The Padres have claimed infielder/outfielder Patrick Kivlehan off waivers from the Mariners, the teams announced today. Kivlehan, 26, has been optioned to Triple-A El Paso, according to the Padres.
Kivlehan has split the 2016 season between the Mariners and Rangers after being traded between the two teams twice. He originally went from Seattle to Texas along with Tom Wilhelmsen in the Leonys Martin trade, but the Rangers designated him for assignment and wound up sending him back to the Mariners in exchange for a player to be named later or cash considerations on May 29. (A subsequent announcement of a player going to Texas in exchange never materialized, so it seems likely that the Rangers picked up cash in the swap). In 321 plate appearances between the Triple-A affiliates for the Mariners and Rangers this season, Kivlehan batted .242/.291/.399 with nine homers and 16 doubles.
Kivelhan has played primarily third base throughout his minor league career, but he also has several hundred innings of work at first base, left field and right field. The Friars announced him only as an outfielder in their release, though that’s not necessarily an indication of how San Diego plans to deploy him for the remainder of the season.
In 5 years in the minors thus far he has 79 HR’s & a .281 average, seems like he could be a nice fit for the Padres in a utility-man capacity. They need to just DFA Adam Rosales & give Kivelhan a chance.
Any Ranger or Mariner fans have a scouting report on him? Any reason why he didn’t stick with either organization?
He’s a good waiver pick up. Surprise he got DFA’d by the M’s. The rangers gave up on him way too prematurely, and has been pretty good in AAA for the M’s.
He’s also the best cover corner in the PCL.
Oh yeah? Who does he get to cover in the PCL? Receivers like Antonio Brown & Julio Jones and them? #Kivelhanisland lol
Cover corner? What type of baseball are they playing in the PCL?
Kivlehan was a DB/LB at Rutgers until he picked baseball up again his Senior year.
Good claim for Padres. They are in build mode and have most of their prospects in low minors. We should see several of these types of claims over next year or 2.
Didn’t start playing baseball till his senior year at Rutgers. What you see from his minors stat constitute 90% of his baseball career
He had a great winter season in the Dominican Republic 2015-16.
Just a minor side note: Justin De Fratus was the PTBNL of the trade, although I’m not sure he’s even still in the Texas organization anymore anyways, so it might be irrelevant
Not sure what happened a couple years ago he was the talk of the system. They thought he might pass DJ Peterson and take 1st from him. He was hitting better and playing pretty good. He hit the crap out of the ball in winter ball like someone said then last year slid a bit. Then with the trade must have messed with his head or something we were happy to get him back but just not the same guy. No injuries or anything do I am not sure what happened. If SD can figure it out he has some talent and can hit you might hit gold. Not sure if we just stuck him in AAA and forgot about him or if they tried to fix what was wrong. Too bad because he had a bright future hopefully SD can get him going again.
As a Rangers fan, he will be a good fourth outfielder for San Diego. I was hoping he would get a chance in Texas but Ryan rue has been good for off the bench type player
Ryan rua….my bad