MILLER • Rangers’ Lynn or Rays’ Snell would look good on mound for 2021 Padres
Start with Lynn, perhaps the most logical convergence of dependability and affordability. He’s a workhorse. He led the majors last season with 13 starts, 84 innings pitched and 344 batters faced. He gives up some home runs and plunks a few hitters, but he’s a savvy veteran who limits damage.
Against the Padres last August, Lynn gave up two earned runs in seven innings — both solo homers, striking out six with no walks. He’s that guy far more often than he’s not.
Lynn ended up 14th in baseball in walks and hits per innings pitched, an analytics truth-teller. Imagine how much better he could be with the team that scored the third most runs in baseball last season, compared to the offensively dead-last Rangers.
Lynn finished in the top 10 for wins and averaged closer to seven victories per 10 starts, bettering his mark of less than six a season earlier. He’s finished in the top six of Cy Young voting twice in his career, 2019 and ’20. For about $9.4 million, despite turning 34 next May, he constitutes a near-perfect bridge to Clevinger’s return in 2022 while buying a year for younger staff options to mature.
Another option that offers different potential benefits is Snell, nearly 28, who would cost $11.1 million next season but provide club control for two seasons beyond that.
The question that raises: Are you willing to give up top farm club position chip CJ Abrams or catcher Luis Campusano? It would take some combination of that and more to pry Snell away from the prospect-savvy Rays.
Free agent Trevor Bauer will demand a Brink’s truck or three, the ultimate pipe dream, even if the Padres sign off on another capital call among investors. It makes more sense to shop around the edges, mining smart innings
out of the oddest of markets.
Banking on what the Padres have now amounts to a game of pitching Jenga, with the structure one pulled arm away from toppling. Which Chris Paddack will you get next season? The one from 2019 or ’20? Which Dinelson Lamet returns? The dominant version of 2020 or one forever altered by his recent injury?
Can you squander a season of offensive firepower if too much is parked on the shoulders of MacKenzie Gore, Luis Patiño, Adrian Morejon and Ryan Weathers — none older than 21?
To watch the talent assembled across the infield and Trent Grisham in center field be obliterated by pitching potholes would sting beyond words.
So much has gone into making the Padres a perennial playoff team and legitimate challenge to the Dodgers in the NL West.
The decisions that created the current reality have been sterling, including the trade with the Rays that landed should-have-been NL Rookie of the Year Jake Cronenworth and Tommy Pham.
Many fans bemoaned the move at the time, as slugger Hunter Renfroe was shipped to Florida. Renfroe was designated for assignment, cleared waivers and is a free agent.
Meanwhile, the Padres decided to keep Pham for 2021 and Cronenworth remains a steal at $575,000 next season.
The decisions looming for the Padres offer a minefield of risk. There’s so much they cannot know or control.
Standing pat on pitching feels like the biggest risk of all.