Luis Arraez Deepens The San Diego Padres Lineup

The first major trade of the MLB season arrived last night. The Miami Marlins sent two-time batting champion Luis Arraez to the San Diego Padres for four minor leaguers.

No one is more adept at putting bat to ball than Arraez. The 27-year-old second baseman has a .324 career batting average with 180 walks and only 176 strikeouts over his six-year career. His 7.5% strikeout rate is by far the best in MLB since he debuted in 2019, with no one else below 9.3%. The only other qualified players in that timeframe with more walks than strikeouts are Alex Bregman and Juan Soto.

He led the American League with a .316 batting average for the Minnesota Twins in 2022, then was traded to Miami where he hit .354 last year. This season, he has a .299/.347/.372 slash line and has yet to hit a home run. He has a $10.6 million salary and two more years of arbitration eligibility before reaching free agency.

He will fill the Padres’ opening at designated hitter. Manny Machado was restricted to DH duties for the first few weeks of the year as he recovered from offseason surgery, but has transitioned back to his customary third base spot. Arraez is primarily a second baseman and has some experience at first base, but is a poorly-rated defender. Over his career, he has -46 Outs Above Average according to Statcast. Xander Bogaerts is the everyday second baseman in San Diego and Jake Cronenworth plays first.

Arraez will likely bat at the top of the order and provide a more conventional leadoff hitter than Jurickson Profar. That will bump a rotating cast of bench players, such as Tyler Wade and Graham Pauley, out of a regular spot in the lineup.

The Padres are 17-18, sitting in second place in the NL West. FanGraphs lists their playoff odds at 47.1%. Arraez gives them a greater offensive threat, which will bolster their chances of playing in October. It’s rare for teams to swing a major trade so early in the year, and this strengthens their roster nearly two months before trade talks intensify around the league.

On the other side, the Marlins are 9-25. The only other teams that haven’t reached ten wins yet are the 8-24 Colorado Rockies and 6-26 Chicago White Sox. Injuries have already dashed their chances of competing this season, especially to their starting pitching. Sandy Alcantara and Eury Pérez will miss the entire season, and they currently have 11 players on the IL.

Still, they finished 84-78 and made the playoffs just last year. Trading Arraez signifies the front office doesn’t think this is only a one-year blip for a franchise that had been trending upward. He could’ve anchored their batting order through 2026 before reaching free agency.

The three prospects they received in return are outfielders Dillon Head and Jakob Marsee as well as first baseman Nathan Martorella. MLB Pipeline ranked them the sixth, ninth, and 13th best prospects in the Padres’ system. Head is in Low-A while Marsee and Martorella play in Double-A.

The fourth player they received is reliever Woo-Suk Go, who was included in the package to offset salary. The Padres signed him out of Korea this offseason to a two-year, $4.5 million deal, but he failed to make the club out of spring training. He has allowed seven runs and 18 baserunners in 12 1/3 innings in Double-A this year.

Prior to the trade, the Padres had a payroll of $165.5 million, but their competitive balance tax assessment was $226.7 million. Acquiring Arraez brings them much closer to the first tax threshold of $237 million. The team intends to stay under that limbo bar, which prompted the Soto trade this offseason along with their decision to let Blake Snell, Josh Hader, and several other key pitchers walk away in free agency.

The trade is a juxtaposition of philosophies. The Padres are still adding to their roster despite their self-imposed financial restriction, striving to reach the postseason this year and beyond. Even though Miami isn’t going anywhere in 2024, they could still regroup for the 2025 season. Instead, they shed their best hitter who still had multiple years of team control. Throughout the 31-year history of the franchise, it seems that whenever they have the choice between loading up or backing down, they always choose the cheaper option.