Red Sox Rumors: Swapping bad contacts key to trading David Price
By Sean Penney
San Diego Padres
Making a splash in free agency last year with the signing of Manny Machado showed the Padres intend to compete in the near future and they have a young crop of position players to build around. They will need to upgrade their pitching staff if they have any hope of challenging the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL West though. Price could pair with Chris Paddack to give the Padres a formidable duo at the top of their rotation.
Instead of asking the Red Sox to pay a portion of Price’s contract while offering a middling package of prospects, San Diego could offer Wil Myers.
Myers has fallen out of favor after a brutal season in which he hit .239 with a .739 OPS. The Padres are motivated enough to move him that they are open to attaching prospects to entice a team to take him off their hands.
Last season was a steep decline for the former prized prospect but Myers is only a few years removed from an All-Star campaign and he bashed a career-high 30 home runs in 2017.
His meager production at the plate has to be viewed in the context of the pitcher-friendly park he played in with the Padres. His 95 OPS+ last season suggests he’s a below-average hitter but he’s not horrible. His 88.9 exit velocity was only a tick below his career rate and he set a career-high with an 11.2 Barrel Percentage, per StatCast. Myers is still capable of mashing the ball and relocating away from Petco Park should lead to a spike in productivity.
Myers is owed $22.5 million in each of the next three years plus a $1 million buyout for his 2023 club option. The appealing aspect of this trade though is that he only counts for $13.8 million against the tax based on the average annual value of the 6-year, $83 million deal he signed in 2017.
San Diego is in no danger of paying the tax so they would view this as adding less than $10 million per year to their payroll for the next three years while acquiring the better player. Meanwhile, the Red Sox save about $17 million for tax purposes and receive a power threat who can fill their void at first base.