DALLAS — Compelled by financial factors and the hunger of the New York Yankees, the San Diego Padres a year ago traded away one of the most heralded hitters in baseball history. A year later, they arrived at this week’s Winter Meetings in Dallas at the Hilton Anatole in a different position that might not be all that different after all.
Padres starting pitcher Dylan Cease is not outfielder Juan Soto. No one is, a fact reinforced by the mind-bending contract Soto reached over the weekend with Steve Cohen’s New York Mets. But like Soto a year ago, Cease is approaching his final season before free agency. Also like Soto, Cease will soon command a salary that could obstruct the Padres’ attempts to address multiple roster holes.
Meanwhile, leaguewide demand for impact talent, including impact rental talent, keeps climbing.
And here is one relevant difference from December 2023, when the Padres’ trade of Soto went down as the rare Winter Meetings blockbuster: The market for prominent talent is really moving.
On Tuesday, Max Fried and Nathan Eovaldi joined Blake Snell, Luis Severino and Yusei Kikuchi as starting pitchers to agree to lucrative free-agent deals since late November. Scott Boras client Corbin Burnes remains unsigned, potentially for not much longer. The Boston Red Sox, after watching Fried go to the Yankees and Eovaldi to the Texas Rangers, are one of multiple big-market teams hungry for starting pitching. It is in this environment that the Padres, according to league sources, are at least exploring the trade value of Cease.
A move involving Cease seemed a faint possibility only weeks ago. After all, the Padres acquired Cease in March, surrendering pitching prospect Drew Thorpe — a key part of their return for Soto — as part of a multi-player package. Cease went on to perform largely as hoped, fronting San Diego’s rotation and throwing the franchise’s second no-hitter. But, in recent weeks, it has become clear that the Padres do not intend to significantly increase their current payroll commitments this offseason, if they do at all.
What seemed a faint possibility with Cease is now something stronger.
“Everybody understands when you have starting pitching, not just at the top of the market — we get hit all the time on guys on our staff that people think could start, people think are going to take a step up as a starter and then, obviously, guys that have established themselves. So teams are searching for it,” Padres president of baseball operations A.J. Preller said shortly before news of Fried’s agreement broke. “It’s that time of year where you’re always going to get incoming phone calls when you have good players, and this year’s been active on that front.”
The Padres, too, are hungry for starting pitching. A trade of Cease, for now, is not considered likely. San Diego would prefer to keep the right-hander, Michael King and Yu Darvish atop its staff in 2025, even as the team searches for solutions at catcher, left field and at least the back of the rotation. But San Diego’s current projected payroll is roughly $40 million higher than where it was at the end of last season.
In 2024, over 33 starts, Cease posted a 3.47 ERA to go along with 224 strikeouts. (Lauren Leigh Bacho / Getty Images)
Cease, a Scott Boras client like Soto and Burnes, is projected to earn roughly $14 million in his final year of arbitration eligibility. While the Padres still harbor some hope of eventually extending King, they are not under the assumption they will be able to afford Cease beyond 2025.
In a potential trade, they would seek multiple controllable players, the same kind of return they received for Soto. One or more of those players, ideally, would be a starting pitcher. If not, the Padres, in theory, could flip some of the return for starting pitching. Cease is not Soto, but unlike the outfielder, his expected salary should appeal to a wide range of teams.
The Padres may have incentive to wait before deciding whether or not to hang on to Cease. Roki Sasaki, the eminently affordable Japanese ace and San Diego’s top target, is not expected to sign with a team until Jan. 15, agent Joel Wolfe confirmed to reporters Tuesday. If the Padres land Sasaki, perhaps they would feel better about their ability to keep Cease on their payroll while addressing other positions.
Then again, despite public rhetoric, the Padres do not view themselves as prohibitive favorites for Sasaki, and Preller is known for his relentless concoction of contingency plans. And, in the meantime, the market for starting pitching is really moving.
The Padres’ internal back-of-the-rotation candidates, Preller indicated Tuesday, include relievers Adrian Morejon, Stephen Kolek and Bryan Hoeing.
Morejon, after years of injuries and frustration, broke out in 2024, supplying a 2.83 ERA and 71 strikeouts in 63 2/3 innings. The left-hander originally entered the organization as a starter but has never worked more than 65 1/3 innings in a professional season. As a former top prospect who received an $11 million signing bonus, he possesses a greater pedigree than Kolek, a Rule 5 draft selection last December, or Hoeing, whom the Padres acquired in July and subsequently deployed as a long reliever.
But, until the Padres add more starting options, they have incentive to be openminded. Like Morejon, Kolek and Hoeing have minor-league starting experience.
“We’ve been in that conversation internally about what that looks like for a few options in the ’pen. We haven’t made any final decisions,” Preller said. “I think it’s something that we’ll talk a bit more about when we kind of get to the next couple weeks and see how the whole roster plays out.
“I think we’ll have a little bit better sense of which path for Adrian specifically, and honestly, a couple guys in our ’pen that we think have a chance to extend out and maybe follow the path of (Michael) King or (Nick) Martinez or (Seth) Lugo.”
The Padres are not ready to declare a starting shortstop, although they still plan to do so earlier than they did last offseason. In February, then-incumbent shortstop Xander Bogaerts learned upon his arrival in spring training that he was being moved to second base. Now, with Ha-Seong Kim a free agent, Bogaerts is a strong possibility to return to the position, at least for one more season.
“Part of that last year (was) on me,” Preller said. “We were paring down some payroll, but … you didn’t want to ever tell a player and then have to pivot and change messages at a later point in time. So Xander was awesome about everything last year.
“I think from (manager) Mike (Shildt) and myself’s standpoint, we’re going to try to get a message across to him here shortly. Really, all the guys, so they know where they’re playing and how they want to prepare and getting into the new year they’re ready to line up on a position. To me, we’ll try to look at that in the next couple of weeks and make sure we have pretty clear messaging to the group.”
Unless the Padres acquire another shortstop, Bogaerts is the likeliest candidate to man the position on Opening Day. But the team ideally would put him back at second base, and the Padres still could use a first baseman or designated hitter. Their decision at the latter spots could depend on what they end up doing with Luis Arraez, a candidate for an extension and, if that does not work out, a potential a trade candidate.
Preller confirmed Monday that he and Arraez’s agent, Dan Lozano, had not yet engaged in extension talks. The two sides could open discussions closer to spring training.
Officially, the Padres lost longtime front office member Wells Oliver last week. The Pittsburgh Penguins named Oliver their director of hockey systems, a position in which he will lead the build-out of the Penguins’ data architecture and web application solutions.
Oliver, who had been the Padres’ vice president of baseball systems, spent 15 seasons with the Padres. During that time, he designed, developed and oversaw the team’s proprietary database, Basetek. He will temporarily stay on with the Padres as a consultant.
“That old system was kind of his baby. All of our baseball information, videos, reports, all kinds of metrics, analytic information, communication between departments, it’s a huge tool for us,” Preller said. “That was a big part of what he did, was making sure, from a baseball information system, that we were cutting-edge and really at the top of the game, best in class in that area.
“He had a chance to do something unique. The Pittsburgh Penguins came and offered him a chance to kind of start something fresh. And he’s like, ‘Look, I did a great thing here.’ And I think from his standpoint, it’s a chance to kind of have a second go at it and do something different in a sport that he really enjoys, too, in hockey. … He’ll continue to do some consulting for us, but it’s been him and (Padres vice president of baseball research and development) Adam Esquer. They put together a really good team of developers, and we’ll have some guys internally that will be able to take on that responsibility.”
Oliver is the second vice president to depart the Padres’ baseball operations this year. In April, longtime assistant general manager Fred Uhlman Jr. left the organization after 29 seasons to pursue other opportunities.
(Photo of Cease: Orlando Ramirez / Getty Images)
