San Diego Padres: Are we underestimating the value of Zach Davies

Zach Davies has become the unforgotten piece of the San Diego Padres trade with the Milwaukee Brewers earlier this offseason. Should we be expecting more?

The San Diego Padres went into this offseason hoping to get a top of the rotation starting pitcher and what we got was Zach Davies.

I think for that reason alone a lot of people are underestimating the value that Davies can bring in 2020.

No, he’s not going to be the top of the rotation pitcher we were hoping to acquire, but he’s more than the back of the rotation pitcher that many are labeling him as.

I’ve been pretty upfront about the trade with the Brewers this offseason and how I think it was a bad and unnecessary trade. If felt like A.J. Preller making a move just to make a move.

And when we think about that trade we usually think about trading a couple of high-upside players in Luis Urias and Trent Grisham.

We forget about the pitchers involved in that deal in Davies and Eric Lauer.

Davies is a former 26th round pick by the Baltimore Orioles in the 2011 MLB Draft out of Mesquite High School in Gilbert, Ariz.

In 2015 the Orioles traded him to the Brewers for Gerardo Parra. He made his debut with the Brewers that season and posted a 3.71 ERA in 34 innings pitched with 24 strikeouts.

Davies now enters his age 27 season in 2020 and is under team control through the 2021 season before becoming a free agent.

Let’s take a deeper look at the numbers through his first four full seasons in the big leagues and what we can expect from him in a Padres uniform.