The Padres have agreed to strike a deal with the free-agent reliever Mark Melancon, reports Dennis Lin of The Athletic (Twitter linkThe deal with Melancon, an ISE Baseball customer, will become official once he passes a physical.
Melancon, 36 next month, adds a former All-Star to an already deep Friars bullpen. He will give skipper Jayce Tingler an option to play in the ninth inning Drew Pomeranz and Emilio Pagan as closer candidates in San Diego. Based on his recent work, Melancon may well be jumping in the front line as the favorite for saves.
Melancon just closed the final season of a four-year $ 62 million contract that briefly set the all-time record for a reliever. (Both Aroldis Chapman and Kenley Jansen surpassed that figure within weeks of Melancon’s signing.) The deal didn’t exactly pay dividends for the Giants as Melancon had been injured in 2017 and 2018, but he recovered with a strong performance in 2019 and was quite strong in the past season -plus after a trade to the Braves.
Melancon pitched 43 2/3 innings for Atlanta, had 22 saves and had strong strikeout and walk percentages (26.3 percent and 6.2 percent, respectively). He is also one of the game’s leading groundball pitchers, attaining a whopping 61.4 percent over the past two years.
Despite its success in Atlanta, there are some red flags surrounding Melancon. In addition to pitching throughout 2021 at the age of 36, last year’s average fastball of 91.7 mph represented the second lowest mark of his career, while his 8.7 percent swing strike was a career- low point. He still excelled at producing weak contact, however, should benefit from generally strong defensive defense within the field.
The Friars had not only a busy but also relatively immobile bullpen (from a grid flexibility standpoint). None of Pomeranz, Austin Adams Pierce Johnson And Altavilla Craig Strains or Javy war can be chosen for the minors. Pagan has options, but is certainly in no danger of being sent down, and Tim Hill (who also has options) is one of the three leftists on the team. It may be difficult for the Padres to continue to run the out-of-options Guerra, a converted shortstop that has yet to achieve a lot of success in Triple-A or the Majors, but they may not want to give him up given his heating averages . better than 98 mph.
Of course, those are the kinds of decisions that playoff-caliber clubs are forced to make when they add improvements, and the Padres have empowered themselves so much. After making the postseason for the first time under newly promoted baseball operations president AJ Preller in 2020, the Padres have included Yu darvish Blake Snell Joe Musgrove and KBO superstar Ha-Seong Kim this winter and also sign again Jurickson ProfarMelancon is the latest and arguably the latest leg of an active off-season that has deepened an already talented team that seems increasingly capable of giving World Champion Dodgers a run for their money in the NL West.