After striking a shocking deal for Rays fans, that sent beloved outfielder Tommy Pham to San Diego for a powerful outfielder and brilliant prospect infielder, The Rays and Padres found themselves again making a somewhat very interesting swap of players.
On February 8, the Rays sent their relief corps star stud, Emilio Pagan who had a great breakout season in his first year with the Rays after coming over from Oakland to the San Diego Padres. Many Rays fans were puzzled by the actions of GM Erik Neander. I mean Pagan was the best reliever in a Rays bullpen that was one of the best in baseball. He was used as a part-time closer, saving 20 games over the course of 70 innings with a laughably low 2.31 ERA. Relying on his electric four-seam fastball which topped at 96 and also a deceptive slider, which produced countless swings and misses, Pagan had one of the highest strikeout rates among qualified major league relievers. He should certainly be one of the best relievers in the newly reinvented Padres bullpen with San Diego also looking to vault themselves into playoff contention. Pagan, paired with NL Reliever of the Year contender Kirby Yates, and the newly acquired Drew Pomeranz creates one of the strongest back three’s in baseball to help San Diego make up for their lacking starting pitching and will surely be one of the main factors if they want to claim a wild card spot. The Rays were finally able to find the Pagan that he was capable of pitching to be, but also being the frugal and dollar poor team the Rays are, they saw value in his trade stock.
With the Rays bullpen already being so strong and with a plethora of relievers to choose from, in both the majors and minors, Pagan was looking more like excess than was necessary. The Rays knew that they had a strong bullpen already, so they decided to sell off one of their best guys while his stock was still highest to bring in more help on the front where it is needed the most in the offense. The haul back for Pagan was defensive-minded centerfielder Manuel Margot, a former top prospect with the Boston Red Sox who was originally acquired by the Padres back in 2016 for star reliever Craig Kimbrel. He was supposed to be a stud with San Diego, but his offense never really developed and his defense way outpaced his bat. The Rays hope that they can possibly develop his bat to give the Rays more depth in the outfield along with injury-prone Kevin Kiermaier to give him days off or maybe platoon him with left fielder Hunter Renfroe.
Lots of us in the baseball community like to always jump to opinions on who won the trade, and I would lying if I said I didn’t too, but this is one of those trades where I didn’t really see any clear cut winner. The Padres are focusing on bolstering a relief corps to rival some of the games best in order to compensate for their weak rotation so they can reach that long-awaited postseason goal, and Pagan gives them just that. He should be a very solid setup man or good at any late-inning type of job, making San Diego that much better. And as for the Rays I honestly like this deal as a fan myself of the team. It was very apparent last year even in such a great season that our offense was too mediocre to push us over the edge of a strong playoff team, and it showed in the postseason. Margot will give us more depth in that outfield that was really shallow in 2019, and being an optimist I might even see his bat showing up and finally delivering on that raved about scouting report from so many scouts. I think that with all the offensive depth that the Rays have been adding paired with our incredible looking rotation and bullpen, the Rays could be well on their way to having one of the strongest seasons in franchise history.