With one month until pitchers and catchers report to the Peoria Sports Complex, the Padres’ pitching staff offers quite the juxtaposition.

Within that pitching staff is perhaps the best — and deepest — bullpen in the Majors. Also within that pitching staff: a thin starting rotation.

Already this offseason, general manager A.J. Preller has dismissed the idea of moving his high-leverage relievers into starting roles. Mason Miller, Adrian Morejon and David Morgan are expected to remain in the bullpen, Preller said last month after much speculation otherwise.

But there’s another way San Diego can pluck from its bullpen depth to address its rotation shortage:

A trade.

The Padres have an abundance of back-end relievers — and holes elsewhere on their roster, notably in the rotation and at first base. So … will they trade from that bullpen to address those holes? Should they? Let’s break it all down.

Whom could the Padres trade?

(The article continues inside the link.)

January 9, 2025, by AJ Cassavell

11 comments

  1. Pro: we get a decent starter who can eat innings from us

    Con: we go from the best bullpen in the league to the best bullpen in the league (albeit slightly less)

  2. If they can get a decent starter for one of the relievers, I think you have to do it. It just doesn’t matter how good the bullpen is if you’re already down multiple runs by the time you get to it.

    We saw that multiple times last year after the trade deadline. Preller did an amazing job at that deadline upgrading the pen and batting order, but the starting rotation was still in shambles so it often didn’t matter.

    Can never have too much starting pitching.

  3. Maybe it’s a bad opinion but I feel like a great bullpen will amplify a weaker starter. All they need to do is 4-5 innings. Face the lineup twice and try to leave with a tie or lead. Sacrificing a reliever could hurt us more than help us

  4. Preller is such a wizard he could get an Ohtani for yuki matsui deal done where dodgers eat 99 percent of Ohtanis contract and as a topper he would make it contingent on them naming bud black as their new manager

  5. No other team is gonna give us a cheap+controllable < 3.8 ERA SP for any of our relievers unless it’s Miller.

    I’d rather take the known quantities, at least 1 more year of Morejon (73.2 IP/2.08 ERA in ’25) and 4 more years of Estrada (73 IP/3.45 ERA in ’25), over unproven young controllable SPs that maybe give us 140 IP of ~4 ERA ball.

    There’s got to be a way to add another 2 WAR SP in FA for 12M or less, or via trade using only prospects. Not a fan of trading away big-league pieces unless we’re getting a proven solution for one of our holes (SP or 1B).

  6. Hmmm… We haven’t seen the real Preller trading yet and there’s always “fuck them prospects”.

  7. I don’t know why this hasn’t happened yet. We have a really good Bullpen to where we could do a swap (Kind of) but again who would we give up and who would we pick up ?

  8. i love estrada but he makes the most sense to move right now.

    there’s a number of teams that could use a high leverage reliever, and could potentially give up real pre arb, sp or position players.

    the market has already been set with the ferrer for harry ford deal, and estrada should fetch more. he’s worth a ton rn, but we should be able to replace his production.

    imo the winning formula for the rest of the offseason involves,

    1. moving estrada for pre arb position player or sp
    2. move crone and find a rhb platoon partner for song/wagner
    3. sign an above avg 3-4 type sp – preller should be able to get a bargain here with how the offseason is moving.

  9. If we’re counting Morgan as one, that means we have *five* high leverage relievers. Last year, the Padres had 154 high leverage innings, which was seventh in the league (the Giants were first, with 167.2), which means at most an inning a game. Do we really need five guys for that, especially if it’s directly at the expense of the starting rotation?

  10. This is AJ writing an article on speculation. IMO the Padres have a 4 man rotation already when you slot Sears/Vasquez. The staff already seems better when you consider the contribution from Yu, King, Musgrove and Cease last year. I would trade for a bench piece. Having another bat/position player for the inevitable injury is more important. 

  11. Honestly, given that we:

    – Have almost everyone from last year’s bullpen this year
    – Have promising (e.g Bradgley Rodriguez) and proven (e.g Bryan Hoeing) relievers in the minors
    – Re-signed Kyle Hart and two more relievers (Daison Acosta, Ty Adcock)

    …I’m kind of not sure why we haven’t traded some of them, yet. I figured this was because we were gonna convert one of our guys into a starting role, but we apparently decided not to go through with that.

    Given this huge surplus of relievers, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if we traded from our bullpen; but, I also think there’s a possibility that we’ll wait until early in the season to see who wins the roster spots, first.

Leave a Reply