The San Diego Padres need pitching depth, which could lead to trading for a former budding star. 

Padres fans remember the relentless attitude, the wicked changeup, and the cowboy apparel before starts from right-hander Chris Paddack.

The man dubbed “The Sheriff” burst onto the scene in 2019 with a 3.33 ERA, 26.9% strikeout rate, and a pair of near no-hitters. However, his subsequent seasons left a lot to be desired, with a 4.95 ERA over 167.1 innings. Despite this, his walk rate never shot up, but his barrel rates increased over those seasons. 

Paddack was dealt to Minnesota in the Taylor Rogers trade, and he pitched in five games before undergoing Tommy John surgery in May 2022. Returning in 2023 to help the Twins in a playoff run, Paddack did not bounce back as well in 2024, putting up a 4.99 ERA in 17 starts. Now, his season wasn’t purely doom and gloom, as he allowed three runs or less in 11 of 17 starts. He also had a pair of ten-strikeout games while seeing his fastball register a +5 run value. 

It is strange to call a pitcher with 423.2 career innings a project, but Paddack’s career has been so up-and-down that he still has areas of growth left in his game. Before looking at those areas, any re-acquisition attempt by the Padres involves some financials. Luckily for San Diego, Paddack is due $7.5 million in 2025, and his luxury tax value is only $4.175 million, thanks to the three-year contract he signed with the Twins in January 2023.

Considering the market going rate for pitching, it is an absolute bargain of a contract. The Padres and Twins are no strangers to making trades, and both teams have needs in the rotation that they can match. Minnesota is aiming to cut further payroll, and with San Diego looking for affordable rotation depth, the stars could certainly align. 

When it comes to Chris Paddack, the Padres don’t need a 2019 redux version of his performance (but they would certainly take it). Paddack would likely slot in near the back of the Padres’ rotation, essentially taking Martin Perez’s in the rotation. The Padres’ faith in Randy Vasquez & Matt Waldron produced innings, but the ceiling on both is low compared to Paddack. With Ruben Niebla in the fold, the Padres could look to do two things with Paddack’s arsenal:

• Re-discover the changeup
• Continue to improve his developing slider

Paddack’s changeup was in the 92nd percentile in his rookie season under pitching coach Darren Balsley, but in 2021, under Larry Rothschild, his changeup became a shell of what it was in 2019. 2024 was the first real large sample size since the ill-fated 2021 season, and his changeup was his second-worst pitch in terms of WOBA (.362), xWOBA (.385), put-away percentage (15%), and expected batting average against (.291). However the pitch location cumulatively was similar to that of… Michael King. 

Should he return to San Diego, Ruben Niebla, and his staff could aim to bring up the iVB on the pitch, as his changeup saw a career-low 4.6 inches of induced vertical break. Paddack’s changeup is fundamentally different from that of Michael King, but the way he uses it to sequence his fastball could lead to better results, as was seen in 2019. 

Furthermore, the development of his slider as a legitimate offering could open further avenues for the right-hander. Since Paddack’s changeup is a weapon on both sides of the plate, even in its diminished form, adding some horizontal movement onto his slider (essentially working the pitch into a sweeper) could allow Paddack’s pinpoint fastball command to steal strikes on the corners and set up a high fastball.

Paddack is a pitcher whose arsenal tunnels well from his higher arm slot, so more depth on a breaking pitch from that release point might not be the easiest to hide. Other pitchers with high breaking pitch release points, like Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Dylan Cease, have found ways to throw breaking balls with depth from higher arm slots. Cease’s slider was arguably one of the best in baseball in 2024. Therefore, the Padres’ pitching department can help Paddack fortify his slider and curveball in a similar fashion to Cease’s style of pitching. While Paddack doesn’t have the velocity of Cease, he has the command to make the most of his current velocity. 

As for the cost of reacquiring Paddack, San Diego would likely need to part with a near-MLB ready or MLB-ready pitcher. One of Randy Vasquez, Jhony Brito, and Matt Waldron could likely be a starting point for the Twins in trade talks, and the teams would likely exchange other players as they did in the trade, sending Paddack to the Twin Cities in the first place. For the sake of hypothetical, a trade between the teams might look like this:

San Diego acquires – RHP Chris Paddack, C Christian Vazquez (with Salary Retention), RHP Brock Stewart

Minnesota acquires – RHP Randy Vasquez, IF Romeo Sanabria (SD No. 23 Prospect), RHP David Morgan (SD No. 29 Prospect)

San Diego would also acquire catcher Christian Vazquez in this hypothetical deal. Vazquez has been a longtime target of A.J. Preller’s, and bringing him into the fold on a reduced CBT number could provide the team with a quality defensive backup for Luis Campusano, who is likely to be the starting catcher in 2025.

Vazquez would bring a good glove with some power potential, as he struggled thanks in part to a .257 BABIP in 2024, his lowest since 2018. He isn’t the same power threat he was in the juiced-ball season of 2019, but his swing could play well at Petco Park. Stewart would represent a buy-low relief addition for San Diego’s bullpen. With rumors swirling of the Padres looking to move some of their high-priced relievers, Stewart would represent a low-cost, high-upside add, averaging 97 mph on his fastball with a solid pair of breaking pitches, which has allowed him to keep the ball in the ballpark over the last two seasons. 

Going to Minnesota would be Wandy Peralta, Randy Vasquez, David Morgan, and Romeo Sanabria. Vasquez would represent a depth addition for the Twins’ beleaguered pitching staff, as he would be in competition for a rotation spot alongside the likes of former top prospects David Festa, Zebby Matthews, and No. 6 prospect Andrew Morris. 

Morgan would be a possible relief option for the Twins in 2025, as the team has a seemingly never-ending pipeline of flamethrowing right-handers. Morgan’s fastball-slider-curveball mix is unconventional for a reliever, but minor alterations in his curveball usage could set him up for a monster 2025 season. The real prize for Minnesota would be Sanabria, a corner infield prospect who will likely end up at first base. Sanabria isn’t the prototypical slugger, but he has a strong ability to hit gap-to-gap, which would play well at Petco but would certainly play well at Target Field. 

The Padres need a low-cost middle-to-back end starting pitcher with the insanity of the going rate on the free agent market. If the team wants to strike now, a reunion with Chris Paddack could fill that void.

Diego Garcia

A born and raised San Diegan, Diego Garcia is a lifetime Padres fan and self-proclaimed baseball nerd. Diego wrote about baseball on his own site between 2021-22 before joining the East Village Times team in 2024. He also posts baseball content on his YouTube channel “Stat Nerd Baseball”, creating content around trades, hypotheticals, player analyses, the San Diego Padres, and MLB as a whole.

A 2024 graduate of San Diego State, Diego aims to grow as a writer and content creator in the baseball community.