The Padres announced that they’ve released Jason Heyward. That was the anticipated outcome after he was designated for assignment over the weekend.
San Diego signed Heyward to a one-year, $1MM free agent deal. They hoped he’d hold his own as the left-handed part of a cheap left field platoon. It hasn’t worked. Heyward hit .176/.223/.271 with a pair of home runs in 95 plate appearances. He missed a couple weeks in mid-April with knee inflammation and has been sidelined since May 24 with an oblique strain. He’s now healthy, but the Padres opted not to put him back on the active roster. San Diego left fielders are hitting .220/.270/.320 across 296 trips to the plate overall. It’s a clear area to upgrade as the deadline approaches.
Heyward, 35, returns to the open market. He split last season between the Dodgers and Astros, batting .211/.288/.412 over 87 games. He’d surprisingly turned in a robust .269/.340/.473 slash as a platoon bat for the Dodgers two seasons ago, but his production has dropped off since then. If he catches on elsewhere, his new team would only pay him the prorated portion of the $760K league minimum for whatever time he spends in the big leagues. The Padres would otherwise be on the hook for the rest of his salary.
In my opinion if you’ve won 5 gold gloves, you’ve had a damn good career. The offense may have ranged from solid to subpar but they cant take those awards away from you. I don’t know if its time to call it a career for him but he’s done more than a ton of big leaguers have.
104 wRC+ in almost 7000 career PAs. 41.5 bWAR is 510th of all-time. And the money which timing and luck played a big part of.
Back to the ATL
Another miss by the padres front office
To be fair, they didn’t invest much in him, so how big of a miss is it really? Took a flier on a guy at the end of his career. They didn’t sign him for 8 years like some team I know. Smh
It was 1M if it worked great if not it’s nothing.
Agree, cheap flier, no loss. Best of luck to him.
Why did I think he played for the Phillies and Nationals earlier in his career? Who am I thinking of?
Trea Turner?
Jayson Werth.
Jay Hayyyyy
Goodbye…
100% an Angel.
@stuman. Yeah probably not lying, he will probably pick them because he doesn’t have to move to far.
He had a good career, but it probably is over now
Great career Jason. No better teammate!
I kept calling him Mayward because I didn’t think he would last past May. Had a great career most would do anything to have. Hope the next thing he does is good.
Braves need a “little veteran leadership”. Outside of that looking at all our outfielder’s (not named acuna)OPS he should fit right in fml
Only thing surprising about this is how long it took. Really thought they might do this before the end of spring training.
Astros need to sign him to a minor league contract.
Agreed.
Don’t do it, Reds. Just don’t.
No need. Already got one of them in Benson here.
Anthony, with Heyward gone the Padres LF just upgraded greatly.
They hit .220 in 286 PA including his .176 BA.
They hit .241 without him.
They had a .594 OPS with him.
They had a .657 OPS without him.
That is a 65-point improvement in BA and a 63-point improvement in OPS just by getting him off the roster. Still not great offense from their LF, but definitely better.
Add to that the fact that every player that has played LF including Sheets has been at least as good defensively in LF as Heyward has been this season and there was really no reason to keep him.
That big contract was one of the worst in MLB history!
next stop white sox.
Go go Chicago !!
Carry on my Heyward son.
I’d like to see someone latch onto him. Heck, make it the Rockies. No pressure and he can probably beef up his stats there.
Only 7.3% of high school baseball players go to play collegiate baseball, and only 0.5% of college players get selected in the MLB draft, according to the NCAA. Of those, roughly 10.5% get drafted and 11.2% actually make it to the majors, so like Heyward or don’t he’s still one of the best baseball players in the world.