The Padres announced they’ve optioned right-hander Dinelson Lamet to Triple-A El Paso. The move clears an active roster spot for Robinson Canó, whose previously-reported major league contract has been made official. San Diego already had an opening on the 40-man roster.
It’s a disappointing and somewhat surprising development for Lamet, who’s only two years removed from a fourth-place finish in NL Cy Young award balloting. He made 12 starts and threw 69 innings of 2.09 ERA ball that season, punching out an excellent 34.5% of batters faced along the way. That seemed to cement him as a key piece of the organization’s long-term rotation, but he dealt with arm issues during the postseason that set him off track.
Lamet wound up not appearing in a playoff game that year, and he had a pair of injured list stints due to forearm inflammation last season. The second of those stints cost him more than two months between July and September, and he didn’t have time to return to the rotation once healthy. Lamet worked in relief for the 2021 campaign’s final month, and he’s begun this season in that role as well.
The 2022 campaign has been a disaster, as Lamet has been tagged for ten runs in 8 1/3 innings across ten appearances. He has struck out ten batters and induced swinging strikes at an excellent 16% clip, but he’s also issued seven walks and coughed up a pair of home runs. As he’s struggled, Lamet has fallen towards the bottom of the bullpen depth chart and been consigned primarily to lower-leverage work. He’ll now lose his roster spot altogether and head back to the minors for the first time since he was called up in May 2017 (aside from injury rehab assignments).
If the Friars had lost faith in Lamet for the moment, however, optioning him now is a sensible decision. Players with five-plus years of big league service cannot be optioned without their consent, and the 29-year-old is very near that threshold. Lamet entered the season with four years and 130 days of service, and he’s accrued roughly 36 more days this year. Players reach a full service year at 172 days, meaning he’s about six days shy of the five-year mark. Had the Padres kept Lamet around another week or so, they would no longer have been able to make a unilateral decision to send him down.
It’s possible Lamet’s tenure in the organization could be nearing its end regardless, as the Friars have reportedly discussed him in trade talks in recent weeks. Lamet is making just shy of $5MM this season, and San Diego’s luxury tax number is underneath the base $230MM threshold by the narrowest of margins. Whether anyone would pick up the entirety of Lamet’s salary after his difficult start to the season isn’t clear, but perhaps another team would take a buy-low flier to grab an obviously talented pitcher controllable through 2023 if the Pads are desperate to move him for payroll reasons.
Just saying…
Don’t they get this walking medicine cabinet for minimum salary?
No worries, he’ll find a vein
That’s cold. Accurate and funny, but cold.
This dudes still in baseball, Pete Rose, maybe one of the best in history, is still not in the HOF
It feels wrong
Bauer is out of baseball now too. Think of the similarities. Maybe if Pete Rose didn’t diddle kids he would be apart of the game still today. There is a whole lot more to Pete Rose being banned than just gambling. Overall he is just water trash.
This is a sick & twisted accusation on Pete Rose. You’d better be able to back it up.
Gambling itself is enough for a lifetime ban.
Rose deserves his lifetime ban.
It’s fairly common knowledge Pete Rose had a relationship with a 14 year old…
“It’s fairly common knowledge” Gee, is that enough to convict someone of a serious sex crime? sacball don’t post garbage
Sorry but 2020 was not a real season, what Lamet did that year is meaningless and his other seasons prove it.
Lest we forget JBJ put up an .814 OPS in 2020 while JD Martinez had a .680 OPS that year.
No it isn’t meaningless. It doesn’t mean as muc as a full season, but 37% of a full season is still somewhat valid, taking into account that it was slightly more than 1/3 of a season.
As evidence, look at the batting leaders from 2020. They include Betts, Soto, Freeman, Trea Turner, all guys that you’d expect to be there at the top at the end of a full season. If it was meaningless you’d have more random guys that wouldn’t normally lead a batting category at the end of a 162 game season.
He definitely messed around with at least one underaged girl.
Not sure about “fairly common knowledge” nor am I sure if he actually did it but there were certainly accusations.
Whether he messed around with an underage girl or not, it remains that he’s deplorable human being. Read the couple of essays on Rose in George Wills’ book, “Bunts”, if you need proof.
Plus people seem to forget, Rose voluntarily accepted the lifetime ban, in exchange for the investigation into his activities remaining undisclosed. Just my guess, but every commissioner since has seen that evidence, which is why the ban remains.
Pete Rose was definitely not one of the best in history. He wasn’t even the best player on his own team, neither the Reds nor Phillies. Though I suppose that depends on how far you want to go down the list.
FSF:
Yeah, you make a good point. I was surprised Rose’s career OPS+ was only 118, tied for 411th all time. That ties him with guys like Tulowitsky, Grandal, and Justin Upton.
That might be misleading since his career was so long, and he definitely tailed off towards the end. But, even then, up to 1979, when it was 130, his career OPS+ was 126. Had he retired then he would have been tied for 239th all time, with guys like Ellis Burks, and Mark Teixiera.
google.com/amp/s/sports.yahoo.com/amphtml/pete-ros…
Pretty open and shut case to me. His defense was the relationship didn’t start until the girl was 16, when he was 34 married with 2 kids.
Lol… better be able to back it up? Or else what? what are you gonna do?
You realize there is a thing called Google to look this stuff up? Maybe you should try it some time…
Interesting point. Also, looking at his stats it looks like he got about 500+ hits after he was below league average.
My apologies sacball, I never heard any of these charges against Rose. They are disturbing & I don’t often eat my words, but I do now. As I grow older I try to use the internet more, but I don’t always find it trust worthy. Although never charged he admits it. I’ve lost a little more in the faith of humanity. We all do things we’re ashamed of, but I was unaware of this.
Cover-ups were a lot easier before the internet.
Walking medicine cabinet is one of the best insults I’ve heard in awhile
Subtraction by addition
Well, I am glad that the Padres stepped up and signed Cano
There was some sort of scary rumor that the Orioles were interested in Cano and were going to sign him
wouldn’t want him taking ABs from Odor after all…
We don’t need him!!!
If we sign anyone like Cano (meaning name recognition) it would be Justin Upton
Don’t worry about the sarcasm Lefty. The Orioles are improving and everyone can see it.
Hahaha, sarcasm lol
Orioles have a lot of young talent and don’t need Cano to mess that up.
I believe this would be an unprecedented scenario but what happens if Cano is popped for PEDs again? Would he get to keep all his guarantees because the Mets released him or does he lose it all because the next suspension would effectively wipe out pretty much the remaining amount of the contract?
Because if he gets it either way, I’m sure he will be juicing again which I guess is good for Preller but if not, then I have no idea what Preller was thinking in signing this clown.
He’d lose whatever portion of his salary that would have been paid during any suspension period. The Mets will still be paying Cano according to his contract (players don’t get a lump sum of their remaining contract when they are released).
So, if Cano gets suspended either this year or next year, he’ll lose some salary.
Thanks for the clarification!
if he gets popped, he loses both the prorated league minimum the pads are paying him, along with what the mets still owe him.
funny enough, had he said “forget it” and stay home, really wouldn’t be subject to drug testing, but since he’s now active and has prior fails, he’ll be tested more often than regular players are.
mets would love for him to fail, though (not only do they get out of paying him the rest of the money, they get luxury tax relief, and even bonus money since the mariners are paying them 7.5 million of his salary over the next 2 years).
so when he got popped for 2021, not only did the mets not have to pay him, but they even got $3.75 million from the mariners (because instead of the mariners paying him every 2 weeks, they simply cut the mets a check at the end of the season instead. in hindsight, bet the mariners wish they went for the inconvenience of cutting him a check every 2 weeks for the portion of his salary they picked up. would have saved them some money).
oh yeah, next failed test is lifetime ban, with minimum of 2 years before you can reapply, so he’d lose rest of his owed money.
@censorship – If the Mariners pre-paid any of Cano’s salary to the Mets and Cano was suspended, the Mets, by league rules, would owe that money back to Seattle. So I don’t see how the Mets could have made money off of Seattle. Their payment schedule doesn’t matter. They are paying part of his salary for the full year and if Cano was suspended, both New York and Seattle’s payroll obligations go away for the period he was suspended for. If Seattle didn’t structure their payment as a payroll offset then that was a terrible decision by their front office.
Funny thing is, his salary only gets docked on game days. Days off he still gets paid, or at least that’s how his previous suspension worked.
So who’s he gonna take away at bats from? Or is this a “cHaNgE of ScENERy” thing and miraculously gonna start hitting???? #letthekidsplay
My guess is that he will be the platoon DH with Voit. Only Preller could come up with taking up 2 platooning guys solely at the DH position. If either actually takes the field, then it’s even a worse idea than exclusively taking up 2 spots to platoon at DH. Nice way to paint yourself into a corner, AJ.
Wouldn’t be the first time he’s done that. He seems to trade for or sign players and then look for a way for them to fit later. There’s no plan, it’s just one coke-fuelled binge after another.
Cocaines one hell of a drug.
Just when you think Preller is starting to get in, he makes bonehead moves like this one. If/when either Cano or Voit fail and end up getting released, you know Preller is going to go to the Yankees and try to get Gallo from them. If the Yankees are willing to pay most of Gallo’s salary, Preller is dumb enough to give them a decent prospect or two for Gallo.
If the Padres miss the playoffs this year, or if they get swept in a wild card series opener, Preller may finally get fired.
Get him stretched out to start again. We have a few pitchers on rehab assignments at present. Snell, Morejon, Baez and at least one other. Trade capital at least.
Nah, he’ll just get hurt again and be the 9th pitcher on the rotation
Option Lemet and sign Cano. In 2022. Baseball is a beautiful but strange game.
One more PED bust and they’ll have to rename it to Stanozolmao..
On a roster with so many sub-Mendoza batting averages, he’s worth a shot at roughly $500k. Likely unemployed in conjunction with Tatis’ activation.
It is my humble opinion that Lamet has needed surgery since late ’20 and he, by all appearances, refuses to go under the knife. On the heels of reading about overreactions on other posts, I’m afraid Lamet might be toast until he fixes the whip. I hope I’m wrong.
If I’m not misremembering, didn’t the club basically recommend TJ or some kind of surgery and the player rejected it? It’s obvious to anyone that something is seriously off. He’s not the same guy at all.
What the team actually recommended is a mystery shrouded in a HIPAA cloak that encircled around ligament damage (not just a biceps issue as reported at the time) but Lamet opted for PRP injections over surgery. He simply hasn’t been the same since and it is sad. He was on a train to greatness before getting derailed.
His agent is pretty stupid then. Any pitcher with more than 2 years of team control should immediately get TJ when there is a UCL damage because he still gets paid, gets service time and has time to recover.
Now he is almost 30 and might need TJ in his free agency which is the worst that can happen to his value.
Very negligent by his agent to not recommend TJ to him, that could cost him a lot of money.
He’s controlled through ’23 but what you said is what I’ve felt for almost 20 months, dominik. In discussions with knowledgeable others, we have pretty much come to the conclusion that Lamet is happy with his career earnings to date and has an adverse objection to any surgery. Sounds silly, I know. Just the conclusion that our assembled “brain-trust” came to. (They have the brains and trust me, I don’t!)
dominikk85:
Why are you assuming the agent didn’t recommend surgery? And whether he did or didn’t, it’s still the player’s decision. Seems to me the stupidity rests with player. Even if the agent recommended against surgery, why would anyone take the advice of a non-medical person for a medical issue?
Medical professionals don’t always agree. They’re humans, not robots. “wHy wOuLdNt hE tRuSt mEdIcAl pRoFeSsIoNaLs” sounds ignorant without know their advice
Wow, what insight. Medical professionals can disagree? What sounds ignorant is believing anyone in that situation wouldn’t pursue a second, or even a third opinion.
It’s very sad to see Lamet struggling this much. He was really great in 2020.
Don’t the Padres already have too many position players? A guy like Kim or Abrams are doing bad because they don’t play everyday when they should, so adding another platoon into the mix doesn’t help their cause. This kind of logjam is why they ultimately don’t get success out of their players. Probably why they missed the playoffs too
The Pads are actually thin on position depth. Abrams is on AAA team to get daily ABs, which he needs. But I can’t imagine Cano starting many games other than at DH
Sadly, he’s nearing the end of his major league carreer.
Lamet or Canó or both?
Cano. Its up to Lamet at this point
Shoulda got the surgery, His arm is toast. Very unfortunate situation
As I read all the negative comments about Cano I’m curious to know if it’s because he cheated and got caught twice, or was he a bum in NY, a clubhouse problem? Besides being a cheater why all the hate?
To my knowledge, he’s never been a clubhouse problem. In fact, quite the opposite amongst the stories I’ve heard and read. Newsday had a nice article a week ago or so saying how Mets players will miss Cano. As with all sports, I think some portion of every fanbase is truly fanatical and blinded by varying degrees of hate. At this point, I just hope Cano can help win games and I’m definitely not worried about his clubhouse presence.
Personally I’d rather just not have drug cheats on the team. Especially ones that are old and suck. But that’s just me.
Hard to argue, uk… but I’m inclined to let the system speak for the players. He’s paid his penance and (just like the League) I’ll give him one last chance.
That’s fair. I guess I just don’t agree with the system. For me, caught once might be a genuine mistake (small chance but hard to be 100% certain), twice should be a lifetime ban and HOF ineligibility, IMO.
I’d be 100% ok with that in the new/next CBA. As a player I never cheated (and never would) and if I were an owner I’d still want that. The only “problem” with only 2 strikes is if the 2nd was accidental (like you explained above, just flipped)… be good UK, catch you around amigo!
He’s just not good anymore.
A month ago I thought Lamet for Voit was a decent trade. I think Cashman played this one right in taking Lange.
Did Cashman have the option (or interest) of Lamet for Voit?
Idk. When the Voit/SD rumor began I suggested that the need,money and risk of the two were comparable. A month later neither would make the Yanks a better team now so the potential upside of Lange seems like the better value.
The fact that this news is barely a blip on the radar is incredible considering how pitching starved the team was last season. What a difference a year makes.
Let him juice. Let all the players juice at this point. All the sacred HR records have already been broken so who cares? I was born in 1985 so My generation of baseball growing up was the steroid era and honestly it was the most entertaining stretch of baseball I have ever watched. So who cares…it’s all for entertainment anyway.
No need, they’ll just swap the dead balls out for the live ones when they feel like it’s time for more offense.
Exactly YCPIITB..Last night, I was watching the Padres-Braves game, and Ozuna absolutely crushed a ball..and it didn’t even make it to the track..the cameras got his reaction afterwards, as he looked into the dugout and said “wow” in disbelief..It’s sad what MLB is doing to the balls right now..Personally, I wonder if it’s their way of keeping contracts down..
That’s an interesting motive, @tippin. The same thing happened to Alonso last night. I hadn’t thought about it until you mentioned it though… So, MLB suppresses full season numbers (and negotiating leverage of the players) by using dead balls early on. Then, MLB will switch back to the normal ball and employ the “once it heats up” rhetoric in the summer months, thus placing some doubt in the dead ball theory and ensuring players and fans don’t get fed up. It’s a conspiracy theory of sorts, but one I’m starting to believe more and more.
They are very harmful to the body and we should not encourage young kids that this is the way to get ahead.
I heard Addison Russell is looking for a job… maybe AJ can sign him too
Big difference between taking steroids to make yourself better and beating the crap out of your wife on a nightly basis….
And to cutoff your question….yes I have a very real problem with Chapman and German having roster spots still.
You may want to read the entire Russell situation. I still felt that the Cubs should have cut Russell Vs bringing him back after his suspension but Russell didn’t beat his wife nightly. Not that it’s right but the abuse was neglect and verbal. There was a claim of Russell physically grabbing her hair but that was disputed by her friends who also said she was the instigator in many cases as well.
And on the topic, Chapman got mad, went into his garage and popped off a couple rounds. It’s my understand that he never laid a finger on his girlfriend.
It’s been hard to watch Lamet struggle lately. He us to throw a wipe out slider, and hit the high 90’s with his fastball. Now he’s reduced to a change up that everybody just sat on. He’s getting way too much money for he’s produced.
Are Lamet’s problems bc of injuries or no sticky icky? He was amazing in 2020…
Lamet has had a partially torn UCL since the end of 2020.
Lamet should SP in AAA 2 or 3 times hopefully dominate and AJP can then trade him for an ok OFer or a spec OFer that is blocked somewhere
Sure, and while he’s at it maybe he can trade some spoiled carne asada burritos for Mike Trout.
I didn’t see that happening, ya CANO?
Please don’t do that again….
Ya CANO, he probably RobinHisson PEDs to buy another year
Hate to say it, because I like Lamet..but time to trade him..if I were in his shoes, I’d be pissed..and you can’t have that rubbing off in the clubhouse..
This is what you get when a franchise is run by offshoots of the Rangers’ braintrust. Hopefully Lamet can get far away from this group of idiots soon and try to get his career started again. It still perplexes me that an opwnership group can look at the Rangers, see what an absolute mess the player development program is and say – I want that. The Rangers are 6 years deep into a rebuild and have the likes of Martin Perez fronting the rotation. The Rangers spent half a billion dollars on FA bats and still cant hit. And the Padres want to be that.