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Padres Rumors: Shields Has a “75 to 90%” Chance of Being Dealt; Kimbrel on the Block Too

By Tim Richer

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A rival evaluator had some interesting thoughts that he shared with ESPN insider Buster Olney.

If you showed me this tweet on April 6th, I would have thought it came from one of those parody accounts that always crop up during trade season, but with the way things have gone for the 2015 San Diego Padres this is the sad but true reality for the team. Nothing has gone right and now the team looks prepared to offload anything that they can get a warm body for.

Trading both Kimbrel and Shields would allow the Padres to have a full reset, clearing $116 million off the books over the next four seasons. But the biggest issue with moving them is their very large paychecks. Some teams are willing to take on a larger contract if they only have to pay for a half season, but with Kimbrel and Shields the market will strictly be contenders with deep pockets. With that in mind it’s hard to imagine netting a big return for either of them. Kimbrel would definitely command a larger return than Shields due to his age and ability, but the limited market lowers his value some.

If the Padres can’t get the kind of returns they want for either Shields or Kimbrel, they can hold on to them for next year if they want to contend, but does the team actually want to contend in 2016? While I believe the 75 to 90% figure tossed out by Olney’s source is a bit overstated, they wouldn’t be saying it if the Padres weren’t aggressively shopping Shields. They’ve also discussed trading Andrew Cashner and Tyson Ross. To me that sounds like there’s at least some consideration to blowing up the entire team.

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