The Strange Case Of Jurickson Profar
To say that Jurickson Profar‘s career has been inconsistent would be an understatement. After being signed by the Rangers as an international free agent out of Curacao, he was incredibly impressive in the minors, shooting up to the big leagues, making his MLB debut at the age of 19 towards the end of the 2012 season, hitting a home run in his first major league at-bat and topping prospect lists going into 2013.
In 2013, Profar had a mediocre showing in 85 games, hitting just .234/.308/.336, 75 wRC+. That might have been disappointing based on his prospect hype, but it was certainly understandable given that he was still just 20 years old. Unfortunately, shoulder injuries led to multiple surgeries which wiped out both his 2014 and 2015 seasons. In 2016 and 2017, he was finally healthy but struggled in sporadic MLB playing time. Despite success in the minors, he hit just .227/.316/.315 in 112 games over those two campaigns, producing a wRC+ of 67.
In 2018, he finally got a good stretch of playing time in the big leagues, getting into 146 games after never previously getting above 90. That regularity seemed to do him good, as he hit .254/.335/.458 for a wRC+ of 107, or 7% better than league average. He also stole ten bases and added defensive versatility, lining up at each infield position along with a brief cameo in left field. On the whole, he was worth 1.9 wins above replacement according to FanGraphs.
After being traded to Oakland, his pendulum swung the other way, as he made 11 throwing errors from second base and slumped at the plate to a line of .218/.301/.410, 90 wRC+. The A’s traded him away after that lone season, with the Padres on the receiving end. A.J. Preller, who was with the Rangers when Profar was first signed, had by then become the general manager in San Diego.
Despite Profar’s mercurial career, Preller evidently still believed in the former top prospect, which worked out in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. Profar played 56 games in the 60-game season and got his batting line above average again, hitting .278/.343/.438. That amounted to a wRC+ of 112, to which he added seven steals and solid defense in left field (although not as solid elsewhere), accumulating 1.2 fWAR in that short span.
Although that was a small sample, it seemed to reaffirm Preller’s feeling about Profar, as the club re-signed him in free agency that winter. Much like Profar’s career, the deal was a bit unusual, as it was a three-year, $21MM contract that afforded Profar an opt-out after each season. That was quite a nice coup for him, as it gave him the upside of being able to return to free agency if he were to continue on a positive path, but give him some security in the event that he had another setback.
At this point, you can probably guess that his Jekyll-and-Hyde act was not over. In 2021, the first year of that deal, he had yet another down year, hitting .227/.329/.320 for a wRC+ of just 85. At the end of the campaign, he had the ability to opt out of the two years and $14MM remaining on his deal but unsurprisingly decided to stay after that tepid season.
Here in 2022, the Padres have played 47 games, just over 29% of the season. How is Profar doing now? Following the script perfectly, he is good again, hitting .222/.332/.401, with six homers and four steals. His wRC+ is at 114 and he began today’s action with 1.2 fWAR.
There’s still a lot of season left to change the picture here, and it’s obvious that Profar is not immune from quick narrative reversals, but it’s starting to seem as though he could be lining himself up to opt out of the final year of his contract. He will be deciding between a $7.5MM player option for 2023 or a $1MM buyout. (There’s also a $10MM mutual option for 2024 with another $1MM buyout.) If he were to take the buyout, he would only need to find $6.5MM in free agency to break even.
For a player as unpredictable as Profar, there would certainly be reasons for teams to stay away from him. But there are also reasons to dive in. Despite all those twists and turns in his career, he’s still only 29 years old and won’t turn 30 until February. Even in those down years, he’s always shown good plate discipline. From 2018 to the present, he has a 10.1% walk rate and 14.8% strikeout rate. For context, the league wide averages this year are currently at 8.5% and 22.4%, meaning he’s better than average in both cases. This year, he’s gotten his rates even at 14.1%, prior to today’s game.
Despite some shaky defense in the past when he was bouncing all over the diamond, he seems to have settled into a nice home in left field, having played nowhere else this season. 2020 was his first significant time in left, logging 282 1/3 innings, followed by 257 1/3 last year and 367 this year, going into today’s game. Over those three seasons, his Defensive Runs Saved went from 3 in 2020, to 1 last and 7 this year. His Ultimate Zone Rating went from 2.0 to -0.9 to 2.4. Outs Above Average goes from 0 to -2 to 0.
Although it’s difficult to tell who the real Profar is, it seems plausible that he could get more than $6.5MM in free agency, given his relative youth and inherent athleticism. Even in a down year, he can still take walks, steal a few bases, hit a few homers and can likely provide average corner outfield defense. One would imagine his agent Scott Boras will likely be making that argument, based on his reputation. It may not be a bad argument either. Then again, if anyone can completely change the calculus in a hurry, it’s Profar.
Padres Place Mike Clevinger On 15-Day IL With Triceps Strain
The Padres have announced that right-hander Mike Clevinger has been placed on the 15-day injured list with a right triceps strain, retroactive to May 21. Fellow righty Steven Wilson have been recalled from Triple-A El Paso to take his place on the active roster.
Clevinger, 31, just recently returned from missing the entire 2021 campaign due to Tommy John surgery and will now head back to the injured list after just three starts. He threw 14 innings over those games with a 3.21 ERA, 25.4% strikeout rate, 8.5% walk rate and 46.2% ground ball rate. The righty’s most recent outing was his best, as Clevinger allowed just one hit over five shutout innings in a 3-0 victory over the Phillies on May 17.
The Padres didn’t provide a timeline for Clevinger’s absence, so the severity of the strain isn’t yet known. If there is any silver lining, it’s that Clevinger didn’t suffer any damage to his elbow or forearm, though another type of arm injury is naturally a concern. Clevinger’s 2022 debut was also delayed by a knee problem that developed during Spring Training.
Of all the teams in baseball, the Padres are perhaps best positioned to withstand an injury to their starting pitching corps, as they currently have a rotation surplus. Even without Clevinger in the mix, the club has Joe Musgrove, Yu Darvish, Sean Manaea, Blake Snell, MacKenzie Gore and Nick Martinez as options for starting pitching duty. There had been speculation how San Diego would juggle all of these arms, and yet as is so often the case, injuries tend to eat into any perceived rotation surplus.
Mets Notes: Paddack, Hosmer, Smith, Bassitt
Chris Paddack‘s recent Tommy John surgery has brought a new focus on the rumored offseason trade between the Mets and Padres that would have seen San Diego move Paddack, Eric Hosmer, Emilio Pagan, and over $30MM (to help cover Hosmer’s salary) to New York in exchange for Dominic Smith. Trade talks reportedly got pretty deep between the two sides, but ultimately fell apart due to what The New York Post’s Jon Heyman reports as concerns from the Mets’ medical staff about Paddack’s health records.
With Paddack now on the shelf until at least partway through the 2023 season, it appears as though New York’s team doctors made the right call. Interestingly, Heyman reports that the Mets were also planning to flip Hosmer in another trade with an unknown team, rather than use the first baseman in their own lineup. Given the difficulties that the Padres have had for months in finding a taker for Hosmer, it would’ve been a little surprising to see him moved twice in short order, though it is also easy to imagine Hosmer’s market picking up with the Padres eating so much of his contract.
More from the Amazins….
- This isn’t the first time Dominic Smith has been a trade candidate, as the former top prospect has swung from cornerstone to expendable multiple times in his career. Smith has struggled to a .552 OPS over his first 79 plate appearances and isn’t pleased about being back in a part-time role. “Being here since I was 22, now I’m 26, and still in the same position….If there’s a team out there that wants me to play and wants to let me play, I would love to play every day. That’s just how I feel about that,” Smith told Newsday’s Anthony Rieber. However, Smith also stressed that he feels he can get the opportunity with the Mets, saying “I feel like I can impact this team in a number of ways, and that’s being [in the lineup] every day, in my opinion.” Even after Robinson Cano‘s release theoretically should’ve created more at-bats for Smith at the DH spot, Smith still isn’t playing very often, seemingly caught in the catch-22 of not hitting well enough to earn more playing time, yet also not being able to get into a groove due to that lack of playing time.
- Chris Bassitt and the Mets agreed to a one-year deal (with a mutual option for 2023) today, which avoids the need for the two sides to determine Bassitt’s 2022 salary in an arbitration hearing. Speaking to MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo and other reporters, Bassitt said he was “happy that it’s not going to be a distraction for anybody,” given how the lockout has pushed several unsettled arbitration cases into the actual season. While Bassitt said he would like to with the Mets beyond 2022, that same desire to just concentrate on this season doesn’t make it seem likely that extension talks will take place until the winter. “A lot of people are short-term thinking right now this year. We have such a special group that I don’t really want to be a distraction and hurt that in any way,” Bassitt said.
Padres Activate Blake Snell From Injured List
TODAY: As expected, Snell was activated from the IL. To create roster space, the Padres also announced that left-hander Ray Kerr was optioned to Triple-A.
MAY 16: The Padres have been without lefty Blake Snell all season due to an adductor strain, but the 2018 AL Cy Young winner is set to make his 2022 debut on Wednesday, acting manager Ryan Christenson told reporters yesterday (Twitter link via Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune). San Diego will roll out Mike Clevinger, Snell and Yu Darvish this Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, respectively. Snell’s return will temporarily push young lefty MacKenzie Gore into the bullpen, though it seems that’ll simply amount to skipping his turn in the rotation just once before he’s considered for another start. The Friars are lined up for a daunting stretch of 40 games in 42 days, Acee points out.
Snell’s return ought to provide a boost to a San Diego staff that’s already been among the better units in the game. Padres starters are tied with the Twins for the game’s ninth-best ERA at 3.50, which is a dead-on match for their seventh-ranked 3.50 FIP. They’re also fourth in MLB with a 25% strikeout rate and have been a respectable, albeit middle-of-the-pack group in terms of walk rate, ranking 15th with a 7.8% mark.
Snell’s first season in San Diego didn’t go as hoped. The now-29-year-old southpaw turned in a 4.20 ERA over the life of 128 2/3 innings and also had a couple of stints on the injured list — including a late-September stay for the same adductor issue that plagued him earlier this year.
However, while Snell’s composite numbers may not stand out, the lefty was back to his Cy Young-caliber form down the stretch in 2021. Snell scrapped his once-dominant changeup — which had been getting hammered last year — on Aug. 3 and ramped up his usage of sliders and four-seamers. The result was a dominant 1.83 ERA and 39.4% strikeout rate with a solid 8.5% walk rate — all marks that dwarfed his numbers through the end of July (5.44 ERA, 27.3% strikeout rate, 14.3% walk rate). If that’s the version of Snell the Padres welcome back this week, an already-strong rotation could develop into a powerhouse.
A short-term shift to the ‘pen for Gore may frustrate some fans after the former No. 3 overall pick has debuted with a 2.42 ERA, 26.4% strikeout rate and 8.5% walk rate through his first 26 innings, but it ostensibly appears to be little more than workload management. Gore pitched just 50 1/3 innings of actual game activity last year, struggling to the point that the Padres sent him to their Spring Training facility in mid-June to sort out his mechanics. He was out of games until the middle of August, when he returned to the Padres’ Rookie-ball affiliate and then worked his way back up to Double-A.
There’s been no issue for Gore thus far in 2022. Once lauded as the game’s top pitching prospect, the 23-year-old has made good on that billing both in Triple-A (five shutout innings, seven strikeouts, no walks) and in the Majors (2.42 ERA, 28-to-9 K/BB ratio in 26 frames). The Padres could take some steps to occasional measures such as this one to prevent too stark an innings increase, but so long as Gore continues to pitch with this level of effectiveness, it’ll be hard to keep him out of the rotation.
San Diego has been deploying a six-man rotation thus far, with Joe Musgrove, Darvish, Sean Manaea, Gore, Clevinger and offseason acquisition Nick Martinez all starting games. Acee tweeted last week that the team “tentatively” planned to continue a six-man rotation following the return of Snell, who’d effectively push Martinez to the bullpen.
That’s notable in and of itself, as Martinez signed a surprising four-year, $25.5MM contract with the Padres this winter on the heels of an outstanding run in Japan. The former Rangers righty not only landed that unexpected guarantee but secured opt-out clauses after each year of the contract. That essentially allows him to become a free agent if he’s able to approximate his NPB excellence in MLB but gives him a hearty sum on which to fall back if he struggles in his return to North American ball. Martinez tossed 378 2/3 innings of 3.02 ERA ball in three seasons overseas, including a dominant 1.60 ERA with a 25% strikeout rate and 6.8% walk rate in 140 innings with the SoftBank Hawks last year.
So far in 2022, however, Martinez has had his share of tough outings. He’s pitched 30 2/3 innings with a respectable 4.40 ERA, but his 11.5% walk rate and 1.76 HR/9 mark are both well worse than the league average. He’s posted solid strikeout and ground-ball rates (23.1% and 46.4%, respectively), but he’ll need to curb the free passes and the long balls if he’s to fully establish himself.
Even if Martinez is bullpen-bound for the time being, that shouldn’t be expected to close the book on him as a starter. The Padres made a notable investment in him this winter even amid luxury-tax concerns, and it’s of course likely that other injuries on the pitching staff will pop up and give Martinez further opportunities to start some games. The number of times he takes the hill to start a game is certainly worth monitoring, though; Martinez’s 2023, 2024 and 2025 salaries would all increase by $1MM if he makes 20 starts.
Trayce Thompson Elects Free Agency
The Padres announced that outfielder Trayce Thompson has chosen to become a free agent after clearing outright waivers. Thompson was designated for assignment four days ago, and since he had been previously outrighted during his career, Thompson could elect free agency rather than accepting the outright option.
After signing a minor league deal with San Diego in late March, Thompson got back to the big leagues in late April when the Padres selected his contract. The 31-year-old appeared in six games with the Friars, with only one hit and two walks over 16 plate appearances.
The well-traveled Thompson will now hit the open market once more. A second-round draft pick for the White Sox in 2009, Thompson’s tools (including excellent speed and the ability to play all three outfield spots) have gotten him plenty of looks over the years, but it has yet to manifest into regular production at the Major League level.
Appearing in six of the last eight MLB seasons, Thompson has a career .205/.280/.397 slash line over 640 plate appearances with five different teams. Most of that time was spent with the White Sox and Dodgers, with briefer stints with the Padres, Cubs, and Athletics. Thompson has also seen time in the minors with the Yankees, Guardians, and Diamondbacks but didn’t see any big league action with those three clubs.
Padres Option Dinelson Lamet, Finalize Deal With Robinson Cano
The Padres announced they’ve optioned right-hander Dinelson Lamet to Triple-A El Paso. The move clears an active roster spot for Robinson Canó, whose previously-reported major league contract has been made official. San Diego already had an opening on the 40-man roster.
It’s a disappointing and somewhat surprising development for Lamet, who’s only two years removed from a fourth-place finish in NL Cy Young award balloting. He made 12 starts and threw 69 innings of 2.09 ERA ball that season, punching out an excellent 34.5% of batters faced along the way. That seemed to cement him as a key piece of the organization’s long-term rotation, but he dealt with arm issues during the postseason that set him off track.
Lamet wound up not appearing in a playoff game that year, and he had a pair of injured list stints due to forearm inflammation last season. The second of those stints cost him more than two months between July and September, and he didn’t have time to return to the rotation once healthy. Lamet worked in relief for the 2021 campaign’s final month, and he’s begun this season in that role as well.
The 2022 campaign has been a disaster, as Lamet has been tagged for ten runs in 8 1/3 innings across ten appearances. He has struck out ten batters and induced swinging strikes at an excellent 16% clip, but he’s also issued seven walks and coughed up a pair of home runs. As he’s struggled, Lamet has fallen towards the bottom of the bullpen depth chart and been consigned primarily to lower-leverage work. He’ll now lose his roster spot altogether and head back to the minors for the first time since he was called up in May 2017 (aside from injury rehab assignments).
If the Friars had lost faith in Lamet for the moment, however, optioning him now is a sensible decision. Players with five-plus years of big league service cannot be optioned without their consent, and the 29-year-old is very near that threshold. Lamet entered the season with four years and 130 days of service, and he’s accrued roughly 36 more days this year. Players reach a full service year at 172 days, meaning he’s about six days shy of the five-year mark. Had the Padres kept Lamet around another week or so, they would no longer have been able to make a unilateral decision to send him down.
It’s possible Lamet’s tenure in the organization could be nearing its end regardless, as the Friars have reportedly discussed him in trade talks in recent weeks. Lamet is making just shy of $5MM this season, and San Diego’s luxury tax number is underneath the base $230MM threshold by the narrowest of margins. Whether anyone would pick up the entirety of Lamet’s salary after his difficult start to the season isn’t clear, but perhaps another team would take a buy-low flier to grab an obviously talented pitcher controllable through 2023 if the Pads are desperate to move him for payroll reasons.
Padres Sign Robinson Cano
11:46am: The Padres are likely to finalize a deal with Canó tomorrow, tweets Dennis Lin of the Athletic. San Diego already has a vacancy on the 40-man roster, so they’d only need to make a corresponding 26-man transaction.
11:07am: The Padres are closing in on a deal with Robinson Canó, reports Jon Heyman of the New York Post (Twitter link). Heyman’s colleague, Joel Sherman, reports (on Twitter) that San Diego is among a handful of teams that has expressed interest. According to Sherman, the eight-time All-Star is likely to sign a major league contract.
Canó was released by the Mets last week. New York had designated him for assignment on May 2, the date for teams to cut their active rosters from 28 to 26 players. Canó had started just under half the Mets’ games through the season’s first month, splitting his time roughly evenly between second base and designated hitter. He’d gotten off to a difficult start, however, hitting just .195/.233/.268 through his first 43 plate appearances.
The 17-year MLB veteran showed some worrisome statistical indicators beyond just the poor results. He made contact on a personal-low 73% of swings, a few points below this season’s league average. Canó also chased nearly half the pitches he was thrown outside the strike zone and hit more than 55% of his batted balls on the ground. At age 39 and coming off a full 2021 season lost to a second career suspension for performance-enhancing drugs, the Mets decided those early numbers were reason enough to move on.
One could also take the more optimistic view that Canó was merely shaking off some rust after the long layoff. A 12-game showing is an incredibly small sample off which to base any definitive conclusions — even regarding the elevated swing-and-miss and chase numbers. When Canó was last eligible to play before this year, he performed quite well. In 182 plate appearances during the shortened 2020 campaign, he hit .316/.352/.544 with ten home runs. That was the second of three seasons between 2018-20 in which Canó posted well above-average offensive production.
Of course, few players have matched Canó’s performance since he entered the league. He’s a five-time Silver Slugger Award winner and has finished in the top ten of MVP balloting six times in his career. Were it not for his pair of PED suspensions, he’d be a virtual lock for eventual enshrinement in the Hall of Fame. There’s little question Canó’s days as that kind of superstar are behind him, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility he could still be a useful hitter, particularly against right-handed pitching.
The Padres evidently believe that to be the case. San Diego has gotten incredible production from Manny Machado and Eric Hosmer in the season’s early going. Ha-Seong Kim, Jurickson Profar and Luke Voit each have unimpressive batting averages, but their combination of power output and (particularly in Voit’s case) huge walk numbers have propped up their overall performances. The rest of the lineup has struggled to varying degrees, and San Diego’s overall .227/.320/.364 team slash line is middle-of-the-pack.
The Friars are looking for affordable ways to bolster the offense. If they believe Canó is still an above-average hitter, there’s reason to roll the dice. The Mets remain on the hook for almost all of the $37.6MM still owed to Canó over the next two seasons under the terms of his original ten-year contract with the Mariners. If a deal were to get across the finish line, San Diego would owe him only the prorated portion of the $700K league minimum salary. That’s of particular import with the Friars just narrowly below the $230MM base luxury tax threshold, which they don’t appear eager to exceed.
Canó wouldn’t be a regular anywhere on the diamond for the Padres. Hosmer is a lock to hold onto first base so long as he’s hitting at this level, and Jake Cronenworth has second base accounted for. The right-handed hitting Voit is the primary designated hitter and figures to remain so, but Canó could spell him on occasion against righty starters while serving as a depth option on the right side of the infield.
Padres Option C.J. Abrams, Reinstate Wil Myers And Luke Voit, Designate Trayce Thompson For Assignment
The Padres made a flurry of moves this afternoon, optioning shortstop C.J. Abrams to Triple-A El Paso, reinstating outfielder Wil Myers and first baseman Luke Voit from the 10-day IL, and designating outfielder Trayce Thompson for assignment, reports AJ Cassavell of MLB.com (Twitter link).
The demotion of Abrams, who’d been splitting time at shortstop with Ha-Seong Kim, will come as a disappointment to Padres fans, who’d hoped to see the consensus top-20 prospect (and, until today, youngest player in the NL) hit the ground running in the bigs. But while the 21-year-old has played solid defense in his first taste of the majors, his .182/.270/.273 batting line was simply too much of a drag on an already stagnant Padres offense to give him the playing time the organization will want to give him.
The long-term expectation in San Diego likely remains that Abrams will ultimately dislodge Fernando Tatis Jr. from shortstop, but it may not happen this year unless Abrams can find his stroke in Triple-A. Kim will likely take over primary duties there for the time being, with the recently claimed Sergio Alcántara as his understudy. It isn’t yet clear whether Tatis will reclaim the position upon his expected mid-season return from a fracture in his left wrist, though Abrams’ failure to lay his own claim to it certainly makes that scenario more likely.
Myers and Voit will likely reclaim their spots in the lineup (Myers in right, Voit at DH), though neither had gotten off to a blistering start to the season. Myers, who’s been out since late April with a thumb injury, owns a .218/.254/.273 line in 59 plate appearances, while Voit, also out since late April with a biceps tendon issue, has slashed a mere .143/315/.167 in 54 trips to the plate. Both have proven themselves capable of greater production than they’ve delivered so far, of course, and they should give a boost to a Padres lineup that’s posted a meager 65 wRC+ in May. Manger Bob Melvin has rotated DH duties in Voit’s absence, but Myers will likely take at-bats directly from rookie Jose Azocar (.222/.323/.259 in a 31 PA sample) and the DFAed Thompson.
Indeed, though he’s now appeared in six major league seasons (dating to his 2015 debut with the White Sox) and delivered better-than-replacement-level production on the whole in his big-league career (.205/.280/.397 in 640 plate appearances), Thompson’s departure from the 26-man roster marks another failure to find a permanent home for the 31-year-old former second-rounder. Though he’d hardly played for the Friars (sixteen trips to the plate across six games), his anemic .071/.188/.071 batting line made him a prime choice to fall victim to a roster crunch. As Thompson (the younger brother of NBA star Klay Thompson) has been outrighted before, he can opt to become a free agent, though he may also choose to accept an assignment if he thinks another big-league opportunity with the Padres could present itself.
Padres Claim Sergio Alcántara
The Padres have claimed infielder Sergio Alcántara off waivers from the Diamondbacks, both teams announced this afternoon. Though he’s still only 25, the Friars will be Alcántara’s fourth big-league team. Arizona had designated him for assignment on Friday to make room for the return of Josh Rojas from injury. To clear 40-man roster space, San Diego placed Pierce Johnson on the 60-day injured list.
Though Alcántara doesn’t pack a ton of punch at the plate — he’s slashed at just a .197/.280/.330 clip in 335 trips to the plate across three seasons in the majors — his defensive versatility has significant value. He’s spent most of brief career at shortstop (including 44 starts there for the Cubs in 2021), but he’s also logged significant time at both second and third. He had served as the D-backs primary third baseman prior to Rojas’ return.
Given the presence of high-end glove-man Ha-Seong Kim in San Diego, the acquisition of another versatile infielder is at least a bit curious. It could signal an as-yet unannounced injury (or player in COVID protocol) requiring time on the IL, of course, but it could also may spell the end of top prospect C.J. Abrams‘ first taste of the majors. Currently the youngest player in the NL (among active players, only Wander Franco and Julio Rodriguez are younger), Abrams has struggled a bit in his first taste of The Show, playing solid defense at short but slashing only .182/.270/.273 in 65 plate appearances.
Padres Place Tim Hill On 15-Day Injured List
The Padres announced that left-hander Tim Hill has been placed on the 15-day injured list (retroactive to May 5) due to inflammation in his throwing shoulder. Lefty Ray Kerr has been called up from Triple-A to take Hill’s place in San Diego’s bullpen.
Hill has been far from his usual effective self, posting an 11.12 ERA over his first 5 2/3 innings out of the Padres’ bullpen. While Hill hasn’t allowed a run in six of his nine appearances, he has only one strikeout against three walks. Always more of a grounder specialist than a strikeout artist, Hill has been hurt by a lack of whiffs and a lot of his allowed contact finding holes — Hill has an ungainly. 440 BABIP thus far.
Closer Taylor Rogers is the only other left-hander in the Padres relief corps, so another southpaw was needed in Hill’s absence. Kerr is an undrafted free agent who has worked his way up the Mariners and Padres farm systems to make his MLB debut earlier this season, and after tossing a scoreless inning in his sole big league game, Kerr could now get more opportunities to impress. San Diego acquired Kerr from the Mariners as part of the Adam Frazier trade last November.