Padres prospect Abrams moving around.
For as much time as prospects spend in the minors, the jump from Triple-A to the majors is as pronounced as any promotion.
But the jump from low Single-A to big-league camp?
“I don’t even think about it,” the 20-year-old CJ Abrams said Thursday morning on a video conference. “I just go out there and see the ball, the hit ball, make the plays in the field. It’s not much of a transition in my head.”
Clearly.
The Padres’ top position prospect — he’s ranked No. 8 in MLB.com’s top-100 and No. 11 by Baseball America — is 2-for-9 in big league camp, blasting a triple to center Tuesday and slashing a single Wednesday. The latest in a series of standout defensive plays saw the 6-foot-2 shortstop make a diving, backhanded stop to his right Wednesday before later stealing second base. He was a healthy scratch from Thursday’s starting lineup at shortstop, a position where the Padres have a player who just signed a 14-year contract.
While evaluators believe the presence of Fernando Tatis Jr. means Abrams may eventually move to second base — where he has one start this spring — or center field, the Padres will keep him at shortstop as long as possible, even if he bounces around at times this spring.
“He is going to move around to other spots and that’s because we think it’s great just for the overall baseball knowledge,” Padres manager Jayce Tingler said. “We think he’s got real athletic ability to help us out in different situations and it’s good to grow and develop doing different things. The primary again is at shortstop, but we’re going to ask him to do some other things. We’re going to practice getting uncomfortable and ask him to play a position he hasn’t played before and that’s just part of the natural just growth of a young player.”
Of course, Abrams’ path to this point has been anything but natural.
He signed for $5.2 million as the No. 6 overall pick in the country in 2019. He hit in the first 20 games of his career en route to rookie-level Arizona League MVP honors (1.104 OPS), proof that all those swing gadgets his father worked up had indeed developed elite bat-to-ball skills. A shoulder injury ended his promotion to low Single-A Fort Wayne that August after two games. Then the COVID-19 pandemic wiped away the 2020 minor league season.
So Abrams got his work in at summer camp last spring and continued to impress the organization against older competition at the alternate site at USD and later in the fall instructional league.
He was a no-brainer addition to big-league camp as a nonroster invitee this spring and has been active early in Cactus League action.
Abrams has played in just 34 minor league games.
“Playing against the higher-level (players), you’re obviously going to get better faster,” Abrams said. “It’s a lot of fun playing against good competition.”
Castillo needs surgery
Jose Castillo has had another setback, and the Padres’ bullpen depth is taking hits.
Castillo, a promising lefthander, will undergo Tommy John surgery after an MRI exa revealed a UCL tear.
The Padres also said Thursday that right-hander Javy Guerra is expected to be sidelined at least two to four weeks due to a Grade 1 sprain of his UCL, which almost certainly rules him out for the start of the season.
It is just the latest injury for the hard-throwing Castillo, who missed all but one game in 2019 with forearm and finger injuries and did not pitch last season after suffering a lat strain in summer camp.
Castillo’s first live batting practice of this spring was halted after six pitches on Tuesday when he walked off the mound with discomfort in his forearm.
“It’s obviously crushing,” manager Tingler said. “Everything he’s been through, the way he’s worked to come back, it’s frustrating, crushing.”
Guerra, who converted from shortstop in 2019 and routinely hits 100 mph with his fastball, has often struggled with command within the zone. He had a 10.13 ERA and 2.25 WHIP in 131⁄3 innings in 2020.
Should Guerra miss significant time, it would be a blow to the Padres.
Neither he nor Castillo, who in 2018 had a 0.91 WHIP and struck out 52 batters in 381⁄3 innings, were locks to make the opening-day roster. But the two 25-year-olds provided bullpen depth in a season in which the Padres anticipate needing a number of pitchers to patch together the necessary innings.
Pitcher durability is of particular concern to teams this year with MLB returning to 162 games after the 2020 season lasted just 60.
An early mulligan
After Thursday’s 5-3 loss to the Rangers, Padres had walked 27 batters through five Cactus League games, the most of any team this spring. That includes three each from right-handers Michel Baez and Taylor Williams and left-handers
MacKenzie Gore, Adrian Morejón and James Reeves.
Reeves, a non-roster invitee, has allowed four runs in two innings. Williams has allowed three runs in two innings and right-hander
Pierce Johnson has allowed three runs on two hits and a walk in an inning of work. Left-hander Brady Feigl, another non-roster invitee, allowed four hits, including a three-run homer to the Rangers’ Joey Gallo on Thursday.
But, as Tingler said, it’s early.
“As the guys are coming in, the adrenaline, getting back into compete mode, some guys are working on new things, they’re working on individual stuff,” Tingler said. “I like to give them two outings, honestly, before we get, ‘Hey, let’s turn it up,’ et cetera and start getting critical.”
Notable
C Luis Campusano was “dealing with a personal issue,” Tingler said, when he was a healthy scratch from Tuesday’s lineup. He’s back with the team and could return to the lineup today or Saturday. Campusano’s legal case in Georgia, stemming from an arrest for felony possession of marijuana, remains unresolved, although Tingler said last month the Padres didn’t “expect any limitations going forward.”
• RHP Chris Paddack will start Saturday at Camelback Ranch against the Dodgers, who will start RHP Trevor Bauer. RHP Yu Darvish is scheduled to make his Padres debut Sunday vs. the Royals at Peoria. Both weekend games will be on Fox Sports San Diego at noon PST.
• RHP Jacob Nix is dealing with inflammation in his shoulder.