Blockbuster Wil Myers Trade the Latest Shake-Up to NL West Power Structure

When we last saw the National League West in the regular season, it was the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants on top and everyone else straining their necks looking up at them.

But that was then. This is now. And right now, the power structure in the NL West looks a little different.

The San Diego Padres have done their part. Not even a week after agreeing to a deal for Dodgers slugger Matt Kemp, they've struck again. In a three-team trade with the Tampa Bay Rays and Washington Nationals, San Diego is acquiring 2013 American League Rookie of the Year Wil Myers.

Here's the low-down from Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports and Jim Bowden of ESPN and MLB Network Radio:

There are physicals to be done before the trade is official, but Bowden says the three teams have agreed on the terms. Also, Joel Sherman of the New York Post reports that only players are involved (not draft picks). 

It's obviously a lot to take in, but the gist as far as the NL West is concerned is that the Padres are giving up a quality defensive catcher (Rene Rivera), two pitching prospects (Burch Smith and Joe Ross), a solid first-base prospect (Jake Bauers) and a top shortstop prospect (Trea Turner)  to get two young hurlers (Gerardo Reyes and Jose Castillo), a veteran defensive-minded catcher in Ryan Hanigan and, obviously, the main prize: Myers.

Right off that bat, it must be understood that Myers is coming to San Diego with some bust potential. His reputation as a high-ceiling young slugger precedes him, but he's coming off a year in which his OPS+ was just .614 with six home runs in 87 games.

That's about as brutal as seasons get, and it didn't happen by accident.

As I highlighted Tuesday night, Myers admitted to slacking off during spring training, which is a solid explanation for his slow start. Things only got worse when he broke his right wrist in an outfield collision in May and was sidelined for a couple months. His OPS+ was only .530 in 34 games after he returned from that.

Winslow Townson/Getty Images

Since wrist injuries have been known to linger, Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports isn't off base in his thinking:

Bust potential aside, however, the explosive potential of this deal for the Padres is indeed real.

Myers is only two years removed from a rookie season that saw him post an .831 OPS+ and hit 13 home runs in only 88 games. He's also still only 24, so it's a stretch to say he's a lost cause after one bad year.

As it happens, the projections for 2015 don't have Myers pegged as a lost cause. According to FanGraphs, he is projected to post a .745 OPS+ and hit 21 home runs.

That's not great production, but it's production that would be a godsend for the Padres. Nobody hit more than 15 home runs for them in 2014, and the only everyday player with an OPS+ over .740 was Seth Smith. Had the Padres had Myers, they might not have had baseball's worst offense.

Well, now you can factor in Myers. Also, you can factor in Kemp, who had an OPS+ of .852 with 25 homers in 2014. The deal sending him to the Padres is not yet official, but Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday that it's not in jeopardy. Once he and Myers are both in the bag, San Diego's offense should at least be elevated from terrible to competent.

That's not a bad offseason's worth of work, and new Padres general manager A.J. Preller has been able to stick to his guns in making it happen.

“If you have an imbalance right now, you don’t want to flip it too far the other way,” Preller said recently, via Dennis Lin of the U-T San Diego. “I think ideal world is you leave [manager Bud Black] with enough pitching and try to find a way to get a few more bats.”

In acquiring Myers and Kemp, Preller didn't sacrifice any major pieces from a staff that finished second in the NL in ERA in 2014. Specifically, Tyson Ross, Andrew Cashner and Ian Kennedy are still around.

With an improved offense and a pitching staff that should be dangerous once again, the Padres should be able to put up a fight in 2015. Particularly within the borders of the NL West, where there's really only one team that's been as busy making upgrades.

Nick Ut/Associated Press

At the bottom of the NL West standings in 2014 were the Arizona Diamondbacks, and it wouldn't be overly surprising if they ended up there again in 2015.

Though Arizona made a splash when it signed Cuban defector Yasmany Tomas, its offseason has been mostly about rebuilding. Miguel Montero, Wade Miley and Didi Gregorius are gone, and in their place is a collection of young pitchers with varying degrees of potential. That's the nice way of saying they might not be very good.

The Colorado Rockies finished only two games better than Arizona in 2014 but haven't done anything to distance themselves in the race for the 2015 title. With Michael Cuddyer out and zero impact talent coming in, Colorado's plan for 2015 seems based on hoping Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez staying healthy and unheralded pitchers coming through. Good luck with that, guys.

Skipping past the Padres, we find the San Francisco Giants. They did their usual thing by winning the World Series in October, but the offseason hasn't been kind to them.

Stephan Savoia/Associated Press

The Giants lost Pablo Sandoval and Mike Morse and missed out on signing Jon Lester. They're not without assets to make deals, but they have a lot of holes to fill and dwindling options for filling them. As things stand now, they might be the third-best team in the division.

Which leads us to the team that was the best in the division in 2014 and still looks like the best in the division now: the Dodgers.

Maybe you don't see it, as the Dodgers have lost an awful lot of offense in the trades of Kemp and Dee Gordon and in losing Hanley Ramirez to free agency. But new boss Andrew Friedman and the rest of the team's new-look front office have built a team that should be a run-prevention monster.

Losing Kemp is addition by subtraction on defense, and Jimmy Rollins and Howie Kendrick up the middle should be a much better double-play combination than Ramirez and Gordon. Meanwhile, Yasmani Grandal's receiving will make Dodgers pitchers even better.

Which is a scary thought. The Dodgers have added some solid pieces to a bullpen that needed some as well as Brandon McCarthy and Brett Anderson to a rotation that already featured the mighty trio of Clayton Kershaw, Zack Greinke and Hyun-Jin Ryu.

All told, we can sum up the situation in the NL West like so:

• Dodgers: They're still really good, albeit in a different sort of way.
• Giants: Man do they have a lot of work to do if they want to defend their title.
• Padres: Hey, a team that already had arms has some bats now.
• Rockies and Diamondbacks: Maybe they'll contend if things go well, but that's a big maybe.

Just so we don't overstate things, it's not like the division has been completely turned upside down.

But when the Dodgers look like a team built on pitching and defense, the Giants look like a once-glorious sand castle that somebody stomped on and the Padres look head and shoulders better than the Rockies and Diamondbacks, you know things have changed.

Indeed they have. And we still have more than half an offseason to go. Though already shaken up, there's still time for the NL West to be remodeled completely.

Note: Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted/linked.  

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