The San Diego Padres are reportedly looking to trade starting pitcher James Shields just one season after signing him to a major free-agent contract.
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Padres Testing Waters on Shields Ahead of Winter Meetings
Thursday, Dec. 3
Buster Olney of ESPN reported the Padres are trying to "push" Shields into the trade market to potentially get out from under the rest of his contract.
The 33-year-old starter is scheduled to make $63 million over the next three years, and the deal also has a $16 million option for 2019, according to Spotrac.
Shields is coming off a mediocre season with San Diego that saw him post a 3.91 ERA and 1.33 WHIP across 33 starts. On the positive side, he did strike out 216 hitters in 202.1 innings.
Still, those numbers don't represent much value for a player who's going to make $21 million in each of the next three seasons. A career 3.74 ERA suggests there might not be a major improvement in his numbers over the remaining years of the deal, either.
So the Padres probably wouldn't be able to acquire much talent if they did find a potential suitor for Shields. It would likely be more of a salary dump to a contending team looking to bolster its rotation in the short term.
Whether San Diego is willing to make that type of move is unclear. If it's still looking for multiple assets in return, it would need to eat a sizable portion of the contract to make it happen. No matter how you slice it, the situation is not ideal.
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