Camila Sosa
The San Diego Padres strengthened their starting staff this weekend by acquiring starter Sean Manaea from the Oakland Athletics.
As reported by ESPN’s Ken Rosenthal, the San Diego organization acquired the services of the slugger on Sunday morning, while during the rest of the day it was reported that the Padres also acquired pitcher Aaron Holiday and sent infielder Euribiel Angeles and pitcher Adrian Martinez to Oakland.
Since Oakland made clear its intentions to get rid of all its most important pieces and start, once again, a deep restructuring, Sean Manaea was one of the most desirable pieces of its roster as a left-handed pitcher with a lot of consistency in recent seasons.
After several trade rumors, San Diego finally acquired his services, which for the time being will be available until the end of the season, as he will become a free agent after collecting the 9.75 million that he is entitled to in 2022.
With Manaea, San Diego’s rotation adds an important arm to fight in a very complicated National League West Division, as it must deal with an elite offense such as the Dodgers or difficult stadiums for pitchers such as Coors Field.
In theory, Sean Manaea should be second in the rotation behind Japan’s Yu Darvish. He would be followed by Blake Snell and Joe Musgrove, while Mike Clevinger, who was expected to start the year in the rotation, was placed on the injured list with a knee ailment.
Likewise, the right-hander made his debut with the Padres on Sunday against his former teammates from the Athletics, since that day he was supposed to open for Oakland against San Diego and after learning of the change he only had to move to another clubhouse.
Sean Manaea was taken in the first round of the 2013 Draft by the Kansas City Royals and traded to the Oakland Athletics in 2015. A season later he would make his major league debut and his record is 50-41 with a 3.86 ERA after 727 innings of work and a no hit no run earned in the 2018 campaign. While he has fallen somewhat short of the expectations that were placed on his shoulders when he was a prospect, there is no doubt that Sean Manaea is a quality arm that will help the Padres quite a bit in their race to contend in the NL West Division.
Sean Manaea’s Other Pieces of Change
Along with Sean Manaea, the Padres received Aaron Holiday, who was selected by the Athletics in the 13th round of the 2021 Draft. The 21-year-old reliever struck out eight batters in five and two-thirds innings of work in the Rookie class last season after a solid collegiate career at Old Dominion.
As for San Diego, they sent two prospects to Oakland. The first of these is 19-year-old Euribiel Angeles, who had a promising start to his minor league career in 2021 after being ranked as the organization’s No. 12 prospect according to MLB Pipeline. The Dominican Republic native connected for a .330/.392/.445 line with 64 RBIs and 19 steals between Class A+ and Class A.
The second was Adrián Martínez, a 25-year-old starting pitcher from Mexico who had been with the Padres organization since 2015. Last season he had an 8-5 record with a 3.38 ERA and 8.8 K/9 between Double-A and Triple-A, while MLB Pipeline’s rankings placed him as the organization’s No. 26 prospect.
