San Diego Padres trade for Blake Snell
The San Diego Padres are not playing any games this offseason as they continue to shake up the entire league by making big moves. On Tuesday, they announced that they had officially acquired Blake Snell from the Tampa Bay Rays. The 2018 American League CY Young Award winner is regarded as one of the best pitchers in all of Major League Baseball and was a big reason the Rays went to the World Series last year.
In exchange, Tampa Bay acquired four top prospects from the Padres – pitchers Luis Patino and Cole Wilcox along with catchers Francisco Mejia and Blake Hunt. All four players are considered top prospects within the San Diego farm system.
Despite reaching the World Series with Tampa Bay last season, Snell told reporters he is happy with the move but is still sad to be leaving the Rays. Snell still has three years remaining on his current contract.
“The Padres really wanted me, and they were persistent, and I’m happy about that,” Snell said, via ESPN. “But it is something that I am sad about.”
“They’re super exciting. They’re a team that plays with a lot of fun. They’re swaggy, and they can swing the bat.”
Snell led the Rays with a 4-2 record last season, posting 3.24 ERA in 11 starts. He also made six playoff starts for the Rays, before they were ultimately eliminated by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series.
San Diego has been busy this offseason having already acquired a top pitcher in Yu Darvish from the Chicago Cubs and Korean Baseball Organization star infielder Ha-seong Kim. The team has made it clear that their intentions are to try and win a World Series as soon as possible.
“If we’re going to get to that level, that championship level, which the Dodgers got to last year, we’ve got some things we’ve got to work on, and we’ll see how things play out,” Padres general manager A.J. Preller said Tuesday night, via ESPN. “But we feel like we improved our roster and what was already a very talented roster. We feel like we’ve gotten better so far this offseason.”
Rays’ fans are familiar with the club selling a top player for future prospects as the franchise has one of the lowest budgets in the league. However, they have been very good at scouting talent and developing players.
Of the four players they acquired on Tuesday, Patino is the only one with MLB experience. The 21-year-old made 10 relief appearances for the Padres last season along with one start. He is regarded as one of the top pitching prospects in the entire MLB and could turn out to be a real superstar.
It had been a relatively quiet offseason for MLB teams prior to the Padres’ flurry of activity over the past week. The moves could force other teams and players to act with the 2021 season not too far. George Springer, Trevor Bauer and DJ LeMahieu among the top free agents still available on the market.
