Earlier this week, Jon Morosi suggested that the Cubs trading Yu Darvish to the Padres could make a lot of sense for both teams, and while you never want to go too far on a pundit’s suggestion, sometimes those “guesses” are coming from a position of background knowledge.
Well, that may have been the case, because now we have a report out of San Diego indicating the teams have talked about Darvish.
Per Kevin Acee: “It is unclear whether the Padres will now focus more intently on [Tomoyuki] Sugano or turn their full attention to a trade. They have been in contact with the Cubs regarding starting pitcher Yu Darvish, who was runner-up in National League Cy Young voting this year. However, signals from team sources have been mixed on how far along those talks are.”
Acee’s report comes in the context of Japanese righty Kohei Arihara signing with the Rangers today, thus leaving the Padres still searching for a rotation arm. Because Arihara is viewed as a back-end option (whose total cost to the Rangers over two years is in the $8-9 million range), it’s a bit odd that Sugano (much more expensive) and Darvish (much more certain, but also much more expensive and very costly in trade) would be viewed as the “Dang, we didn’t get that 4th/5th starter guy, let’s try for an ace” replacement.
That said, as Morosi discussed, and we’ll concede, there is an obvious fit between these teams, depending on how “sell” oriented the Cubs are planning to be. The Padres are highly competitive in a division where somebody‘s gotta unseat the Dodgers, and their rotation right now has huge question marks.
As for the Cubs, from our previous discussion on this trade situation:
Morosi mentions the upper-level pitching prospects as what the Cubs would target, and while that is of course true in a general sense, my take on the system is that it would no longer be a disproportionate focus over positional guys. The farm system is actually the weakest in upper-level positional prospects.
Oh, and I’d also add that the Cubs would probably be at least as interested in big-league-ready pitching as pitching prospects, but hey, who wouldn’t be? The window has passed to be able to acquire Dinelson Lamet now that he’s broken out, and I don’t see the Padres dealing Chris Paddack. Maybe Adrian Morejon would be available?
On the prospect side, I know where you’ll go immediately, and that’s big lefty MacKenzie Gore, who is considered among the top few prospects in baseball. You can probably discard him from your thoughts, though. As much as I think Darvish has significant trade value, Gore is probably one of those prospects who just flat-out doesn’t get traded in any deal, at any time. Too much potential value there to an organization like the Padres. The Cubs would ask, but it won’t happen.
Beyond Gore, though, the Padres still have another four consensus top 100 prospects (shortstop CJ Abrams, righty Luis Patino, catcher Luis Campusano, and recently-drafted outfielder Robert Hassell). From there, you see a ton of prospects who are fringe top 100 types – it’s still a pretty loaded system even after graduations and trades.
The point is, even if you are taking Lamet, Paddack, and Gore off the table, the Padres almost certainly can still put together a sufficiently compelling package that the Cubs would be justified in trading Darvish at this moment, much as that might pain us. But if you go with a prospect package for Darvish, man, you better get it right, Jed Hoyer.
Keep in mind, Sugano’s posting ends in about a week, at which point, if the Padres don’t land him, maybe you’d see things here get more aggressive?
Trading Darvish – three years left on his contract, wildly popular, and ace-level performance from mid-2019 through 2020 – is not a particularly attractive option in the abstract. But the Cubs have to be open-minded right now as they look to reshape the roster and the farm system.
Jesse Rogers recently suggested that Darvish is more likely to be traded at this point than Kris Bryant, and Jon Heyman also reported that Darvish is “out there” in trade talks.