Credit: AP Photo
With the San Diego Padres rumored to be in the mix for flashy additions, it is also worth noting that A.J. Preller can make shrewd additions on the margins of a roster.
With that said, here are five trade candidates who could be under-the-radar positive contributors.
Austin Wynns, C, Athletics
San Diego needs more out of their catchers, quite frankly, Elias Diaz has been serviceable defensively, but his bat has been… well, it has been. As for Martin Maldonado, it’s all been said. The Padres need a catcher who can actually hit, and options are limited. Sean Murphy would be a good add, but his contract and trade value would be too high.
Enter San Diego native Austin Wynns. A longtime defensive stalwart and backup catcher around the league, Wynns is having a career-best season. Between the Reds and Athletics, Wynns is hitting .292 with an .888 OPS. Granted, it is in a small sample of 96 plate appearances, but when your starting catchers have combined to post a .539 OPS and 55 wRC+ in 346 plate appearances, the risk has to be taken here. There are some positives to Wynns’ performance this season that make him intriguing as a trade candidate. The 34-year-old has posted a career-best 43.1% hard-hit rate and has a career-best 24.6% pull air rate (which measures the amount of balls in play that have been to the pull side). In short, he’s pulling the baseball more, which allows him to tap into some home run power. According to Baseball Savant, if he played all his games at Petco Park, he would have seven homers instead of six.
Wynns crushing early ? pic.twitter.com/8ejSGVrf25
— Athletics (@Athletics) July 13, 2025
In terms of trade value, the Athletics would not likely get much in return considering they are trading a 34-year-old catcher with an out-of-nowhere career-best season, but with Shea Langeliers entrenched as their starting catcher, getting a future asset for Wynns could be a good move.
Mike Vasil, SP/RP, White Sox
Trading for a Rule 5 selection is not something that happens often, if ever, during an MLB season. However, Mike Vasil could be a player the Padres could look to add. It’s not too long ago that Vasil was a highly-touted arm in the Mets’ farm system, ranking as high as No. 11 before the 2024 season. However, after a difficult 2024 campaign with Triple-A Syracuse, he was not added to the 40-man roster and taken by the Phillies in the Rule 5 draft. Philadelphia traded him to Tampa Bay, and he was claimed on waivers by the White Sox when he didn’t crack the Rays’ Opening Day roster.
With the White Sox, Vasil has come out of the bullpen but has performed well. In 25 games (three starts), Vasil has pitched to a 2.47 ERA, striking out 44 in 62 innings. He has held batters to a .198 batting average this season, and has worked some high-leverage innings in a White Sox bullpen featuring several former Friars. Vasil’s sinker, four-seamer, and changeup all rank within the top 15th percentiles of all MLB pitchers. Batters are hitting a measly .152 against his changeup, and the four-seamer has posted an unbelievable 42.3% whiff rate. There are some numbers that do not paint his performance as highly; for example, Vasil has a BABIP of .225, a far cry from the league-average number. Paired with an 84.6% left-on-base rate, his expected ERA sits at 4.37. Is that dominant? No. However, the Padres would be picking up Vasil for the length he can provide in the bullpen and his versatility. If the team opts to run out a bullpen game, he could be a three-inning opener, for example. His stuff grades out as average to above-average on public Stuff+ models, and with his deep arsenal, the Padres have, for lack of a better analogy, some good-quality clay that Ruben Niebla and Ben Fritz can work their magic with.
Mike Vasil’s 3Ks in the 1st. pic.twitter.com/ZK65jtYsbz
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) June 19, 2025
Credit: AP Photo
Andrew Chafin, RP, Nationals
Chafin is a familiar name and face for Padres fans, as the former Diamondbacks left-hander posted a 2-2 record, 3.76 ERA, and 68 strikeouts in 52.2 career innings against the Padres. Some may not know that Chafin is still chugging, as he is currently part of the Nationals’ bullpen. Chafin has been around the league for what feels like an eternity, and now, in his 11th major league season, has remained effective despite diminished stuff. His fastball velocity sits at a career-low 90.1 mph, but he has still posted a 2.81 ERA, 3.91 expected ERA, and chase rates north of 30% on his fastball and slider. Chafin’s four-seamer has a .141 expected batting average, with 16.3 inches of iVB and 8.3 inches of horizontal break. His slider remains its usual tight-spin slider with 44.2 inches of vertical drop. His arsenal, even in its present form, is still strong, as he has held left-handed batters to a .138 batting average and .444 OPS. Left-handed hitters are just 4-for-37 against him this season. Is that better than San Diego’s current left-handed options?
Adrian Morejon vs LHB – .169 BA, .364 OPS, 26.1% K, 1.4% BB, 70.8% GB, 0 HR
Andrew Chafin vs LHB – .138 BA, .444 OPS, 21.6% K, 18.9% BB, 47.6% GB, 0 HR
Wandy Peralta vs LHB – .282 BA, .828 OPS, 29.6% K, 11.1% BB, 63.8% GB, 2 HR
Yuki Matsui vs LHB – .237 BA, .769 OPS, 26.5% K, 11.8% BB, 26.8% GB, 3 HR
To answer the last question, in some regards it is. Chafin isn’t making much this season, as he would be due the prorated version of $1 million. Reliever trades, especially for a small sample, would not require much in return. As a coincidental example (well, maybe not entirely coincidental), the Tigers dealt Chafin to the Rangers last season for Joseph Montalvo (Texas’s No. 27 prospect) and unranked prospect Chase Lee. With Chafin having a smaller sample size this season, the Padres could look to deal a low-level prospect to secure the left-hander’s services and add a genuine lefty specialist to their bullpen.
Victor Caratini, C, Astros
While this might be the biggest stretch in terms of logistics, there is no doubt that Victor Caratini has outpaced the Padres’ current tandem of Diaz and Maldonado. While some in the organization have faith in Maldonado and what he brings as a veteran presence, San Diego moved on from Jason Hayward, Connor Joe, and Yuli Gurriel and their veteran presence.
Adding Caratini would boost the Padres’ production at catcher. Caratini has been a solid offensive player this season, hitting .256 with a .741 OPS in 237 plate appearances. Caratini also has a career-high barrel rate this season at 9.5%, and his 10 home runs are his second-most in a season (he had 11 with the Cubs in 2019). He doesn’t whiff or chase a ton, ranking in the 72nd percentile for chase rate and strikeout percentage, also ranking in the 76th percentile in whiff rate. His blocking and control of the running is also a significant improvement over Martin Maldonado’s. Caratini is also hitting .296 against right-handed pitching this season, and .250 against left-handers. As a switch-hitter, he would provide another lefty bat to the Padres’ bench with a renowned ability to manage a pitching staff.
Victor Caratini crushes a GRAND SLAM ?
(MLB x @DairyQueen) pic.twitter.com/5ykPIdULNA
— MLB (@MLB) July 2, 2025
Merrill Kelly, RHP, Diamondbacks
Sometimes the best addition is not the flashy bounce back, but the consistent one. Padres fans are familiar with Merrill Kelly, as he has been a regular adversary since 2019. Now, Kelly’s career numbers against San Diego are nothing to scoff at, as he has a 3.41 ERA and 97 strikeouts in 18 career starts against the Padres. Kelly has also pitched well in the postseason, as in four starts in Arizona’s 2023 pennant run, he was 3-1 with a 2.25 ERA. This included 6.1 scoreless innings against Los Angeles at Dodger Stadium, and seven innings of one-run baseball against the eventual World Series champion Rangers.
In 2025, Kelly is arguably en route to his best season in the majors. In 20 starts, the former Arizona State right-hander has a 3.34 ERA, 3.47 FIP, 24.4% strikeout rate, and 43.7% ground ball rate in 116 innings. His “everything but the kitchen sink” arsenal has some of the best off-speed pitches in MLB this season, with his changeup posting a +8 run value. While his sinker has been hit hard this season, his arsenal is deep enough to allow him to succeed against lineups multiple times. He has also pitched six or more innings in 12 of his 20 starts this season, so he can provide quality innings to lower the heavy workload the Padres’ bullpen had to do in the first half. It really comes down to whether the Diamondbacks would be willing to tango with a division rival, but Kelly fits what the Padres need, while the Padres’ farm system is full of high-ceiling pitching prospects that the Arizona farm system lacks.
A born and raised San Diegan, Diego Garcia is a lifetime Padres fan and self-proclaimed baseball nerd. Diego wrote about baseball on his own site between 2021-22 before joining the East Village Times team in 2024. He also posts baseball content on his YouTube channel “Stat Nerd Baseball”, creating content around trades, hypotheticals, player analyses, the San Diego Padres, and MLB as a whole.
A 2024 graduate of San Diego State, Diego aims to grow as a writer and content creator in the baseball community.
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