Source: Cubs and Padres in DEEP Talks for a Darvish Trade

I believe most though the rumors surrounding a potential trade of Yu Darvish to the San Diego Padres were squashed when the Padres acquired Blake Snell from the Tampa Bay Rays. But, according to Sahadev Sharma, Dennis Lin, and Patrick Mooney of The Athletic, the Cubs and Padres are in advanced talks for the 2020 Cy Young runner-up.

The Padres have an exciting, young offensive ballclub and the only thing they lack is a reliable rotation. Adding someone like Yu Darvish will solidify their rotation for several seasons to come.

Possibly the only real negative in Darvish’s stay with the Cubs has been the potential to give up a home run. He has a 1.1 HR/9 over his career, but had given up 1.4 HR/9 with Chicago. It has seemed that these often come with men on base, which has made several games closer than they should have been (well, unless you point a finger at a mostly nonexistent offense). Playing in Petco Park will likely help reverse this trend as it has traditionally been one of the hardest parks to hit homers in (recent years have seen a buck to that trend, however they’ve had better offenses lately).

The Padres also have a familiarity with Darvish. A.J. Preller was an executive in teh Texas Rangers front office when they acquired Darvish after posting his free agency. Preller was a key individual in scouting and signing Darvish, so a reunion in San Diego could be a welcome one. But this isn’t where things end…

Preller employed Darvish’s former personal trainer, Seiichiro Nakagaki. The Padres manager, Jayce Tingler was a part of the Rangers organization while Darvish played in Texas. In the flipside, Jed Hoyer was the GM of the Padres before he moved to the Cubs. He has some familiarity with the Padres as well. While it is 10 years old knowledge, it is still intimate knowledge.

Darvish, when I speak to those close to him, is very content in Chicago and would prefer to stay. There could be some comfort though going to the Padres as there is some familiarity.

The Padres did just trade Luis Patino, who was one of baseball’s brightest pitching prospects. Of the Padres top 10 prospects (before the Snell trade) five of them were highly thought of pitching prospects. The biggest prize in their system is MacKenzie Gore, a 6-2 southpaw that was the #5 prospect in baseball in 2020. That will likely be the target the Cubs are looking for when trading someone like Darvish.

Yes, I do agree that trading someone as dominating as Yu Darvish would push the Cubs backwards. But the relief of his $21m salary will do a lot to help the Cubs identify and potentially extend one of their current core players. It will also allow them to jump back into contention, assuming Gore is capable, in 2022 with a rotation consisting of Gore, Kyle Hendricks, and Brailyn Marquez.

But, when discussing pitching prospects, we have to remember there is no such thing as a pitching prospect (TINSTAAPP). So, could there be some sense of moving Darvish for Gore and then also including someone like Nico Hoerner for someone like Jake Cronenworth? There will likely be other assets from both sides, but this can help close the Cubs’ hole at second base AND leadoff (.351/.415/.568 leading off an inning). The Padres also just landed Korean middle-infielder Ha-seong Kim, who hit 30 bombs in 138 games in the Korea Baseball Organization.

This could make Cronenworth expendable in a potential trade with Chicago.

There is quite a bit that needs to happen, but there seems to be a lot of smoke here, and where there is a lot of smoke there is often fire.