San Diego Padres may have no choice but to trade Josh Naylor

We look at whether or not there is a future with the San Diego Padres for outfielder Josh Naylor in 2020 and beyond.

Back in 2016 the Miami Marlins traded their number two overall prospect at the time, Josh Naylor, in a trade to the San Diego Padres for Andrew Cashner and others.

The Marlins selected Naylor 12th overall in the 2015 MLB Draft.

Naylor, listed as a first baseman then, was a top 5 prospect in the Padres’ system. In 2016 he hit .264/.302 with 12 home runs in 481 at-bats between Single-A and High-A.

He remained a top 10 Padres’ prospect in 2017 after hitting .280/.346 with 10 home runs between High-A and Double-A.

They sent him to the Arizona Fall League that year and he hit .304/.337 with 3 home runs in just 19 games.

With San Diego beefing up the farm system during the rebuild, Naylor fell all the way down to being ranked the team’s 15th best prospect in 2018 despite putting up really good numbers.

In that 2018 season he hit .297/.383 with 17 home runs in just over 500 at-bats.

This past season Naylor was crushing the ball at Triple-A hitting .314/.389 with 10 home runs in 223 at-bats. That home run pace would make him a 25 home run hitter in the big leagues.

Well, the Padres called him up and that pace went down hitting just 8 home runs in 253 at-bats to go along with a .249/.315/.403 slashline.

Those certainly weren’t terrible numbers for Naylor’s first time in the big leagues, but FanGraphs still rated him as a negative offensive player.

Going into 2020 a lot of fans and media members believe Naylor can win the starting job in right field. But I’d tamper those expectations.