Milwaukee Brewers: Three possible trade partners for Josh Hader
By Nick Stevens
The Milwaukee Brewers need to fill many roster holes in 2021 and the San Diego Padres have the prospects to make a deal.
If 2020 proved anything within the baseball world, it’s that the San Diego Padres are quickly becoming one of the more exciting teams in Major League Baseball, and they won’t be going away any time soon.
General manager AJ Preller has been aggressively adding talent to his pipeline since taking over the job and that aggressiveness has paid off recently. When a plethora of minor league talent to deal from, the Padres were able to trade for starting pitcher Mike Clevinger, catchers Jason Castro and Austin Nola, first baseman Mitch Moreland, and reliever Trevor Rosenthal all while keeping the vast majority of their top prospects.
San Diego now finds themselves in need of bullpen help once again with Rosenthal and Kirby Yates entering free agency. Luckily, they are still in possession of a long list of valuable prospects to deal for Josh Hader.
Drew Pomeranz filled the late-inning void well last year and despite some ups and downs, Emilio Pagan is a quality set-up piece, but there aren’t any other pitchers in the game like Hader.
San Diego’s urgency to win in 2020 will only grow stronger in 2021 and after being close to acquiring Hader at this year’s deadline, perhaps now is their chance to work out a deal. While top pitching prospects MacKenzie Gore and Luis Patino will likely not be involved in a potential deal, a pitcher like Ryan Weathers or Cole Wilcox could headline a notable return to the Milwaukee Brewers.
The Padres won’t be quiet this offseason. What better way to make some noise and continue to close the gap between them and the Dodgers than acquiring one of the game’s most dominant late-inning arms.