Padres Trade: Team has landed catcher Jason Castro

Per reports, the Padres have landed a catcher, Jason Castro from the Angels.

This could end up being one of the more impressive trade deadlines for Padres general manager AJ Preller, who has already acquired Trevor Rosenthal and Mitch Moreland in separate deals.

According to Jon Heyman, the to-do list left for the Friars was grabbing a starting pitcher and a catcher. It appears the latter is about to be taken care of, as the Padres are emerging as the favorites to land Jason Castro from the Los Angeles Angels.

Castro, 33, signed a one-year deal with Joe Maddon’s club in an effort to shore up the catching position, but the Angels are lousy this year, which isn’t exactly a surprise considering they didn’t address their pitching deficiencies. But I digress.

Jason Castro is slashing .192/.323/.385 with four doubles, two home runs and six RBI in 18 games this year. He’s been splitting duties with Max Stassi, who is currently on the 10-day IL. While the numbers for Castro aren’t overly impressive, the Padres really didn’t have a backup catcher with Francisco Mejia landing on the injured list and was scuffling majorly.

Luis Torrens was giving a shot, but he’s had some baserunning blunders and wasn’t overly convincing at the plate. Castro will provide some much-needed depth and could split catching duties with Austin Hedges.

As noted, Castro will be a free agent in the offseason, the Padres will need to get their ducks in a row at catcher, considering Hedges may not be back either. We’ll update this post once we learn who is being sent over to Los Angeles in the deal.

What do we think of the Castro trade?

UPDATE:

Gerardo Reyes is being sent over to the Angels.