Padres acquire starter Joe Musgrove in three-team trade with Pirates and Mets

The San Diego Padres are adding to their rotation again. Padres set to acquire right-hander Joe Musgrove in three-team trade with Pittsburgh Pirates and New York Mets, report ESPN Jeff Passan and the San Diego Union TribuneKevin acee. None of the three teams announced the trade.

Here are the details of the trade:

• The padres receive: RHP Joe Musgrove
• The Mets receive: LHP Joey Lucchesi
• Hackers receive: RHP David Bednar, LHP Omar Cruz, OF Hudson Head, RHP Drake Fellows, C / OF Endy Rodriguez

The Padres get Musgrove for Bednar, Cruz, Head, Fellows and Lucchesi. The Mets take Lucchesi for Rodriguez. The Pirates have it all for Musgrove. Do you have it all? Good.

Musgrove, 28 years old, was a trendy escape choice heading into 2020 given the mechanical changes it made at the end of 2019. Those adjustments led to his career-highest strikeout (33.1%), swing-and-miss (14.4%) and ground ball (48.4%) rates last season. Musgrove will earn $ 4.45 million in 2021 and remain under the team’s control in 2022.

Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal recently reported that the Padres were still looking for a spinning aid, even after acquiring Blake Snell and Yu Darvish, which led them to Musgrove. All recent additions suggest San Diego is worried about Dinelson Lamet’s health. Lamet suffered a late season bicep injury late last year and has a long history of injuries.

The Padres will be without Mike Clevinger, another pitcher who suffered a bicep injury late last year, next season as he loses interest in Tommy John’s surgery. The San Diego rotation depth graph currently looks like this:

1. RHP Yu Darvish
2. LHP Blake Snell
3. RHP Dinelson Lamet
4. RHP Joe Musgrove
5. RHP Chris Paddack
6. LHP Adrian Morejon
7. LHP MacKenzie Gore
8. LHP Ryan Weathers

Even though Lamet misses the time next year, it’s an impressive depth. Morejon struck out over 30% of batters faced last year and is a former Top 100 prospect, and Gore is arguably the best pitching prospect of the game. Weathers himself is one of the top 100 prospects. When you have two talented youngsters like this in places 7-8 on your depth chart, you live well.

Lucchesi, 27, pitched nearly 300 league innings on average from 2018-19 before spending most of 2020 on the alternate site. The Mets have a dynamite spinning top three (Jacob deGrom, Marcus Stroman, Carlos Carrasco) and Lucchesi will join David Peterson and Steven Matz as a rear-spin depth until Noah Syndergaard returns from Operation Tommy. John.

As for the Pirates, they’re at the start of their rebuilding, and Musgrove was the team’s best trade chip outside of the presumably banned Ke’Bryan Hayes. Musgrove has two more years of control and Pittsburgh is unlikely to support those two years. Considering the risk of injury inherent to pitchers, trading it this offseason was smart. Cash it in while you can.

The Padres selected Head in the third round of the 2019 draft and MLB.com ranked the 19-year-old outfielder 7th in their system. Their screening report says he “could end up with average or better tools in all areas.” Cruz, a 21-year-old southpaw, was ranked No. 17 in the San Diego Farm System and Fellows, a 22-year-old right-hander, is unranked.

MLB.com ranks Rodriguez, 20, 12th in the New York Farming System. He is a natural outfielder who started training behind home plate. Their scout report says he is a batter with “an advanced approach and natural bat-to-ball skills.”

Bednar, 26, is a reliever with a knockout splitter and a history of high takeout rates. He’s had a few cups of coffee with the Padres the past two years and numbers to see more action with the Pirates.