Faux Winter Meetings: Padres trade for outfielder Nomar Mazara

In MLB FanSided’s Faux Winter Meetings the San Diego Padres made a trade with the Texas Rangers for Nomar Mazara.

The San Diego Padres have made their first move of the 2019 MLB FanSided Faux Winter Meetings by upgrading the outfield with Nomar Mazara.

Mazara gives the Padres the left-handed bat in the outfield they desperately need.

The 24-year-old Mazara is under team control for two more years through arbitration and is projected to make $5.7 million in 2020.

Here are the full trade details:

The Padres would have to give up Cal Quantrill in the deal, but that’s OK because there is plenty of depth at the back of the rotation. And I’m currently hoping to improve the rotation in other ways.

And Quantrill is still a pre-arbitration player, so the Padres don’t save any money in this deal and add on about $5 million to their payroll — putting it at around $125 million.

I was also able to get the Rangers to throw in Ian Gibaut who is a 26-year-old right-handed reliever.

He has a career ERA of 2.44 in the minors over 221.2 innings with a WHIP of 1.16, a BB/9 of 3.7, and a K/9 of 11.2.

His MLB debut in 2019 was not great with a 5.65 ERA in 14.1 innings, but that was mostly due to an elevated BB/9 of 6.3.

Gibaut also has plenty of experience as a closer with 35 saves in the minors.

He could certainly be an intriguing option in the Padres bullpen going into 2020.

But the main piece here is Mazara.

The slugger has hit 20, 20, and 19 home runs over the past three seasons with an average between .253 and .268 over that time.

His biggest issue has been staying on the field as he played in just 128 games in 2018 and 116 games this past season.

But when he’s been healthy and on the field, he’s been a lightning rod for the Rangers offense.

The other big concerns with Mazara are that he’s not a great defender and he doesn’t walk very much with a career OBP of just .320.

But he crushes right-handed pitching with a career .271 average and .337 OBP against them.

This is just the first of many moves I hope to make during our Faux Winter Meetings. Again, this is just a simulation, so don’t get too excited (or upset). But continue to check back to see how I’m able to put the team together for 2020.