If the Padres decide to move Mason Miller, they’re not going to settle for a modest return. A pitcher with that kind of appeal should bring back multiple premium prospects or big-league starting pitching. But there’s another path here, and it looks a lot like one of the Mariners’ biggest trade swings in recent memory.
That possibility starts with the idea Kevin Acee of The San Diego Union-Tribune floated last week: San Diego could bundle Miller with Xander Bogaerts in the same deal. The logic is straightforward. Miller’s value could help offset the burden of another club taking on Bogaerts’ contract, turning one headline arm into a broader payroll-and-talent package.
To see why that matters, you have to get into surplus value. In simple terms, it measures the gap between what a player produces and what he’s paid.
For Miller, that’s a moving target because he’s arbitration-eligible and making just $4 million this year, with raises coming in 2027, 2028 and 2029. Bogaerts is a different story entirely: he’s owed about $24.5 million per year through 2033.
Baseball Trade Values puts the two players in the same neighborhood on the wrong side of the ledger, combining for an underwater value of $25.6 million. That leaves the Padres with three basic ways to make the math work.
They can absorb the hit themselves. They can attach another asset, like a prospect, to close the gap.
Or they can take back another team’s bad contract and use that to even things out.
That’s where the Mariners come in. The closest template is the 2018 deal that sent Edwin Díaz and Robinson Canó to the Mets. Seattle got back Jay Bruce, Anthony Swarzak, Gerson Bautista, Jarred Kelenic and Justin Dunn, while New York received Díaz, Canó and $20 million.
The numbers tell the story there. By taking on Bruce and Swarzak, the Mariners absorbed $36.5 million in salary while moving off the $120 million still owed to Canó.
Once the $20 million sent to the Mets is factored in, Seattle came out $63.5 million ahead. And Kelenic and Dunn were real prospects at the time, not throw-ins.
Miller fits the Díaz side of that equation pretty cleanly. The Bogaerts comparison is messier.
Canó was coming off a PED suspension in 2018, but he was still performing like a star. Bogaerts is three years removed from his last good offensive season, and he turns 34 in October.
Still, the Padres may see this as the moment to strike. Deadline pressure tends to inflate the price on elite relievers like Miller, and San Diego could try to use that urgency to push another club into paying up for both Miller and Bogaerts. If that happens, the Padres could land both talent and payroll relief in one shot, which would make the deal feel awfully familiar.
The Mariners have already been linked to what a Miller trade should look like, and Bogaerts doesn’t belong in that picture. But if you’re trying to imagine a team that could use a shortstop and has the kind of pieces San Diego might want, the Yankees are an obvious name. One possible framework would send Miller, Bogaerts and cash to New York, with Anthony Volpe and either Spencer Jones or Jasson Domínguez heading back to the Padres.
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