Padres manager Bob Melvin spoke today with reporters, including Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune, regarding the status of superstar outfielder Juan Soto, who was pulled from a minor league spring training game on Sunday thanks to a mild left oblique strain. Melvin noted that Soto is set to undergo an MRI, but reaffirmed the club’s belief that the injury is a mild one, and noted that a return to action in time for Opening Day next week is not out of the question.
That’s about as good of news as Padres fans can get ahead of an MRI, as any absence from Soto would be a serious blow for a Padres club that will already play the first twenty games of its season without fellow phenom Fernando Tatis Jr. while he completes his suspension for PED usage. That being said, even if Soto were to begin the season on the injured list, the club would still be set to run out a star-studded roster on Opening Day that includes the likes of Manny Machado, Xander Bogaerts, Yu Darvish, and Josh Hader.
In the event that Soto does miss time, the likes of Jose Azocar and Adam Engel could benefit in terms of playing time as long as he is out. If Soto were to miss enough time that Tatis returns before him, it seems reasonable to expect that Matt Carpenter, currently slated to play right field while Tatis is suspended, would slide over to left to cover for the remainder of Soto’s absence.
More from Padres camp…
- Acee also notes that catcher Austin Nola, who suffered a fractured nose after getting hit in the face with a pitch on Sunday, is expected to return to the field tomorrow for “light work”, with an Opening Day start behind the plate still on the table. Nola, a solid bat-first catcher coming off his first below average offensive season (89 wRC+ in 110 games) in 2022, figures to be the club’s starting catcher this year. San Diego is fortunate to have a quality backup in the form of Luis Campusano should Nola miss any time. If Nola requires a brief stint on the injured list, Brett Sullivan stands to back up as the only other catcher on the 40-man roster unless the Padres decide to make a 40-man roster move to accommodate a non-roster invitee such as Pedro Severino.
- In less fortunate injury news, Dennis Lin of The Athletic notes that lefty reliever Drew Pomeranz is set to miss opening day after feeling some inflammation in his elbow. Pomeranz has been excellent for the Padres when healthy, posting a sterling 1.62 ERA over the past two seasons, but this latest setback adds to the 34 year old’s lengthy injury history that led him to pitch just 44 1/3 innings in that same timeframe. Fortunately for San Diego, Josh Hader and Robert Suarez are certainly a capable tandem for late-inning duties to open the season.
Wow!
Tough break for D Pom…
Carpenter isn’t slated to play any outfield…He hasn’t even stepped foot out there once this spring, only at 1B and azocar and Dahl will get more playing time than Engel
Agree. Why do they keep saying that?
Carpenter has not played even an inning in the outfield unless it’s maybe backfield games
What happened ML? Your other accounts get banned? Carpenter has played 6 “B”. games in RF. Engel is on the 40 man, as is Azocar. If Engel is healthy on opening day he gets the nod.
Matt carpenter is a 1B/DH only and hasn’t stepped foot in the outfield this spring. Feel like anytime I check this site there’s a complete lack of understanding regardless of the team. Azocar and Dahl will both get more playing time than Engel and start in the outfield if Soto is out
Pomeranz has hardly pitched since signing his current contract. Time to either cut him or put him on a reserve list, again.
Matt carpenter will not play in the OF… he hasn’t even played an inning there this spring. Azocar and Dahl are getting the starts and Engel will be on the bench if he even makes the team having missed most of spring so far. Every time I check this site now it seems like there a complete lack of understanding regardless of the team. Just stay out of the conjecture
That is good advice for you to follow ML.
Soto has to hit .400/.500/.600 the next 2 seasons to be worth the trade.
Soto averages an OPS+ of 157. AVERAGES. 2 years of that will be more than worth it to the Padres.
Jose LeClerc has a career 152 ERA+. Have you even heard of him before? 57% isn’t that high. For reference, even Trout is at 176 in his career.
That would be ERA+ for LeClerc, an entirely different stat. Also, LeClerc averaged less than 50-IP per year. Nice try though.
Yeah let’s compare the OPS+ of a hitter who plays nearly every day with the ERA+ of a reliever who pitches 2 or 3 innings in a week.
It’s not that I think Soto isn’t am elite hitter; rather, I believe the quality and quantity of prospects they gave up merit a much higher performance than his career norms.
DTR, Jose LeClerc is a pitcher and has exactly ZERO career PA in the majors. baseball-reference.com/players/l/leclejo01.shtml#b… His OPS+ is also exactly ZERO.
Why even try to say something like that when its so easy to check. Oh, wait, because you will say anything to try to win a point. Well, you lost.
Before he starts play in his age 24 season Soto already has 2667 PA and his career 157 OPS+ places him in the top 10 of all time. He has been better at the plate through his age 23 season than Mantle (156), Ott (153), Foxx (154), Mays (146 – he missed his age 22 season for military service), Aaron (143) and a whole host of other players that are in the HOF today,
In expansion era baseball, meaning after 1960, only Pujols (who entered the league at age 21) and Trout have been better. In more than 70 years, only TWO players have been better at the plate through age 23. That is some exceptional company to keep.
Soto is in such rarefied air, that in a bad season for HIM he was the 8th best hitter in baseball. Think about that. Only 7 guys were better and Soto was considered to be “struggling”.
Last season his “struggles” were of the bad luck variety. His BABIP was 83 points lower than his career average up to that point. 52 points below league average. He was hitting the ball hard and it was being hit at someone.
Part of that was the 52% of the time that an extreme shift was used against him. Guess what? No shift in 2023.
The people that I listen to because they have proven their knowledge of baseball over many decades are saying that we should be expecting a repeat of 2021 or even better from Soto in 2023.
What does that mean? He hit .313/.465/.534/.999 with a 175 OPS+ and 29 HR in 2021. Like I said. Rarefied air.
I just noticed you said ERA+ or at least changed it to ERA+. Guess what, LeClerc has an ERA that is 52% better than league average. That means when he has stayed healthy he has been one of the top relievers in the game. Sadly for him and Rangers fans he cannot stay healthy.
Soto has been healthy. Only a handful of guys in history have as many plate appearances through age 23 and most of them started playing in the 1920s or before and at age 17.
Let me explain something here. I am not saying Soto isn’t great. Again, if you had read the post, I am saying the haul isn’t worth it. Gore was recently a top 10 prospect, and so was Abrams. Wood was ranked 3rd before this year by Baseball Prospectus. Hassell has been consistently a top 100 prospect by all sources. Even Susana has had impressive numbers. The first 2 are already in the big leagues. Yes, Soto is good. No, 2 years of a 157 OPS+ aren’t worth your whole farm ×2. Remember the Ryan Dempster trade? Some really really backfire for teams in win-now mode.
He has averaged that in the past. The future is unknown. He may give you two more Adam Dunn type years. Good, but not superstar great, like last year.
Soto’s worse ops+ of his career is better then Dunn’s best OPS+ of his career. Dumb comp!
Last season he was the 8th best hitter in baseball. That IS a superstar.
Styme – what I don’t get is when people take this approach to one side of the argument but can’t seem to apply it to the other. What is the percentage of even top prospects becoming all star players at mlb; Gore is looking bad in ST (again) and has health and finding the plate issues; Wood is still young and unknown as is Hassell; Abrams looks like what he was – the key to the trade but like you said, the future is unknown for these guys too.
As a long time Padre fan and ST attendee, I considered these guys the future of my favorite MLB team so I have nothing but love for them and I check their stats every day (same for Cleveland and Settle since they have a similar guys).
So my post has nothing to do with these particular guys – just the shortsighted approach to point out that the future is unknown for Soto (or insert any player in a trade) while then acting as if those elite prospects are going to dominate for 10-15 years just because they are elite prospects.
What with all the oblique strains the spring
You’re not a phenom if you do drugs. Do better, MLBTR.
Not condoning the PED usage but no evidence to suggest he used them to get to where he was pre-2022 which is definitely a “phenom” status.
He is clean and looking like pre 2022 which is still “phenom” at his age if he does produce that way.
Padres should expect nothing from Pomeranz. Nola and Soto will be back soon enough.
As for Tatis, he shouldn’t even be suspended. Why can’t players take a drug/medication that makes them heal faster as long as it’s out of their system before playing? It’s like outlawing a surgery because it works too well.
Hey, man, do cocaine to help your add…but just not during the regular season!
Lots of “the likes of” here. I likes it.
Pomeranz will not pitch again except in an old times softball game.
Padres game just ended a few minutes ago on a chilly night here in Peoria. Final score was 14-2. So why am I mentioning just another spring training game?
Anyone remember a kid named Anderson Espinoza? This spring he pitched in one inning in late February and got torched. He hasn’t been seen in the stadium games since. Until tonight.
In tonight’s game he went 4 innings and gave up 4 balls in play. Not hits, balls in play. He struck out 5 and walked one on a pitch that would have been a strike to most umpires. He gave up just one hit. He sat 99-99 mph and threw just 26 pitches, 22 for strikes. It was a remarkable 4 shutout innings.
Don’t sleep on Espinoza. His career is not over and he is just 25.
Do you remember when Tatis was 0 for 16 and people where saying he was washed up without ringworm medicine? Well, he has gone 8/15 since then with a 1.426 OPS. I guess he remembered how to hit.
Pads – I was at ST last week and tried to catch glimpses of his workouts because of the history.
I too watched the first 6 innings last night (I’m on CST) and what he did was remarkable and a lot of hope for seeing some action this year. Maybe if Darvish and Musgrove and Pomeranz aren’t ready, a spot start.
Teheran pretty much the same story in ST only without the Padres history to go along with it.
Classy. Sarcastically insinuating that prolonged injury for a player would be favorable.
Reply to the inimitable saratoga
Matt Carpenter has quite possibly the weakest arm in all of baseball. He’s not suited to play a moment in left field let alone right field.
Classy. Sarcastically insinuating that prolonged injury for a player would be favorable.
Oh! My apologies. Its 2023 and I’m gun shy. Too much twitter
“Fortunate” to have Campusano?
The local paper discussed Campusano having emotional/mental issues that damages his ability to communicate and keep his mind in the game, especially as the game progresses. The pitchers were reported to quietly dislike throwing to him. If he can hit, move him to left once they unload Trent Grisham.
He is 24-years old and still has issues that are quite foreboding. Someone didn’t do their homework while scouting him or, worse, it has started to be a problem.
Psychological problems that surface in males 20-25 years old are usually bad ones.
This could be an E-ticket ride if this continues.
What local paper was that? Nothing that said anything close to that about Campusano in the SDUT.
Here are the articles in the local newspaper that mention Campusano in the last week.
sandiegouniontribune.com/sports/padres/story/2023-…
sandiegouniontribune.com/sports/padres/story/2023-…
sandiegouniontribune.com/sports/padres/story/2023-…
So which one was it?
@CrikesAlready
Do you happen to have a link for that? I Googled it and found nothing but a Twitter opinion piece. Do you have anything else?