Padres’ Franchy Cordero Out Of Action Until September

The quad injury recently suffered by Padres outfielder Franchy Cordero while on a rehab assignment will keep him out of action until at least September 1, manager Andy Green told The Athletic’s Dennis Lin (Twitter link) and other reporters.  Cordero has been sidelined for almost three weeks since first hurting his quad, and Green said that the injury also involved some tendon damage.

Cordero initially hit the IL on April 8 after suffering a right elbow sprain, a worrying enough injury given that surgery on that same elbow ended his 2018 season after just 40 games.  He seemed to be on track for a return in June, however, before hurting his quad while trying to beat out a grounder.

It now seems like Cordero will face his second consecutive lost season, a discouraging result for a 24-year-old who has shown some intriguing potential in his young career.  After crushing Triple-A pitching in 2017, Cordero received his first taste of the big leagues that season, and then batted .247/.324/.435 with seven homers in 174 plate appearances in 2018-19.  A whopping 62 of those 174 PA ended in strikeouts, though Cordero made the most of the contact he did make, with a 48.9% hard-hit ball rate over the last two seasons.

While it’s obviously still very early in Cordero’s Major League career and the Padres control him through the 2023 season, Cordero’s checkered injury history isn’t helped his chances of breaking in on a San Diego team that is already crowded with outfield options, both at the big league level and coming up the pipeline of a loaded farm system.  Trades could address this situation, of course, plus there’s the fact that Manuel Margot and Josh Naylor have yet to establish themselves as major league-caliber regulars.  But even assuming Cordero is able to make it back on the field in 2019, he’ll need a healthy and productive Spring Training to re-establish himself as a potential building block.