Adam Burke’s quick take on the Yankees’ deal with the Padres:
In Juan Soto, the Yankees get an elite hitter who regularly ranks among the league’s best in walk rate, so he’ll be able to get on base for Aaron Judge and make the top of the Yankees’ order way more dangerous. Soto has a career 19% BB% against a 17.1% K%, so he walks more often than he strikes out and has a superb strikeout rate for a guy with 30+ HR power. The short porch at Yankee Stadium will help his slugging numbers.
The Padres also gave up Trent Grisham in the deal. Grisham has 15/15 (SB/HR) capabilities and hit nine of his 13 homers on the road, which isn’t surprising with Petco Park’s stingy nature. For Soto and Grisham, the Padres got some financial flexibility to reinvest in the free agent market and a boatload of pitching in hopes of having more depth.
With Blake Snell, Michael Wacha, and Seth Lugo all likely leaving via free agency, the aging Yu Darvish and Joe Musgrove were the only ones left in the rotation. Michael King, who showed the ability to start with a 1.88 ERA over eight starts to finish out the season when he got added to the rotation, now slots in for the Padres. They’ll hope Jhony Brito or Randy Vasquez hit to provide depth. Drew Thorpe is a four-year college arm who could be fast-tracked to the bigs after ending last season in Double-A, but the Padres are largely rebuilding on the fly with this move and had no intentions of signing Soto to a long-term deal after the upcoming season ends.
The Padres (30/1) are quite a bit weaker today than they were a couple days ago and the Yankees (8/1) are stronger, assuming they can acquire some free agent arms with questions about the health of several of their pitchers.
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