Padres Announce Multiple Roster Decisions...

Padres have made several roster decisions. We've got to talk about player options, club options, options, options, options. That seems to be the only thing we're talking about. And specifically, this episode has to deal with even more of the pitching options. What's going on, everybody? Christian Pederson back with another episode of Padres Digest, the show that is optimistic about my options for Padres YouTubes. And if you want to follow ours, hit that subscribe button. We've talked enough about how... In the last couple of days, there's been some negative context of the options of Michael King declining his option and becoming a free agent of the club declining Nick Pavetta's option. And while those are still on my mind, I want to take the positivity about options that are being taken. A trio of San Diego Padres deciding to rejoin the roster. The first one being Yuki Matsui taking his option for the 2027 season. I'm down with it. I'm here for it. The second one being... Wandy Peralta taking his option and exercising his chance to make millions of more dollars to be left off of the playoff roster. And the third one being Kyle Hart. The Padres have picked up his option for 2027. So a pair of player options, a team option. I want to break down all the numbers because some of you guys, like my boy Curtis, my ghost writer in the group chat, varying opinions that like almost seem to go against what the stats say on some of these guys but nonetheless i think that bringing back a trio of left-handed relievers is good fundamentally for anybody no matter really what the numbers the sniff or the eye tests say let's talk specifically about yuki matsui to break this one down yuki is an interesting one to me because Again, this is, Yuki might be the one that is most split of the numbers seem to indicate that Yuki Matsui is ascendantly heading up towards being in that close to, if not elite tier of MLB, of ML, I almost said MLB receiver, of MLB reliever. Don't know what an MLB receiver is, a hybrid of, I guess we're going to mix that new position in after the collective bargaining agreement. But he is somebody that feels and looks... Better than he feels, apparently, because it certainly seems that a lot of you guys out there do not think that he is elite in any way shape If you break down the finer points of the numbers, yeah, he had a lot of strikeouts, but he's not clutch or something like that. I don't know what to do with entirely breaking down Yuki's numbers and then also just underlyingly being like, yeah, well, what about those four or five games that we directly lost because of the couple of times that Yuki did allow runs? They were much unnecessary. The exact opposite of what we needed in that situation. And the only conclusion that I can really come to is let's just not let him be our closer. And if we can do our best to hold on to Mori Hone or Adam or somebody else, or maybe Joe Musgrove in my hypothetical bullpen that I'm building for next year. If Yuki can be the 7th inning guy and not the 8th or the 9th inning guy, I think that's still a fantastic bullpen. And like I said, he's a lefty. And he has the pitches that break down nicely into him being still technically good that I think conditionally, situationally, him being a lefty to help break up the monotony of righty-lefty is good and is a net positive. And him taking his option... I think means he wants to be here. So I will also always take that. I always enjoy guys who want to be Padres. Second one being Wandy Peralta. Now this is somebody that, again, Ghostwriter Curtis just sends the trash emoji. His number is not nearly as elite this season, but him and Kyle Hart, to me, combine to be serviceable, left-handed guys. We saw Wandy be a really big part of the pitching chaos theory that Craig Stammen used of having openers, and sometimes he was a reliever, and so you just need to, from my perspective on how you build a bullpen, and I get that I am just a random YouTuber and not a guy in charge of any of this, but from my perspective, you do need guys, ultimately, to just eat innings and get you through the season so that you can get to the playoffs. And as we saw, like... We made it as a wildcard team and we made a little bit of a run. And so if Wandy can be a building block, he's going to make a fantastic amount of money. So good for him. He certainly is, yes, veteran depth. We have quizzes now. The strikeouts are a concern. No, he's not worth the money necessarily of his several millions of dollars. But at the same time, if he can be somebody who helps keep... Keep the game going forward and can be a serviceable opener or can be a reliever that takes a little bit of the workload off of Mason Miller, Yuki, and Adrian Morejon, and Joe Musgrove, and all of those guys as he can just keep the ball in the park and keep us going. Like, great, fantastic. To me, that is kind of the underlying unspoken truth about what a baseball season is. Just sometimes need those dudes. The final guy being Kyle Hart. Now, this is one that I think a lot of you guys out there are probably actually in agreement of, is that he has not lived up to the money that the Padres are going to be spending on him at several million dollars. He seems like somebody that also is not living up to the hype of being the Cy Young Award winner of the KBO. Oh, and. I get that I put that in air quotes because the Cy Young of the KBO, what does that really mean? Like that's winning best offensive player on the JV team kind of vibes. But at the same time, like he came over here with a certain level of projected out to be like, oh, this guy could be a nice little find for the Padres. Lefty pitcher could be when we first got him two seasons ago, he was like, oh, it could be our five starter. Wow. Like what a potential upside he has. And then it's been nothing but. Dumpster fiery chaos from him. And he, though, falls to me again into the vibe of Wandy Peralta. He's not necessarily the best value in terms of guys that you're going to build around and put in the bullpen for life. Closing out high leverage games and using them to make us a run to the World Series. But again, I would say that you cannot pitch Mason Miller every single night. And sometimes if you're up five or six, because our offense is clicking, you need someone to come in and work the seventh, eighth, ninth. Kyle Hart, let me go with this. I will say this. I think Kyle Hart is a left-handed Tim Stauffer. All the projections in the world, completely underwhelming, but at the same time has enough good games that I'm kind of like, cool. Stoked to have you around for the duration of the regular season. How about you go sit in the bullpen and just stay out of my eyesight in the playoffs? Maybe I'm completely wrong on that analogy, and not necessarily meaning to take a shot there at Tim Stauffer, but nonetheless, I think, though, in aggregate, if these guys were all righties, I would be kind of like... You know, not necessarily super stoked about this decision, but given that they are all lefties and that that is somewhat slighter, more valuable of a commodity and two of them in Wandy and Hart can be guys who can go longer innings, more flexibility on their roles, shuttling up between AAA and the bigs and just seem to not be mentally like... Anguished and destroyed by that role on the team. I really like them. So all in all, I give this a net. plus kind of day for the Padres, but I think it is one of those just good to get that done out of the way, help build up the roster a little bit. So we have a little bit more financial clarity and, uh, can hope that they have a bigger plan as to what to do now to fix our starting rotation and nail down the last couple of pieces of that bullpen. Let me know what you think on all of this, like subscribe, comment, share, follow all those other YouTube buttons until next time. Talk to you guys soon and go Padres.