Padres Designate Luis Sardinas For Assignment

The Padres have announced that they’ve designated infielder Luis Sardinas for assignment. The move comes in the wake of this afternoon’s news that the team had claimed another infielder, Chase d’Arnaud, from the Red Sox.

Sardinas only turned 24 this week, has played in parts of four big-league seasons, and can play shortstop, second, or third. But he’s been a significant part of the Padres’ infield struggles this season, batting a meager .163/.226/.163 over 53 plate appearances thus far. The Padres have ranked last in the NL in fWAR at both second and short so far this year, and have been fourth worst in the league at third base. While Sardinas hasn’t taken the bulk of the playing time at any of those positions, he hasn’t helped, and there’s perhaps some hope that replacing Sardinas with d’Arnaud will move the needle somewhat.

Sardinas reached the big leagues with the Rangers at 20 and appeared at one point to be a significant asset (rating in top 100 prospects lists for MLB.com and Baseball Prospectus), although a large part of that perception likely stemmed from his age relative to the levels at which he played as opposed to his performances there. He’s been traded three times in less than three years, with the diminishing returns in each deal corresponding with his falling value as he struggled to get established in the big leagues. He headed to the Brewers organization prior to the 2015 season along with Corey Knebel and Marcos Diplan for Yovani Gallardo, then to the Mariners for Ramon Flores the next winter. The Padres acquired him for a player to be named last August.