Mariners history may hold the key to potential Mason Miller trade package

If the San Diego Padres are going to trade Mason Miller, chances are it's going to be for a haul consisting of multiple elite prospects and/or major league starting pitching. But then again, something akin to the Seattle Mariners' Edwin Díaz/Robinson Canó trade could be on the table.

Somewhat lost amid all the Miller hubbub is a possibility that Kevin Acee of The San Diego Union-Tribune laid out last week, in which the Padres pair Miller with Xander Bogaerts in a trade. The idea would be to use Miller's surplus value to soften the blow of another team absorbing Bogaerts' remaining contract.

This is where things get a little inside baseball, so buckle up.

Understanding 'surplus value' in the context of Mason Miller and Xander Bogaerts

The crash-course definition of "surplus value" is that it quantifies the difference between a player's on-field value and his actual earnings. There's projection involved, particularly with arbitration-eligible players. That's Miller in this case, as he's earning just $4 million this year but with raises due in 2027, 2028 and 2029. Bogaerts, meanwhile, is owed roughly $24.5 million annually through 2033.

Every team in the league has its own method for calculating surplus value. Baseball Trade Values is the best public resource, and it breaks down Miller and Bogaerts like so:

The two numbers in the last column combine for an underwater value of $25.6 million, which hypothetically allows three avenues for a break-even trade. The Padres could simply eat that $25.6 million. They could attach another player (i.e., a prospect) to make up the difference. Or, they could take on another team's bad contract to balance things out.

A Miller/Bogaerts trade would be right out of the Jerry Dipoto's playbook

This is where it's helpful to flash back to when Mariners traded Díaz and Canó to the Mets in 2018. As a reminder, it looked like this:

• Mets get: RHP Edwin Díaz, 2B Robinson Canó, $20 million
• Mariners get: OF Jay Bruce, RHP Anthony Swarzak, RHP Gerson Bautista, OF Jarred Kelenic, RHP Justin Dunn

With Bruce and Swarzak, the Mariners took on a total of $36.5 million in salary while offloading the $120 million that Canó was still owed. Factoring in the $20 million that went to the Mets, it amounted to $63.5 million in savings for Seattle. Not bad, especially given that Kelenic and Dunn were two real prospects at the time.

Yet while Miller offers a strong parallel for Díaz in 2026, the Canó-to-Bogaerts comparison doesn't work as well. Canó was fresh off a PED suspension when the big deal went down in 2018, yet he was still a star-caliber player. Bogaerts, on the other hand, is three years removed from his last good offensive season. He turns 34 in October.

Even so, the Padres' thinking behind potentially pairing Miller with Bogaerts might be that there's no time like the present to win a trade like that. Ace relievers like Miller always have heightened appeal ahead of the trade deadline, so it's possible they'll be able to talk another team into overpaying for him and Bogaerts, resulting in a deal in which San Diego gets both payroll relief and talent. In that case, it would be a spitting image of the Díaz/Canó trade.

We've already said our piece about what a Miller trade for the Mariners should look like, and Bogaerts isn't in it. But since the New York Yankees could use a shortstop, one wonders if they could do a Miller/Bogaerts trade with San Diego. Say, one in which they get Miller, Bogaerts and cash, and the Padres get Anthony Volpe and either Spencer Jones or Jasson Domínguez. Just a thought.

Yet even if the Padres pull off a modern Díaz/Canó trade, the Mariners' experience with Kelenic offers a warning to San Diego fans is to not get cocky. It takes years for the full stories of trades to get written. One minute, you might think you're the victor. The next, you might realize you've been duped.

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