How Marlins, Padres could continue streak of trade deadline deals

The Miami Marlins and San Diego Padres have both been a little too quiet during the 2025 trade season. They've combined for only one recent deal entering deadline day, and that involved Nick Fortes, whose job in Miami was becoming obsolete.

It would be unsurprising if these clubs conducted some business with each other between now and 6:00 p.m. ET.

The Marlins and Padres general manager A.J. Preller are no strangers on the trade front. They made a creative deadline day swap in 2023, which sent Garrett Cooper and Sean Reynolds out west and Ryan Weathers the other way. The stakes were even higher in 2024. Last May, the Marlins agreed to trade the two-time reigning batting champion Luis Arraez to San Diego in exchange for outfielder Dillon Head, Jakob Marsee, Nathan Martorella and Woo-Suk Go. A few months later on deadline day, the Marlins parted with All-Star closer Tanner Scott and right-handed pitcher Bryan Hoeing for Robby Snelling, Adam Mazur, Graham Pauley and Jay Beshears.

Overall, the Fish ought to be satisfied with those returns. Several of the players are already make major league impacts, with Marsee and Snelling on the cusp of doing the same.

One of Miami's longest-tenured players, Jesús Sánchez is an awkward fit with the organization moving forward, in part due to the breakout of the aforementioned Marsee. Sánchez is still plenty useful to a contender, though. He enters Thursday with a .256/.320/.420 slash line and 10 home runs in 86 games this season. In his final pre-deadline performance, he blasted his longest homer of the year.

San Diego is well-situated in right field and center field, deploying Fernando Tatis Jr. and Jackson Merrill, respectively. However, it's messier in left. A lot of Gavin Sheets' run production is negated by a poor glove. His platoon partner and defensive sub, Bryce Johnson, is a 29-year-old with no track record of hitting in the majors (career 61 wRC+).

Acquiring Sánchez to play left would allow Sheets to be San Diego’s DH against right-handed pitching. Johnson would be sent to the very end of the bench, if not the minors.

The Marlins are not under pressure to simply give Sánchez away. He is under club control for two more years via arbitration. In the midst of a campaign where he's striking out at a career-low rate and providing arguably his best defense, the compensation going back to Miami would have to be significant. As a reference point, the Chicago White Sox extracted Baseball America's 18th-ranked New York Yankees prospect in exchange for the lefty-mashing Austin Slater, a rental who fills the small side of an outfield platoon (facing RHP, Sánchez's role would be larger).

A realistic best-case scenario would be getting Boston Bateman (Padres #6 prospect, per BA). That would give the Marlins another strong left-handed starting pitching prospect who projects as a mid-rotation arm. Taken in the second round of the 2024 MLB Draft, Bateman has made 15 starts in his professional career, all with Low-A Lake Elsinore. He's gone 5-5 with a 4.08 ERA in 68.1 IP. The towering 6'8" lefty has immense upside.

If the Marlins and Padres uncharacteristically fail to find common ground in this instance, The Athletic reports that the Houston Astros are a potential landing spot for Sánchez.