Padres: A Trade for Catcher Pedro Severino Could Make Sense

As the San Diego Padres continue to look for an upgrade at catcher before the trade deadline we look to the Baltimore Orioles for help.

Yesterday we looked at the teams who could be sellers at the trade deadline that the San Diego Padres could work with.

Now we start to take a deeper look at those teams and players on those teams who could make sense.

And today I wanted to look at the Baltimore Orioles. While they are certainly still in the playoff picture, I don’t expect that to last too much longer.

It’s been a great story in the first month of the season, and perhaps they have some hope for the near future now, but if they’re being realistic they’re not competing in 2020 or even 2021.

Baltimore should certainly be looking to upgrade their team for the future at this year’s trade deadline.

And I would think someone like catcher Pedro Severino could be available.

He’s 27 years old and has three years of team control left under arbitration before becoming a free agent.

The right-handed backstop should get a significant raise for 2021 in his first year of arbitration.

Baltimore already has another solid, young catcher doing well in Chance Sisco. Plus, they have maybe the best prospect in all of baseball coming up at the catcher spot in Adley Rutschman.

Severino is also having one of his best seasons and the Orioles would be smart to try and capitlize on that by selling high on him in a market that doesn’t have a lot of great options at catcher.

San Diego Padres — What Would it Cost? Is it Worth the Move?

Like many teams rebuilding, the Baltimore Orioles will likely want a young starting pitching prospect.

I think a straight-up swap of Adrian Morejon for Severino would make a lot of sense and be a pretty fair trade.

The Padres are fortunate to have a great depth of starting pitching. And while I like Morejon, I think the Padres could live with this deal.

Perhaps San Diego tries to package Joey Lucchesi with a B-level prospect and get the deal done that way as I think that could work too.

But would that be worth it for a back-up catcher that can’t play defense?

I guess that depends on what Jayce Tingler and the Padres value most in their catcher.

Right now Padres’ catchers rank 28th in baseball with an OPS of .491 to go along with a .122 average.

But on the flip side, Padres’ catchers have the sixth-best defensive rating in MLB (mostly because of Austin Hedges), according to FanGraphs.

Obviously you’d like to be great at both. Perhaps with the pairing of Severino and Hedges those two sides even out.

Despite the lack of offensive production from the catcher position, the Padres offensive has still been one of the best in baseball.

And it is important to have a good defensive catcher behind the plate for all these young starters.

It’s not an easy decision to make, but I feel like Severino could help give the offense a boost and give the Padres a solid back-up catcher/DH for the next several years.