The Padres do not expect recently promoted infield prospect Luis Urias to return to action this season after suffering a hamstring injury last night, as MLB.com’s AJ Cassavell reports. Though the full extent of the injury isn’t yet known, San Diego skipper Andy Green says it already seems “doubtful” Urias will make it back in 2018.
Clearly, with just over two weeks left to play, there isn’t a lot of time remaining to make it back onto the field. Most importantly, the Friars will want to be sure not to push a critical young player too hard at this late stage of a noncompetitive season.
Urias won’t turn 22 until next June, but he forced his way onto the MLB roster recently with another quality showing in the upper minors. In his 533 Triple-A plate appearances this season, Urias hit a career-high eight home runs and slashed an impressive .296/.398/.447.
Of course, Urias hasn’t been quite as impressive in his very first attempt at major-league pitching. In a dozen games, he has produced a .208/.264/.354 slash with two home runs and an uncharacteristic mix of ten strikeouts and just three walks.
That limited showing doesn’t detract from Urias’s lofty promise. And it’s certainly not going to prevent him from competing for a MLB job in camp next year. Still, that less-than-compelling output matters somewhat to his near-future roster outlook. Particularly if the hammy tweak sidelines Urias the rest of the way, he arguably will not have shown enough to lock up a starting role in advance of Spring Training.
That was quick. Cup of coffee or..? Sip of tea. That glimpse was cut way too short. Could’ve been much worse.
Maybe it’s for the best. I think this best case scenario, (if injury forced miss the rest of the season.) Padres’ fans talking up this guy, they even got me excited haha ;P
Glad it wasn’t his knee. That looked scary
Urias will be fine. Besides, the way Green (or Preller) do things they’ll probably just put Janks or Reyes at second to put Galvis in an OMG Sandwich!
;-p
This is always a risk for the people who are on the “call up the kids now” train for rebuilding teams. The Padres are wasting a month of service time to the DL and all they got out of it was 48 fairly unimpressive at bats.
What a useless empty comment. There’s always a risk for having your baseball players play baseball, yes. Perhaps you’d also like to mention that you can only win baseball games if you score more runs than your opponent? That it’s important for pitchers to throw more strikes than balls?
Ouch on both counts
You must have missed the point. There was no reason for the Padres to take that risk. And now they’re paying for it because they’re either going to have to lose him a year early or hold him down an extra month next year.
He had to be put on the 40 man this offseason to avoid Rule 5, so its not really going to change what they were going to do. And now people are criticising management for starting service time too earlY? You can’t win.
They could have just waited until the season was over to put him on the 40 man then kept him in the minors for the first 3 weeks of the 2019 season to gain control of his 2025 season.
I didn’t miss the point. Your point is totally untenable. Whether he got hurt or not has literally nothing to do with anything because players get hurt all of the time as a result of playing baseball. He has to be added to the 40 man roster anyways and you can’t manipulate the service time for every single player because that’s called an unfair labor practice.
Did you never actually stop to wonder why the Blue Jays don’t just say “we want an extra year of control over Vladimir Guerrero Jr.?”
MLB is exempt from what you’re calling an “unfair labor practice.” That is addressed under the CBA. Exclusively.
Sure they can manipulate the service time for every single player. And even if the Jays didn’t admit it, everyone on this planet knows the real reason why VGJ wasn’t called up.
I disagree. It’s not untenable. Urias could’ve spent the last month in the minors and screwed up his hamstring and they’d still control him that extra year. Instead, they risked it now suffer because of his major league DL placement.
The minor league season is over so that wasn’t an option. The Padres can afford one less year of control, as can all major league teams.
Just because they can afford it doesn’t mean they should do it. Urias’ age 28 season has tons of value. Having him on the roster for one month at the end of a losing season does not.
Unimpressive? He may have struck out 10 times, but he worked the count full in 35-40 of those at bats.
Nice try
.264 OBP with no power
You must not have seen the second deck shot he hit in Cincy the other night
He is a gap to gap hitter. He put the ball in play 35 times. He worked the count like I said and when he didn’t go full he battled with a 2-2 count
I think there was maybe 1 or 2 time he didn’t get a ball.
No he’s not a gap-to-gap hitter. He’s a “slow-roller to the shortstop” hitter.
Don’t forget the home run that was negated because of a botched instant replay and umpire incompetence. That would be 3 dingers in 50 ABs. GTFOH with your jive.
68 wRC+…nice try
Working the count full? That’s really stretching…
if you watched the games Urias would just hit limp balls to infielders most the time. That’s how he hurt himself last night…trying to ‘leg out’ an infield hit. (pun intended)
At least he was hustling out of the box. Unlike some peoples’ new favorite third baseman.
Your so called month that you wasted is completely irrelevant. Your not understanding of how baseball truly works let alone the management side. First off yes you bring a player up early and you do loose a month of service. But the player is going to being competing against teams that are playoff bound so seeing how they stack up is crucial to development as a team learns what they have. Also by most accounts teams trade away younger players in off seasons moves or next year trades which gives other teams a good look at the future of the player they maybe getting. So for you to think it’s just a waste you don’t know the true structure of the game. And almost always if a player turns out to be a superstar… you will either lock them down early or understand your going to trade them because you to have the means to keep them… so again your month is irrelevant
Lose*
Not screwing around with his service time would also be a nice leg up in any extension talks a few years down the road should he turn out to be good enough to want to keep around. I’m happy he got the experience. Plus he looked solid defensively.
Manipulating a guy’s service time doesn’t guarantee that he won’t sign an extension.
And not manipulating his service time doesn’t guarantee that he will.
No, the way I’m thinking is how most teams operate. That’s why Guerrero and Jimenez are in the minors. That’s why Acuna and Soto began the year in the minors. That’s why Bryant needed to work on his “defense” a couple of years ago. And im pretty sure the Pads aren’t showcasing Urias for a trade. I don’t know because they are actually pretty unpredictable under Preller, but they don’t have much high end middle infield talent outside of Tatis. And finally, superstars don’t always get those deals like you assume. This offseason alone, Harper and Machado are hitting FA without one of those so called deals. I disagree big time about the month being irrelevant, it my opinion, but it’s a pretty irresponsible business decision.
I’m with JDGoat on this one. Absolutely nothing the Padres might gain by having Urias on the roster for the last month of 2018 and first month of 2019 is worth more than his entire age (28 season)
“About time.” -Red Rooster, August 28th On Urias being called up. Which is it Ryan?
no matter what he did, he wouldn’t have locked up a starting role before spring training