Padres Haven’t Traded Andrew Cashner – Yet

The Padres haven’t seen the production they expected out of Andrew Cashner, but that doesn’t mean he won’t be traded by the August 1st trade deadline to a team that needs help.

The Padres are willing to trade Cashner because he is a free agent and certainly hasn’t pitched well enough to even offer a qualifying offer so they would get nothing if he left – and he should. A change of scenery and going home to Texas might be what he needs.

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Many outlets reported that Cashner could be traded even before his start tonight. Jon Morosi lists the Orioles and Marlins as two potential teams, and of course the Rangers are a possibility as well. The defending champion Royals have seen their rotation struggle of late and he could rejoin former Padre Ian Kennedy if that were to go through.

Cashner has yet to win a start on the road this season. He has an ERA of 7.83 on the road in 23 innings and has a 6.14 ERA since returning from his DL stint with a strained neck.

Padres General Manager A.J. Preller has certainly not shown much sentimentality since becoming GM, trading away players like Jedd Gyorko that were once thought to be a future cornerstone – and being right in those trades.

At this point Cashner has hurt the Padres by not pitching very well, because the Padres would likely want to trade him anyway. He has never lived up to the high expectations that the Cubs had of him and the Padres who traded away superstar Anthony Rizzo to get him back in 2012. He wouldn’t get much more than a low level prospect or two but anything would be better than nothing?

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Best case scenario is that he goes out Thursday – doesn’t get hurt and goes six innings only allowing a few runs – and the Padres win. Jedd Gyorko hasn’t yet faced his former teammate but has been absolutely feasting on his former team so far this season, with three more home runs yesterday.