The Padres claimed right-hander Andrew Carpenter off of waivers from the Phillies, according to Matt Gelb of the Philadelphia Inquirer (on Twitter). Philadelphia's 40-man roster now includes 39 players.
Carpenter, 26, made six relief appearances for the Phillies this year, but he has spent most of the season at Triple-A, where he has a 1.79 ERA with 9.7 K/9 and 1.6 BB/9 in 60 1/3 innings. Carpenter has a 36.5% ground ball rate in limited MLB action over the course of four years, so it's not surprising that the Padres are intrigued by what he can do in Petco Park, especially given his strong minor league stats.
Padres GM Jed Hoyer has been aggressive in terms of waiver claims this week. San Diego claimed Jeff Fulchino from Houston yesterday and claimed Jeremy Hermida from Cincinnati Wednesday.
This kid could be a decent #5 starter or middle reliever if he threw strikes. Hope it works out for him in San Diego.
He put up decent #’s in the minors but could never translate it into big league success.
He really hasn’t pitched all that much at the ML level. Three of the six parks out in the NL West are kind to fly ball pitchers-he’s a good fit for the Padres.
Six parks?
this could be a gem of a find for San Diego. Nice job by Jed Hoyer working the dumpster dive to find some useful major league pieces.
Kevin Towers like move. That could work out nicely.
Yes, Towers is probably thinking “damn, I am no longer first in line for the waiver wire!”.
Followed by, “oh yeah, I guess that’s a good thing”.
Eh, fly ball pitchers don’t work out quite as well in Arizona anyway.
Why’s that? Chase Field is a hitter’s park, but that’s more than made up for (and then some… actually, a lot) by the ridiculous outfield defense. Just look at Ian Kennedy.
Up until this year he (Carpenter) has been primarily a starter in his professional career. Since the move to the pen, his velocity has increased, and he has been more affective.
His velocity didn’t really increase. He’s mostly 88-90mph. His movement improved. He had a decent split and a so-so slider. I think he could develop into a Chad Durbin type but it wasn’t going to work out in Philly.
According to Fangraphs it did. Unless I read that wrong. Nice tilt, which is nice in any place, let alone Petco park.
His velocity has gone up 0.4 MPH. Hardly a difference.
And still relevant. Encouraging, and not uncommon transitioning from a starter to the pen.
I’ve seen Drew pitch a half dozen times this year in minors. He’s sitting 91-93 with his FB. He has a decent split, but he throws a very good slider with a sharp break and a mediocre change up. He has been throwing mostly fastball – slider out of the pen. His GB rate has been nearly 50% this season.
All in all I like the pickup. He will make a good middle reliever for the Padres. Better than the guy he is replacing, Neshek.
With as much success as he was having in the minors this year since being moved to the pen, it seems to be only a matter of time before he gets comfortable at the big league level. Bummer for the Phils. They are going to need some cheap relief options next year and he seemed like a possibility for middle innings eater.
Any fringe pitcher who joins the Padres will have an opportunity to work with Balsley, Akerfelds, and Buddy Black and pitch in Petco. ‘Nough said.
Petco can make barely mediocre pitchers like Jake Peavy into Cy Young winners so anything is possible.
Not sure if Peavy was “barely mediocre” when he was with the Padres, he has had some injury issues since he left, but as everyone knows Petco does help out pitchers. I am of the belief that Balsley is as big a factor as Petco is however. He is this generations Dave Duncan without the press. If the Padres ever lose him they are in some trouble.
I agree with the premise that Petco made Peavy look like a better pitcher then he actually was, but to call his performance away from San Diego medicore is a far cry from the truth:
3.84 era, 614 IP, 575 H, 223bb, 569k with him winning 56% of his road starts
For any Padre fans out there, it’s fun to compare what Latos has done on the road so far in his career versus what Peavy did. I use to think a Peavy like outcome would be about as good as it gets for Latos, but examining what each did at the same age, particularly away from home (qualcom vs. petco) and it puts Latos in another class. The biggest difference between those two is Latos ability to handle left-handed bats with ease.
That said, at worse Peavy pitched like an excellent #2 on the road during his Padre tenure. The kind of pitcher any team could of used.
I guess I wasn’t clear with my first post. I agree with you that Peavy was better than “barely mediocre”. If not for injuries he’d still be mowing them down for the ChiSox.
Everytime I read, I see its more about the ballpark, then the talent.