The Padres announced their active roster for the upcoming Seoul Series against the Dodgers. As was previously reported, San Diego officially selected the contracts of prospects Jackson Merrill and Graham Pauley. The Friars also added minor league signee Tyler Wade to their 40-man roster, which is up to 39 players.
San Diego placed a trio of players on the injured list. Infielder Tucupita Marcano landed on the 10-day IL. He tore his ACL last August and is nowhere near ready. Pitchers Luis Patiño and Glenn Otto each went on the 15-day injured list. Otto has a teres major strain in his throwing shoulder; Patiño is battling elbow inflammation. San Diego also optioned reliever Woo-Suk Go to Triple-A El Paso. He won’t be on the roster for the team’s series in his home country after allowing six runs in 4 1/3 innings this spring.
Merrill, 20, will open the year as San Diego’s starting center fielder. The top prospect earned that assignment with a .351/.400/.595 showing in 13 Spring Training contests. Merrill hit .277/.326/.444 with 15 homers in 511 plate appearances between High-A and Double-A a season ago. That’s impressive production given his youth, and Merrill was regarded as one of the better pure hitters in the minors.
There’s nevertheless plenty of risk with the move. Merrill didn’t log a single inning in center field in his minor league career and has yet to play above Double-A. San Diego hasn’t been afraid of aggressively promoting its top minor league talents in recent years. Merrill should slot between Fernando Tatis Jr. and Jurickson Profar in the Opening Day lineup. San Diego is still looking into the possibility of a left field upgrade, as they were reportedly in contact with Tommy Pham over the weekend.
Wade, 29, gets back to the majors for what’ll be the eighth straight season. The lefty-hitting utilityman has primarily worked off the bench over his career with the Yankees, Angels and A’s. He appeared in 26 games with Oakland last season, hitting .255/.309/.314. Wade has a middling .217/.293/.300 batting line in just over 700 major league plate appearances.
He earned a season-opening roster spot with an impressive showing this spring. Wade hit .294/.351/.471 over 14 exhibition contests. The Padres aren’t counting on him to make much of an impact offensively, but he provides a speed and defense element off the bench. Wade can play virtually anywhere aside from catcher. He’ll offer a complement to Pauley at third base and Merrill in center field late in games. Wade is out of options, so now that he secured a 40-man spot, the Padres would need to expose him to waivers if they wanted to take him off the major league roster.
Rule 5 pick Stephen Kolek nabbed a spot in the Opening Day bullpen. He should soon get an opportunity to make his major league debut, perhaps against the team that drafted him. Kolek was an 11th-round pick of the Dodgers in 2018. L.A. dealt him to the Mariners for cash early in the 2021 campaign. Kolek turned in a 3.76 ERA over 69 1/3 innings of relief between the top two minor league levels last season. He tossed 5 2/3 scoreless frames this spring, albeit with four walks.
Psyched for Wade. His defense was stellar at 3b in ST. His bat was iffy. Small sample size maybe so a little hope.
Also an OF/SS/2b option.
Wade has been a spring training superstar with the bat since 2015 and a dud in the regular season. Hopefully a little of that carries over, but I don’t have much faith him after all these seasons.
A wide open 40 spot… for Sunshine?
He never played for the Rangers, so no.
Rookie of the year odds?
Yoshinubu
Shota
Jackson
Jackson
Yuki
Go
No Go
I just read that he was optioned to AAA
I’ll play the odds and say Jackson.
Wonder what the odds are a Jackson wins one or even both?
+8000 for Jackson Merrill of winning ROY.
+850 for Jackson Chourio
Yamamoto is the favorite at +180
At +100,000 for a Jackson Merrill MVP this season, $10 bet would earn you enough to buy season tickets for the Padres.
Wyatt Langford
@veej that would be impressive. Winning NL ROY while playing in the AL.
He could win both if the Rangers trade him after game 81.
He could also have a brain aneurysm before big league play and make the entire discussion moot.
Which is probably more likely.
He could also catch a case of Byron Buxtonitist.
I think Langford is Judge in the making. But he will have figured it out 8 years earlier
No Lee?
@coop Forgot about him. He should actually be top 3
Cooper
Sorry! Forgot Lee!
The Friars have had a very effective, nuanced off-season. I think the only teams that did better are the Dodgers and SF Giants. I fully expect the Pads to grab one of the NL Wild card spots.
How does Tyler Wade keep getting jobs
Defense and versatility.
Plus a bit of speed too.
He’s not even a good fielder per stats was awful so many years on the Yankees you’d think they can do better with their utility guy than sub .600 OPS
Good question he’s useless
Lefty bat and utility glove will keep you rostered for a long time.
Same reason Profar keeps getting jobs – Padres have no organization OF depth…..or even enough bodies to fill out a lineup.
Is that why he made the Yankees roster 5 straight years?
I’m very interested to see what Jackson Merrill does this season. In the small sample size I’ve seen I like what I see.
The Padres agree with you.
Random question about quadruple-A former Yankees, but did anybody sign Clint “Jackson” Frazier to a minor league deal for this year? Or is he out of baseball entirely?
Trillionaire, in half the time it took you to pose that question Google would have told you Frazier is currently a FA.
Ah but that’s not interactive. You answering this is interactive. And now we are talking and we are laughing.
Works 60% of the time, every time.
I love seeing young players get an opportunity. Best of luck Mike Shildt and San Diego. The division is tough and seemingly getting tougher, but I fully expect a vastly different looking Padres team this season. I expect them to scrap and brawl unlike last year.
.. so I suppose, the secondary question is, will Melvin’s Giants be as chill in 2024 like the Padres laid down in 2023. Even with his success with the A’s, Melvin must be rev’d up to prove something with the Giant’s this year.
Good competition.. Good luck to the Giants, Padres, DBack, even the Rockies. (GTH, Dodgers. 🙁 )
Really happy to see Pauley get a shot. Lesser heralded than Merrill, but I like the bat even more.
They both made it to the show, pretty quickly. However, Merrill was just out of high school when Pauley was about to graduate from a very good Duke Uni baseball program. Different strokes to the Majors, but definitely, it’ll be fun to watch and see what they can do.
Absolutely. I’m always partial to a late-draft MLB success and Pauley has done nothing but hit in affiliate ball.
Anyone know why Go was optioned to el paso?
Perhaps to regain his breaking ball location. He hung a few this spring
@brew88 yeah I read that after I posted this. It won’t let me delete it. Appreciate the response.
There were references that Go was having particular trouble adjusting to the differences between a smaller KBO ball, and the MLB ball (i.e. I think it’s very slight difference in size, but more in the seems). Think of the challenges Kim had coming over to SD, then put that same thing on a closing pitcher. Even Matsui very humbly pointed out when someone was signing his MLB praises, that he expected the path to the Majors to be a significant challenge, and I don’t believe he was being typical-Japanese humble. Not surprised with Go’s assignment, nor concerned. With his track record in the KBO, he knows how to produce and he knows how to handle pressure. The other stuff, and there’s lots of other stuff, make take a bit more time.
Well said
grrrr, SEAMS are not “seems” (hate it when I do that kinda stuff, and don’t catch it)
I’m sure everyone knows what you meant. The grammar police on here gets really annoying
He was having a problem adjusting to the MLB ball. It’s a larger ball with lower seams. His spin rate was down substantially across the board, so he was not getting the same movement on his pitches. Seems like he did not have enough time to adjust in spring training.
When he was on, his stuff was fantastic and he had good velo. He will be back in a couple of weeks. Maybe by the home opener.
Just waiting for someone to make the pun … “Woo Su(c)k! Go!”
It wasn’t a given that Pauley would be promoted so this is probably biggest news of day. Though of all the rookies, he had least to prove in minors. He’s not rostered to PH, he’ll play. Excited for Kolek. I don’t see Estrada mentioned in article but he was retained on OD roster too.
Estrada was the guy I wanted to see added so thanks 4 update there. I hope Kolek earned the bullpen spot as I don’t want to see Padres waste a 26 man roster spot just to retain a rule 5 guy.
It was mentioned that the hole Wilson left in the pen is being filled by Estrada. He has big swing and miss stuff. He just needs to harness it.
Kolek definitely earned his spot. Dude was great all spring, didn’t even give up a run.
Yikes, for sure I would have thought Go would at least get a chance to pitch at home. Bad job on SD’s part from a human perspective. How many friends and family came out to see this guy only to hear he was demoted.