The Padres released right-hander Matt Festa, who’d been pitching with their Triple-A affiliate in El Paso, per the MiLB.com transaction log.
Festa, 31, has appeared in four seasons with the Mariners. He inked a minor league deal with San Diego over the winter. The former seventh-round pick sports a career 4.32 ERA and 3.93 SIERA with a strong 25.3% strikeout rate against a less-encouraging 10.9% walk rate. Festa’s time with the M’s was split between the 2018-19 seasons and the 2022-23 seasons. He had an elbow injury in 2020 that eventually required Tommy John surgery, completely erasing his 2020 season and limiting him to 25 2/3 minor league frames late in the ’21 campaign.
It’s been a decent start to the season for Festa in El Paso. He’s pitched to a 4.50 earned run average — eight runs in 16 innings — while fanning 21.6% of his opponents with a 9.5% walk rate. He’s typically been a fly-ball pitcher in the past, but this year, he sports an above-average 46% grounder rate. He’s been plagued by a .360 average on balls in play, with fielding-independent metrics pegging him about a run lower than his actual ERA.
Festa has pitched reasonably well, and mid-May is a common time for minor league contracts to include opt-out dates, so it’s possible (if not likely) that such a clause came into play here. The Padres only have three bullpen spots on the roster they can shuffle up, as none of Robert Suarez, Wandy Peralta, Enyel De Los Santos, Yuki Matsui or Rule 5 pick Stephen Kolek can be optioned. That leaves righty Jeremiah Estrada, lefty Adrian Morejon and long reliever Jhony Brito as the only players who could’ve been sent down if the Friars had wanted to select Festa to the big league roster. Each member of that trio has performed fairly well this season, however, and Festa himself is out of minor league options. As such, selecting his contract would’ve further limited San Diego’s bullpen flexibility.
As a result, Festa will head back to the open market and look to latch on with another club seeking some experienced bullpen depth. He’s not a flamethrower, averaging just 92.6 mph on his heater in his career, but he’s nevertheless managed to miss bats at a high level. His 12.5% career swinging-strike rate checks in north of the league average, and he sat at an even heftier 14.3% in that regard from 2022-23. In parts of five Triple-A seasons (108 2/3 innings), Festa owns a 2.15 ERA, a 27% strikeout rate and a 9.5% walk rate.
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