Potential Padres September Call-ups
There are many young prospects the Padres will want to bring up this September but can they?
It is no secret that the San Diego Padres have the best prospects and the overall best farm system in all of baseball. Some of these prospects will see the major leagues before the 2018 season is finished.
Each year in September major league rosters are expanded to 40 players instead of the regular 25 player roster. This allows every team to have everyone on the 40-man roster to be on the major league club.
Of course, there will need to be changes to the 40-man roster in order for the Padres to promote the prospects that they want to see in September. They would have to make room by designating a player for assignment, placing a player on the 60-day disabled list, making a waiver trade, or simply releasing a player. Then the Padres can place a prospect on the 40-man so that they can join the major league club.
Players who could get the ax in favor of a young prospect include Walker Lockett, Kazuhisa Makita, Bryan Mitchell, Clayton Richard, Craig Stammen (waiver trade), Kirby Yates (waiver trade), A.J. Ellis, Raffy Lopez, Carlos Asuaje, and Jose Pirela.
The Padres are in a point of their “rebuild” when they have players that are ready for the promotion to the major leagues. Fans have seen some of these high-profile prospects already this year in Eric Lauer, Joey Lucchesi, Franmil Reyes, Brett Kennedy, and most recently Jacob Nix.
The Padres are not scared to promote these prospects, it is just a matter of making room on the 40-man roster in order for them to be able to see a major league diamond.
Here are the most probable players that the Padres will promote come September.
Javy Guerra
Javy Guerra has already played in the major leagues this season but he still qualifies for this list.
The twenty-two-year-old was called up as the 26th man for the series against the Los Angeles Dodgers in Monterrey, Mexico. Each team was given the opportunity to promote one extra player to the big league squad for only that series. The reason for that is because of medical and travel purposes.
Guerra came up to the plate twice in that series. Both in which he struck out.
Since Javier Guerra was promoted to the major leagues early on in the year this promotion is extremely likely because the Padres will not have to make any room on the 40-man roster for him.
What might stand in the way of a Javier Guerra promotion is that the El Paso Chihuahuas, the AAA affiliate of the Padres and Guerra’s current team, are going to qualify for the Pacific Coast League playoffs.
The Chihuahuas making the playoffs means that the team may want to keep their players down in order to win games in the playoffs. Even if that is the case, Guerra would likely join the Padres after the Chihuahuas season comes to an end.
Javy Guerra is primarily a shortstop but has also played second base and third base. His versatility and smooth defense has kept him in relevance in the minds of the Padres front office. Guerra is one of the best defenders in the minor leagues and his defense would move to the major leagues with ease.
However that is not the case with his bat. Guerra has been a terrible hitter each of the last three seasons and before that he wasn’t tearing the cover off the ball either.
This year the Panamanian shortstop is batting a cool .219/.262/.384. Those numbers are alarming and the Padres will work with him and urge him to get those numbers up, otherwise he may be looking for another club quite soon.
Guerra was acquired back in the 2016 offseason after a failed 2015 season in which the Padres were dubbed to have “won the offseason”.
Guerra was considered to be the headlining prospect going to the Padres in a trade in which the Boston RedSox acquired Craig Kimbrel. The other three prospects in the deal have leapfrogged Guerra in terms of prospect status since then.
Regardless, the Padres will likely want to see Guerra at lease once more before making a decision on him.
Luis Urias
Luis Urias is a player that the Padres front office and Padres fans have had on their radar for quite some time now. Urias was expected to come up at some point this season and it looks like that point may be September.
Some fans were calling for the Mexican second baseman to start the year with the major league club but in a logistics standpoint that was never going to happen. Nevertheless, it is likely that Luis Urias sees Petco Park before the year is up.
Luis Urias is the Padres number four overall prospect and major league baseball’s number twenty-two overall prospect.
Urias is a second baseman who can also play shortstop. Urias is regarded as an above average defender at second base and he can hold his own at shortstop as well. His glove is good but that is not what scouts are excited about in him.
Luis Urias has one of the best contact bats in the minor leagues and scouts say it is highly likely that it will play at the big league level. In his minor league career consisting of four seasons Urias has a slashline of .301/.392/.396.
Urias is not known for his power however he does have eight bombs on the year so that is encouraging. If Urias can add power to his already marvelous skill set he can be a threat to national league pitching for years to come.
LIke Guerra, Urias is also at the AAA level and they look to be headed for the PCL playoffs. Urias is a player that the Padres may call up regardless of the outcome of the regular season for El Paso.
The Padres really want to see what the twenty-one-year-old can do at the major league level and September is a perfect time for that.
The Padres may even call up Urias before the rosters are expanded in September but that is not too likely seeing as they haven’t already promoted him.
It looks as if Padres fans will have to wait to see Urias but it will definitely be worth the wait.
Francisco Mejia
Francisco Mejia was recently acquired from the Cleveland Indians about a week before the trade deadline. Mejia was rumored to come to the Padres for months prior to the deal that sent him to the Padres for all-start closer, Brad Hand and quality setup man, Adam Cimber.
Francisco Mejia is a Dominican catcher who has also played outfield and third base. However, the Padres plan on using him strictly as a catcher. This is troubling for current Padres catcher, Austin Hedges. Hedges is currently raking but Mejia might just push Hedges off that starting spot as early as September.
Mejia has expressed his interest in only playing catcher and he has also expressed his disinterest in playing any other position. The Indians, for whatever reason, did not want Mejia to be a catcher going forward in his career. They tried him out in the outfield and at third base but Mejia elected that he wanted to play catcher.
It looks like the Padres will grant Mejia his wish and he will be primarily a catcher for his Padres career.
Mejia is only twenty-two-years-old and is considered to have the best bat at catcher by far for a prospect. He has extremely fast hands and that is good for both defense and hitting.
Some scouts say that he is a below average catcher behind the plate but that is not what he has shown while playing for the Chihuahuas. Mejia has thrown out two base runners in only thirteen games in AAA.
Mejia has been raking for El Paso. In thirteen games Mejia has a slash line of .311/.385/.422. He also has one homerun and five RBI.
Mejia is already on the 40-man roster so the Padres will not be required to make a move on the 40-man to call him up. The only wall they face is Austin Hedges. Perhaps they want to wait for Hedges to cool down before they call up Mejia but it is almost certain that Francisco Mejia will be in a Padres uniform this season.
#1 Cal Quantrill
Cal Quantrill is the least likely of any of the players on this list to be called up this September. The Padres already have enough starting pitching up in the major leagues and it’s unlikely they will want to add another one this year.
It is possible that the young Canadian would come up after an injury in the starting rotation.
Quantrill is not currently on the 40-man roster so that means the Padres front office will have to clear a spot on the 40-man roster if they want Quantrill in the big leagues.
Cal Quantrill was drafted eighth overall in the 2016 MLB draft by the Padres out of Stanford. He is the son of former major league pitcher, Paul Quantrill who pitched in fourteen major league seasons.
Quantrill is the Padres number ten overall prospect and he is not ranked in MLB’s top 100 prospects.
Quantrill was recently promoted up to AAA El Paso after a not so stellar season at AA San Antonio. Cal was 6-5 with a 5.15 ERA in twenty-two starts for the Missions. He has made one start in AAA in which he threw six innings of two-run ball. He struck out four and did not walk a batter.
Cal Quantrill has good command for his pitches, especially for his fastball and changeup. His changeup is his best pitch and that is the pitch that he usually goes to get a hitter out.
Quantrill has been hit around this year in the minor leagues and that is very troubling. The Padres still see him as a future piece as they promoted him to AAA a week or so ago.
Many scouts and prospect evaluators have been quick to drop Quantrill on their prospect lists. In fact, the twenty-three year old fell six spots on MLB Pipeline’s Padres top 30 prospects list and fell clear off MLB pipeline’s top 100 prospect list.
With all that being said, it is unlikely that Cal Quantrill makes his way up to the major leagues but it is still very possible.
Next. Padres future starting now. dark
The San Diego Padres may not be sending a ton of their top guys to the major leagues in late 2018, but in 2019 there will be a large influx of talent to the Friars.