Written by: Raphie Cantor and Diego Solares

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This article is part of an ongoing series, Padres Trade Court. If you’re a newcomer to the series, please check out the introduction linked here.

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Order! Order! Order!

*bangs baseball bat on desk*

Padres Trade Court™️ is now in session.

Calling case No. 003 — The Friar Faithful versus Wil Myers. The prosecution will be arguing that Myers should be traded away from the Padres, while the defense is arguing that he should stay. Today’s prosecutor is Raphie Cantor, and the defense is Diego Solares.

The Case for a Trade

Let’s not waste anyone’s time. I’m not going to make an argument trying to convince you that the Padres should trade Myers. It has been the vocal desire of the majority of the fanbase for this entire offseason. Even MLB.com Padres’ beat reporter AJ Cassavell has indicated that a Myers trade remains at the top of Padres’ GM AJ Preller’s to-do list. The reason being that Myers’s back-loaded contract sees his compensation rising to $22.5 million in 2020, where it will stand for three seasons. Nearly everyone can agree that an amount of money that large could be going somewhere more productive.

But a trade takes two to tango. Another team has to be willing to take a chance on the 29-year-old outfielder and they’ll have one of three reasons for doing so.

1) The Padres would have to fork over some of their prized prospects along with Myers. The idea being that the other team would be “paying” for these prospects by taking on Myers’s contract. The Padres would likely get one or two prospects back, but they would probably not be heralded talent.

2) The Padres trade Myers and agree to continue paying a portion of his salary. This would likely be the case in scenario 1 as well, depending on the prospect haul that would be dealt with Myers.

3) Someone believes they can “fix” Wil Myers.

Let’s start with that last one. There’s a reason people think they can fix Myers. Because once upon a time, Myers was the Prince Who Was Promised. Pundits adored his swing, which even an FFC colleague has remarked on. At first, the scouts all seemed to be correct. Myers soared to a 2013 AL Rookie of the Year season in which he slashed .293/.354/.478.

It was that athletic ability and those flashy tools that drew the attention of Preller in December of 2014, when he traded for Myers in a three-team deal that, among others, saw the Padres sending Trea Turner to the Nationals.

It’s that trade that I want to use to focus the crux of my argument. At the time, Myers was seen as a piece for the future who the Padres could build a young franchise around. In order to acquire Myers, the Padres had to give up valuable prospect capital. That brings us to reasons one and two of why a team would trade for Myers -- prospect or financial capital.

It’s going to take a lot to sway another major league baseball team, comprised of smart people who have every reason not to take Myers, to execute a trade for him. Myers’s performance as a Padre since joining the team prior to the 2015 season has been erratic at best. His 2016 season saw him post a respectable 3.5 fWAR and garnered an All-Star Game appearance. But other than that, Myers has largely been forgettable. His 2019 showing drew the ire of many, as Myers was essentially replacement level all season, save for a bounce back in September when the Padres season was non-competitive.

So, how can we determine what it would take?

Fangraphs has estimated the dollar value of prospects via a projection system that predicts future WAR while under team control. Myers is owed $67.5 million over the next three seasons. To give you an idea of what that can translate to in terms of prospect value, Padres No. 1 prospect Mackenzie Gore is projected by Fangraphs as being worth $60 million over the life of his rookie contract. That gives you a sense of just how large the Padres commitment is to Myers. That trade would never happen, so let’s not bother with it.

But if you look further down the prospect list, some interesting packages could materialize. For instance, catcher Luis Campusano is projected to carry $28 million in value over the course of his team controlled years. Coming off of a hot season in High-A ball, some teams in need of talent behind the dish could see even more worth in Campusano. Seeing as he’s technically blocked by Francisco Mejia, whom the organization deems as their catcher of the future, Campusano makes for a potential trade target. Additionally, the Padres log jammed bullpen could mean pitching prospects are ripe for the picking. Both Adrian Morejon and Michel Baez are major league-ready talents that could provide depth to a new team, and their status within the Padres organization remains up in the air. They’re valued at $8 million and $6 million, respectively.

Putting all that together, a prospect package that includes Campusano, Morejon, and Baez is theoretically valued at $42 million. Subtract that projected value from Myers’s contract, and you’re left with $25.5 million. I think there are some teams out there who take Myers in order to get those three players, and pay roughly $8.5 million a year in value for Wil Myers’s services.

With the Padres bullpen stacked for 2020, and Francisco Mejia appearing to be the long-term solution at catcher, I think a trade package of Campusano, Morejon, and Baez is the only realistic one that can get Myers’s contract off the books entirely.

It’s a steep price. Those are the Padres’ No. 5, No. 6, and No. 8 prospects according to MLB Pipeline. But the Padres are married to Myers, and divorces are expensive. If the team doesn’t want any dead money from Myers left on their books, they’re going to have to pay the prospect piper. That frees up money that can be used to go sign valuable free agents, which the Padres will need to if they are committed to competing over the next several years as they claim. It’s worth remembering that this is exactly why organizations build deep farm systems. Not only to foster young talent, but to trade for major league talent who can contribute immediately, or get rid of talent which is incapable of doing so.

The prosecution rests.

The Defense

To be completely honest with you, these handful of blurbs I’m about to write are going to be pretty difficult to actually jot down. It’s nearly impossible to say that trading Myers away from San Diego would be a mistake and that the Padres would benefit from dealing him away.

However, there is a world where Myers could benefit from staying in Petco Park and could potentially tap into the crazy amount of potential that he’s always had. Myers came up with the Tampa Bay Rays in 2013 and slashed his way to the American League Rookie of the Year award. Injuries plagued him the next two seasons, where he would eventually be traded to the Padres in a mega three team deal that also involved the Washington Nationals.

In his very first season with the Padres, Myers was the cleanup hitter for the National League All-Star team and crushed 28 home runs. He followed that up with a 30 home run performance in 2017 and looked like a major building block for the Padres moving forward.

Obviously, that hasn’t been the case. The Padres inked Myers to a six-year, $83 million extension that would keep him under contract through the 2022 season. His offensive numbers, and overall performance for that matter, have taken a massive hit since then. The former All-Star who looked like a potential franchise player hasn’t been the same since.

While Myers certainly deserves some of the blame for this drop in production, the Padres do too. They took a player who noticeably looked comfortable in a corner outfield role and moved him around the entire diamond. They put him at first base, where he thrived, and moved him the next year after signing Eric Hosmer. He’s played all three outfield spots and even some third base, where he had never played before. He wasn’t able to become acclimated and comfortable to one single position. Even when he did, the Padres just moved him right off it.

There’s statistical evidence that backs up this cause. Here are Baseball Reference’s splits for Myers over the course of his entire big league career that show his offensive numbers at each position he’s played. As you can see, there is a noticeable drop off in production at certain spots, while there’s an increase in others.