With A.J. Preller in full teardown mode since June, it wasn’t a surprise to see the Padres’ general manager trade catcher Derek Norris on Friday to clear room for Austin Hedges and Christian Bethancourt.

Really, we should have seen the Tyson Ross news coming, too.

He’s already 29 years old. He was projected to make $9.6 million in 2017, his walk year. He made just one start last year and is coming off a thoracic outlet syndrome procedure that makes him far from a sure thing for Opening Day.

Truth be told, a team playing for 2018 and beyond had little choice but to add Ross — whose injuries make him a question mark — to their non-tender pile.


First, consider an alternative path.

Tender Ross a contract, hope for the best in an arbitration hearing in February and hold your breath with each step in his rehab in hopes of rebuilding his trade value before the end of July.

You wouldn’t get all you could have after the 2014 or even 2015 season, but receiving something via the trade market or draft-pick compensation if he walked in the offseason would have at least helped the organization’s long-term cause.

But what if Ross wasn’t ready for Opening Day?


What if is his rehab lingered into May?

What if he returned, hit a snag and again hit the disabled list?

Remember, the Padres weren’t expecting Ross to miss but a handful of starts when he originally landed on the DL last April. The risk of another injury-interrupted season – however difficult it is to predict this early in his rehab schedule – was too much to make Ross the Padres’ most expensive player five times over given the front office’s build-for-the-future mandate.

There simply wasn’t a lot of interest in potentially footing a $10 million bill the entire season.


Naturally, the Padres are holding out hope that Ross will decide to re-sign a much-friendlier one-year deal to send him off into free agency next winter.

Given his working relationship with pitching coach Darren Balsley (Ross credits him for his career breakthrough) and affinity for San Diego as a home, Ross is said to even be open to that idea if the Padres’ offer approaches what he fetches now that he’s a free agent.

Of course, there’s a good chance it won’t.

The starting pitching market as thin as it is, a healthy Ross would challenge the 36-year-old Rich Hill as the game’s most coveted arm. Even a damaged Ross could look attractive given the money doled out to pitchers thus far:


$30 million (four years) to LHP Brett Cecil

$22 million (two years) to RHP Edinson Volquez

$17.5 million (qualifying offer) to RHP Jeremy Hellickson

$14 million (two years) to RHP Charlie Morton

$12.5 million (one year) to RHP Bartolo Colon

$10 million (one year) to RHP Andrew Cashner

$7.5 million (one year) to RHP R.A. Dickey

That’s a reliever (Cecil), two pitchers in their 40s (Colon and Dickey), a pitcher who made just four starts last year (Morton), two pitchers with ERAs over 5.00 (Volquez and Cashner) and another pitcher with one good campaign in his past four seasons (Hellickson).

No, a team with postseason aspirations might not have to get all that creative – incentives, multi-years – to price the Padres out of the market for a pitcher who fashioned a 3.07 ERA between 2013-2015, struck out 526 batters in 516 2/3 innings in that span and boasts one of the game’s best sliders.

Assuming there aren’t issues with Ross’ rehab, that is.

That’s the real wild card here, too.


Although Preller stressed Friday evening that Ross’ progress had nothing to do with the non-tender decision, the fact that he “honestly felt like there was not a match” in trade talks over the last week suggests something might be afoot.

After all, Preller got something for a healthy but homer-prone James Shields last June.

He got something for the previously untradeable Melvin Upton Jr.

He got something for Norris on the heels of the worst offensive campaign of his career.


Why was he not able to get something for Ross?

The answer could have a major impact on the starting pitching market.

jeff.sanders@sduniontribune.com; Twitter: @sdutSanders