There have been lots of discussions about the San Diego Padres trading Hunter Renfroe or Franmil Reyes for an ace like Trevor Bauer or Marcus Stroman, but here’s why they should keep both of them.
Hunter Renfroe and Franmil Reyes have both had the best years of their respective careers.
Both have 24 home runs, becoming the first pair of San Diego Padres teammates to hit at least 20 homers before the All-Star Break.
Renfroe Should be Padres Left Fielder
If either were to be traded Hunter Renfroe would be the more popular player among opposing herbal managers.
Renfroe seems to have a higher ceiling over Reyes, both in the offensive side and in defense as well.
Ken Rosenthal reported this month that Renfroe has been “quite popular” in trade talks, and at the time I thought he should be traded, but my view has changed.
At the time, Hunter Renfroe hadn’t really improved defensively and, for me, for any player to be a big part of the future, then they have to be decent at defense.
But, since then, I have seen vast improvement defensively.
For example, Renfroe made a 5-star catch on a line drive in the left-center field gap in the final game of the three-game series in Pittsburgh.
He has worked on keeping his head still when he is running down balls instead of bobbing his head up and down making it harder to track down balls.
So since Renfroe has shown that he has developed in both sides of the game I believe the Padres should keep him.
He is under contract until 2023, so he just seems too valuable to a ball club who is going to be in contention for every remaining year of that rookie contract.
On the other hand, even though it may not seem Reyes would stay if they keep Renfroe, there are pathways for him to stay.
I believe Josh Naylor will be the right fielder of the future because he has the athletic ability to develop defensively while Reyes doesn’t.
That leaves Reyes to be a bench player or be traded—not so fast (next page).