Padres promote left-hander Adrian Morejon for second stint in majors

As expected, the Padres have called up left-hander Adrian Morejon from their alternate training site. The team made this announcement in advance of Morejon’s scheduled start against the Rangers this afternoon. Righty Luis Perdomo was optioned to the alternate training site to create roster space.

This will be Morejon’s second stint in the big leagues, and there isn’t really anywhere to go but up after he posted a 10.13 ERA through eight innings and five appearances (two of them starts) in 2019. A bothersome shoulder may have been partially to blame for Morejon’s issues, as he was sent to the injured list last August and was eventually shut down for the season.

Of course, Morejon is hardly the only player to have an underwhelming MLB debut, and the southpaw is still considered one of the sport’s more intriguing pitching prospects. He has been a staple of top-100 prospects lists for the last few years, with Keith Law (72nd), Baseball Prospectus (75th) and Baseball America (89th) all including Morejon on their pre-2020 rankings.  Morejon was the headliner of the Padres’ spending splurge in the 2016-17 international signing period, as the Cuba native signed for an eye-opening $11M bonus.

It wasn’t too long ago that Perdomo was holding down a spot in San Diego’s rotation, as the right-hander amassed 310 1/3 innings for the Friars in 2016-17, starting 49 of 64 games. Injuries hampered the groundball specialist in 2018, however, and Perdomo has been since used primarily as a reliever while yo-yoing between the majors and Triple-A.  Perdomo did post a solid 4.00 ERA, 3.06 K/BB rate, 60.6% grounder rate, and 6.9 K/9 over 72 innings in 2019, though he had had a rougher go of things this season (8.10 ERA over 10 innings).