a>, Adrian Morejon<\/a>, Jeremiah Estrada<\/a>, and David Morgan<\/a> have all drawn interest from rival clubs, per Acee, though the report emphasizes that while the Padres have fielded calls on those players they aren\u2019t inclined to move anyone from that group.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of teams (from which) we have taken incoming calls,\u201d president of baseball operations AJ Preller told reporters, as relayed by Acee. \u201c\u2026It\u2019s nice when people are calling you, and they have interest in your players. At least then, you have some options. But I think the focus has been on the starting pitching and how do we fill that without taking away from the bullpen or from the lineup.\u201d<\/p>\n

Preller went on to double down on his desire to keep his team\u2019s elite bullpen together.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnytime you have multiple people in one spot, you at least can listen to those types of conversations,\u201d Preller said, per Acee. \u201cBut it\u2019s not easy to find impact players, so you don\u2019t take that for granted. And we have a lot of performers in our pen that have been impactful here the last couple years. It\u2019s probably been why we\u2019ve been in the playoffs the last few years. There\u2019s a lot of reasons, but that\u2019s been a big one. \u2026 So we don\u2019t take that lightly. It\u2019s not like, \u2018Hey, we have a lot of really good pitchers, so we can afford to kind of take our level down in the bullpen.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s an understandable stance to take. San Diego had MLB\u2019s best bullpen by ERA, xERA, and fWAR in 2025. Granted, that\u2019s with Robert Suarez<\/a> in the fold, but it also only accounts for half a season of Miller\u2019s impact. While trading from that strength could make some sense to improve a rotation that\u2019s losing Dylan Cease<\/a> and Michael King<\/a>, it\u2019s worth remembering that none of the team\u2019s top relievers has an especially high salary; Estrada and Morgan will play next year on a pre-arbitration salary, while Morejon and Miller are projected to make a combined $7MM total via arbitration in 2026 by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz<\/a>. With such negligible salaries, trading any of that quartet wouldn\u2019t open up the sort of payroll space necessary to land an impactful starter.<\/p>\n

Reluctant as the club may be to trade from its bullpen, the Padres do find themselves in a bind at this point. Acee notes that San Diego needs to add at least two starters this offseason to replace King and Cease, and the club is known to be planning to spend at a similar level to last year<\/a>. Perhaps the team\u2019s reported willingness to move<\/a> players making more significant salaries like Jake Cronenworth<\/a> and Nick Pivetta<\/a> will allow them to shed the sort of salary needed to add a starter or two in free agency.<\/p>\n

Failing that, however, it\u2019s not inconceivable that the Padres could trade a reliever for a starter. The Marlins notably have starting pitchers (including Edward Cabrera<\/a> and former Padre Ryan Weathers<\/a>) that they\u2019re willing to trade this winter, and are known to be in the market for a closer this winter. Bringing someone like Morejon or Estrada into the fold as the primary piece of the return for a starter\u2019s services could allow Miami to bring in the closer they\u2019re looking for without having to pay a premium for someone like Suarez or Pete Fairbanks<\/a> on the open market.<\/p>\n

As the Padres look to upgrade their rotation mix, Acee continues to report that Preller\u2019s front office is working on a \u201cblockbuster\u201d trade. Neither the names involved in those discussions nor the other team (or teams) Preller is negotiating with are named, but Acee does emphasize that the Padres will not be trading Fernando Tatis Jr.<\/a> this winter. While a Tatis trade would clear significant salary off the books and surely bring in a massive return, Tatis has shown himself to be a consistent five-to-six win player when healthy and losing him would be a brutal blow to the Padres\u2019 goal of keeping their competitive window open headed into 2026. Tatis may not be on the move this winter, but Preller\u2019s willingness to get creative and aggressiveness on the trade market make it impossible to completely rule out virtually a trade involving virtually any other player on the roster or in the farm system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Padres are getting calls on their high leverage relievers, according to to a report from Kevin Acee…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":336743,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[146693,49,48,146694,43812,147850,10726,462,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-336742","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-adrian-morejon","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-david-morgan","12":"tag-fernando-tatis-jr","13":"tag-jeremiah-estrada","14":"tag-mason-miller","15":"tag-mlb","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/336743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}