When he was in the Houston Astros system, Joe Musgrove was the starting pitcher for the 2016 Futures Game at Petco Park. It was a dream come true for him because he went to Grossmont High School, grew up a huge Padres fan, and the manager for the game he got the call from was Trevor Hoffman.
Musgrove is going to get to make a lot more starts in the East Village.
The Padres have a three-team deal in place to bring the right-handed throwing Musgrove back home from Pittsburgh (the Pirates acquired him from Houston after Joe helped the Astros win the 2017 World Series).
The 28-year-old Musgrove, who was a guest of the OnFriar Podcast in May, was Pittsburgh's Opening Day starter in 2020. With San Diego he'll be asked to provide more quality depth for a starting rotation that can now easily lay claim to being the best in Major League Baseball.
Musgrove throws six different pitches and can get strikeouts with all of them. year ago he went 1-5 but had a 3.86 ERA, the best of his career, on a bad baseball team. Even after acquiring Blake Snell and Yu Darvish, Padres general manager A.J. Preller said he was looking for more starting pitching depth. Adding Musgrove to the mix that also includes Dinelson Lamet (4th in the 2020 NL Cy Young balloting), Chris Paddack, and top prospects MacKenzie Gore, Ryan Weathers and Adrian Morejon injects another young, talented, and relatively inexpensive arm.
Musgrove is under team control through the 2022 season, after which he'll become a free agent. Joe agreed to a one-year, $4.45 million deal for this year.
As for what the Padres gave up to get him, that's a little complicated. According to reports the Friars will send reliever David Bednar along with outfield prospect Hudson Head (their 7th-ranked prospect according to MLB Pipeline) and pitchers Omar Cruz (17th) and Drake Fellows. The Mets are the 3rd team involved and will receive left-hander Joey Lucchesi from San Diego while sending catching prospect Endy Rodriguez to Pittsburgh.
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The deal is not official until everyone passes physicals.
If Major League Baseball does, indeed, end up playing a 162-game season this year the Padres might have too many pitchers. But that's a darn good problem to have.
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