Luis Arraez trade grades: Padres come out ahead in deal involving multi-time batting champion

The Padres and Marlins combined for the first major trade of the season on Friday night, with San Diego getting second baseman Luis Arraez and cash considerations as part of a five-player trade. In return, Miami brought in minor league outfielders Dillon Head and Jakob Marsee, first baseman Nathan Martorella and right-handed reliever Woo-Suk Go. (The Marlins will pay Arraez’s salary up to the league minimum.)

We here at CBS Sports are nothing if not the critical type. As such, we have made a habit over the past few years of offering instant analysis after each notable exchange in the form of trade notes. This deal certainly qualifies in our book, given that Arraez is a two-time All-Star and two-time batting champion. With that in mind, scroll slowly with us as we look at this negotiation from both sides.

Before we begin, though, allow us to recap the trade as a whole:

• Priests receive: 2B Luis Arraez, cash considerations

• Marlins receive: DE Dillon Head, 1B Nathan Martorella, DE Jakob Marsee, RHP Woo-Suk Go

Now for the good stuff.

Priests Grade: B

Let’s face it: Every time the Padres make a significant trade, we think about what a veteran scout from a rival team told us several summers ago: AJ Preller is particularly skilled at dealing with prospects he doesn’t like. Just look at this trade and we must admit that the scout knew what he was talking about. Preller didn’t sacrifice anyone who was in the top five of his system. You could argue he didn’t move anyone who would be in the top 10 depending on how you line them up. That doesn’t mean these players don’t have merit or that they can’t become interesting contributors in the big leagues. But we think most would agree that Preller is right to take action in this case, given the modest transaction cost.

In return, Preller gets a 27-year-old All-Star with one more season of team control remaining. Arraez’s exact value is difficult to pin down due to an archaic skill set. He relies more on singles than pop stars in the streaming era. He is not a skilled or versatile defender; he’s not a bopper; and he’s not even a walker. He’ll spread the ball around the diamond and post a high batting average, but that’s the extent of his contributions, for better and for worse.

Take a look at where Arraez stands as of 2022 among the 343 hitters with at least 500 plate appearances:

There is value in this, don’t get us wrong; Baseball Reference has Arraez averaging more than four Wins Above Replacement the past two years. He just needs to hit well above .300 to produce at that scale. The one-dimensional nature of his game also, fairly or not, makes him feel like a riskier player than someone with a broader skill set.

If you’re the Padres, you clearly agree with this. This is the franchise with which Tony Gwynn has claimed to be known as one of the best pure hitters of modern times, and this is an executive, in Preller, who seems to prioritize the hitting tool above all else. That’s how you end up signing Eric Hosmer to a long-term contract, and that’s how you end up installing Jake Cronenworth as your multi-year solution at first base.

Either way, Arraez can play DH most days while occasionally serving as a layer of depth on the right side of the infield in the event of injury or continued underperformance. If the Padres want to move Cronenworth around the diamond, they can do that and take down Arraez first; if they want to give Xander Bogaerts a day off to reset, they can do that and tag Arraez at second. That’s the extent of it.

Finances are an interesting subplot of this trade. Remember, the Padres seemed intent on staying under the fiscal luxury number all winter. That’s why they traded Juan Soto and didn’t do much in free agency. The negotiation with Dylan Cease left them around $10 million in wiggle room, according to calculations provided by Cot’s Contracts. Arraez’s salary for the full season is $10.6 million, though the Marlins covering nearly all of what remains should leave the Padres wiggle room to make more moves this summer as they try to clinch a playoff spot.

Marlins Grade: D

New head of baseball operations Peter Bendix, hired from the Tampa Bay Rays to replace Kim Ng, spent his first winter at the helm replenishing the front office with highly regarded employees. For the most part, he left the big league roster untouched, as if to say: I know last season was a fluke, but I want to give the club a chance to prove it before making changes. They proved that everything was fine, getting off to a miserable start that gave Bendix the ability to dismantle the group without seeming too nihilistic.

Is this trade the kind of masterstroke that will help the Marlins turn around their fortunes? Oh, we’re skeptical. Maybe you could argue that the Marlins deserve a C here. Arraez would simply never order a king’s ransom. After all, this is 2024, not 1984; teams don’t pay for limited defensemen whose contributions come entirely from singles. (This is not to say that batting average is meaningless; rather, from our perspective, it remains more valuable than the True Iconoclasts suggest, since a hit is always superior to a walk.) Still, , this return seems too slight for our liking, given the timing – and we write this recognizing that each of the four players has their charms.

Head, 19, was San Diego’s first-round pick last season. He is a great speedster who should contribute both defensively and on the bases. CBS Sports ranked him as the 26th-best prospect in the class, noting that he “has good bat speed and added strength, but has not faced top-tier competition at Illinois and often carries past his back foot.” It was always reasonable to think of it as a long-term project. It’s not too surprising, then, that Head hasn’t performed well as a pro outside of a brief stint as a rookie. This year in A-ball, he is batting .237/.317/.366 with 16 more strikeouts than walks in 21 games. Head has the benefit of youth and vast secondary value on his side, but will have to hit more at some point.

Martorella, 23, has an unconventional batting stance. He does a good squat with his hands positioned at chest height, thus speeding up his load. It may not be a classic operation, but it worked well for him. He entered Friday batting .294/.392/.435 in Double-A, with almost as many walks as strikeouts. Martorella has significantly increased his fly-ball and pull rates this season, likely in an attempt to take advantage of his above-average raw power. He will need to continue doing this, as he has low-level athleticism, which will certainly limit him to first base.

Marsee, 22, has a good grasp of making contact and managing the strike zone. He has pulling power thanks to an extreme tendency to lift the ball. To wit, less than 25% of his batted ball events this season have been classified as grounders. That would put him at the bottom of the big league leaderboard, with the likes of Mike Trout and a group of current and former Los Angeles Dodgers. Bendix had success in Tampa Bay with Isaac Paredes, who safely hit more than his exit velocity numbers suggested he should because of his extreme pull predilections. In an ideal world, Marsee does the same. As for where the Marlins will play him, he probably fits best at corner where his athleticism won’t be overly exposed.

Go, 25, joined the Padres over the winter after an illustrious career in South Korea that saw him compile a 3.18 ERA and 139 saves. He struggled in spring training, surrendering more runs than innings pitched, and has so far surrendered more than a hit per frame against Double-A competition. Go showcased a three-pitch mix this spring that included a rising 90s fastball, a cutter and a curveball, each delivered from a low launch point. He’s already on the 40-man roster and could be the first member of this package to make his Marlins debut in the coming weeks.

Again, not the most interesting package on paper. It’s now up to the Marlins to extract more value from these players than we anticipated. If they do, expect the Miami fan base to quickly forgive what appears to be a mild trade involving a fan favorite.