The Padres didn’t need a time machine to get a look at one of their deadline debates. They just needed Friday night at Petco Park.
Adrian Morejón is still in San Diego, still working as a trusted late-inning arm. Will Warren is still with the Yankees, and New York is set to send him to the mound in the series opener. More than a month after the two pitchers were tied together in a disputed deadline rumor, the Padres get a live comparison without ever leaving home.
Bob Nightengale reported that San Diego turned down a deal that would have sent Warren to the Padres for Morejón. Yankees general manager Brian Cashman later said that conversation never happened, adding that some deadline reports were right and others were not. Whatever the exact back-and-forth was, the link between the two pitchers was enough to make the rumor stick.
The real question now is what the Padres chose to keep.
With a thin rotation and a reliever nearing free agency, moving Morejón for a starter under multiple years of club control would have made some sense. But it also would have taken away one of the most valuable pieces on a team trying to claw back into the postseason picture.
A.J. Preller opted to hold onto the bullpen arm, and in this case that was the right read.
The long-term roster debate can wait. Right now, the Padres are getting the benefit of a pitcher who can be used in just about any high-leverage spot Craig Stammen needs.
Morejón comes into the Yankees series with a 2.77 ERA, 90 strikeouts and a 1.08 WHIP in 74 2/3 innings. Those numbers are solid on their own, but they don’t fully capture how flexible he is. He can clean up a mess, or he can cover multiple innings if needed.
He did have a rough patch in a two-run outing against the Reds on September 1. Even the best late-inning relievers get hit sometimes. That one game doesn’t erase the run he put together from July 21 through Aug. 27, when he posted a 0.45 ERA.
Warren, meanwhile, is the kind of pitcher San Diego might look back on and wonder about. The 27-year-old has a 4.23 ERA and 133 strikeouts in 134 innings, and he just held Boston to one run over seven-plus innings. That’s the sort of start the Padres could use instead of what they’ve been getting from Casey Mize.
Still, one weekend won’t decide an imaginary trade. Warren can deal, Morejón can falter, and none of it changes the fact that this is a roster decision being judged in real time.
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This weeks interleague meeting arrives with San Diego in the thick of the NL Wild Card chase, where every game feels heavier than the last. Facing New York now does not change that history, but it does put the spotlight back on a franchise that wants to show it belongs in the present tense, not just as a footnote to what happened nearly three decades ago. [Read more 🡒]