A.J. Preller must have been getting itchy. It’s too early in the season for substantial trades; they generally happen before the start of the year or when the calendar has flipped to July. Teams that thought they were going for it usually haven’t accumulated enough evidence to change that view, and even if they want to trade someone, the potential of finding a higher bidder closer to the deadline makes sellers hesitant to move. But the Marlins and Padres overcame those factors and linked up on a deal that sends Luis Arraez to San Diego for a sampler platter’s worth of prospects: Dillon Head, Jakob Marsee, Nathan Martorella, and Woo-Suk Go.

There’s a lot to unpack in this deal. We’ll start in San Diego and then head east, because the Padres’ side is more straightforward. It’s like this: the Padres had roughly eight batters they wanted to use every day. Luis Campusano is more journeyman than star, but the team seems comfortable with him at catcher. With Manny Machado back to playing the field after an injury limited him to DH to start the year, the infield is set. The outfield likely isn’t changing, either: Jurickson Profar looked like the weakest link before the season, but he’s been the team’s most productive player so far.

Their only plausible route to offensive improvement, then, is at DH. That’s great, though! You can play anyone at DH, more or less. But if you play an excellent defender there, you’re wasting that talent, and the Padres have one of the best defenses in baseball this season, so whoever they acquired probably wasn’t going to displace one of their regulars.

Arraez is a perfect fit in that sense, because he can definitely hit and can’t really field. The Marlins played him at second base, but they probably shouldn’t have. He’s been the worst defensive second baseman by a mile this year according to OAA and UZR, and the second worst according to DRS. The eye test agrees; he just doesn’t have the tools to handle the position. He’s athletic, but his athleticism manifests very differently, more as outrageous hand-eye coordination. The Padres played him at DH in his first game and second base to give Xander Bogaerts a breather in his next one; I expect him to mostly DH with spot duties at first and second to give Bogaerts and Jake Cronenworth some rest.

Arraez is going to hit on the Padres, because he hits everywhere he goes. He might not look like a prototypical DH, but it doesn’t much matter how you get to your production as long as you get to it. He has a career 123 wRC+, we project him for a 126 wRC+ mark the rest of the way, and he’s at 114 so far this year despite a slow start. He doesn’t add a lot of value on the basepaths and he doesn’t have home run power, but if you’re looking for someone to get on base and rack up doubles, Arraez is your guy. That’s a big upgrade from Graham Pauley, Eguy Rosario, and Tyler Wade, the team’s other options at the position.

When you look at it that way, the trade is an obvious one for the Padres. There likely aren’t any difference-making starters on the market, particularly since they already went out and acquired Dylan Cease. Relievers don’t really move the needle, and I think they’re waiting to see what their bullpen needs are closer to the deadline anyway. But they’re in a position where every win matters. Before trading for Arraez, we had them projected for 83.5 wins and a 45.3% chance of making the playoffs. In other words, they’re right on the borderline, so an extra win or two will go a long way.

Arraez increases their projection by one or two wins, depending on who you think was going to get the at-bats he’s now taking. He’ll be back for more next year, too, after which he’ll become a free agent. Sure, he’s more famous than he is good – batting average will do that – but that doesn’t mean he isn’t good. Most teams in baseball would take a DH with a 125 wRC+ – they can’t all have Shohei Ohtani or Yordan Alvarez. And thanks to Miami paying his contract down to the league minimum, he’s also a bargain for the Padres this year, as Alden Gonzalez reported.

The Padres have already jumped through hoops to get their payroll down below the competitive balance tax threshold – trading Juan Soto isn’t something you do just for fun. If they’d paid Arraez’s full salary, they’d be flirting with the first level of the CBT this year, and they’ve been over the tax line for the last two years. Doing so for a third straight year carries some strong penalties, and by getting the Marlins to pay Arraez’s salary, the Padres are leaving themselves room for a deadline acquisition without risking an overage. Think of it like your first checking account out of college; they’re not right at the line yet, but saving money now means that they don’t have to worry about every last penny they spend for the rest of the year.

Before I cover the big question – whether it was worth it – let’s go through Miami’s side and describe the prospects, courtesy of notes from Eric Longenhagen.

The Marlins have been an outright disaster this year. Their 9-26 record is of course awful, and they’ve earned it; they’re scoring roughly 3.5 runs per game and allowing 5.8. Nearly all of their hitters have been worse than projected, and their rotation is missing essentially everyone. Sandy Alcantara, Eury Pérez, Braxton Garrett, and Jesús Luzardo are all on the shelf, as is attempted fill-in A.J. Puk, with Alcantara and Pérez unquestionably out for the season. Ryan Weathers and Trevor Rogers lead the team in innings pitched; they’ve combined for a 5.32 ERA and 0.2 WAR. Edward Cabrera and Max Meyer are exciting but unproven, and Meyer is back in Triple-A to preserve his team control get some rest.

In other words, this team isn’t competing this year and next year looks dicey. It’s not a matter of fixing a few things; the offense needs a complete overhaul and the farm system doesn’t have many hitters to offer. Enter the Padres, who sent three position players back in the deal.

Head, the best prospect in the trade, was ranked 14th here at FanGraphs leading up to the 2023 Draft and fell a little beyond that to San Diego, where, per Eric, industry rumor is he was the alternative to Ralphy Velazquez, who was taken by Cleveland a few spots before the Padres picked. Head signed for $2.8 million as a toolsy high school outfielder with plus-plus speed and a chance to grow into plus power, though more through sheer explosiveness than standard, frame-based projection. After the draft, Head’s performance at Low-A Lake Elsinore had him right on the borderline of our Top 100 list. Cold weather prep hitters like Head can be risky hit tool propositions, but Head’s 82% zone contact and 92% overall contact rate across 124 PA were indications that he was going to hit. He was an offseason Pick to Click.

So far in 2024, however, Head has been swinging and missing much more than he did in 2023; his contact rate is closer to 65% and he has as many whiffs as he does balls in play. Backfoot breaking balls have been an especially thorny thing for Head to adjust to. The good news is Head has pull power. He can snatch mistakes and rip them to right field with regularity. So long as he can develop into a more polished center fielder, he can strike out frequently and still clear the offensive bar typical of that position. The emphasis then is on his development in center. He runs like the wind, but his reads and routes aren’t great. He has a lot of polishing to do out there but, given Head’s background as a cold weather prospect, Eric is inclined to project that he will. Head is still a potential everyday player and power-hitting leadoff man.

Marsee looks like a future fourth outfielder, with upside for more. He’s run gaudy walk rates throughout his career in the minors, won MVP of the Arizona Fall League last year, and played plenty of center field. The big risk here is that his swing is ideal for crushing inside pitches but weak against mostly everything else, an issue that hasn’t been exposed by the A-Ball pitchers he’s faced. In 2024, he’s off to a slow start in Double-A, though his power and walks are mostly intact, with BABIP accounting for his lackluster overall line.

Martorella can unquestionably hit, with plus raw power and an impressive ability to turn on high fastballs. He hit too many grounders in 2023 despite good overall production, but he’s putting everything in the air so far this year and posting an impressive .292/.393/.427 line in Double-A. This isn’t a scout-the-statline deal, either; his power comes from impressive bat speed, and Eric thinks that will translate in the majors. The big issue here is that he’s a 1B/DH type, which doesn’t leave much room for anything else to go wrong.

Go signed a major league deal this offseason but started in Double-A, where he’s been bullying hitters but getting inconsistent results. His calling cards are a mid-90s fastball and a low-90s cutter, both of which give hitters fits. He struck out roughly a third of the batters he faced in KBO action, and he’s at 28% so far this year. He’s a likely middle reliever, with an inconsistent release point holding him back somewhat, and the early returns in the minors haven’t changed that outlook much.

None of those guys are particularly exciting in a this-dude-will-be-the-new-face-of-the-franchise way. The best grade we have on them is a 45, and we’re hardly alone in that assessment; none of them made any of the Top 100 lists across the industry. But I think that this kind of return makes a lot of sense for Miami. I think that if you’re trying to win without spending, trades like this are a great way to go about it. I don’t like that strategy, but if you’re committing to it, this is the way to do it.

Simply put, this Marlins core isn’t going to take them to the promised land. It’s clear that the team isn’t willing to meaningfully increase their salary commitments to supplement the talent on hand; their Opening Day payroll hasn’t crested $100 million since 2017, and Jeffrey Loria still owned the team then. That means that their only real path to compete is by developing a broad group of pre-arbitration contributors; it’s surely no accident that GM Peter Bendix is a Rays alum.

To do that, they need both quality and quantity. This trade has a little bit of both; Martorella and Head are immediately among Miami’s top 10 prospects, while Marsee and Go are the kinds of players who good teams get value out of at the end of their roster by maximizing their strengths (and, yes, doing it at or near the major league minimum salary).

That raises a different question: Is this the best the Marlins could do for Arraez? For me, it’s close enough that I understand why they decided to act now instead of waiting. Arraez isn’t the kind of guy who will develop scarcity value; he’s a positionless hitter who’s between 20% and 30% better than average. Guys like that get traded every deadline, and never for game-changing returns. The extra year of team control is absolutely worth something, but if he makes $13 million – $15 million in arbitration, I’m not sure it’s worth much.

How different is Arraez from, say, Mark Canha? Our projections would say not different at all; we have Canha down for a 126 wRC+ the rest of the way, the exact same number as Arraez. The Tigers acquired him for a firm handshake and a lottery ticket this winter. He’s making $11.5 million this year, right in line with what Arraez will likely take home.

I’d rather have Arraez on my team than Canha, but is the difference between 2024 Canha and 2025 Arraez one win? One and a half? It’s not a lot either way. Most of the reason to acquire Arraez is because he’s good and cheap (with the Marlins covering his salary) this year, which is what the Padres need. Next year is a bonus, but not much more than that.

There’s a rational trade premium attached to stars, but that’s because they can provide a huge slug of value in a single roster spot, and offer something that you can’t replicate one-for-one. The way Arraez produces value is unique, but the amount he produces isn’t. Teams don’t back the truck up for a hitter who has topped out at a 132 wRC+ and who doesn’t have a defensive home. That means the Marlins were going to have to live with a lackluster headliner, so I like that they went for a broad spread of prospects given that limitation.

As for San Diego, I think that this trade is a reasonable continuation of what they’ve been doing for years, though I still believe that direction is unsustainable. Great teams have stars and depth. The Padres weren’t quite able to get both, so they’ve opted for quality over quantity. They have some of the best players in baseball on their roster, and their backups are a mixture of castoffs and mid-tier prospects. Wade is on his fourth team in four years. They just called up 36-year-old Donovan Solano. José Azocar is their fourth outfielder and gets a meaningful amount of playing time.

The pitching staff is similar, with great talents at the top and question marks immediately following. It’s just so hard to get through a season with everyone healthy, which is how you end up trading for Rich Hill and Garrett Cooper, to name two examples from 2023. It’s hard to fix this problem externally. You have to draft and develop internal options, but the Padres are perpetually trading theirs for more top-liners. San Diego pretty much always trades in bulk – four players for Cease, five for Soto, four (if you count major leaguers) for Josh Hader, four for Blake Snell, and so on.

If I were running a team, I wouldn’t do that. I understand that time was of the essence; Preller was trying to match the timelines of his current stars and win for owner Peter Seidler. But the Padres are fighting an unwinnable battle against depth because they just don’t retain enough of their own minor leaguers. Heck, look now. They have four players on our Top 100 (Merrill will soon graduate), but they’re incredibly thin behind that; no other solid farm system has so few prospects with 40-45 grades, and that’s only accelerating with this trade.

That said, there’s no other way out but forward right now. The Padres are a win-now team, and they’ve made a ton of decisions that underscore that point. Given that constraint, of course taking everything under the couch cushions and trading it for Luis Arraez improves their team this season. None of the prospects they traded were likely to make an impact this year, and even next year is iffy. Previous seasons’ trades have eroded their depth to the point where their alternatives to Arraez are near-unplayable. Something had to be done, and if that something gets a Tony Gwynn-esque player to San Diego atop the lineup, so much the better.

I guess what I’d say, in the end, is that I like this trade for both sides, but that I don’t really agree with either side’s chosen method of team-building. The Padres force the issue in a way I don’t understand given their impressive ability to develop stars internally. The Marlins are looking to build a system that produces wins on the cheap, and that’s going to require a long time in the wilderness given the state of the organization. This deal pushes both teams further down their chosen paths, and they’re ideal partners in that sense. But I’m not sure either will like where they end up.

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