Padres Acquire Alex Torres from Rays

Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports

The Padres have reportedly made a trade for Alex Torres, a southpaw reliever, from the Tampa Bay Rays. According to ESPN’s Keith Law, the Padres would send infielder Logan Forsythe, pitcher Matt Andriese, pitcher Brad Boxberger and pitcher Matt Lollis to the Rays for Alex Torres and pitcher Jesse Hahn. My initial reaction to this trade was, wow, that’s a lot of people to give up. But, the more I look at it, the more I think that the Padres really just got rid of some players from the El Paso Chihuahuas roster for a much needed left-handed reliever.

Boxberger and Andriese were destined for the already full stable of Pitchers in El Paso. Lollis has fallen out of the Padres top prospect lists and didn’t put up the best numbers last season. Forsythe would have been in competition with Alexi Amarista and Alberto Gonzalez (and maybe Jonathan Galvez) for the utility infielder job. Not to discredit any of the players involved, we appreciate all of their time with the organization, but the Padres really didn’t give up anything. Even if they had given up a little more, I would still be excited about Alex Torres.

We knew that the team needed a LOOGY. It appears that with Torres they have gotten much more. In 39 games last season, Torres had a 1.71 ERA, 0.897 WHIP and struck out 9.6 batters per nine innings. His numbers against lefties are outstanding with a .175 BAA and 6.20 K/BB ratio. Surprisingly, he was even better against righties in some respects. His BAA for righties was .149! Needless to say, I think the Padres did very well for themselves by acquiring Torres. The Padres also received Jess Hahn who is a very good pitcher but has worked in lower levels than the other three Minor League Pitchers that were given up. This would seemingly subtract a few pitchers from the AAA El Paso roster and add one to the AA San Antonio roster.

I wish the best to all players involved. Being military, I know how much moving on short notice can suck. Now, these guys will be making travel arrangements to Florida instead of Arizona and vice-versa. Even though we often talk about players as commodities, we have to be reminded sometimes that they are people too. Good luck to everyone and good job, Josh Byrnes!