Blake Snell trade grades: Padres pull an ace; Rays continue to churn

The Rays and Padres on Sunday wrapped up their third commerce in slightly over a yr, and this one tops the primary two by loads. San Diego is buying left-hander Blake Snell for a bundle of prospects and younger main leaguers led by right-hander Luis Patiño, based on a number of reviews.

Patiño is headed to Tampa Bay together with catcher Francisco Mejía, pitching prospect Cole Wilcox and catching prospect Blake Hunt. Jeff Passan of ESPN and Dennis Lin, Josh Tolentino and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic had been first to report particulars of the commerce.

The groups that introduced us such earlier swaps as Tommy Pham-for-Hunter Renfroe (plus a sure minor leaguer Snell disparaged with a crude adjective) and Emilio Pagán for Manuel Margot have moved on to offering the most important commerce of the 2020-21 MLB offseason.

Sporting Information provides prompt grades for the reported swap.

Padres: A

What different grade can San Diego get? The second-best staff within the NL West is buying a 28-year-old ace with a Cy Younger award in his CV; not solely that, it is getting three years of management over mentioned ace at a low, low price (in baseball phrases): $13 million per yr. San Diego will gladly tackle the rest of the five-year, $50 million extension Tampa Bay gave Snell previous to the 2019 season.

Snell did not get to throw plenty of innings in 2020 (common or postseason, as all of us noticed within the World Collection), however when he was on the mound, he was principally good. He posted a Three.24 ERA in 11 begins (however simply 50 innings as Tampa Bay dealt with him gingerly), though a four.35 FIP may elevate eyebrows. He averaged 11.Three strikeouts and three.5 walks per 9 innings but in addition served up 10 dwelling runs.

His postseason work was higher. In 29 2/Three innings over six begins (together with the notorious begin in Recreation 6 of the World Collection), he put up a Three.03 ERA and 12.four Okay/9.

Snell strikes proper to the highest of San Diego’s rotation, changing Mike Clevinger, who will miss the 2021 season after present process Tommy John surgical procedure in November. Behind Snell is Chris Paddack, Dinelson Lamet and Zach Davies.

For that, the Padres will dwell with giving up the 21-year-old Patiño, who struggled in his first publicity to the foremost leagues final season. He labored primarily out of the bullpen, posting a 5.19 ERA in 17 1/Three innings. He struck out 21 and walked 14, which is an effective indicator of his stuff and command. He additionally gained postseason expertise as he labored within the NLWCS and NLDS. 

San Diego spent plenty of prospect capital on this deal, however its farm system is taken into account deep. Patiño was the membership’s No. Three-rated prospect according to MLB Pipeline, however he was behind No. 1 prospect MacKenzie Gore within the pitching ranks. Wilcox was the No.7-rated prospect, Hunt was 14th.

Rays: B-

Snell joins elite firm: he is the most recent Rays stud pitcher to be dealt for prospects in a sell-high trades (David Value, James Shields, Chris Archer, and so forth.). Primarily based on figures from Baseball Prospectus, Tampa Bay paid Snell simply $Three.5 million of the cash it promised him in that extension ($1 million in 2019, $2.5 million in 2020, i.e., the prorated portion of his authentic $7 million wage).

Tampa Bay additionally provides its subsequent set of younger reinforcements within the deal, beginning with Patiño and Mejía.

Mejía, 25, has failed to ascertain himself in two locations, Cleveland and San Diego (78 OPS+, 12 dwelling runs in 362 profession plate appearances), and for the second he figures to simply share time with Mike Zunino, who re-signed with Tampa Bay earlier within the offseason. However the Rays have such a monitor file with hitters that it is unsuitable to foretell that he’ll fail a 3rd time.    

Wilcox, 21, has but to pitch professionally after being chosen within the third spherical out of the College of Georgia within the 2020 MLB Draft. Hunt, 22, hasn’t gotten past the extent previously often known as low Single-A. He accomplished his fourth skilled season in 2020. 

So, sure, the Rays plucked three top-15 prospects from a loaded farm system, however there look like huge questions with this group. And the roster churn nonetheless must be discouraging for Tampa Bay followers though they’ve seen variations of the identical film each offseason. Not that the group cares about that; it simply retains transferring beneficial gamers for prospect capital.