The Padres announced they’ve recalled top prospect C.J. Abrams from Triple-A El Paso. Right-hander Reiss Knehr was optioned out in a corresponding transaction. The moves allow the club to comply with the league’s newly-implemented limit of 13 pitchers on an active roster.
Abrams returns to the big leagues a bit more than five weeks after being optioned out. The former sixth overall pick bypassed Triple-A entirely to crack the Opening Day roster. His lack of experience against upper-level pitching showed, however, as Abrams scuffled to a .182/.270/.273 line through his first 20 MLB games. The Friars eventually decided it better to get him regular run in Triple-A, and Abrams has responded with an impressive showing.
Through 151 plate appearances with the Chihuahuas, Abrams hit .314/.364/.507. He popped seven home runs while nabbing ten bases in 13 attempts and only striking out in 16.6% of his trips to the dish. While Abrams didn’t take many free passes, he demonstrated the kind of athleticism, bat-to-ball skills and power potential that has made him one of the game’s consensus top prospects.
Abrams spent the vast majority of his time in El Paso at shortstop, but he picked up two starts apiece at second base and in center field. It was a similar story during his early-season MLB look; he made 13 starts at shortstop, four at the keystone, and a lone outing in right field. The Friars have been without Fernando Tatís Jr. all year, leaving them to rely on the combination of Ha-Seong Kim and Abrams at shortstop.
San Diego is now dealing with an injury to their other star left side infielder, as Manny Machado sprained his left ankle yesterday. The Padres haven’t placed Machado on the injured list, but they’ll turn to Abrams at shortstop and Kim at the hot corner tonight against the Diamondbacks. That’d figure to be a regular combination if Machado is forced to miss an extended amount of time.
From a service time perspective, Abrams’ optional assignment lasted long enough to delay his path to free agency by a season. Even if he’s now in the majors for good, he won’t accrue enough MLB time to reach a full year of service this season. His earliest path to free agency eligibility is now after the 2028 campaign, although Abrams would be a lock for early arbitration as a Super Two qualifier following the 2024 season if he sticks in the majors. It’s possible that further struggles against MLB pitching and/or the eventual return of Tatís could lead to Abrams being optioned back to the minors at some point down the line, which may affect that trajectory.
All I am hoping for is a .275/.340/.460 line. If he actually brings his bat to MLB with him this time he is easily capable of that.
That’s like a 150 ops+ in this year’s offensive climate…
The team could also really use some SBs from CJ. Manny was the team leader in steals, which says a lot about the rest of the team.
As for Kim at 3B. That’s the position he played most in Korea, not SS. He played a few games there last year and looked really good. To bad he can’t hit much.
He has been the MLBs unluckiest player look at his Babip… if he had an avg Babip he be OPSing close to or over .800… even at Colorado he was robbed of at least a triple and at least a double by absolutely play of the year type CFer highlight plays…after being robbed of a HR in the last home stand.. Kim has done a solid job replacing one of the games super stars and his 12 DRS on Defense have been a welcomed sign
Good to see ya, Henry.
You’re right, of course. Kim has been a night and day different hitter this year. He’s not to the level he was in the KBL, i.e. he was a legend there, but he’s hitting fastballs a lot better, and not getting fooled as much. He is still somewhat of an overpay, but that could still change.
Look at BA – xBA to determine luck, not BABIP.
That is an OPS of .800, which seems very optimistic for a 21 year old rookie who already has 65 plate appearances with a .543 OPS.
Manny Machado is the only Padre with an OPS over .800. The team is overall at .704 in 2022.
I am a Padres fan, and I think that my peers need to step up their commenting game. Some of you are making us look bad.
I’m a Giants fan but live in SD area and follow Padres just as closely. I have noticed that Padres fans in MLBTR are some of the more insightful, respectful and knowledgeable fans commenting here, so I don’t get your offensiveness. Javia is hoping for that stat line, optimistic maybe, but we can all root for CJ to break out and put up good numbers this time around.
FINE! .270/.330/.400. Is that too much to ask? MJ Melendez has an .804-OPS with a .254 average and 6-HR!
How dare you call us respectful, Ya big jerk!
Can somebody please translate Brew’s 3 letter words for me?
3 syllable words!! The joke is ruined, hand me the dunce cap.
@ damascusj. My wife is a die-hard Padre fan, and ISN”T respectful. But you guys are great! Unless it’s the Dodgers we’re talking about of course.
@ Gwynnin’
For 4 minutes you had me panning my post for 3 letter words, “but”, “the”, “and”. I was hoping someone would attempt to translate them for you.
Reverse the 2nd and 3rd numbers in each slash and that’s what I’d be hoping for, realistically.
That’s it !
It’s great news manny avoided anything serious.and is day to day for now. CJ is learning and adjusting to the majors so excited to see him grow .
Curious as to why Pads have not yet put Machado on IL yet… ankle sprain severity can be difficult to gage initially I guess
Manny not on the IL is kind of an early sign that he maybe back sooner than later..otherwise why would Padres go a man short on their roster… Lets Go Padres!
They would only IL him immediately if they felt they needed another IF/bat. I think with the MLB roster/pitching change pending (i.e. down to 13 pitchers max on the roster, or was it 12?), they just sent Knehr a day early and pulled Abrams back up for expediency.
Serious sprains result in severe, immediate swelling. XRAY’s can’t be accurately read until after the swelling recedes a bit. I think the doctors will be looking for hairline fractures around the ankle and fibula, and then Preller will make the move based upon that assessment. It ~~~ could ~~~ be a 10 day IL situation, but even then, he’d probably be restricted to DH for a while, as his mobility will definitely be impacted for 4 to 6 weeks. (How do I know these things? Well, I’ve still wearing metal in my left ankle and leg from a similar, but more serious injury 15 years ago. When the ankle goes on a severe break, the fibula almost always goes with it, or so I was told by my doc. The stress of the hyper flexing ankle pulls and breaks the fibula, too.
In any case, when Manny goes on the IL, it’ll be retroactive to last Sunday in any case.
He is walking around the clubhouse wtf.. Manny “Superman” Machado!.. stay off of it bro..give it another day…. Jesus that’s great news even if he goes on the IL for 10 is a big W ..Good to see you here Salty old man
Padres’ Manny Machado: Not starting Monday
Rotowire 1 HR AGO
Machado (ankle) is on the bench for Monday’s game against Arizona, Kevin Acee of The San Diego Union-Tribune reports.
Machado left Sunday’s game against the Rockies with a left ankle sprain after he stepped awkwardly on first base. He doesn’t yet have a clear timeline for his return, but he’ll miss at least one game, with acting manager Ryan Flaherty saying the team was optimistic he’d be able to avoid the injured list, per AJ Cassavell of MLB.com. CJ Abrams, who was recalled Monday to give the Padres extra infield depth with Machado unavailable, will enter the lineup at shortstop, with Ha-Seong Kim sliding to cover Machado’s vacated spot at third base
UNBELIEVABLE… JUST WOW!
I had a long history of bad ankle sprains, twas my bugaboo in all sports including baseball at a high level. They are peculiar injuries, where sometimes the ones that are least painful at the time turn out to have more damage, and visa versa. And like Old Salt said, it’s tough to know exactly how he’ll respond until they get good soft-tissue scans/assessment. If he avoided ligament damage, then he might be able to play fairly soon. It might be more about pain management than anything else.
I’ll try to find it and post here but I read a blog by an ex sports doc for SD Chargers who compared this sprain to one that L. Tomlinson had in 2006. LT fought through pain and didn’t miss a game during that remarkable season.
We’ll see. Modern sports franchises err on side of caution with injuries and I suspect the Pads will too, even if Manny wants to play on it.
But yeah, so far, good news.
@Brew They can backdate his IL stint since he won’t be playing today. If they’re not confident tomorrow that they can get him back within a week, then they’ll likely move him to the IL tomorrow.
It just gives them an extra day to monitor his healing before making a decision. They effectively have the same amount of available position players tonight as they have for the last month considering they had to send a pitcher down for a hitter anyways.
Anyone else get blocked by Zach Davies’ mom on Twitter?
What did you say this time?
To her? Nothing.
If you happen to, eventually, tell her I said hi
Somewhat unrelated to this article, but people keep pleading to get Eric Hosmer off this roster but he’s been one of their most consistent hitters all year. He’s one of the reasons why their record is where it is right now. Sure, he doesn’t hit for much power anymore and his defense is average to below average but he has to be 2nd or 3rd on this team in total hits on the season and he’s had some clutch (and gaming winning) hits for them numerous times this year. This is why I hate the WAR stat. Below average defense really impacts WAR as does below average power, but Hosmer has been much more valuable to SD this season than his WAR of 0.9 shows so far. Manny needs to heal quickly and Tatis needs to come back so they can alleviate the pressure on the pitching staff. Hosmer has done his best to do just that this season as the rest of the offense (outside of Manny) has vastly underachieved this season, including Abrams and Kim.
lol
I’m not sure consistent is the word I’d use to describe Hosmer. First 5 weeks of season OPS around .900. Last 6 weeks OPS less than .550., and by far the worst hitter on the team. So in fact, inconsistent. Let’s hope he gets hot again.
If anything, fWAR may underestimate the negative impact of Hosmer’s defense. Some of the easy plays he’s missed this year were things you’d see in a JV game.
Hosmer helped them win in April. Since then they’ve won in spite of him, not because of him.
May: 265/327/327
June: 175/232/222
I mean, there’s no way to spin that. It’s been 7 weeks of atrocious, leavened by the merest handful of good games.
He CAN do better. We saw it in April. We saw it for parts of 2021 and most of 2022 (not the playoffs, when he managed a 501 OPS). But to act like he’s been a major contributor to the team’s success so far….just not true, outside of April.
As for Kim, what’s the complaint? A 95 WRC from your backup SS pressed into everyday duty, who plays good defense and has hit the same # of HR as the starting 1b. That’s better than we had any right to expect. And Abrams, for Pete’s sake, the kid played 42 games at AA before he started in the majors! He spent 2020 in the non-competitive development camp!
Hosmer starts out season tearing it up then back to ground balls a strikeouts .In April I couldn’t believe how fast his bat speed was and now it’s just throw the bat at the ball.
3rd year in a row that I’ve talked a bunch of smack about him in the 2-3 days before opening day, he’s done well on opening day, a bunch of his defenders come at me and then by June he’s back to sucking.
To be faaiiiiirrrr, Hosmer was good almost all of 2020, until he got hurt trying to bunt, and his best month in 2021 was July.
May 2021 was bad.
June 2021 was so bad, it would be hard for him to have been worse without wearing a blindfold. 172/226/230, and he played almost every game.