San Diego Padres: Walker Lockett Sent To Cleveland Indians

For their second move of the afternoon, the San Diego Padres are shipping off starting pitcher Walker Lockett.

They aren’t done yet, folks! According to MLB.com’s AJ Cassavell, the San Diego Padres are sending starting pitcher Walker Lockett to the Cleveland Indians. The return for Lockett is not known at the moment.

**Update- The Padres are receiving 19-year-old pitcher Ignacio Feliz in return for Lockett. He has spent the last two seasons in rookie ball with the Indians. Per Fangraphs scouting department, Feliz is graded at a 40 future value with a 50-grade fastball, 60-grade curveball, and 50-grade command. Per Eric Longenhagen, 

"Cleveland has another arm of note in the AZL, 6-foot-1, 18-year-old Dominican righty Ignacio Feliz. He’s one of the best on-mound athletes I’ve seen in the AZL and his arm works well. He sits only 88-92 but that should tick up as he matures physically. His fastball has natural cut, and at times, he throws what looks like a true cutter in the 84-87 range. He also has a 12-to-6 curveball that flashes plus."

Lockett was added to the Padres 40-man roster ahead of the 2018 season and figured to be a factor in the major league starting rotation at some point, unfortunately, that never materialized. Lockett went 5-9 with a 4.73 ERA and 1.34 WHIP with the Triple-A El Paso Chihuahuas before making his major league debut on June 1st against the Cincinnati Reds.

With the big league ballclub, Lockett made four appearances, three of them starts, going 0-3 with a 9.60 ERA. Across 15 innings, he gave up 16 earned runs on 22 hits, walking 10 and striking out 12. Opponents hit .333 against him.

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Injuries caused the former fourth-round pick to miss significant time in his development and it quickly became apparent that the Padres were done giving Lockett chances at the major league level after passing him over numerous times late in the season for other rookie options.

As of 1 pm, all that we know is that the Padres will be receiving a minor league pitcher from the Indians in return for Walker Lockett. We will update the story when more information is released.

More moves are expected to be made before tonights 5 pm deadline to protect Rule-5 draft eligible prospects. According to The Athletic’s Dennis Lin, the Padres are aggressively looking to add a starting third baseman and could be selling Christian Villanueva to a Japanese pro team. That is certainly quite the rumor that we will monitor closely over the next few hours. If this is true, it appears that Wil Myers will be making his way to the outfield and a starting outfielder (either Manuel Margot, Hunter Renfroe, or Franmil Reyes) may be departing soon.

The day is far from over! Stay tuned as more transactions are sure to take place!