After a chaotic Game 2 win over the rival Los Angeles Dodgers on Sunday, the San Diego Padres are two wins away from the National League Championship Series, and they will send their ace to the mound in Game 3 on Tuesday. An ace they would not have had they not been willing to trade one of the very hitters in the sport.
"It hurt a lot on our end, but you have to give to get one of the best hitters we have in the game today," New York Yankees GM Brian Cashman said after completing the Juan Soto trade at the Winter Meetings in December. "... We value Michael King a lot. He's been a very good player for us."
King was ostensibly the headliner of the five-player return package the Yankees sent to San Diego for Soto and Trent Grisham on Dec. 7. The 29-year-old was a stellar setup reliever for New York from 2021 through August 2023, at which point the Yankees put him in the rotation because a) they were short a starting pitcher, and b) they were out of the postseason race and willing to experiment.
The experiment was a smashing success. King made nine starts, including the final seven on a traditional every-fifth-day schedule, and pitched to a 2.23 ERA while striking out 31.3% of batters faced in those nine starts. He held opposing hitters to a .243/.284/.355 batting line. Those nine starts were enough to make King a must-have in the Soto trade for Padres GM A.J. Preller.
"I think a little bit exciting and disappointing. You're talking about a future Hall of Famer," Preller said about trading Soto at the Winter Meetings. "... (The trade) definitely gives us two things. Some flexibility and then also just some clarity on what the rest of the offseason looks like."
A lot of things have to come together exactly right for a trade of this magnitude to happen. The Yankees went 82-80 in 2023, their worst season in three decades, and a lack of offense around Aaron Judge was the primary culprit. They needed more offensive depth in general, and especially an impact left-handed hitter, something they'd lacked since Robinson Canó left in 2013. Soto and the Yankees are also two wins away from the League Championship Series on the American League side of the 2024 playoff bracket.
Furthermore, New York had young pitching to trade, which put them among a minority of teams this past offseason. The Padres had the same 82-80 record as the Yankees last year and were short on pitching depth. They also needed to reduce payroll to get back into compliance with MLB's debt-service rules. The Padres didn't cut payroll for the sake of cutting payroll.
Trading Soto and his projected $31 million arbitration salary was the best way for San Diego to shed payroll and add pitching depth in one fell swoop. For the Yankees, the impact lefty bat they needed became available, and they were able to match up well for the trade because of their pitching surplus. Everything aligned and the trade came together in December.
"They clearly made it known that this was a deal and a player (they wanted)," Preller said at the Winter Meetings. "Brian (Cashman) is pretty direct, and I think they were pretty clear. Everybody understood they had a need and Juan is an incredible player who fit the need really well. When you have two teams that line up and you have a team that's calling you consistently, you feel this is something that has a chance to happen."
For Soto and Grisham, the Yankees sent King, catcher Kyle Higashioka, depth arms Jhony Brito and Randy Vásquez, and top-100 pitching prospect Drew Thorpe to San Diego. Soto more than lived up to his end of the deal. He slashed .288/.419/.569 with a career high 41 homers and a career high 7.9 WAR in 2024. He's also 3 for 8 with a double through two games this postseason.
Despite parting with Soto, the Padres couldn't be happier with their end of the trade. King emerged as one of the best pitchers in baseball this year, posting a 2.95 ERA with a 27.7% strikeout rate in 173 2/3 innings during the regular season. He finished top 10 in both ERA and strikeout rate among qualified starters, and was top 15 in WAR. In Game 1 of the Wild Card Series, King struck out 12 Atlanta Braves in seven shutout innings.
Higashioka, a 34-year-old career backup catcher, has also proven to be a key piece for San Diego. He slugged a career high 17 home runs during the regular season and took over as the starting catcher in late June. Higashioka already has three home runs this postseason too. He graded out as an above average pitch-framer in 2024 and has long been praised for his work with pitchers. Higashioka has been a stabilizing veteran presence behind the plate.
"For me, it always starts with the catching position behind the plate," Padres manager Mike Shildt said about Higashioka at the end of the regular season. "He's done a great job there. Done a real nice job leading the staff. Guys got a lot of confidence in him. Tremendous job back there. He's had some big swings for us. This guy's had a real productive year."
Soto will be a free agent after this season, as will Higashioka. King is under team control through 2025. Turning Soto into two years of King and one year of Higashioka would have been a win for the Padres, but it doesn't stop there. Preller flipped Thorpe, Baseball America's No. 67 prospect, to the Chicago White Sox as the headliner in the Dylan Cease trade in March.
"It's hard to give up the names that we gave up," Preller said after the Cease trade (via MLB.com). "We think very highly of Drew Thorpe ... But a guy like Dylan Cease was the right pitcher at the right time for this team."
Cease was San Diego's second-best starting pitcher (behind King) during the regular season and he started Game 1 of the NLDS against the Dodgers on Saturday. The Padres sent the White Sox four players in that trade -- righty Jairo Iriarte, outfielder Samuel Zavala, and major-league reliever Steven Wilson were the others -- but Thorpe was the centerpiece, and the Padres wouldn't have had him to trade without sending Soto to New York.
Brito and Vásquez bounced between Triple-A and MLB all season but were important depth arms. They combined for 141 2/3 league average-ish innings, and while there's nothing sexy about league average, it is valuable. Competent depth arms were something San Diego lacked in 2023. Vásquez, most notably, had a 4.14 ERA in 11 starts from June 1 to Aug. 2. That helps.
"Obviously I was on that team (the 2023 Yankees), and I knew the lack of bats we had in front of Judge," King said in August (via MLB.com). "So I think it was necessary for the Yankees to trade for (Soto). And I think it's been huge for our pitching staff to have the depth we have. I think it's a mutually beneficial trade."
Also, one of the downstream effects of the trade was creating two openings in San Diego's outfield. Soto and Grisham, their starting left and center fielders in 2024, were gone. To fill those needs, the Padres sign Jurickson Profar to a $1 million deal as spring training opened, and shifted top prospect Jackson Merrill from shortstop to center field. Home runs, those moves were.
| PA | AVG/OBP/SLG | OPS+ | HR | SB | WAR | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Merrill | 593 | .292/.326/.500 | 127 | 24 | 16 | 4.4 |
Profar | 668 | .280/.380/.459 | 134 | 24 | 10 | 3.7 |
Profar had a career year and was a deserving All-Star. Merrill also went to the All-Star Game and very well might win Rookie of the Year. His season has been remarkable. Merrill skipped over Triple-A entirely and had not played so much as a single inning in center field before spring training. Then he led one of the best teams in baseball in WAR. Impressive.
When Game 3 of the NLDS is played Wednesday at Petco Park, the home team will have King on the mound and Higashioka behind the plate, and Profar and Merrill in their usual middle-of-the-lineup spots. And, if there's a Game 5, Cease is lined up to start. All that was made possibly by trading away one of the greatest hitters in the sport.
The Yankees are delighted with their end of the trade -- there's zero chance they finish with the American League's best record without Soto -- and the Padres made the most of it. Usually when a superstar is traded, the team that gets him comes out ahead. In this case, it was a win-win. The Padres are every bit as happy with the Soto trade as New York.
"I think both teams in the end got exactly what they would be looking for," Cashman said at the Winter Meetings. "It hurt a lot on our end to give up some real pieces, but you have to give to get."