Trade News: Musgrove to Padres, Lucchesi to Mets in Three Team Deal
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Stop me if you have heard this before, but the San Diego Padres have acquired a starting pitcher. Righty Joe Musgrove is on his way to San Diego, as part of a three team trade. The Mets will receive lefty starter Joey Lucchesi from the Padres, and the Pirates will acquire five prospects in the deal. Here is a breakdown of the full trade, as reported by ESPN’s Jeff Passan, MLB.com’s Jonathan Mayo, Jon Heyman of MLB Network, and Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune:
Padres Receive: RHP Joe Musgrove (from PIT)
Mets Receive: LHP Joey Lucchesi (from SD)
Pirates Receive: OF Hudson Head (from SD, #7 SD Prospect on MLB.com), LHP Omar Cruz (from SD, #17 SD Prospect), RHP David Bednar (from SD, #20 Prospect), RHP Drake Fellows (from SD, unranked SD Prospect), and C/OF Endy Rodriguez (from NYM, #14 NYM Prospect on MLB.com).
The Padres already had a bolstered rotation after acquiring Blake Snell and Yu Darvish via trades this offseason. Now, the Padres have a complete five-man rotation of veteran pitchers in the prime of their career. Musgrove will slot in as the fourth or fifth starter, definitely behind Snell, Darvish, and strikeout machine Dinelson Lamet. Chris “The Sheriff” Paddack and Musgrove should fill out the rotation. Musgrove finally dipped his ERA below the 4-mark this past season (3.86 ERA), and featured elite numbers in hard-hit rate against (93rd percentile), strikeout percentage (90th percentile), and whiff percentage (84th percentile). Despite a 1-5 record in 2020, the veteran righty impressed scouts and created a wide open trade market for himself this offseason.
The Mets add a bit of pitching depth with the acquisition of Joey Lucchesi. Lucchesi’s “stuff” is not electric, as his primary pitch has always been a 90 mph sinker. However, Lucchesi did introduce a curveball to his repertoire in 2020, and can improve greatly if the curve is located well and features enough break to miss bats. In exchange for adding the curveball, he completely ditched his changeup (which went from roughly 35% to 0.8%, per Baseball Savant). The curveball provides more flexibility for Lucchesi because he is able to feature the pitch against both lefty and righty hitters. The Mets hope that the new three-pitch mix will bump Lucchesi to the next level.
The Pirates received a slew of mid-level prospects as a fair return for Musgrove. The headline prospect is outfielder Hudson Head, the Padres’ 2019 third-round pick out of Winston Churchill High School in San Antonio, Texas. He grades out well among scouts, with many emphasizing his athletic abilities and well-rounded approach to the game, especially his speed on the base paths and with the bat. Head received a $3 million signing bonus from San Diego.
Catcher/Outfielder Endy Rodriguez signed with the Mets in July of 2018 for $10,000. It turned out to be a bargain for the Mets, as the switch-hitting catcher put together above-average numbers at the plate in his two years of Rookie-level ball. Rodriguez can play the corner outfield positions, but holds higher value as a catcher due to the scarcity of above-average bats at the position. It is likely that Pittsburgh will place the 20-year-old behind the dish in Single-A next season.
Omar Cruz, David Bednar, and Drake Fellows are all pitchers flipping from San Diego to Pittsburgh. Cruz, the only lefty of the trio, was signed for $100,000 out of Mexico in July of 2017. He went on to pitch two stellar seasons of pro ball ranging from Short Season to Single-A. He has a career 2.38 ERA in 98.1 innings in the minors. Since he easily strikes out over a batter per inning, scouts believe he will climb to higher levels of the minors in 2021. Bednar has major league experience with the Padres, and although his career ERA is high (6.75), it does not tell the whole story. The righty throws an easy 95 mph fastball and mixes in a splitter and curveball. Especially considering he was taken in the 35th round of the 2016 draft, the Padres have already received a great return on investment from Bednar. Fellows wills be 23 years old prior to the 2021 season. He has not logged an inning of minor league ball since being drafted in the sixth round of the 2019 draft out of Vanderbilt. He is the only prospect in the deal not in his former team’s top 30 ranking. He was an All-American in his junior year in a tough SEC environment. At 6’5”, he holds the frame of a great potential power pitcher.
In the end, the Padres and Mets improved the back end of their rotations and the Pirates boosted the quality of their farm system.