The Padres made a few moves before tonight’s matchup with the Mariners. Most notably, San Diego optioned catcher Luis Campusano to Triple-A El Paso. The Friars also placed Martín Pérez on the paternity list while recalling outfielder Brandon Lockridge and lefty reliever Tom Cosgrove.
It’s the first optional assignment for Campusano in two years. He has played briefly in the minors on injury rehab assignments but hadn’t been demoted since 2022. It looked last season as if Campusano had broken out as San Diego’s answer behind the dish. While a thumb injury cost him the bulk of the year, he raked at a .319/.356/.491 clip over 49 games. The Friars felt comfortable letting Gary Sánchez walk and turning to Campusano as their season-opening starter.
The 25-year-old has appeared in a career-high 91 games. He hasn’t produced on either side of the ball, leading both FanGraphs and Baseball Reference to rate his play as slightly below replacement level. Campusano has stumbled to a .227/.281/.361 batting line through 299 plate appearances. While that might be tolerable if he were playing well behind the plate, his defensive grades have been very poor.
Campusano has logged 670 2/3 innings behind the dish. Defensive Runs Saved has him 15 runs below average, the worst mark among catchers. Statcast has graded him harshly for each of his pitch framing, blocking and throwing. Campusano is tied for the fifth-most passed balls (six) and has been behind the plate for 36 wild pitches.
Only Shea Langeliers, Will Smith and Logan O’Hoppe have been behind the plate for more wild pitches — and they’ve all logged upwards of 900 innings. That’s not entirely on Campusano, of course, but it doesn’t reflect especially well on his work blocking pitches in the dirt. Campusano has also thrown out just eight of 49 attempted base stealers, a 16.3% clip that is about five points below league average.
Those struggles have naturally opened up playing time for backup catcher Kyle Higashioka. Acquired from the Yankees as the fifth piece in the Juan Soto blockbuster, Higashioka has had the best season of his career. The veteran has drilled 16 homers in only 228 plate appearances. Despite a .225 average and a dismal .269 on-base mark, the power has made him a productive hitter. Higashioka has a league average caught stealing rate, although he’s also had a rough time as a receiver. He’s tied for the MLB lead with nine passed balls in only 575 2/3 innings.
San Diego had rolled with a Campusano-Higashioka pairing for most of the season. They added 2023 All-Star MVP Elias Díaz late last month after he was released by the Rockies. Díaz will back up Higashioka for the time being. That seems like skipper Mike Shildt’s preferred duo as the Friars try to secure a Wild Card berth.
Higashioka and Díaz are both impending free agents. Aside from Campusano, the only other catcher on the 40-man roster is Brett Sullivan, who projects as a depth player. While the Friars surely hope for top prospect Ethan Salas to eventually seize the position, they can’t count on the 18-year-old for at least a few seasons. That points towards Campusano competing with an outside acquisition — potentially a re-signed Higashioka or Díaz — for the job next year.
The timing of the demotion, presumably not coincidentally, provides the Padres with some flexibility in that regard. Campusano has one minor league option remaining. A player uses an option year when he spends 20 days on an optional assignment during a season. Rehab stints do not count towards that time. There are 19 days left in the regular season, so Campusano will still have an option remaining going into 2025. That means the Padres would be able to keep him in El Paso for another year without exposing him to waivers.
Campusano is on track to reach arbitration for the first time in his career. He entered the season with one year and 144 days of service. He’ll earn a full service year this season despite being sent down. Evan Drellich of the Athletic reported in 2022 that players who are optioned more than three days after Labor Day continue to receive service time during that assignment. That easily positions Campusano to qualify for early arbitration as a Super Two player, although his salary will be modest enough that he shouldn’t be in danger of getting non-tendered. He’s controllable for another four seasons after this one.
As for Lockridge, he gets his first big league opportunity. San Diego added him to the 40-man roster at the start of September but had kept him on optional assignment with El Paso. Acquired from the Yankees at the deadline in the Enyel De Los Santos deal, Lockridge has hit .306/.410/.397 over 402 plate appearances at the top minor league level. The speedster has stolen 46 bases and been thrown out just six times. He’ll likely work as a pinch-runner and defensive specialist in his first MLB action.
“Campusano has one minor league option remaining. A player uses an option year when he spends 20 days on an optional assignment during a season. Rehab stints do not count towards that time. There are 19 days left in the regular season”
That’s beautiful.
I’d give him a couple years before making such a declaration
He’s having a rough season, especially after a really nice 2023 season. Hopefully it’s just a down year for Campusano.
The interesting stat that jumps out to me is 40 RBIs in 277 AB. That means he still could hit with guys on base.
Most of that was done at the start of the year… he racked up 25 rbi’s very fast and hasn’t done much since.
Over Delmon Young? Hardly
Young was a number one overall pick, ranked no.1 in all of baseball according to mlb in 05 06 07 and racked up 3.2 war
Henry Davis and Casey Mize were both #1 overall picks as well. What have they done???
Mark Appel in a 3 year span went from 17-30-70 falling down prospect charts.
Riley Pint in a 3 year span went from 51-100-unranked on prospect charts
3 straight years Delmon Young was ranked 1-1-1 in all of baseball. 3.2 WAR
Bryan Bullington wants a mention.
He’s 18 years old in A+ ball with a 10% walk rate and a 20% K rate. He’ll be fine in a few years, though his power was down this year and he seemed unlucky with batted balls in play.
Padres will be either not make it at all or will be out of playoffs in first round if they have a new catcher instead of the guy that has caught 60% of the innings this season. Not a smart move. A catcher’s most important job is how they work with the pitchers, not hitting or throwing out runners.
As I stated when they got Diaz, campy’s days were numbered. Having him catch is a bigger liability to the padres than Diaz even with his limited time catching the padres pitchers.
Plus higgy will catch the majority of games the rest of the season and in the playoffs.
Watch what happens if the put him in to catch. It’s consistent throughout the years. Bring in a new catcher late in the season and things do not go well for pitchers on that team. Their familiar target is gone.
Then both of the catchers the Padres have on the team right now are free agents at the end of the season.
I watched Diaz catch for the padres already. He looked way better than campy did. Perez was the starter and he had his best game as a padres.
So far what you are saying isn’t working out.
Then sign Hig.
I hope Campy can do well and come back strong next year. Lockridge is who they got for De Los Santos. Looks to be a pitch runner type.
He got complacent and this will serve as a wake up call. He’ll hopefully take this as an opportunity to get back on track with an organization that believes in his talents…
Do the Padres have a choice? Higashioka and Diaz both have their own warts and are free agents after the season.
They’ll address that after the season, I’m sure.
So campy was the odd man out in the padres catching
I thought they’d carry 3 catchers for the playoffs I feel like they would’ve decided this around September 1st
They kept campy so they could gain another option year and it gave Diaz more time to get with the pitchers.
They optioned Campusano so just used an option year and Diaz didn’t catch a game did he?
Yes he did, he caught Perez’s last start.
Plus they didn’t burn an option year of campy. Have to be down for 20 days to burn it and they optioned him with 19 days left. So they still have an option on him next year.
Perez was 6.2 innings no runs the day Diaz caught him. He has also come in late in the game after they used a pinch hitter. So he has been in twice.
I believe Diaz will be catching Cease tonight (as Campy did), but I’m much more concerned about Cease than who’s catching him.
Lol. We will see about that
Looking at defense, we have the two better catchers on the team now. Looking at hitting, we have the two better catchers on the team now.
This is the right move to field the best team.
How quickly this former “top prospect” has fallen. He was nearly untouchable as a trade option when in the minors.
He was pretty good in The Show when he was still a prospect card.
That’s the ” Immortal” Logan O Hoppe to you guys. he is after all worth 5 top 100 prospects.
Congratulations Lockridge the time is now. I thought of him as a Brett Gardner type. Good luck welcome to the Show
You shouldn’t let other people know your that dumb like that.
It’s “you’re”, kettle meet pot
Padres & Yankees have the most overrated prospects in the game.
Right that Jackson Merrill kid looks bad. So does that woods kid they traded.
@Simm
Agreed. Both are terrible overall players.
Another absolutely awful overrated SD prospect is that CJ Abrams. What a bust.
Fine by me. Personally, I think it’s time to look at Campy at other positions. I’d give him Milb reps in the OF, and at 1B, as well as catcher.
Also..in the article, it says Higgy has 9 passed balls. What it doesn’t say though, is that he was the personal catcher for Waldron and his knuckleball for most of the season, and at least 7 of those passed balls were on the knuckler.
Seems like kind of an important perspective point that was left out of the article.
While I don’t see campy playing 1b because his bat has fallen off badly.
I do appreciate you posting about higgy’s pass balls. The large majority of them came trying to catch Waldrons knuckle ball. He couldn’t even use a bigger glove because Waldron doesn’t only throw the knuckle ball.
I think his bat comes back if he doesn’t have to worry about catching every day. It takes a serious toll..especially when he’s not good behind the dish. You have to wonder if defensive miscues, passed balls, etc got in his head and carried over to his at bats.
Campusano is likely going to go face a similar route that Francisco Mejia saw. He was given his chance and now they are going to look at others if they prove themselves — Campy is going to find himself in a new location next season
He’s turning 26 this next week, the Pads have been patient. It’s possible they move on from him but then again, he’s an inexpensive back ( to some one?) next year.
Or he gets the chance to be the guy next year with them working with him over winter. Not a lot of options in the minors or free agency.
Could resign Higgy but he’s coming off a career year much like Sanchez was last year and could get money elsewhere. Could resign Diaz.
Could sign D Arnaud if Atlanta doesn’t pick up his option he’s gonna be 36.
So doubt they trade Campy and most likely he’s given the crack at the job again given age and limited options plus financials.
They are going to trade him for a pitcher probably.