San Diego Padres Replace Luis Arraez with Former A's Outfielder
In this story:
The San Diego Padres have added yet another former A's player to go along with the three they added at last year's trade deadline in Mason Miller, JP Sears and Ramón Laureano. On Wednesday night, the team also agreed to terms with free agent outfielder Miguel Andujar, according to Jeff Passan of ESPN.
The deal is set to cover the 2026 campaign and will earn Andujar $4 million. Roster Resource has him slotting in as San Diego's designated hitter, which is the best possible scenario for him, as his defense has regularly rated below league average according to the advanced stats.
Last season with the A's, he predominantly played left field to begin the year, and put up a -3 in both OAA and DRS in 217 innings. When Tyler Soderstrom moved from first base to left field to accommodate Nick Kurtz's arrival, Andujar began to see time at third base. He put up a -6 DRS and a -4 OAA at the hot corner in 237 2/3 innings for the A's.
Luckily for the Padres, they have a pretty good defender at third base in Manny Machado, which should limit Andujar's presence there. The outfield also looks packed with Laureano, Jackson Merrill and Fernando Tatís Jr. from left to right, so DH sure feels like the spot for Andujar.
Emergence with the A's, Reds
When the A's acquired Andujar off waivers from the Pittsburgh Pirates ahead of the 2024 season, he was originally viewed as a flier pickup after putting up some decent numbers in the minors and a hot stint across a small sample in the big leagues.
He missed some time with injury in 2024 to begin the season, but when he came back he was immediately thrust into the cleanup spot while facing Justin Verlander and the Houston Astros. He finished that game 3-for-4 with two RBI, and really never stopped producing. He continued to hit the rest of the year, finishing with a .285 average and a .320 OBP.
He followed that up by hitting .318 this past season with a .352 on-base, and improved his OPS in a big way, going from .697 to .822.
In his first year back in the bigs, he was mostly a contact hitter, racking up four bombs over the course of the year. In 2025 he ended up hitting ten, with four of them coming after a midseason trade to the Cincinnati Reds. He also had another two in the final game before the deadline, and three in his final four games with the A's. That power surge may have helped him get traded.
The knock on him had been that he could make contact, but he didn't have a ton of power. Sounds fairly similar to the player that San Diego just lost to the San Francisco Giants, Luis Arraez. While Andujar still doesn't have a ton of pop, he can still run into a few.
Here is how the two players compare in whiff rate and strikeout rate, which are Arraez's calling cards, along with which percentile those rates land within.
K% | Whiff% | |
|---|---|---|
Andujar | 14.4% (87th) | 17.8% (86th) |
Arraez | 3.1% (100th) | 5.3% (100th) |
Obviously Arraez has a huge lead in terms of the actual numbers, but in terms of the percentile ranking across the league, both are easily among the best players with those skills.
When you fold in each player's struggles with the glove, Andujar actually ranked as the better player in terms of WAR last season, finishing with 1.1 fWAR, while Arraez was worth 0.9. Andujar ended up signing for $4 million, while Arraez signed with the Giants for $12 million.
It will be interesting to see how this works out for each player and each team, but it's hard to say that the Padres will be worse off without Arraez now that they have Andujar. It also helps the situation if they have a better defensive player out there and can let Andujar focus on hitting.
He's one of those players that you can just push down an already good lineup and let him wear down opposing pitchers while still producing terrific results. After watching him for a couple of years with the A's, it's safe to say this signing by the Padres could prove to be an under-the-radar gem.
Recommended Articles:
Jason has been covering the A’s at various sites for over a decade, and was the original host of the Locked on A’s podcast. He also covers the Stanford Cardinal as they attempt to rebuild numerous programs to prominence.
Follow byjasonb