Commentary: The Blake Snell Trade is Good for the Padres, but Bad for Baseball
While many of us were sleeping last night and enjoying the final hours of a three-day weekend, AJ Preller and Erik Neander were hard at work closing out a deal that would shock the baseball world. At around 11:30 pm eastern time on Sunday night, it was announced that the Rays were sending their ace, Cy Young winner Blake Snell, to the San Diego Padres. In return for Snell and the three years remaining on his contract, the Rays received a package of four minor leaguers, including three of the Padres’ top 15 prospects: RHP Luis Patino (SD’s #3 prospect), RHP Cole Wilcox (#7), C Blake Hunt (#14), and C Francisco Mejia (previously ranked the #1 catching prospect in all of baseball).
This was a trade that shocked people for many different reasons. For one thing, a team trading away their ace is a very rare occurrence in Major League Baseball, but it’s even more unprecedented right after that team made a World Series appearance. For another, finding a suitable trade partner for him is difficult, because the only teams with big enough prospect pools to satisfy the asking price are either still rebuilding (e.g. the Tigers) or already have an overabundance of talent on their roster (e.g. the Dodgers). But in the Padres, the Rays found exactly the kind of buyer they were looking for: a team in win-now mode with a clear need, a stacked farm system, and a GM willing to use it.
I don’t think this trade happens if Mike Clevinger didn’t need Tommy John surgery. The whole point of San Diego trading to get him last season was to shore up their rotation with another top-level arm just in time for the playoffs to begin. It was a hole that needed to be filled if they had any chance of hanging with the Dodgers - in the playoffs or otherwise - and one that their prospects couldn’t fill yet. But with Clevinger out of the picture for the entirety of next season, that hole was open once again - and now, it looks like Snell is going to fill that gap.
Looking objectively, it seems like a fair trade in the sense that both teams are getting something they want. For the Padres, they get another great arm on a very team-friendly deal - one that can fill Clevinger’s spot in the rotation in 2021 and supplement him, Dinelson Lamet, Chris Paddack, and (presumably) top prospect Mackenzie Gore for at least two years after that. They also didn’t completely bankrupt their farm system to do so. San Diego had quite a surplus of quality pitching and catching prospects on their roster, which is what allowed them to afford the steep cost for Snell without giving up their top-ranked prospects at either position (Gore and now-number-three prospect Luis Campusano).
For the Rays, they get four more additions to their seemingly never-ending Parade of Prospects.
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If any other team in the league won a pennant, got rid of their first and third starters that offseason, and then replaced them by trading for two minor-league prospects, they would rightfully be questioned ad nauseum by the fans and media alike. But because it’s the Rays, I suspect there’s likely going to be more curiosity than criticism. Time and time again, Tampa has proven their incredible knack for prospect development, and Patino and Wilcox are the exact kinds of pitchers who tend to thrive in their system. Plus, they could use some help behind the plate next season (especially in the likely event that they refuse to resign Mike Zunino), which a guy like Mejia could provide them.
But even with the obvious benefits to both teams, there’s an overarching question casting a shadow over this deal: Why?
Why would Tampa Bay trade away their best pitcher? Why would they do so right after making the World Series as the number-one seed in the AL? And why would they only ask for prospects in return if they aren’t doing a full rebuild? To be honest, nothing on the Tampa Bay side really makes sense given how good their team and farm system are right now.
It can be easy to blame this move solely on Stuart Sternberg and his padlocked money clip. After all, payroll costs are the reason for 99% of the Rays’ moves over the course of their existence. But with this specific trade, I can’t help but feel like there is something else at play here. Over the next three years, Snell is scheduled to make $10 million each season - a hefty sum to be sure, but way less than a pitcher of his caliber is actually worth. To put this in perspective, that’s $5 million less than what 36-year-old Charlie Morton was being paid last season (before prorating, of course). And while it makes sense for the Rays to not want to pay $15 million for a 37-year-old free-agent pitcher, it’s unlike them to not take advantage of this value from a 28-year-old Cy Young winner.
We will undoubtedly learn more in the coming days about how and why this trade came to be, but I would not be surprised to hear that it had more to do with internal strife than monetary considerations. It’s not much of a secret that Snell has had some issues with how the Rays have done business - from his complaints about trading away players for “slapdick prospects,” to his justified anger about being taken out early in Game 6 of the World Series. While I don’t think that Snell himself would demand a trade, it might be the case that Kevin Cash’s quick hook was the straw that broke the camel’s back in terms of his relationship with the team.
That quick hook, as well as this trade, seem to underlie a fundamental aspect of the Rays’ organization: that they do not seem to have much trust or respect for even their best players. To be fair, they are far from the only team to view their players as nothing but interchangeable assets, but no team has embraced this mentality more openly or indiscriminately than Tampa Bay. After all, why else would Sternberg be making comments to the press about how “it’s hard to find too many of (the Rays) that would be starters on any of those teams (e.g. the Dodgers or Yankees)” and how “it’s not like we’ve got this group of Hall-of-Famers and All-Stars (even though many of their players are award winners and All-Stars)” right after his team went to the World Series?
The message has always been clear: in Tampa, every player is expendable. If you think you should be compensated fairly for your production, they’ll replace you with someone playing for the league minimum. If you don’t fit the specific role they need in their system, they have no use for you. And if you criticize the system - no matter how much value you bring to the team - you can expect to be swapped out for some “slapdick prospects”.
Of course, the Rays should be lauded for their expertise in player development and their excellent farm system - their staff does some truly incredible work. But at the same time, their ownership group should be routinely criticized for their incessant refusal to keep the players they develop, build a consistent winner, and pay those players what they’re actually worth. There’s a difference between being thrifty and being cheap, and they have consistently fallen on the other side of that line to the detriment of their franchise. We can blame the poor attendance at Tropicana Field on things like bad stadium placement all we want, but there is undoubtedly a team aspect to this as well. How do you expect fans to get excited about a team that always pulls the plug right when things start to get good? How do you expect them to buy jerseys of players that are just going to be sent away within the next year? And how do you expect people to come out and support a club that invests more into plans for leaving their city than into their roster?
With this trade, the Rays show once again that they have no regard for the players on their team or the few fans that still support them. And while I’m glad that Snell is going to a contender that will actually support him (and give him a chance at an actual payday), I feel bad for his Rays teammates that were left behind and the fans who are having their excitement dimmed once again. Baseball in Tampa cannot grow in this kind of environment. And spoiler alert: it’s not going to work in Montreal either.
Tampa’s system may be working on the field in the short term, but ultimately, it’s bad for the Rays, and it’s bad for baseball. Hopefully, they can correct their course before it’s too late.