Padres Make 8 More Roster Cuts Today

The Padres announced today that 8 players have been told they will not be on the opening day roster.

Here are the moves:

OPTIONED: (on 40-man roster, so optioned to minor leagues)

• Alex Castellanos – Showed that he can defensively play almost every position on the field.  Good versatile defensive player to have on call.
  
• Ryan Jackson – One of the best surprises for me this spring along with Jesse Hahn.  As I’ve stated many times in these blog articles, and on air he is a very capable defensive player both with the glove and arm  I like him better on the left side of the infield, but can fill in at 2nd if needed.  Great to know the Pads have a viable every day defensive SS should something happen to Cabrera.  Not putting up great batting average numbers at this point in his career, but knows how to handle the bat, and showed to be an excellent situational hitter that simply gets the job done whatever the situation calls for.  He is a hard ball player, the unsung hero, the do the little things to help you win games during the season type guy that you love to have around.

REASSIGNED TO MINOR LEAGUE CAMP: (not on 40-man roster, so simply reassigned)

• Blaine Boyer – Great comeback story of a guy who retired, then pitched in Japan last year.  Pitched really well early on to open some eyes, then did not fare as well in his last 3 outings.  Still a veteran guy with better that average stuff that could come up and help the bullpen during the year. 
• Alex Dickerson – Solid young hitter. Got off to a slow start in spring but then started to catch fire.  Just as he was hitting his stride he rolled his ankle in morning drills and has been out the last 10 days. He’ll continue to hit, and hopefully continues to work on his defense in OF and 1B, which is the weak spot of his game right now.
• Kevin Quackenbush – Showed why he has a career 0.81 ERA in the minors so far.  Good moving FB that he locates, hides well, and thus guys have trouble barreling up.  Good CB to complement the heater.  He’ll keep posting crazy saves numbers until there is a need on the big league club to work likely as a setup man at first, and maybe eventually gets a chance to close.
• Tony Sipp – Showed a good live FB especially from left side.  Pitched aggressively with his FB. He just needs to keep working on repeating his delivery, and when he does occasionally get out of rhythm fix it as quickly as possible before an inning all of a sudden gets out of hand. Experienced lefty that could help during the year.

GOING THROUGH WAIVERS:

• Patrick Schuster – The Rule V lefty that the Pads picked up from Houston in exchange for Anthony Bass, and who the Astros had grabbed from AZ in the Rule V draft.  Since he is not going to be on the Padres opening day MLB active roster he needs to now go through waivers.  Any team can pick him up, but he must then stay on their MLB active roster.  If he clears waivers, he must then be offered back to the Diamondbacks organization who can take him back in exchange for $25K.  Usually the original team does take the player back for the $25K as they originally received $50K when they lost the player in the draft in the first place, so they still come out ahead.  Patrick for the most part handled himself well for a kid who’s never pitched higher that A-ball.  Good stuff, knows what he’s doing out there, and he may see the big leagues some day, but he doesn’t seem ready quite yet needing to tighten up the consistency of his command a bit especially against RHB’s.

With these moves there are now 32 active players in camp.  This was the Padres largest cut day yet with more moves to come over the next few days as the team leaves AZ on Wednesday, and the opener is just 6 days away.

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