The Padres announced that they’ve optioned Stephen Kolek, Ron Marinaccio, Luis Campusano and Connor Joe to Triple-A El Paso. None of those players will start the season on the major league roster.
Kolek’s demotion is most notable, as it essentially finalizes the Opening Day rotation. Kyle Hart and Randy Vásquez will open the year as the respective fourth and fifth starters behind Dylan Cease, Michael King and Nick Pivetta. (Kevin Acee of The San Diego Union-Tribune wrote earlier this evening that the team was leaning in that direction.) There were two spots up for grabs with Yu Darvish beginning the season on the injured list as he battles elbow inflammation.
A 2023 Rule 5 pick, Kolek spent last season in the MLB bullpen. He posted a 5.21 ERA across 46 2/3 innings. While Kolek’s 18.5% strikeout rate was mediocre, he got ground-balls at an excellent 55.9% clip. He showed enough that the Padres built him back up as a starter this spring. Kolek had a good camp, pitching 12 1/3 innings of three-run ball with a 61.5% ground-ball rate.
That evidently wasn’t enough to leapfrog Hart and Vásquez on the depth chart. Hart, a 32-year-old southpaw, signed a $1.5MM free agent deal after spending last season in Korea. His four career major league appearances came with the Red Sox in 2020. Hart has given up eight runs over 7 2/3 Spring Training frames, but his 2.69 ERA in the KBO last year made it likely he’d crack the rotation. That was less clear with Vásquez, who started 20 games with an ERA approaching 5.00 for San Diego a year ago. He has recorded seven strikeouts with one walk over eight innings this spring.
Campusano was ticketed for Triple-A once the Padres tabbed Martín Maldonado to work as the backup catcher behind Elias Díaz. Assuming he spends at least 20 days in the minors, this will be Campusano’s final option year. It’s a make or break season for the former top prospect. Joe signed a $1MM free agent deal to work as the short side of a left field platoon with Jason Heyward. He’s been passed on the depth chart by Brandon Lockridge even though he hit .316/.469/.447 this spring. Lockridge, another righty-hitting outfielder, is a superior runner who’ll provide more athleticism on Mike Shildt’s bench.
This seems more like they’re stashing them there for when the trade deadline comes and they have some pieces to either bring up to replace traded players or pieces to trade with. They’re betting that Kolek will be worth more later.
Seems more like Preller is throwing s*** at the wall trying to see what will stick. Joe, Ornelas, and Gonzalez all deserved to make the roster over Lockridge, Gurriel, and even Heyward
R Sox see there are these things called options.
Many times they dictate who stays up and who gets demoted.
Changes can be made easily if the veterans they keep don’t perform
This was my initial thought as well. Maldonado over Campusano is quite a choice, and my brain best explains it by thinking the goal is to aid pitching performance over the short term to maximize return in mid season trades.
My thought is that Campusano hasn’t proven he can be a major league catcher at all. Maldonado has the glove and the most important thing for a catcher is to catch.
He probably gives them the best chance to win as a backup
Maldonado does not have the glove. After watching him play for many seasons, I can tell you his only current decent defensive skill is arm strength. Framing will be worst in mlb.
What he brings is run prevention leadership. Namely, the execution and on-the-fly adaptation of game plans. He makes a pitching staff better.
Let him keep building up in the minors. The Padres absolutely won the Lockridge trade 🙂
Will be interesting too see who they kick off the 40 man so they can bring the three ancient relics on.
They have to kick Eguy and Wade off the 40 man because they don’t have any options so there are 2 open spots from that
They need three spots though, so it will be interesting to see who they kick off the 40-man roster.
60 day IL comes into play though. Hoping it isn’t Yu. Maybe Waldron?
As opposed to modern more current relics.
Six of one half a dozen of the other. None of the aforementioned will give much. They are all the proverbial “player to be named later”. If they still do that.
Kolek looked great this spring so this is disappointing. A lot of questionable moves from the front office on the margins of the roster this year
Def thought Kolek would grab one of the rotation openings. I think they wanna build up his arm a bit still.
Kolek will get another shot at some point. The padres went with experience for the open slots. Though it feels they released or demoted the players with higher upsides.
Padres lack of depth is going to sink them.
I think they are going to let him build up to a starter in the minors
He threw 5 innings and 85 pitches in the spring game yesterday. Seems like he’s built up to start but maybe they do want to do something specific with his workload since he’s transitioning back to SP
Who is the second catcher?
Martin Maldonado is backup catcher.
Diaz is the starter
Is Campusano a bad fielder? I know he underperformed last year but I feel like the Padres never give him enough chances. He kills the ball at TripleA. He is a better hitting catcher than 80% of the league in my opinion
Yes Campusano is not a great fielder….he needs to hit.
If he doesn’t they may as well go with the veteran defensive Catchers.
Which they are doing.
El Paso is an easy place to hit…we’ll see if Campy can hit his way back to SD.
Henry Davis is in a similar boat. Rakes in minors, can’t hit MLB. Not good enough defense to carry to see if he figures it out, even with the pirates.
Campusano had the starting job out of Spring Training last year. That was his big shot. He opposite-ran with it (I am making that a word), and Kyle Higashioka passed him up in the depth chart. He might not get another shot in this organization.
I was hoping guys like Kolek, Rosario, Reynolds (hurt), Ornelas would be the emerging new young blood this opening day, but no.
Really thought Eguy was gonna be the primary utility guy this season.
He’s out of options. It’s probably a good time to put him through waivers instead of when other teams have injuries. Just my take… hopefully he sticks around.
He’ll get snapped up by another team I think, and I hope he does, the Padres don’t seem to want him.
Brew- it was looking that way until they added all these vets late in the offseason. I could argue they didn’t need the vets and would have been perfectly fine with the younger players. This does help them with aaa depth which I’m sure will be needed at some point. Most of the guys above really couldn’t have done much more in spring.
Yeah , you could have argued it , but……
Like Rosario, I’m not sure Tirso ever gets his chance, especially with Lockridge and likely Joe ahead of him now. At $261M into the 2nd tier of the CBT, a trade might be coming and these guys who didn’t make the roster could be back in play (both as trade pieces and as roster adds)
Man, for the price of Wade, Joe, Maldonado, and Gurriel, the Padres were only $2.5M short of Higgy’s 2-year AAV. Outside of the Pivetta deal, very rough offseason.
Add Jose iglesias (3m) and that’s enough. Will see how it works out. They do have more depth but these dudes have a low floor.
Love that Padres are taking major dump already and they have not played a game yet! Looks like another year no World Series for Manny! Should have kept mouth shut after leaving Dodgers!
Padres will be fine if they can stay mostly healthy. It’s a good team, though they need someone like sheets to support the bottom of the order.
That’s there problem when have they had all their starting pitchers healthy at same time?
aaronbj52:
You can’t be a dodger fan questioning another team’s Starting pitching health.
If so I’ve heard it all now
Not every team can just buy an 8 man deep rotation to cover their multitude of SP injuries every season.
Your comment makes no sense.
Every teams core is a year older.
Not mine!
Not Skittles!
Padres = Last Place
As a Rockies fan, I can say your prediction is highly unlikely.
The brewers are trying to be like the dodgers and store players at aaa however the difference is the players the padres have aren’t difference makers.
Charles, one could say that no teams AAA players are going to make a difference at the mlb level. They are in AAA after all.
Padres rotation looking real shaky and Darvish is getting real old and already has shoulder inflammation.
Adios Eguy. Adios Tyler. O. Gonzalez should have made the team.
And maybe adios Gonzalez, I’m not sure. I think he has an opt out in his minors deal?
Really?
People here predicting last place because SD optioned Stephen Kolek and Campusano?
Lol
To all those saying it wasn’t a big deal that they put Campusano on the 40-man roster for 4 meaningless PA’s in the 2020 NLDS because they are going to have to put him on the 40-man roster sooner or later anyway, here’s why it’s a big deal.
Because of them doing that, they burned one of Campusano’s option years in 2021. Which means 2025 will be Campusano’s final option year. When he is inevitably traded at the deadline or next offseason, not being able to send him down to AAA without exposing him to waivers first in 2026 will absolutely hurt his trade value.