Padres continue rebuild of outfiled in trade for Tommy Pham

The San Diego Padres have made yet another trade to address their outfield needs by acquiring Tommy Pham from the Tampa Bay Rays.

Late Thursday night it was reported that the San Diego Padres traded Hunter Renfroe and Xavier Edwards to the Tampa Bay Rays for Tommy Pham and Jake Cronenworth.

The deal is not expected to become official until Friday afternoon after physicals are taken.

The Padres have now acquired Trent Grisham and Pham to help retool their outfield.

Before we get into Pham, let’s talk a little about what the Padres gave up, because it was quite a lot.

What Padres gave up

Renfroe has shown flashes at times of being a very good everyday outfielder and is still under team control for four years, but the OPB is always going to be a problem.

The big surprise to me in this deal was giving up Xavier Edwards. After San Diego moved on from Luis Urias, I thought the obvious future replacement was Edwards.

Maybe the Padres feel better about one of the other in-house options long-term — and there are several to choose from — but that seems like a high price to pay for two years of Pham.

Edwards is ranked as the 5th best Padres prospect by MLB.com and the 72nd best prospect overall after hitting .322 between Single-A and High-A in 2019 with a .375 OBP.

What Padres got

Pham is a great player and will be a big part of the Padres lineup the next two seasons, likely hitting second between Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado.

In 2017 he had a 6.2 WAR with the St. Louis Cardinals after hitting .306 with a .411 OBP to go along with 23 home runs.

This past season he had a 3.3 WAR season hitting .273 with a .369 OBP and 21 home runs.

That’s pretty much what I expect from Pham the next seasons playing left field in San Diego.

The other piece of this is two-way prospect Jake Cronenworth who is 25, plays both middle-infield positions, and is a right-handed pitcher as well.

In 2019 he hit .334 with a .429 OBP in 88 games at Triple-A with 10 home runs, while also allowing just 2 earned runs on 3 hits and 8 walks with 9 strikeouts over 7.1 innings.

Cronenworth was ranked as the 17th best prospect in the Rays system.

Most likely he’ll compete to be a bench player for the Padres, and his ability to come in from the bullpen to save their top reliever arms in a blowout is intriguing.

But don’t expect Cronenworth to be the future second baseman.

The Padres add about another $5 million to the 2020 payroll in this move, and I’m still not sure I love this move for the long-term.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Tommy Pham and he is going to make this team better in 2020. But this move seems a bit shortsighted. Let me know your thoughts on this trade in the comments below.