According to reports, the Padres are interested in former Cy Young winner Sandy Alcantara in a trade. What are the pros and cons?

Happy Trade Deadline season. It’s a rare time of year when the San Diego Padres, more often than not, take center stage for the baseball world to see. A.J. Preller, while an imperfect president of baseball operations in San Diego, is unafraid and unabashed in trying to improve the Padres.

In several different seasons, Preller became the focal point of the baseball world for mega-moves. Is there one in store this week?

For a while, it did not appear to be the case. First of all, Preller absolutely emptied the chamber last year to acquire the likes of Tanner Scott, Jason Adam, and earlier in the year, Luis Arraez and Dylan Cease. The farm system is not what it once was. Before the 2025 season, the Padres’ farm system ranked 25th according to MLB.com.

That doesn’t appear to be stopping Preller in his never-ending search to improve this roster. This is a clearly flawed Padres team. But also, it’s a team that doesn’t need much to make a run at the postseason.

Starting pitching is not the highest of needs for San Diego. Dylan Cease, Yu Darvish, Nick Pivetta, and upstart Stephen Kolek front the rotation. Michael King is due back in a few weeks to re-insert himself at the top of the rotation.

So, why are the Padres reportedly interested in Marlins ace Sandy Alcantara?

It’s a multi-layered situation. According to other reports, the Padres are also trying to trade away Dylan Cease. Cease is on an expiring contract and began this season owed $13.75 million. The Padres sit right up against the second CBT threshold with payroll. It’s unlikely Preller has the green light to just blow past it. They will need to get creative if they want to add players on significant deals.

Let’s discuss the pros and cons of the Padres possibly trading for Alcantara.

I prefer starting with the negative.

Cons

The contract. While Alcantara’s five-year, $56 million deal isn’t an albatross, the Padres simply cannot just add that to the payroll pile without significant reductions elsewhere. Hence, the Cease trade rumors. The 2022 Cy Young Award winner began this year owed $17.3 million, slightly more than Cease. Of course, with it being almost August, the money will be prorated to reflect being over halfway through the season.

Simply, the Padres can and will not make this trade without a big move to shed already existing payroll.

The other elephant in the room is that Alcantara has been, frankly, bad this season. He owns a putrid 6.66 ERA and 65 ERA+, which is -1.5 WAR. That ranks 765th out of 767 pitchers in MLB this season. He has been downright dreadful coming off Tommy John surgery in 2024.

As to why he has been so bad, it’s hard to pinpoint. His velocity and spin rates are normal. Where he is lacking is swing-and-miss. The whiff rate on his slider in 2022 was at 31.4 percent, with a 34.6 percent whiff rate on his vaunted changeup.

This year, those whiff rates are down to 25.8 and 29.2, respectively. His swinging strike rate went from 12.3 percent in 2023 down to 8.6 percent.

The stuff and velocity are there, but the quality of the strikes is not. His career average barrel rate is 6.3 percent. This year, it has reached a career-high 9.1 percent. Could it be a confidence issue, following surgery? Is it rust after going 18 months between surgeries until his first start back?

There is no guarantee that it will magically go away once he throws on a brown and gold Padres uniform. There is no guarantee we will ever see the Cy Young-level Alcantara on a consistent level again. If not, his contract all of a sudden becomes troublesome.

Perhaps the biggest con of all is the price Miami is likely going to demand. Given that Alcantara is under contract for 2026 along with a team option for 2027, he will command a haul of prospects. This is the type of deal that will cost the Padres one of Ethan Salas or Leo De Vries. There is no getting around that. Frankly, one by themselves wouldn’t be enough. It would require one of those top two and a few other respected prospects in San Diego’s system.

There is a scenario where the Padres deal away Cease, trade for Alcantara, and are worse off in the rotation and are stuck with a longer, more expensive contract in the process.

Pros

Once again, we are talking about a former Cy Young Award winner. And he isn’t an aging former winner still clinging to the glory days of yesterday. This is a 29-year-old still in his physical prime.

He clearly still has the ability to tap into that immense talent. Padres fans just watched him dice up this Padres offense just a few days ago, pitching seven shutout innings.

Diving into the metrics, his velocity and spin rates are nearly the same as his pre-Tommy John numbers. His average fastball velocity in his Cy Young-winning 2022 campaign sat at 98.0 mph. This year, it’s at 97.5. He got 2,355 rpm on his slider in 2022. He has actually increased his spin rate on his slider this year, at 2,373.

Per FanGraphs, his “Stuff+” metric sits at 107, above league average. He reached 110 when he won the Cy Young, but also had 107 in his rookie year of 2020. However, it is his “Location+” that has decreased more significantly, down to 100 from 105.

The raw physical ability is still very much there.

The Padres have several resources that should be able to get Alcantara back on track to looking like one of the most dominant pitchers in the league again. Pitching coach Ruben Niebla commands immense respect around the league. Several up-and-down, floundering pitchers have come to Niebla in San Diego and reached new heights. Additionally, the Padres boast a biomechanics lab at Point Loma Nazarene University, which has received rave reviews. Not every team has something like that.

If there is a team that can trade for and then immediately get the best out of Alcantara, it’s the San Diego Padres with Niebla.

If Alcantara finds that form again, all of a sudden, the Padres have a World Series-level trio of starting pitchers with King, Pivetta, and the Azua, Dominican Republic native. Plus, it resolves a big question mark of what the starting rotation will look like in 2026. He would join Pivetta, Joe Musgrove, Yu Darvish, and Randy Vasquez as the notable starters under contract next year for the Friars.

Nick Lee

Native of Escondido, CA. Lived in San Diego area for 20 years. Padres fan since childhood (mid-90s). I have been writing since 2014. I currently live near Seattle, WA and am married to a Seattle sports girl. I wore #19 on my high school baseball team for Tony Gwynn. I am a stats and sports history nerd. I attended BYU on the Idaho campus. I also love Star Wars.