Highly rated pitching prospect Luis Patino is headed from the San Diego Padres to the Tampa Bay Rays in the blockbuster Blake Snell deal. Today we look to see just how good Patino can be.
Right handed pitching prospect Luis Patino was rated as the number 3 prospect in the San Diego Padres farm system prior to the Blake Snell trade and ranks 23rd in the entire mlb.com top 100 rankings. He’s ranked 7th among all right handed pitching prospects.
He is clearly evaluated highly, but now the question is how good can he actually be?
At just 21 years old, he still has plenty of room to grow as a pitcher but I believe he can be a force for the Tampa Bay Rays immediately. From 2017-2019 in the minors, Luis Patino made 48 starts while posting a 2.35 ERA, 234 IP, 279 Ks, and a 1.10 WHIP. That is absolutely dominant and is what you expect to see in someone who has the potential to do so in the majors.
Patino made his debut for San Diego in 2020 making only one start in 11 appearances with a 5.19 ERA in just 17.1 innings. That’s a very small sample size so we certainly shouldn’t make too much of that.
Now I want to look at just exactly what does Paitno has in his repertoire. Patino is mainly a three pitch guy at the moment offering a fastball, slider, changeup, and can occasionally mix in a curve.
He is a high velocity pitcher which definitely makes him attractive on paper. In his stint with the Padres this year his fastball averaged a 96.7 MPH velocity and he can top out at about 99 MPH.
His scouting report also mentions that he has a natural cut on the fastball without losing velocity. That is very similar to his new teammate Tyler Glasnow.
His slider is his other best pitch and is his primary swing and miss option. It was probably his most effective pitch with the Padres this year as well. Opposing hitters had a .100 BA facing the slider and the pitch had a 47.8 Whiff%.
His changeup is also still effective sitting at around 89 MPH with the potential to be another great pitch for him in the future.
With these tools and his electric arm, I definitely think Luis Patino is ready to help the Rays now. It will be very interesting to see how much they are willing to use him though as Tampa Bay is always different in their usage of pitchers. He could be a pure starter in the rotation or he could be a 3,4,5 inning arm role or something such as that.
The answers to those questions remain to be seen, but being in Tampa Bay is most likely best for him anyway as no team develops pitching much better than the Rays. Luis Patino is certainly an arm the Tampa Bay Rays will be counting on in the future and he is definitely someone to watch in 2021 and beyond.