San Diego Padres: MLB Reviewing Use of Medical Information

Major League Baseball is reviewing whether the San Diego Padres divulged proper medical information when making trades, according to multiple reports.

Times are tumultuous for the San Diego Padres.

They have traded away many of their notable players, their chairman is unhappy with ex-Padres, and the Andrew Cashner trade has proven to be anything but normal.

ESPN’s Buster Olney first reported Friday that the Padres are under review from Major League Baseball pertaining to whether or not they divulged necessary medical information when making trades prior to the August 1 deadline.

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Red flags arose when a pitcher the Padres dealt to the Miami Marlins with Cashner — Colin Rea — was pulled from his first Marlins’ start with an elbow issue. The Marlins were reportedly thrown off guard by this, because there didn’t appear to be any prior indications that Rea may have a troublesome elbow.

After he was removed from the game, Rea told the Marlins he was taking medication which was likely correlated to elbow soreness, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.  The problem, of course, is that the Marlins were unaware of a pre-existing issue in Rea’s elbow, which quickly became serious.

In an attempt to remedy the gaffe, the Padres accepted Rea back in return from the Marlins, and sent Luis Castillo to Miami. But in yet another turn of events on Friday, the Padres announced Rea will undergo Tommy John surgery.

Rea’s injury has been widely discussed, but ESPN also reported that the Boston Red Sox have had questions arise pertaining to the medicals of pitcher Drew Pomeranz. The Red Sox acquired Pomeranz from the Padres in exchange for highly touted pitching prospect Anderson Espinoza, and Boston’s claim is they, too, were not given full information on Pomeranz at the time of the trade.

However, Boston will not seek further resolve on the Pomeranz trade, ESPN reports.

This is certainly a unique situation that the Padres find themselves in, but San Diego sources told the Union-Tribune they are, “Confident [the team] will be cleared of any wrongdoing.”

Standard practice in Major League Baseball is that players who are traded — or signed as free agents — must pass a physical in order to make the deal official. Rea presumably had to pass a Marlins’ physical before the trade could be consummated, and he likely would have if his UCL was intact at the time. Still, though, any hint of an elbow problem would have been cause for concern from the Marlins’ perspective. The Marlins insist they were unaware of any issues, which prompted this MLB review.

Some teams, most notably the Baltimore Orioles, are notoriously diligent when it comes to medical reviews of acquisitions, to the point where a trade or signing will be nixed if the team isn’t completely comfortable with a player’s health. Situations like this are a reminder of why a team like Baltimore goes to such measures.

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If it’s determined that the Padres didn’t divulge necessary information, expect MLB to reprimand the organization. Even in the event that MLB finds otherwise, it still is unfortunate that Rea’s UCL didn’t hold up, but the Padres did their part to make Miami whole again by taking Rea back.