Trades? Free Agents? Extensions? 3 Padres ideas for the MLB Winter Meetings

Major League Baseball's annual Winter Meetings are just a few days away. That usually means Padres general manager A.J. Preller is ready to turn the sport upside down.

Coming off a season where San Diego was the only clear and present danger to the Dodgers dominance the Friars are not far away from dethroning the champs. The problem is, L.A. is very well aware of that and they are going to spend as much as they think is necessary to keep it from happening.

The Padres simply cannot keep up with the cash flowing out of Dodger Stadium (the Mets and owner Steve Cohen are probably the only franchise in the game that can). San Diego is sitting dangerously close to the $241 million Competitive Balance Tax threshold and don't have a whole lot of room to maneuver. So, they're going to have to do what they did last off-season: get better while getting less expensive. Without a $30 million superstar like Juan Soto to trade that will not be as easy to do this time around.

The good news is, they don't have nearly as many questions to answer as they did at this time a year ago. Plus, with Preller nothing is impossible.

We're putting one very large parameter in place right off the bat: money. We don't know yet what kind of financial flexibility the club will have in 2025. Eric Kutsenda has taken over as team chairman and he hasn't been as front-facing as the late, great Peter Seidler was. So, for this exercise we're going to assume the club will try to stay under the CBT before the season starts, with the caveat that they can go over it at the trade deadline if another playoff run looks like it's in the cards.

With that in mind, here are the biggest needs/concerns for the Padres as the Winter Meetings approach:

• Starting pitching
• Corner outfield
• Catcher
• Bench depth
• Who plays shortstop?

Obviously, rotation depth would get a huge boost if Roki Sasaki signs with the Padres. He'll only make the big league minimum of about $800,000 in his first couple of years, which is basically free for a guy with his upside. That decision won't be made until at least January 15, however, so let's proceed without knowing whether or not the Friars will land the biggest free agent prize of the season not named Soto.

First, let's address the issue of getting a little more wiggle room under the CBT by giving out a nice, long contract extension to a man who is already a favorite of the Friar Faithful.

Sign Luis Arraez and Michael King to Contract Extensions

All I need to know bout Luis Arraez is he tore a ligament in his left thumb, taped that thing up just so he could hold a bat, then went out and won a batting title. Give me a dude with that kind of toughness and commitment any day of the week and twice on Sundays.

He's already said he's open to talking about an extension to say in San Diego. He told me the 2024 season was the most fun he's had playing baseball. It's obvious the guys in the clubhouse love having him around and he's an important part of the culture that was exponentially better last season than it was the previous year.

Now, there are folks who will hesitate to give Arraez a long-term commitment, pointing to the fact his OPS dipped 124 points from 2023 to last year. I will counter that assertion by saying he was basically hitting with one hand. Arraez had his thumb surgically repaired shortly after the playoff run ended and should be at full strength by the end of Spring Training.

Plus, an extension could very well SAVE the Padres some money next year. Arraez is entering the final year of arbitration where he's projected to earn about $14.5 million. It's tough to evaluate the value of a player like this in today's power-hungry game but if the 27-year-old Arraez agrees to a four-year, $50 million deal the Padres would pay $2 million less than his arbitration number.

It also means Arraez will be a free agent again after his age-31 season, still very much in his prime and able to cash in on another lucrative contract. Throw in some incentives like, say, $250,000 if he reaches 200 hits and $500,000 for winning a batting title and both sides are happy while helping the bottom line.

King, playing a position that is much more susceptible to injury, is a little more complicated. Used mostly as a reliever with the Yankees, King transitioned to starting for a full season and was extremely impressive. He made 30 starts, threw 173.2 innings, and got better as the season wore on, punctuated by a history-making outing in the Wild Card series against Atlanta where King became the first pitcher ever to toss 7.0 shutout innings with 12 strikeouts in his postseason debut.

Here's where things get tricky. If the Padres extend him now, and he can't replicate that success, they would have given up too much cash too soon. But, if he follows up with another sub-3.00 ERA campaign before hitting the open market King will be a lock to earn upwards of $20 million a year, which might make him too expensive for the Padres.

I think this guy is worth the risk. King will likely get close to $8 million in his final year of arbitration so let's find some middle ground. I'd offer up a three-year, $33 million deal with an opt-out after year two. That gives King some more cash up front with the chance to re-enter free agency in the middle of his prime while giving the franchise an affordable ace-in-the-making.

Those two extensions would only cost the Padres $3 million more against the CBT in 2025 than they're currently projected for, and that means they're going to have to make that up somewhere, which brings us to the other key pending arbitration-eligible star and an option that I really never thought I would come around to but is starting to make a bit of sense.

Trade Dylan Cease to Boston for Young Stars

Now, you're probably thinking "but Derek, you said the Padres needed to add starting rotation depth and this just creates another hole there why are you an idiot?"

Let me explain. This is all based on the Red Sox quest to sign Soto because it means they're about to spend big bucks somewhere. If they land him, they'll need to build around him with more established players. If they don't ... and I think they'll lose out to one of the New York clubs ... they'll use that money to go after the likes of Willy Adames and Teoscar Hernandez, both of whom they've been linked to.

Boston has also been tinkering with the idea of moving Rafael Devers to 1st base but aside from the lineup logistics, their biggest need is starting pitching. That's where they can line up with the Friars.

I'm starting to get a little scared that free agent outfielder Jurickson Profar won't be back. Nobody in San Diego wants him to leave but in the event that he does the Padres will need another corner outfielder. Cease is going to get close to $14 million in arbitration. He's also a legitimate ace who would fetch a hefty return. So, with Boston likely looking at a surplus of outfielders, here's a trade proposal that would be beneficial to both teams:

Red Sox Get:

RHP Dylan Cease
IF Jake Cronenworth

Padres Get:

OF Wilyer Abreu
1B Triston Casas
SS Marcelo Mayer (Red Sox #2 prospect)

Cease and Cronenworth combined will take up $25 million against the CBT. I love Jake but that's a contract the Padres need to seriously look at shedding. Last season Boston used six different 2nd basemen and got exactly zero production from any of them so Cronenworth would be a welcome upgrade.

If Boston lands either Soto or Hernandez they're going to have an excess of outfielders and need to get some more right-handed bats in their lineup so I propose them send a trio of lefties to San Diego. Abreu won a Gold Glove Award as a rookie and showed promise with his bat. Casas would be odd man out with Devers heading across the diamond and has immense raw power. He could form a platoon at 1st base with Arraez, letting Luis be the DH or play a bit at 2nd base.

The biggest addition could be Mayer, an Eastlake High School product who was the 4th overall pick of the 2021 MLB Draft. If Adames shows up at Fenway Park then the highly touted rookie who reached AAA as a 21-year-old last year would be effectively blocked. The Padres are going to lose Ha-Seong Kim to free agency and could let Mayer try to win the shortstop job in Spring Training. If he still needs minor league seasoning they have Xander Bogaerts to man the position for a while.

All three of those youngsters are still pre-arbitration so this deal alone would give the Padres about $20 million to play with, which brings us to Act 3 of our plan.

Add a Dodgers World Series Hero and a Cy Young Winner to the Rotation

About that depth in the rotation? Here's now you make it arguably even better: bring in Walker Buehler and Shane Bieber.

Buehler came back from his second Tommy John surgery last year and for a few months looked utterly lost. Then the playoffs started and suddenly he morphed back into the guy who used to torture the Padres several times a year as one of the best starters in the game. Buehler got the final out against the Yankees to secure a world championship, but he still has skeptics.

One full season of dominance would shut them all up. Why not do that working with highly respected pitching coach Ruben Niebla in San Diego? Buehler has never made more than $8.1 million in any arbitration year. Give him a one-year, $10 million, incentive-laden deal with a mutual option for 2025 to re-establish himself as a top-of-the-rotation arm that fits beautifully into the Padres budget.

Bieber had his elbow reconstruction in April and probably won't be ready until the middle of the 2025 season. But, that's OK because the Padres have options in Matt Waldron and Randy Vasquez (AND PRAY FOR SASAKI) to fill out the rotation for the first few months. Bieber was one of the best pitchers in baseball until his elbow issues and, at the age of 29, has every chance to go back to being an ace.

When he returns mid-season it would be like landing an ace at the trade deadline without having to give up any assets. Let's make it a two-year contract worth $20 million, with $5 million coming in 2025 and $15 million in 2026, when Joe Musgrove will also be back from elbow surgery.

Under this structure, Buehler and Bieber would eat up that $20 million from the previous moves. When the dust settles, the entire operation would look like this:

OUT:

RHP Dylan Cease
IF Jake Cronenworth

IN:

RHP Walker Buehler
RHP Shane Bieber
OF Wilyer Abreu
1B Triston Casas
SS Marcelo Mayer (Red Sox #2 prospect)

EXTENDED:

IF/DH Luis Arraez
RHP Michael King

COMPETITIVE BALANCE TAX IMPACT:

NO CHANGE

Really the only thing that hasn't been addressed here is catcher. Let's hope Luis Campusano becomes the everyday backstop we've been waiting for.