The Padres activated catcher Francisco Mejia from the 10-day injured list and optioned him to Triple-A El Paso on Saturday, the team announced. In other moves, the Padres sent reliever Phil Maton to El Paso and recalled left-hander Nick Margevicius from Double-A Amarillo.
The most notable move here is the demotion of Mejia, formerly a star prospect whose career hasn’t gotten off the ground in San Diego. The Padres acquired Mejia, then ESPN prospect guru Keith Law’s fifth-ranked farmhand, from the Indians for relievers Brad Hand and Adam Cimber last July. Since then, the switch-hitting Mejia has slashed a dismal .176/.224/.324 (46 wRC+) in 116 plate appearances with the Padres, and he didn’t acquit himself well defensively before landing on the IL on May 11 with a left knee sprain.
During the 23-year-old Mejia’s injury-forced absence, San Diego utilized Austin Hedges and Austin Allen as its top two catchers. The Austins will continue to reign supreme with Mejia heading to the minors. They’ve offered almost nothing at the plate this season, but Hedges has lived to his billing as an elite defender for his position, ranking first in the majors in Baseball Prospectus’ Fielding Runs Above Average metric. Hedges has also caught 38 percent of would-be base stealers in 2019, which comes in far above the 29 percent league average.
There’s no word on how long Mejia will stay in the minors, but it’s worth keeping an eye on with respect to his service time. Mejia entered the season with 62 days’ service and has amassed another 65 this year, giving him 127 overall. He needs another 45 to accrue a full year of service. As things stand, Mejia is on pace to reach free agency after the 2024 campaign.
Once a can’t miss prospect, tanked … crazy
Never happened before.
Hard to succeed with the amount of PT he was getting. I question the wisdom of trading for a close-to-MLB-ready catcher when you already have a catcher who you like in-house. One of him or Hedges is gonna have to be traded at some point.
Indians knew what most fans don’t seem to, Mejia is a horrible catcher. In Cleveland they wanted to move him off catcher to allow two guys that posted a combined .224 BA in 2017 stay behind the plate.
If he came up and hit .300/.350/.500 in his at bats, then he would have made the decision tougher for the Padres but he hit .176/.224/.324 in 100+ AB.
Hedges has been worth 12 runs saved on defense this season already. Mejia cost the Padres 3 runs with his defense in his limited time behind the plate. You have to hit the cover off the ball to have a job with that poor of defensive skills.
Defense and handling a pitching staff are extremely important. That is why Cleveland has the catcher that they use and why Hedges will likely stay in San Diego as their main catcher.
Tanked? He’s 22.
Crazy tanked all the way to a cycle last night
I said that the Indians sold high on him when they traded him last summer and a few people strongly disagreed. Obviously you have to give up a lot of value to get Hand/Cimber, but I think the Indians would have traded him at some point no matter what.
It doesn’t help that he didn’t get consistent playing time though. If they weren’t planning on giving him regular ABs, he probably should have been in El Paso this whole time anyway.
It’s too early to write him off. That said, I thought his defense behind the plate was subpar and his reluctance to play in the field to get his bat in the lineup was enough to say good riddance. Hand has been lights out in Cleveland and hopefully Cimber settles in.
I guess my comment did kind of sound like I was writing him off, so that’s my bad. I’m not writing him off (his bat to ball skills are tremendous), but I do think that the Indians traded him at a point where his value had nowhere to go but down.
He has plenty of time to develop as long as the Padres don’t keep burying him on the bench. He’s athletic enough to be an outfielder and he could obviously hit enough there, but if he still doesn’t want to play the outfield then it won’t matter.
He might be better off on an AL team as a DH long term. He’s got the bat for it.
Cleveland thought his bat was MLB ready last season and thought he’d spend time at 3B/OF/DH to get ABs but he insisted he was a catcher. He thought his value would be higher as a good hitting catcher, but his defense just wasn’t there. Early reports were his defense was good and he had a cannon, but last year I commented on what I saw live in just a few games that his D was lacking and guys stole easily and was told I was crazy…oh well.
Welcome to the alternative reality that is the A.J. Preller era. Some moves will work, but most will just leaved you baffled, and the club paying the guys salary to play someplace else within a year or two.
The Padres whiffed on that trade, giving up 2 good ML relievers for a prospect the Indians were looking to get rid of. Look for SD to include Mejia in some package this summer for a starter.
Padres have four catchers on the 40 man
What’s your point ?
Who’s the other Lopez or Ellis?
Neither. Torrens
Lopez is long gone and Ellis retired and is in the padres front office now.
What salary? Mejia is making the league minimum.
Most Indians fans will tell you that this guy is SUPER lazy. He was told that he’d have a starting job in the Indians absolute crap outfield, but insisted that he was a catcher, even though his game calling skills were terrible.
Oh well. Enjoy AAA.
Prior to the trade I thought CLE was insane for dealing Mejia when it seemed clear to me the starting C slot was his for the taking. Tribe saw the reality that Mejia has tremendous talent but can’t get out of his own way. SD or his next organization will have to pair him up with a mentor the way MIL did with Gary Sheffield (Dave Parker). All Mejia’s talent will be wasted unless he gets his head on straight and develops a work ethic.
Yes, my take was he didn’t fit in the locker room or team and put himself first. A bit of arrogance and poor guidance is a bad combination, especially when they had a very loose coaching staff and good Latin leaders in the clubhouse for him to follow but he didn’t want to fit in.
Is the last sentence on Connor’s post suggesting that service time might be an issue?
If so, he needs to realize that the Padres have repeatedly shown that they aren’t playing that game this year.
Agree. The one guy to do that with was Tatis and they didn’t do it.
Someone said this is Mejia’s last option year. That could be a problem if neither he or Hedges is traded before the start of next season.
He’s got one more option.
Does he qualify for a fourth option year then? Because the Indians’ transactions page says he was added to their 40-man roster after 2016.
If you wonder which is more valuable, a bat only catcher like Mejia with bad pitch framing, blocking, and game calling or a defense only catcher like Hedges, this spells it out clearly.
Gary Sanchez disagrees
Nice trade Hand for Mejia straight up
Urias, Mejía, Naylor….. the Padres management of their young prospects playing time has been horrendous. That’s nothing new though, they’ve played Renfroe in a virtual platoon role ever since his rookie year. Pathetic.
And then he just goes out and hits for a cycle last night.. Everything will be alright.
Mejia needs the same thing every young guy the Padres have called up needs: Regular AB’s
Mejia hasn’t been bad defensively. He isn’t Hedges, but nobody has been as good as Hedges this season. He has improved a lot since last season, but his bat needs to get much better if he want’s to play.
Really Hedges good .182 hitter 41 games with 5 errors that’s good