My friends, this is the AJ Preller we got promised. Just hours after a huge deal with Mason Miller, Preller represented San Diego’s biggest upgrade today in a specific, ridiculous way before trading Ryan O’Hearn and Ramón Laureano. Earlier this afternoon, ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported that the Padres had traded starters Ryan Bergert and Stephen Kolek to the Royals in exchange for receiver Freddy Fermin. How is the 30-year-old receiver Fermin performing this season’s 91 WRC+, which may be bigger than Miller or O’Hearn, not to mention it’s worth Padres’ abandonment of his two major league pitchers? Just you wait.
It’s hard to exaggerate the season’s catcher position against Pates’ scandal roster and the predictability of that result. Entering the season, Padres is at the last place in our positional strength rankings for receivers. We want them to get 0.8 War from the receiver position, which is the hair behind the Rockies. That’s before our predictions know how bad it is. Shortly after these rankings came out, Padres relegated to Luis Campusano, who shot the best on the team. Instead, they rolled with Elias Díaz and Martín Maldonado. (I’m sure the Padres have reasons why they’re out so much on campus, but I don’t know what they are. For its value, he cut .298/.410/.555 this season, and 15 home runs in Triple-a el Paso this season, which is a great club. He’s in both cars, and he’s in both 0-For-seips, his 0-For-21, and even in both, but, even in 27 pas, and yet, even in those two, but, even in those two, he’s the three best catchers.)
Díaz and Maldonado have caught every inning of Padres this season, and the results are even worse than expected. Both players fought a negative war. Maldonado has a WRC+ of 62, while Díaz has a 67-year-old. Overall, Padres raised the -0.6 war from the receiver, and the only reason why it wasn’t the worst in baseball was that the Nationals had a challenge to the worst team of the century in the first half of the season. Things have gotten worse lately, as Diaz proposed 38 WRC+ in July.
Enter Freddy Felmin as fast as possible. Fermin will arbitrate next year and will become a free agent entering the 2030 season. He is running 78 WRC+, while his framing and blocking grading is slightly above average. The only thing he really did well on the plate was to avoid strikeouts. He threw 0.4 wars in 67 games and 208 PA when Salvador Perez in Kansas City supported Salvador Perez. This makes him the 45th valuable receiver of the season. If we limit that rate stat to 45 catchers with at least 150 PA, he would be ranked 29th at a pace of over 500 PA at 1.1. However, on the same list, Diaz ranked 42nd with a speed of -0.3, while Maldonado ranked last at a speed of -2.3. If Fermin can become an ordinary catcher, he will represent a complete upgrade for this Padres team.
So yes, you can make a ridiculous argument that for this particular moment, Fermin represents an upgrade than adding Mason Miller to the bullpen, which leads baseball in the era, FIP, WAR and SAVES, even than adding O’Hearn to a team that desperately needs DH every day. Miller further added strength. Ohain strengthened his weakness. However, Fermin has attached at least part of the hole so you can drive the bus through it. This is a ridiculous argument for a ridiculous situation.
In exchange for their backup substitute catcher, the royals have secured two current major league pitchers. Bergert is the bigger award. The right-handed starter is 25 years old and has bounced between San Diego and El Paso this season. Back in June, Eric Longenhagen ranked third in the Padres System and invested 45 future values in him, noting that the number would jump to 50 if and when he figured out how to add good changes. As Eric predicted, Bergert quickly played the fourth or fifth starting role, occupying 3.13 ERA and 4.42 FIP in seven games in San Diego.
In the short term, the priests can patch the hole with JP Sears, and they land in the Miller trade. As Ben Clemens noted in the Miller deal, Padres doesn’t want Sears to start the playoff game, and there’s almost no danger that happens with Nick Pivetta, Dylan, Dylan Cease, Yu Darvish and (soon) Michael King. He will be in arbitration next season so he can stick with it as long as preller likes him as the fifth starter.
Royals can now use Bergt as their own patch, while Kris Bubic, Michael Lorenzen, Alec Marsh and Cole Ragans recover from various ailments. Still, long-term is what makes Bergert interesting. He looks like a fourth or fifth starter now and if he adds a good change, or sees his speed improve again, just like this season, he can start to look more like.
The Padre picked up Kohlke from the Mariners in the 2023 Rule 5 draft, and his 3.57 FIP is a great 5.7% walk rate result, but it offers more possibilities despite running a 5.21 ERA on 42 relief appearances in 2024. Kolk moved to the rotation this year, starting six games in 14 times in El Paso and San Diego, both sites at 4.33 xfip. The 28-year-old led the way with a sinking piece and caused a lot of ground balls as he was on Maikel Garcia and Bobby Witt Jr.
Both pitchers have three options. Bergert has six years of team control, while Kolek has five years. Even if Kolek ends up back to the bullpen or Bergert never evolved as a pitcher you want to start a playoff game, they are still very useful and can be affordable for a long time. It’s a real price for catchers who are about to enter arbitration at the age of 31 and are primarily used as band-aids for open wounds, but better than bleeding.
