The Padres have agreed to a minor league contract with right-hander Blake Cederlind, reports Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Twitter link). The Pirates released Cederlind in late May after he struggled through six frames with their Class-A affiliate.
Cederlind, 27, was a fifth-round pick by Pittsburgh back in 2016 who pitched his way into prospect status with excellent 2018 and 2019 showings at the minor league level. The Bucs gave him his big league debut in the shortened 2020 season. The 6’3″ flamethrower with a power sinker pitched four solid innings across five games, allowing two runs on three hits and a walk with four strikeouts.
Unfortunately, that’s the last time Cederlind set foot on a big league mound. He underwent Tommy John surgery the following spring, wiping out his entire 2021 season and a portion of his 2022 campaign. During what was supposed to be his comeback year, Cederlind required a second surgery to remove loose bodies from his elbow. He didn’t throw a pitch in the majors or minors from 2021-22.
Despite Cederlind’s struggles this season — nine runs on six hits, six walks and two hit batters in six innings — the mere fact that he was able to take the mound is a sign of some encouragement. He fanned six of his 31 opponents in A-ball and kept the ball on the ground at a strong 50% clip. Obviously, there are some worrying command issues at play, but that’s not exactly unexpected on the heels of a two-year absence owing to multiple elbow surgeries.
Cederlind has a long road to get back to the Majors, but based on his history when healthy, it’s easy enough to see why the Padres are interested in taking a no-risk flier. Prior to his surgeries, Cederlind sat in the upper 90s with his sinker and was able to reach triple digits. He’s only had six innings of experience in Triple-A thanks to the canceled minor league season in 2020, but he overwhelmed Double-A opponents with a 1.77 ERA, 22.7% strikeout rate, 8.6% walk rate and 48.3% ground-ball rate. It’s not yet clear to which affiliate they’ll sign Cederlind.
Has anyone else ever heard of this guy? Its a minor league deal and he’s likely going to end up with the Storm, but dang the Padres are digging deep with this signing.
Prior to the injury we was a guy that sat high 90s and hit 100 with a bowling ball sinker but some control issues. Have no idea if he is still throwing that hard.
At this point he is a no risk addition to the Padres minor league depth.
Seen him pitch. Looked like a mlb reliever. The ground ball guy when you need a double play type. Had tj or something and haven’t seen him since.
For the pirates to give up on him after losing all those minor league arms in rule 5 draft he must look awful. You would think SD would be at the bottom of a free agent pitchers list. That says a lot. Doesn’t seem promising but wish him luck.
Pads Fans and outinleftfield are the same guy with two different accounts.
Wonder if they have multiple personality disorder. And I wonder how that goes when each other log into their mlbtr account and see the other person already logged in.
At one time he was fairly well regarded as a potential late-inning reliever. Great stuff and was gradually learning to control it. Had he been healthy in 2021 he would have been a strong bullpen candidate for the MLB Bucs, and for as bad as they’ve been in recent years their bullpen hasn’t usually been a weakness.
Whoever thought of him as that should never evaluate prospects again.
Your comments are mostly on point, not sure why you’re so scathing about Monkey’s comment about BC that was pretty accurate.
I tell it like it is. Nothing personal but if you heard he was highly regarded late inning guy you might want to find better sources. Guy had 1 pitch. Heavy fast sinker. It was great and could have kept him in mlb. He wasn’t a late inning guy. Late inning guys have 4 seamers and elite sliders or some swing and miss pitch. He was Jared Hughes 2.0 Didn’t even mention how awful their bullpen was in 2020 2021 2022. BC would be a late inning guy with that bunch. This year he wouldn’t crack their top 5.
“He underwent Tommy John surgery the following spring, wiping out his entire 2021 season and a portion of his 2022 campaign. During what was supposed to be his comeback year, Cederlind required a second surgery to remove loose bodies from his elbow. He didn’t throw a pitch in the majors or minors from 2021-22.”
Hard to pitch in 2021 and 2022 when you’re having procedures done on your arm.
Hope for the best for Cederlind. Was looking forward to him being in the Bucs pen in 2021 but TJ happened. Been issues in rehab since and just hit the mound again in May of this year., Hope he is 100% and can work to get to his old form again.
PTWSTN?
I was surprised that he was dropped so quickly.They had kept him on the 40 man roster the full time that he was hurt in the off seasons.If anything I would have thought they would have given him a full season to see if he had anything left.
I didn’t even know the Pirates released him. I was really hoping he’d comeback successfully after basically not pitching for three straight seasons, even if it was farfetched. Really looked as if he could take over a bullpen role at one point.