Marlins Trade Maybin to Padres for Webb and Mujica

Florid Marlins CF Cameron Maybin was traded earlier today in exchange for relievers Ryan Webb and Edward Mujica. While Maybin was once a promising prospect, he has never put up big numbers in the majors, with a career slash line of .246/.313/.380 and just 19 stolen bases in 168 games. However, he's only 23 years old, so there's still time for him to "realize his potential."

Webb could become a set-up man for the Marlins

I don't know that this was necessarily a good move by the Padres. It seems to be a low-risk move, but if Maybin continues to hit as he has in his major-league career, this could be a big loss for the Padres. He'll seemingly replace Tony Gwynn Jr. in the starting lineup (As MLBTradeRumors points out, there's a good chance Gwynn could be non-tendered). Gwynn, who has a similarly mediocre career slash line of .244/.323/.314 is a much better base-stealer (42 career stolen bases in 366 games), has a solid career walk rate of 10.2%, and plays absolutely superb defense. Maybin will certainly be a defensive downgrade, as Gwynn is an outstanding defensive outfielder, but it will all be worth it if his bat materializes.

The Padres, on paper, didn't give up much, but Webb and Mujica are actually pretty solid relievers. Webb had an ERA of 2.90 this year, and Mujica had an incredible BB/9 of 0.8 this year to go along with a solid 3.62 ERA. These were two key arms in that fantastic Padres bullpen, so it will be interesting to see if the Padres can successfully fill that void.

To sum it up, I think the Marlins are winners in this trade. They get two solid bullpen arms with great skill-sets, and give up an outfielder who has never really stood out in any categories in his major-league career -- low batting average, not much power, not a great stolen-base threat, and his outfield defense isn't too impressive. The biggest loss in this trade, however, could be that it leads to the Padres' neglect of Gwynn Jr., who could be a solid player even if he hit for a .270 batting average as he did in 2009 (amazing speed and defense). We'll see how this one pans out...but it appears to be good news for the San Francisco Giants, who were victims of that 2010 Padres bullpen.