After more than a week of trade rumors, starting pitcher Chris Paddack and reliever Emilio Pagan is heading to the Minnesota Twins in exchange for reliever Taylor Rogers and outfielder Brent Rooker.
The Athletic‘s Ken Rosenthal reports the Twins will also send $6.6 million to the Padres to pay down Rogers’ $7.3 million contract, so the Padres will shed around $3.5 million with this deal on top of solidifying the back end of their bullpen.
All three players have been linked to the Mets in trades, with Paddack and Pagan being the backbone of a deal that would have sent Dominic Smith to the Padres. The Mets also would have received Eric Hosmer and $34 million, but the Mets balked at the deal because they didn’t want to pay the remaining $25 million due to Hosmer after the Padres would’ve paid down the contract over the final four years.
Paddack and his three years of team control find a new home in a Minnesota rotation featuring the likes of Sonny Gray, Joe Ryan and Dylan Bundy.
The Twins must have confidence they can help improve Paddack’s fastball control, similar to the confidence the Mets apparently had as trade rumors swirled last weekend. The Athletic‘s Dan Hayes says the Twins have wanted Paddack “forever,” which surely doesn’t hurt in the quest to turn around Paddack’s career after a solid rookie season in 2019.
As for the Padres, they’ll get Rogers for a year before he goes to free agency. The lefty has been a consistently above-average reliever for the Twins since his debut in 2016. He has a 3.15 career ERA (3.00 FIP) with a 139 ERA+ over five-plus seasons, culminating in an All-Star appearance last season.
Rogers and his sweeping slider (not quite his brother Tyler’s, though) will slot into a late-inning role alongside Craig Stammen and Robert Suarez in the Padres bullpen–probably the weakest link on the contending team.
These two franchises culminate their offseasons on Opening Day with trades after each team made multitudes of trades and signings after the lockout ended.
The Twins traded Mitch Garver, Josh Donaldson and Isiah Kiner-Falefa and acquired Sonny Gray, Gary Sanchez and Gio Urshela. They also signed Carlos Correa and Joe Smith. The Padres, on the other hand, traded for Sean Manaea, Luke Voit and Jorge Alfaro over the last month in addition to Rogers. They also placed top prospect C.J. Abrams on their Opening Day roster as they look to compete in a competitive NL West.
