We’ll use this post to track the day’s minor moves …
- The Padres have a deal in place with righty Chris Rowley, according to Robert Murray of The Athletic (Twitter link). Other terms of the pact aren’t known. Rowley, 28, has throw 19 1/3 MLB innings over the past two seasons, coughing up 17 earned runs with both 11 walks and strikeouts. He has been more effective in the upper minors, though. Last year at Triple-A, the West Point product worked to a 3.34 ERA with 6.1 K/9 and 3.7 BB/9 in 142 2/3 innings. Rowley has to this point spent most of his career with the Blue Jays, though he was claimed and later outrighted last year by the Rangers.
great American and great baseball player. wish him the best in San Diego, where he probably has a shot at some point this season.
The Padres have done a remarkable job in reclamation projects for the bullpen. The 2018 bullpen was, by fWAR, the 6th best of all time, and it was all from guys off the scrap heap – Hand, Yates, Cimber, Strahm, etc. It’s an area they excel in – identifying pitchers who might be bullpen assets and then using modern analytics and data to get those pitchers to buy into it.
That’s great I’m just trying to win beat the streak
Is it safe to add to it that Darren Balsley has something to do with it?
Yes, Balsley is part of the equation. The Padres are an analytically inclined front office with a terrific coaching staff that communicates well with the numbers guys which is how they have been able to create dominant bullpens out of castoffs. It takes both a smart front office and a smart pitching coach to pull this kind of transformation off. San Diego has both.
Balsley is god. And I mean every god. All somehow rolled into one.
I think the ballpark plays a lot into it as well.
Petco is much closer to neutral now with the addition of a giant video screen in LF and office towers built in the area.
Yes; Petco is hardly a pitchers park these days; only slightly, after drawing in the fences and the changes you mentioned.
or the fact that a lot of the innings are in low pressure situations where they’re replaced the starter in the 5th and they’re already down by 4-5 runs. Yates didn’t look so good when he became the closer and had to come in with the game (however meaningless it was) on the line.