Padres Trade: Team has reportedly acquired Mike Clevinger

According to a report, the Padres have acquired Indians pitcher Mike Clevinger just hours before the trade deadline.

There was much discussion yesterday and last evening that the Padres were linked to Indians star pitcher Mike Clevinger. But there were several conflicting reports that other teams were getting involved with the Padres still being interested, but no longer the frontrunner. But finally, we have some clarity to the situation, and Clevinger is, indeed, headed to San Diego.

While it hasn’t been made public what is being sent over to Cleveland in the deal, the return is going to hurt but hopefully, they can keep their core prospects intact. After the Padres were involved in a seven-player trade yesterday that saw them trade top prospect Taylor Trammell to acquire Austin Nola from the Seattle Mariners, the Friars farm system is going to look drastically different tomorrow morning.

But that’s exactly why you stockpile so many talented players to acquire proven assets in a season where it looks like the Padres are the real deal, and that was before any trades had even occurred. As noted, Clevinger, at 29 years old, has been one of the most dominant pitchers over the last couple of seasons.

He posted over 200 strikeouts during the 2018 campaign with one complete game and a 3.02 ERA. He has a 3.18 ERA in four starts this season but came under a tremendous amount of scrutiny when he and Zach Plesac disobeyed COVID-19 protocols after a game in Chicago.

Clevinger is under control through the 2022 season, so the Padres will obviously have him in the rotation next year. But the addition provides a proven front-end of the rotation starter that the Padres sorely needed. And hopefully, yesterday was the start of Chris Paddack getting back on track. A top-three rotation of Clevinger-Paddack-Lamet in the playoffs looks fairly strong on paper.

UPDATE:

Ken Rosenthal has the details on the return and at first glance, this is a major win for the Padres. They kept the core of their top prospects in CJ Abrams, MacKenzie Gore, and Luis Patino. What a trade.