Padres Continue Prospect Auditions with Recent Call-Ups
In the nine games since the All Star break, the San Diego Padres have won just twice and suddenly fallen to last place in the NL West standings. The team is five games under .500 and five back of the Wild Card. General manager A.J. Prellar has wasted no time calling up several of his top pitching prospects from Double-A, which could signal a change in direction this season.
Michel Baez, Adrian Morejon, and Luis Urias were all brought up to the Padres roster over the weekend. Both Morejon and Baez had been pitching in Amarillo this season and they could add depth to the San Diego bullpen. Twenty-year old flamethrowing reliever Andres Munoz has been lights out in his two weeks with the Padres. Morejon had started all season with the Sod Poodles, but he pitched as "an opener" with most of his outings limited to two innings per start. Yesterday, he gave up one run in 2.1 innings as the Padres defeated the Cubs 5-1. Fellow rookie Cal Quantrill tossed 5.2 innings of scoreless baseball in relief of Morejon.
As the Padres continue to evaluate all of their young arms, Prellar can continue to shop closer Kirby Yates who has been almost unhittable all season long. San Diego has a surplus of young talent and teams could be lining up at the deadline to offer Prellar a variety of packages that could set his team up well for a strong run in 2020. In the meantime, the Padres will continue to showcase all of their prospects before the July 31st trade deadline, while auditioning them for permanent big league jobs. Seven players in San Diego's Top 30 Prospects from MLB Pipeline including Urias (#2), Morejon (#4), Baez (#5), Logan Allen (#7), Austin Allen (#14), Munoz (#18), Ty France (#27), have all seen time in the big leagues this season. That does not include Fernando Tatis Jr. and Quantrill, who both graduated out of the Top 30 list since the start of the season.