Padres trade rumors: Deal for Cubs OF Jake Marisnick is done

Thud. That was the sound of the Padres at the 2021 MLB trade deadline on Friday afternoon. Near the 1 p.m. PT end, ESPN’s Jeff Passan tweeted they would be trading for Jake Marisnick of the Chicago Cubs.

After a week of rumors about which high-profile pitcher might be acquired, the tantalizing word “close” being used in a tweet linking the Padres to Max Scherzer by Ken Rosenthal, and an actual deal for Daniel Hudson on Thursday, well, not much of anything happened on Friday.

Not even many juicy rumors to get everyone excited. Mainly it was a day where seemingly every other team — including the Dodgers and Giants, the latter of whom picked up Kris Bryant — had its moment in the rumor spotlight.

But not the Padres.

Scouting report for new Padres OF Jake Marisnick

Marisnick spent just 65 games in a Cubs uniform. He spent most of his major league time with the Astros, since then bouncing to the Mets and Cubs for a year apiece.

He was generally worth about 1 WAR (FanGraphs version) per season with the Astros but has been playing at a replacement level since then.

This year he’s batting .227 with .294 on-base percentage and .438 slugging. That puts him a little bit below average as a batter overall (95 wRC+).

In the field, he’s also been a little less than average.

In exchange for Marisnick, the Padres sent right-handed pitcher Anderson Espinoza, per Jeff Sanders of the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Espinoza was ranked ninth in the Padres’ system by FanGraphs with a future value of 40+.