The Padres #5 ranked prospect per MLB.com (#34 overall) is angling to get the nod on Opening Day, per MLB.com’s AJ Cassavell. Chris Paddack threw four scoreless innings, which included a stretch in which he struck out five consecutive Oakland A’s batters in his most recent spring start. Last season, Paddack made seven starts in Double-A after cruising through High-A, where he notched an eye-popping 14.3 K/9 versus 0.7 BB/9 in 52 1/3 innings. Double-A didn’t slow him much, going 3-2 with a 1.91 ERA in 7 starts, 8.8 K/9 to 1.0 BB/9. Still, from Double-A to an Opening Day start would be quite the jump for the 23-year-old, just a year removed from missing all of 2017 to Tommy John surgery. The competition is fairly wide open, however, as the Padres, by design, brought very little in the way of established talent to camp. Since the offseason departures of veterans Clayton Richard (traded to Blue Jays) and Tyson Ross (signed with Tigers), Robbie Erlin boasts the most experience in the group, and he’s not even a lock to make the rotation. Fellow southpaws Joey Lucchesi and Eric Lauer each have a shot to get the Opening Day nod, as well. Let’s check in on the Rangers’ and Cubs’ camps as teams begin to whittle their spring rosters…
- The Rangers culled their number of players in camp to 60. Pitchers Taylor Guerrieri, Michael Tonkin, Miguel Del Pozo and Brady Feigl were all assigned to minor league camp, per the Rangers’ executive VP of communications John Blake (via Twitter). Guerrieri, 26, joined the Rangers after making his major league debut last season with the Blue Jays. A former first round pick of the Rays, he was a starter in the minor leagues until missing most of the 2017 season due to injury. Toronto claimed him off waivers before last season, where started 7 games in Triple-A before appearing 9 times out of the Blue Jays pen, pitching to a 5.02 FIP in a small-sample 9 2/3 big league innings. Tonkin, 29, appeared in parts of five seasons for the Twins from 2013 to 2017 with a 4.57 FIP across 141 games. Del Pozo, 26, reached as far as Double-A in the Marlins system before joining the Rangers as a non-roster invitee. While Feigl, 28, is back in the Rangers system where he has pitched for the past two seasons.
- The Cubs made a number of roster moves today, with promising righties Adbert Alzolay and Jen-Ho Tseng being optioned to Triple-A, while Justin Steele and Oscar De La Cruz were sent to Double-A, per the Athletic’s Patrick Mooney (Twitter links). Also on the move, Duncan Robinson, Ian Clarkin, Colin Rea, Ian Rice, Charcer Burks and Jacob Hannemann are being moved to minor league camp (Twitter link). Mark Gonzales of the Chicago Tribune (via Twitter) adds Craig Brooks, Alberto Baldonado and Evan Marzilli to the list of players headed to minor league camp. The Cubs spring roster has now been cut to 54.
- Rob Scahill, meanwhile, was released outright by the Cubs, per Mooney (via Twitter). Scahill has pitched at the big league level for parts of seven seasons running, topping out at 31 appearances in 2016 spread between Milwaukee and Pittsburgh. In total, the 32-year-old boasts a career 3.95 ERA (4.67 FIP) in 124 games for Rockies, Pirates, Brewers and White Sox.
Paddack will be on the roster by May
The Cubs are going for the record. Yes, they will have to piss off Bryant for bringing him up late, hire Heyward for silly numbers, sign Darvish when he is clearly hurt, keep Schwarber … etc. But they can do it. They can actually go 110 years before Theo Epstein IV accidentally wins them another one. Good job. Well done. Congrats.
Chris Paddack is THE TRUTH!
Paddack is very exciting to watch!
What a great contrast to the service time shenanigans being practiced elsewhere.
“shenanigans”
Lol nope.
Paddack is 100% going to start the year in El Paso for service time reasons, this is him specifically angling for that to not happen.
I disagree. He will need to be sent down to limit his innings. That covers it.
Because it’s only gaming the system when somebody else’s team does it…
Oh no, it’s still gaming the system when the Padres do it.
It’s incredibly stupid to be a fan of a team and expect them to give up a competitive advantage to see your teams top prospect a couple weeks earlier. It’s almost as if the fans don’t want the team to actually win when they complain about these things.
id say they want him to get a bit more experience and to limit his innings as well.
@DarkSide830 100% correct. He needs more experience. He played 7 games in AA… and his breaking pitch (curveball) is still very much a work in progress. It’s very difficult to survive in a rotation with a fastball/changeup combo being the only weapons you have. Paddack is going to be very good, but he really needs that third pitch to stick in a rotation at the level people are expecting
They avoid signing actual competent free agents and throw Paddock and a bunch of no names out there to save money. How is that any different from anyone else. Lol
The Padres didnt sign any significant free agents? Are you sure about that?
He’s very obviously talking about the rotation.
Yeah but he implies that the Pads are cheap. Pretty sure that the Machado contract challenges that narrative.
{gif of Chris Cannon saying ‘huh?’}
Chris Paddack could single Handedly win any team a championship
Chris Paddock is the first name whispered by the lips of Chuck Norris every morning when he awakes.
well shut the paddock door!
Downvote
Preller has received a lot of grief from trading Trea Turner over the years but the man turned James Shields into Fernando Tatis Jr and Fernando Rodney into Chris Paddack. Not too confident in his free agent signing ability but he’s a wizard at finding hidden minor leagiue talent gems.
Tatis Jr, Paddack, De Los Santos from the Phillies, Logan Allen, Josh Naylor, Jose Torres, Jose Castillo not to mention finding Hand, Yates, Stock, Buchter, Strahm.
De los santos got traded to the Phillies. Your not confident in preller being able to sign free agents? Last time I checked hosmer and machado we’re signed as free agents
And at this point neither has earned their paycheck.
While we all fully expect Machado too and for Hosmer to bounce back(odd year),as of this moment it hasn’t happened yet.
So yeah…..you could say Preller’s free agent signings have yet to instill confidence.
You expect Machado to, but the signing doesn’t instill confidence? Ok…let’s put the signing in the “bad” ledger because the season hasn’t started yet.
The Shields trade doesn’t justify the signing. The White Sox didn’t know what they had. If they were willing to move Tatis in a salary dump trade, the Padres could have just gotten him for something else (Cashner?) if not for the Shields signing.
But why would we want to hold onto Shields? Your comment doesn’t make much sense to me.
You didn’t just miss the point of my comment. You weren’t even in the same dimension.
Instead of ‘free agents’ some should be called ‘expensive agents’.
Paddack will be on innings limit this year so has great chance to make opening day starter since they’ll probably send him down mid year for rest.
Usually I’d be against that thinking cuz it would burn an option year. But since Paddack had to be added to the 40-man roster this offseason, he loses an option year if he is sent down regardless of whether it’s at the beginning or end of the season.
Paddack could make the opening day start but would be on a innings limit through the year
I really like Paddack. It’s cool to see him bounce back after TJ. I think he could be a good number 3 starter and if he develops a breaking ball could be a good number 2.
Imagine Paddack starting on OD for the Padres after what he’s gone through the last few seasons.
I’m so ready for a Padre magical moment…Paddack starting the Opener and getting a win works for me.
I stated in the piece written on here about Lucchesi last week that Paddack could potentially get the opening day nod and I got Crucified for suggesting so.
Doesn’t look like it’s too far of a possibility, like most commenters have mentioned, service time is an issue yes, but he is going to be on a pitch count anyways and will need to be sent down at sone point to gauge when he is at physically (that will also coincide with him gaining enough AAA time that his extra free agent year will vest and the Padres can indeed have him start on opening day and gain a year of control of him in the same season.
Paddack will surely file a grievance if he’s sent down as a means of limiting his innings and gaining an extra year of control. If he’s on the roster day 1 and effective this season the Padres are going to have an extremely hard time getting that extra year of control. You put him on the roster day 1 you know the risk you’re taking. If you think it’s worth it to watch him pitching opening day well then enjoy the show but it’s definitely not a smart business decision.
Ordinarily yes but if he’s going to be on an innings limit and they just send him down once he reaches that innings limit then they might be able to get away with it. They did something similar with Jesse Hahn back in 2014.
I don’t know anything about a Jesse Hahn Grievance. But Jesse Hahn only threw 73 innings that year. If you’re telling me paddack is only going to throw 73 innings thats about 12-14 starts. He’s not on that kind of innings limit. A grievance will certainly be filed and likely won if he’s up on the ML roster for that amount of time. IF you want to manipulate the service time keep him in AAA now where he’s never made a start. This guy has 7 starts above high A Ball. Going to AAA for a month certainly wouldn’t be bad seasoning anyway.
You’re missing the point. Hahn was optioned after reaching his innings limit in 2014. A grievance was never filed despite him being optioned keeping him from being on track for Super Two eligibility. They can do the same with Paddack. Him reaching his innings limit is a plausible enough excuse to send him down. Barely.
Although generally I’d agree with you that the “Call him up to start the season and send him down for the service time delay later on” strategy doesn’t work. You can’t away with that if he is producing and if he is producing is the scenario where you would want to do it.
Hahn threw 75 innings in the minor leagues that year so I don’t see how that would be an equivalent scenario at all. This scenario with paddack would be having him up all year with the expectation of sending him to AAA to shut him down and not accrue service time. That sounds like a big ol grievance case. I dont think you’re comparing apples to apples here.
I would imagine they’re going to let him throw ~150 innings with his innings limit. Maybe a few less. If you have him on the major league roster day 1 he’s going to need at least we’ll call it 25 starts to be in that range. You send him down at that point because of an innings limit that’s fine but if you’re not expecting a grievance to be filed or even some sort of significantly higher agreed upon contract renewal price, I think you’d be fooling yourself. These years are very very important to teams and players and Paddack’s camp certainly wouldn’t just roll over and accept that when they’d have a very winnable case.
I personally would start him in AAA in April. Just trying to think of what the Padres FO might do. And so far they have largely avoided service time manipulation. The only exception to that so far is Hunter Renfroe and I’m assuming Fernando Tatis Jr. will make it two.
That’s the logical move. Honestly waiting a month to see is well worth the potential problems that will arise. God forbid he has another T.J. or other serious injury when he’s on the major league roster. There’s just so many potential risks added by seeing him on opening day that it really just makes no sense to do it in a rebuilding year. You’ll see him soon but if I were a Padres fan I’d hope it was in the end of May instead of early April.
Paddack is on the 40-man roster already so if he does get injured early on don’t they have to put him on the Major League disabled list regardless of what level he is playing at when he gets injured?
If he’s on the major league roster and heads to the DL he will accrue service time. My point is if he’s up on the ML roster on opening day and he gets seriously injured at some point in the season there’s absolutely ZERO chance they can manipulate service time. He will accrue a full season of service time. Which is why I said that’s another risk baked into the equation.
It was my impression that because Paddack is on the 40-man roster, if he gets injured they have to put him on the Major League injured list regardless of whether he was playing in the Major League when he got injured. Could be wrong tho.
Tyson Ross didn’t leave the Padres this off-season. He pitched with the Cardinals in the 2nd half of last year.
Anyone else get the feeling that it’s starting to happen for the Padres? When that farm produces they’re going to be good. Reminds me of Atlanta in the early ’90’s with the pitching.