San Diego Padres: Jacob Nix To Join Wingenter and Kennedy In The Bigs

Reports indicate that the San Diego Padres will be adding another rookie to the rotation, later this week.

Per reports from MLB.com’s AJ Cassavell, the San Diego Padres are likely to promote RHP Jacob Nix to the major leagues, at some point this week. Nix will join a long list of rookie pitchers to make their Major League Baseball debut with the Padres including Joey Lucchesi, Eric Lauer, Trey Wingenter, Brett Kennedy, Walker Lockett, Robert Stock, and Jose Castillo.

After veteran pitchers Tyson Ross and Jordan Lyles were let go via waiver claims, Manager Andy Green indicated that it was now time to get a feel for what a number of arms in the minors have at the major league level. Green and the organization are following through on those words, thankfully.

As Cassavell reports, he believes Nix could make his debut against the Philadelphia Phillies. Nix is one of a large handful of prospects who are likely to find themselves with a new team if left unprotected for this year’s Rule-5 draft. He will now be given the opportunity to showcase his talents in from of the home crowd at Petco Park (likely).

Nix began the season injured, limiting the number of starts he has made up to this point. With the AA San Antonio Missions, Nix made nine starts, logging 52.2 innings and proving to be largely unhittable. He allowed just 39 hits and 12 earned runs, while striking out 41 and issuing nine free passes.

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A common knock on Nix has always been that his “stuff” never matches his results, meaning, just looking at his stat line tells us almost nothing about exactly how good Nix is. That’s true for nearly every prospect, however, Nix is a legitimate top-10 prospect on any other team in the majors. MLB Pipeline ranks Nix as the 14th best overall prospect in the Padres system and fifth best RHP prospect.

Most of the major scouting reports agree, that Nix is a mid-rotation arm at the major league level, yet he’s ranked as the fifth best RHP prospect (10th best pitching prospect overall) in the Padres organization. Unbelievable.

He was recently promoted to AAA El Paso, making one start back on August 4th. Nix showed the same sort of production he did in AA, tossing six shutout innings, allowing five hits, no walks, and striking out three.

With the season long gone for the Padres, bringing up arms like Kennedy, Wingenter, and now Nix is a welcomed sight. If this team is going to lose 100 games, why not watch them lose with young, valuable prospects who are taking their lumps now?