Rymer Liriano’s Struggle Was Real In 2014

Highly anticipated prospect Rymer Liriano had a lot of Padres fans excited (this one included) going into the 2014 season after years of anticipation and injury bugs. Safe to say, he had his good moments but fans were overly disappointed. His roster spot is in question for 2015 and yet another move to talk about for A.J. Preller coming up this winter. 

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For example, two days after his major league debut, he hit a home run into the Western Metal Supply Building. After that, not much noise. In his remaining 38 games (making his debut on August 11^th) he hit .220 (24-for-109) with two doubles, his lone home run, six RBI and four steals. He walked nine times and struck out 39 times per Dennis Lin of the U-T San Diego. Lin goes on to explain that Liriano might have lost some confidence due to better pitching at the big league level, and off-speed pitching, which as a power-hitter, he struggled with.

So where do we go from here? This was Liriano’s seventh season in the Padres system, including missing 2013 due to Tommy John surgery. His fast climb in the minor leagues this year was an encouraging sign, but it could’ve been too fast. His potential is sky-high, but he has been compared to the same burnout experiment like Ruben Rivera, who didn’t pan out back in 2000. He’s been compared to the great former-Dodger and Yankee Raul Mondesi and he’s working on his craft. He knows his time is running out and right now he is playing for Tigres del Licey, a Dominican Republic Winter-League team. As of Friday, he is 3-for-15 so far. Rumors are he might start the 2015 season in Triple-A El Paso, so he can get better pitch recognition and have time to improve his arm in the outfield.

Keep The Faith.