Bradgley Rodriguez Is the Padres’ Next Indomitable Reliever

Fifty-one weeks in the past, the San Diego Padres traded a king’s ransom in prospects to the Athletics in alternate for depth starter JP Sears and hard-throwing reduction ace Mason Miller.

Ordinarily, I might’ve abhorred such a transfer. The highest prospect who went the opposite manner, Leo De Vries, got here in at no. 6 general within the Preseason High 100 Prospects checklist, and in my thoughts there’s no extra overrated commodity in baseball than workforce management for a reliever. What the Phillies gave up for 2 and a half years of Jhoan Duran, immense a haul because it appeared on the time, was a fraction of what 4 and a half years of Miller value.

Nonetheless, I form of received it.

Duran is an amazing pitcher; Miller is particular. In 62 reduction appearances for the Padres, he’s allowed simply six earned runs in 65 regular-season innings, which involves an ERA of 0.83. He’s struck out 123 batters whereas permitting simply 54 whole baserunners. That’s 3.7 WAR and a WPA of 4.59 in a single yr.

I don’t assume that’s actually the very best 365-day run any single-inning reliever has ever placed on, however it’s shut sufficient that it made me test Eric Gagne’s participant web page. Anyway, you set that man in a bullpen that already had Adrian Morejon, Jeremiah Estrada, and Robert Suarez, and impulsively you possibly can win a playoff collection even in case you solely get 5 first rate innings a sport from the opposite 9 pitchers in your roster.

I used to be bought. I assumed the Padres’ bullpen was ok to roll over the Cubs within the NL Wild Card Sequence. I believe I even picked San Diego to win the pennant.

I wasn’t mistaken concerning the bullpen; Miller not solely retired eight of the 9 batters he confronted, he received all of these outs by strikeout. The Padres devoted 15 2/3 out of 25 whole innings to the bullpen, and their relievers mixed to permit simply two runs in that point. The San Diego pitching workers on the entire gave up simply six runs, whole, over three video games.

Right here’s the place I (and A.J. Preller, it seems) went mistaken: The Padres solely scored 5 runs in three video games, and misplaced the collection. Even a workforce with a terrific bullpen must do different stuff.

So it’s proved in 2026 for San Diego. The Padres have the highest bullpen within the league, by WAR, however they’re twenty seventh in ERA- from the rotation, twenty third in wRC+, and twenty fifth in runs scored. That shakes out to (as of Thursday afternoon) a 50-53 document with a -30 run differential. And to be sincere, Preller and his merry males are fortunate it doesn’t shake out to one thing worse.

The Padres are nonetheless very a lot within the Wild Card race, however the vibes across the workforce are so shot that commerce rumors are beginning to swirl round Miller once more. Years of wheeling and dealing have left the Padres’ farm system as denuded as if it had been set upon by a plague of locusts; their high prospect checklist solely went 25 deep in gamers with a FV grade of 35+ or higher. The Mariners additionally had 25 such gamers. The 28 different groups all had at the very least 30 — together with a couple of golf equipment with draft lists extra miserable than a school bar that’s infamous for not checking IDs on the door. Given his efficiency over the previous yr, Miller’s commerce worth might be simply as excessive now because it was final July. Perhaps Preller doesn’t get one other De Vries-like prospect again (insofar as any prospects that good ever get traded), however it’s one technique to reload the farm system shortly with out touching any of the important thing place gamers.

If Miller does go, this vaunted Padres bullpen may very well be recording its final studio album as a unit. Suarez already left for Atlanta as a free agent final winter. Morejon and Jason Adam are eligible to comply with him out the door after this season. Ron Marinaccio simply received traded to Pittsburgh this week. Even Wandy Peralta’s commerce rumor Geiger counter is clicking.

So who does that depart? Or extra to the purpose: Who might are available in to choose up the slack if the Padres immediately discover themselves with out Miller and a lot of different elite relievers?

I provide you with Bradgley Rodriguez, a bespectacled 22-year-old rookie from Venezuela. As I write, he’s second amongst Padres relievers in ERA (behind Miller), third in WAR (behind Miller and Morejon), and fourth in appearances (behind Morejon, Peralta, and Miller).

Being the third- or fourth-best reliever on most groups isn’t one thing to brag about, however that is San Diego. In his 43 innings this yr (together with three one-inning opener stints), Rodriguez has an ERA of two.09, an xERA of two.31, and a FIP of two.80.

Rodriguez signed with the Padres in 2021, and because of his age and a torn UCL, he didn’t make his debut in full-season minor league ball till April 2024. However from there he moved exceptionally shortly; lower than 14 months elapsed between his first aggressive pitch on American soil and his main league debut. Rodriguez spent most of final yr in Triple-A, however he made seven appearances throughout two huge league stints, posting a 1.17 ERA.

That laid the groundwork for the 6-foot-1 righty to leap proper into excessive utilization and excessive leverage firstly of this season. And, as I mentioned earlier, he’s greater than held his personal.

Rodriguez makes an attention-grabbing distinction with Miller. As laborious as Miller is to hit, he’s extremely straightforward to grasp as a pitcher: He’s 6-foot-5, with a 101-mph fastball and a slider that breaks six inches greater than comparable pitches in every route. Consequently, he strikes out almost half of the batters he faces. There will not be an elite athlete in any sport whose sport is extra clearly legible to informal observers.

Rodriguez is a little more difficult. He throws not one however two upper-90s fastballs — a four-seamer and a sinker — with a free, snappy three-quarters supply.

As you possibly can see, Rodriguez is brief and stocky for an influence pitcher, however his listed dimensions don’t inform the story. He’s proportioned just like the Tasmanian Satan. It’s form of like what they used to say about Elton Model: Regardless of solely being 6-foot-8, he was lots sufficiently big to play middle within the NBA, since you don’t rebound and block photographs along with your neck.

Rodriguez isn’t actually a bat-misser. His strikeout charge, 23.6%, is within the fifty fifth percentile. His whiff charge is within the 74th percentile. That’s completely tremendous, however it’s not elite high-leverage reliever territory by itself.

That’s as a result of he’s received a breaking ball, however it’s form of no matter. It’s a tough upper-80s cutter-slider kind factor with unremarkable horizontal motion and fewer vertical drop than comparable pitches. It’s his fourth-most-common pitch towards right-handed batters, and he makes use of it by no means towards lefties.

Like, it’s not dangerous; opponents are whiffing on a 3rd of swings (which might be a little bit beneath common if he’d thrown sufficient sliders to qualify for Baseball Savant’s leaderboard) and xwOBAing simply .220 towards the pitch. However the Mason Miller Scythe of Cosmic Wrath Slider this isn’t.

Rodriguez’s greatest secondary pitch is his changeup, and that pitch is enjoyable. He throws it 42.3% of the time; solely 5 pitchers within the league throw offspeed pitches extra continuously. One in all them is Devin Williams.

This changeup isn’t an 800-rpm lifeless duck or something. It simply is available in round 90 mph, and the place the four-seamer rises and cuts and the sinker runs, the changeup dips and fades. That enables Rodriguez to sneak it in below the arms of right-handed energy hitters like, say, Austin Riley.

That’s fairly nifty.

Now, this changeup isn’t actually a bat-misser both. Rodriguez is getting a 37.7% whiff charge, which is the Tenth-highest mark out of 56 certified changeups, in accordance with Baseball Savant. Tarik Skubal, for example, is getting whiffs on a league-high 50.3% of his changeup swings.

However nobody can hit Rodriguez’s changeup squarely. Opponents are hitting .121 off his changeup with a .131 xBA, they usually’re slugging .182 with a .186 xSLG — these figures rank first, first, second, and first within the majors. Rodriguez and Skubal have thrown about the identical variety of changeups this yr. Baseball Savant has Rodriguez’s as price seven runs; Skubal’s, solely 4.

And it’s not simply that opponents can’t hit Rodriguez’s changeup laborious, however that the existence of that changeup retains hitters off his four-seamer. He’s been within the majors for all of 30 seconds, however he already seems like an elite quality-of-contact suppressor.

He has the seventh-lowest xwOBA within the league, and bear in mind, xwOBA takes under consideration not simply high quality of contact but additionally strikeout and stroll charge, each of that are fairly pedestrian in Rodriguez’s case. The six guys forward of Rodriguez on that leaderboard are Miller, Dylan Lee, Louis Varland, Jacob Misiorowski, Grant Taylor, and Duran. All of these guys have increased strikeout charges (manner increased strikeout charges, in truth) and decrease stroll charges than Rodriguez.

In case you isolate Rodriguez’s numbers to what opponents do on contact, they get much more spectacular.

So what’s subsequent? Nicely, I’m glad I’ve had event to say Duran a couple of occasions, as a result of that’s who I’d draw inspiration from. Duran has a significantly better strikeout charge than Rodriguez, however at his core he’s one other hard-changeup/soft-contact man. (A particularly laborious changeup, I’ll concede, if it’s even a changeup in any respect.)

Duran has two issues Rodriguez lacks: First, above-average command. Rodriguez is barely 22, however he has form of a messy supply. His command may get higher, but when it doesn’t, that’s tremendous. It’s not like he’s working a double-digit stroll charge or something.

The second factor Duran has is a legit energy breaking ball. Two of them, truly: a sweeper and a curveball. If Rodriguez can both substitute or increase his cutterish slider with one thing that has actual depth, he’ll go from bat-breaker to bat-misser. If that occurs, Preller might commerce Miller, plug Rodriguez into the ninth-inning function, and barely miss a beat.

Wow, I actually received forward of myself there. Rodriguez’s potential is large, however we must always see what occurs to the remainder of the Padres’ bullpen first.