The Padres announced they’ve signed Vince Velasquez to a minor league contract. He’ll be selected to the big league roster to start a game against the Cardinals this weekend, per the team. They’ll need to make active and 40-man roster moves before his start. In related news, San Diego placed lefty Blake Snell on the 10-day injured list due to a left adductor groin strain.
Velasquez becomes the second recently-released pitcher added by San Diego in as many days. The Friars signed reliever Ross Detwiler to a major league deal yesterday, just a few days after he was cut loose by the Marlins. Those moves come a month after San Diego picked up Jake Arrieta once he was released by the Cubs. It has been an “all hands on deck” approach to a pitching staff that has been beaten up badly by injuries throughout the year.
It hasn’t been an especially productive season for Velasquez, who has only managed 81 2/3 innings over 21 appearances (including 17 starts). He’s pitched to a career-worst 5.95 ERA in that time despite a 23.5% strikeout rate and 10.8% swinging strike percentage that each check in right around the league average.
That’s mostly a reflection of Velasquez’s walk and home run troubles, issues that plagued him throughout his six years in Philadelphia. He’s doled out free passes to a lofty 12.5% of opponents, the highest single-season mark of his career. And Velasquez’s always low ground-ball rate has dipped to 33.3% this year, nearly ten percentage points below the league average. That’s contributed to his serving up seventeen homers (1.87 HR/9), although the San Diego front office is surely hopeful a move to a less homer-friendly ballpark could alleviate that somewhat.
Velasquez’s recent struggles led to his release from Philadelphia yesterday. At this stage of the season, competent big league starting pitching is almost impossible to acquire, so the Friars moved quickly to add the 29-year-old once he passed through waivers. Velasquez had been on the injured list due to blister troubles at the time of his release, but he’d already made a pair of minor league rehab appearances. The team’s announcement that he’ll start this weekend suggests he’s healthy and ready to step back into MLB action.
Logging some innings will be critical for a San Diego team that has lost a pair of starters to the IL in recent days. Chris Paddack landed on the shelf earlier this week, and Snell joins him after leaving his start on Sunday night after just eleven pitches. The Friars were down to Arrieta, Yu Darvish and Joe Musgrove in the rotation, so Velasquez steps in to add some length and hopefully make a few productive starts down the stretch. The Phillies will be on the hook for the balance of his $4MM salary, with the Padres’ paying him just the prorated portion of the league minimum.
As with yesterday’s Detwiler signing, picking up Velasquez is solely about improving the Padres’ odds of grabbing a Wild Card spot this year. Both players joined the organization after August 31 and would be ineligible for postseason play. They each have enough service time to qualify for free agency again this winter. So they’re both being brought in for the next three weeks only, with San Diego trying to outplay the Cardinals, Reds, Phillies and Mets for the National League’s final postseason spot. St. Louis is in pole position, holding a half-game advantage over Cincinnati and a one-game lead on the Padres.
On the post where Velasquez was released, it was assumed he would end up with the Padres. Good job, mlbtr commenters
Was smart even if they couldn’t use him(which they totally can) to prevent him from joining the giants or Dodgers.
I’m sure the Giants and Dodgers are devastated.
That doesn’t make sense. The Pads should want the Giants or Dodgers to pick him up so he can help them lose some games.
Dodgers are doing better than the giants and are nearing the end of there bullpen games. Wood sounds like he’s soon coming off the IL so he can contribute which takes away 1 bullpen game for the giants but the current one isn’t looking too great!
Seems like a smart move. You have two guys on the 10 day, you need someone to eat innings for two weeks. The home runs won’t be as much of an issue in the NL West parks
Hitting, or lack thereof, with RISP, seems to be as big an issue as pitching.
Thank you
Called this in his release thread!
So did I
Same! Padres snapping up any and all able bodied SPs who are stretched out regardless of effectiveness. SD throwing Hail Mary’s on every play in the last 2 minutes
Desperate
not shocking…he’s better than Arrieta at least
Jim Abbott is a better right-handed pitcher than Jake Arrieta.
Enjoy the inevitable meltdown every outing….
At least they’re still trying to put something together. You would have to be a real hater to enjoy the meltdown the Padres are experiencing. I hope they come out of it.
Call me a hater, but I’m getting some serious glee after the last offseason where Padres’ fans were so cocky and arrogant. The amount of smack talking coming for a team that had ONE above .500 season in a decade was annoying. You guys were putting yourself on a pedestal above the Dodgers and Giants and already dusting off the mantle for the World Series trophy.
So, yeah, if the Padres play under .500 this season it will make me smile.
I agree.
Even though I feel bad for the Padres, but their fans make it hard.
San Diego’s eating humble pie now.
The loudest and most obnoxious voices are always most visible. The overwhelming majority of Padre lifers will tell you that watching a team who’s even remotely relevant to the general baseball discussion is a very rare and precious occurrence. In spite of this dreadful free fall, most of us are still extremely grateful for the past few seasons. All I’m saying is, like, cut us some slack, man. We haven’t had much to root for.
Seriously, dodger fans don’t know the pain we’ve endured. You all are spoiled.
Everybody was ready to give AJ Preller the key to the city lol. All he did was increase payroll, drain a great farm system, and their probably not even going to make the playoffs! Reminds me of the stench of 2015 to me. But sure, Preller is a genius remember? Worst gm ever!
If the entire team didn’t slump for a month, we’d have the wildcard locked. Not really similar at all to 2015
Dodger fans had several years under Frank McCourt. They know the pain.
First outing with SD: 7.0, 4H 1bb 9k 0er
Second outing: 2.2, 6h 4bb 1k 6er
This is the Velasquez way.
Padres probably take that lol
The Padres are cooked.
You must be a baseball prophet. 8.5 % chance to make the playoffs. Not looking too good with their remaining schedule. Still hope though in San Diego.
I was hoping the Orioles were going to give Velasquez a shot
He has a live arm
he’s a FA after the year. Give em 15 games and they can start planning
The dumpster keeps on giving!!
Nice upside play at league minimum. Pretty much can’t be worse than Jake Arrieta
Does Preller not trust the bullpen?
Why keep pushing Arrieta out there just to take a beating?
Show some sympathy to your fanbase AJ, I’m a dodger fan but this meltdown is becoming too hard to watch.
Paying my respects to the Padres season.
RIP SD
I don’t know if this has anything to do with trusting the bullpen. If you take Arrieta and Velasquez out of the equation they would literally have 2 healthy starters (Darvish, Musgrove). You can’t do 3 bullpen days out of every 5, that’s just too many innings for them to cover.
The real failure here is that they had nobody in the high minors ready to fill in. The pitching “depth” they had was totally surface level. Tough to watch but they put themselves in a position with no other options but to sign guys off the street like this
I agree overall but the giants and Dodgers were doing 2 bullpen games a week recently and it worked out for them.
Maybe just replace Arrieta with a bullpen game?
They won last night though, so keep going Padres.
Sweep the giants please!
It’s hard to sweep when they lost game 1 and 2 of the series.
Thanks for the correction, & there’s always next Tues, Wed, Thur, series.
I’ll keep my fingers crossed that they take the next four against SF.
Couldn’t ask for a more exciting end to the season, than the NL West.
It can be. I’m a Phillies fan. Ask me how I know.
you should also know, as Phillies fan, just how bad Arrieta is, and he’s only gotten worse.
Despite the fact they trail the Giants by more than 20 games, the Pads still have 8 head-to-head games with SF. They could cause some serious heartaches for the Giants and then face them in the wild card. But I doubt it.
Preller is such an awesome GM, I mean just look at all the talent he has lined up in the minors to fill these pitching gaps…..
Snell’s been a real P.O.S. this year. But, what does he care? He got paid.
Guessing you stopped watching Snell pitch in July.
He has been pitching much better lately, but the start of the year was awful. Right now he is 7-6 with a 4.20 ERA is still not great for the money he made. He also is averaging 4.8 walks per 9 which is 1 full walk per 9 higher than when he was in tampa.
overall, tampa seems to have made the right choice by letting him go (especially with their small payroll).
Can they take Ian Kennedy too?
Amen
I don’t know why the Phillies DFA’d Vince,especially after Eflin was ruled out for the season. Their 5th starter for the past 6 weeks has been “a bullpen game”, when their bullpen is possibly the worst in MLB history! I normally go to 20-30 Phillies games per season ,some years I had season tix and saw 60+ games/ season. I haven’t been to a game since Fan Appreciation Day in 2019, and was planning on going tomorrow, but it is “bullpen turn in the rotation and I don’t feel like watching Cubs bums hit 485 Foot HR’s off Ian Kennedy,Alvarado, Neris, etc. I think Vince would have been better than almost every one of the bullpen pitchers!
Have you watched him pitch this year? He had numerous chances to claim the 5th spot and they all ended up as bullpen games with the team behind by 3 or 4 runs.
You forget that Girardi hates VV, and like with Bohm, once you get in Girardi’s doghouse, his petulance won’t let you back out. Certainly agree VV better option than a few innings of Coonrod and Falter and then inevitably Moore. It is why Girardi must go after season
Good job stay away the Organization is a mess
Careful what you wish for. Firing Girardi could open the door for DD to hire Brad Ausmus or someone else equally as awful. It must be hard for Phillies fans to watch Kapler having success in San Francisco after enduring his first couple of “learning on the job” years.
As for Girardi’s doghouse; Segura found a way out, though a guaranteed contract may have more to do with that than anything else. Girardi is an old school veterans manager. Doesn’t really like to play young players unless they come out mashing like Gary Sanchez and Aaron Judge did
Rsox,
Here in Bay Area, we watched Kapler’s Giants fade from the wildcard picture last season. We know he’s no baseball savant.
This season we’re not asking any questions, just enjoying an amazing year from some 34-year olds having rebound years, a pretty good starting staff and bullpen of mostly discarded pitchers, and every move going the Giants way. We’re just enjoying one of those magical years.
Cool. Hopefully a change of scenery helps him. Maybe you hit an undiscovered spring. Maybe you hit the water line and it’s start flooding.
lol
I feel bad for the Padres. Nobody wanted to sign him, not even the Padres. They just have to have SOMEONE on the mound and Velasquez is at least someone.
The Velazquez experiment begins.
It surprises me that Vince is getting another MLB chance. I know Padres are desperate. He may pitch well enough for them to think he’d be a competent 5th starter and he’ll underperform is SD for the next five years.
Don’t get excited fans this guy looks like Cy Young one outting than can’t get out of the 3rd inning in the next 6 games and will give up tons of Hr’s
After last night’s Cincy fiasco, and this Padres pitching staff, the Cardinals just need to show up and back into a WC beating by either LA or SF.
Stick a fork in them. They are just trying to save putrid meat by adding more seasoning to the pot.
It’s time to get rid of Preller, who has insufficiently stocked the minor leagues with AAAA players available to fill in.
During his six seasons with the Phillies, Vince Velasquez proved to be a good guy and teammate. He’s a crap pitcher, but a good guy and teammate…
Padres throwing money at anyone…. hope they rock the Dodgers in the upcoming series.
Stick a fork in the Padres…
Snell and Paddack likely out for the season. Reminds me of 2020 with Clevenger and Lamet except that Lamet was certifiably good when he went down last year.