The Padres announced tonight that they’ve non-tendered third baseman Will Middlebrooks, making him a free agent. San Diego also elected not to tender contracts to catcher Rocky Gale and left-handed reliever Frank Garces, dropping the club’s 40-man roster to a total of 36 players.
Middlebrooks, 27, was acquired in a trade with the Red Sox that sent catcher Ryan Hanigan to Boston last year. The former top prospect was San Diego’s Opening Day third baseman, but he faded after a hot start and ultimately endured similar struggles to the ones that led the Boston front office to deem him expendable. Middlebrooks hit just .212/.241/.361 with nine homers and eventually lost his grip on the starting job at third base. He saw eight innings at first base and, surprisingly, also logged 39 innings as the Padres’ shortstop in 2015.
Middlebrooks was also demoted to Triple-A midway through the season but struggled even in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League where he batted a meek .255/.287/379. He’s young enough that his pedigree and early success will earn him some looks this offseason, but he’s now three full seasons removed from an impressive rookie campaign in 2012 that saw him bat .288/.325/.509 with 15 homers in 286 plate appearances. Still, it’s conceivable that clubs such as the Braves, White Sox and Indians (among others) which lack a concrete option at third base will consider Middlebrooks something of an upside play and hope he can recapture some of the promise he showed earlier in his career.
And the Padres already decimated bullpen gets even weaker. 3 traded away, 2 allowed to walk in FA and 1 non-tendered. Not sure what that leaves that is MLB quality other than Quack, Vincent and Pomeranz. Once Maurer moves to the rotation as expected, the Padres now have a 6th-8th inning guys and a bunch of AAA scrubs.
There is no indication anywhere that they intend to move Maurer to the rotation. All I’ve heard is that they “Haven’t ruled it out.”
Other than Preller and Dee saying it in interviews. What they have said is they haven’t ruled out a return to the bullpen for him. They have been very consistent in saying he was headed to the rotation unless they pick up a better option.
yes consistent in that he would get a chance and Maurer’s last 2 months of the season makes it reasonable he will be on some sort of innings limit in 2016 if he’s a starter – interesting to see how his role shakes out but i see a team player who will be a strong pitcher wherever he ends up (he really controlled left handed batters better than most righties i’ve seen out of the pen in awhile w/o striking out half the guys)
Literally the only place I have ever heard that they are absolutely moving him to the rotation is from you.
it’s a week before the Winter Meetings, the 2016 team will be over .500 and the bullpen will improve before opening day – Jon Edwards and couple others are MLB ready or atleast as good as quack & vincent were last year
While they’ll certainly need to come up with some more LHP options in the upper minors, pretending that Garces is something beyond just another guy is ridiculous. He’s a poor man’s Alex Torres in terms of solid stuff, awful command, bad grasp of the game.
In terms of some of the other options, I suspect both Mateo and Jackson will get additional looks as middle relief guys. Preller clearly likes big bodies and big arms, and they are both.
Cesar Vargas
It’s December 3… Winter meetings haven’t even started. Chill. Padres are probably looking at Petit who just got non-tendered by the Giants.
Lots of room on the Padres 40 man for additions
Middlebrooks would be a decent stop gap for the Brewers.
I was thinking the same thing. I’m still not sure why the Brewers never pop up on these lists of teams needing a 3B, because plugging in (insert random utility infielder) isn’t going to cut it.
Middlebrooks = “random utility infielder”
Complete free swinging bust. He did break off his engagement to a Cowboys cheerleader to get engaged to Jenny Dell, so he has that going for him, which is nice.
Was that last line a loose reference to Carl Spackler from Caddyshack?
Cesar Ramos would be a nice lefty addition to a totally decimated bullpen. Are you listening Preller?
everyone in baseball checks out this site, shoot most of them got this app on their phone sending them alarms – always good to get some opinions outside of his circle & think it out. Henderson Alvarez would be a heck of a lefty starter to take a shot on. (if Shields sticks around, he will be getting whatever 5 starters to buy into pitching a combined 1000 innings in 2016) * starters eating up innings is the #1 way to help the bullpen
Alvarez is a RHP.
It’d be nice to bring Cesar back around to the organization after all these years – especially if it’s the version with the 2013 or 2015 walk rate.
There are certainly a variety of other options including Neil Cotts, Franklin Morales, Tony Sipp, and Matt Thornton. I’d also be curious if Sean Marshall’s rehab is at a point where bringing him in on a “forgotten man” contract would make sense.
It should probably be obvious that all of the names listed above are at least as good as Scrabble and in a different class entirely than Garces, but will probably sign for around what Rzepzc is going to get.
Atlanta could give Middlebrooks a shot.
Middlebrooks, has to ask himself “how much do I love the game?”…if he REALLY loves it, then he’ll make the necessary sacrifices to be the player that a lot of people saw when he was a hyped prospect.
its nice to have a hot GF, but she wont stick around long, if you turn into a career minor leaguer, homeboy. You can take that to the bank.
he gave short a shot last year in SD & from the looks of it a team player – could see the Padres resigning him at the minimum for one last go around in the organization/minors plus McGwire/Zinters effect at sprind training would be fun to watch, may get more of a shot elsewhere in ’16
Poor guy can’t even put up a .700 OPS in the minors now. 2 years of struggles makes you wonder what happened.
His love life happened.
The Tigers should sign Middlebrooks, he would be a solid platoon option at 3rd with Castellanos
With Middlebrooks on the market, the angels could give him a shot
Sometimes the can’t miss future HOF prospects never become more than just AAAA players and marginal major leaguers. Maybe the expectations for them are too high (with front office, media and fans pumping their value up) and maybe they have the physical tools but not the emotional makeup. Baseball is a hard game. Middlebrooks will get other shots.
This wasn’t surprising, he looked lost at the plate sometimes. Solarte will be serviceable at 3rd base for now. At least they didn’t give up much to acquire him last year, so it was a chance worth taking.