Padres add another rental starter for postseason bid in Casey Mize: MLB trade grades

The Athletic has live coverage of the 2026 MLB Trade Deadline.

The trade

Padres get: RHP Casey Mize and INF Gage Workman
Tigers get: LHP Kash Mayfield and LHP Jackson Wolf

The Padres are gonna Padre at the deadline

Padres: A
Tigers: A

Here’s more proof that having the No. 1 overall pick doesn’t always lead to much: hours after the Adley Rutschman era ended in Baltimore, Casey Mize is finished in Detroit. Mize, the top pick in 2018 from Auburn University, leaves with one All-Star appearance, a rebuilt elbow, a losing record and a couple of three-inning playoff starts. It’s not what the Tigers had hoped for.

Fortunately, though, Mize ended his tenure on a high, going 18-12 with a 3.44 ERA in 44 starts since the beginning of 2025 and allowing the Tigers to recoup future value from the always-aggressive Padres.

By adding quality rental starters in Robbie Ray and Mize today, the Padres clearly have a better chance to squeeze into a wild-card spot than they did Monday morning. It’s refreshing to see how badly AJ Preller wants to win; with the way San Diego packs Petco Park, their fans deserve that kind of effort.

In this deal, as usual, Preller gave to get — lefty Kash Mayfield was the Padres’ third-ranked prospect, per Keith Law, before this season. With the Padres, though, it almost doesn’t matter what they give up, because they just keep producing prospects and playing for today, and Preller finds a way to keep them relevant.

You’d think that there’s a really rough hangover coming, given the bloated payroll and a farm system that seemingly exists to be plundered. But this is seven years in a row in which the Padres have been contenders, and it could be their fifth playoff appearance in that time.

Do you know how many times the Padres made the playoffs in the first 51 years of their existence? Five. That’s right: five in 51 years, and now — just maybe — five in seven years. The Padres won’t be the favorites if they make it to October. But they keep on trying, and there’s honor in that. — Tyler Kepner

Each team picked a direction and stuck to it

Padres: A-
Tigers: A

From the moment they traded Tarik Skubal, the Tigers were sellers, and at the very least they owed it to themselves to maximize the return on their best remaining rental. They did that with the Mize trade. It may be devastating to their playoff chances this season, but that’s the path the Tigers chose, and they were able to turn the last two months of Mize into Mayfield, a first-round pick who has good numbers in High A and got invited to this summer’s Futures Game. He has upside beyond whatever draft pick the Tigers might have gotten for Mize this winter. Wolf is more of a project — he’s struggled in Triple A — but Mayfield was the prize, and he was worth the cost of a soon-to-be free agent.

The Padres also picked a direction this trade deadline. They could have gone the way of the Tigers and become sellers, but they decided to buy, and Mize — plus another trade addition, Robbie Ray — gives them a rotation strong enough to grab a wild card spot and just maybe make a run in October. These two teams are running in opposite directions, but at least they’re not standing still. — Chad Jennings