Padres even floating their 2025 first-rounder in trade talks says everything

Tim Kelly’s Tarik Skubal mock trade is useful for one reason: Kruz Schoolcraft even showing up in the conversation. We don’t have to treat the exact package like gospel. But if the San Diego Padres are willing to discuss Schoolcraft — their 2025 first-round pick — that’s the clearest “win now” flare they could possibly fire.

Schoolcraft isn’t the usual trade-chip prospect. He’s the rare profile teams draft to avoid having to buy pitching at peak prices later: a 6-foot-8 high school lefty with real top-of-the-rotation ingredients. MLB’s write-up on him lays it out cleanly: a fastball up to 97, a slider and changeup that both flash as potential weapons, and unusually promising control for a teenager with that kind of size.

It says everything if the Padres are even mentioning Kruz Schoolcraft in trade talks

So trading him isn’t just moving “a prospect.” It’s moving a philosophy.

If the Padres deal Schoolcraft, they’re saying the next 12 months matter more than the next 12 years — that they’d rather pay for certainty right now than wait for a potential ace to grow up in their system. That’s not a small decision for any organization, but it’s especially massive for San Diego, who’s learning in real time that controllable frontline pitching is the most valuable currency in baseball, and the hardest thing to replace once you ship it out.

Skubal is a temptation Bleacher Report frames the rumor fuel as a massive contract gap between Skubal and the Tigers — the kind of standoff that at least makes you understand why trade chatter exists.

But here’s the line the Padres can’t cross: if Schoolcraft is in a deal, Skubal, or any frontline starter, can’t be treated like a rental. Bleacher Report even points to the central problem — who gives up that kind of prospect capital for only one guaranteed year? If the Padres are truly willing to float a prospect like Schoolcraft, it has to come with “trade-and-extend” intent, not “hope we catch lightning.”

That’s the real takeaway. Don’t obsess over whether that exact proposal is real. Obsess over what it represents. If Schoolcraft is genuinely on the table, the Padres aren’t dabbling. They’re going all-in.