San Diego Padres: Javy Guerra days without baseball and Mexico series

As expected, the San Diego Padres’ series with the Diamondbacks in Mexico City has been canceled. Games will be played in the home team’s stadium.

Earlier this week, Major League Baseball delayed the start for baseball activities even further. After the coronavirus pandemic became a serious threat in the United States, San Diego Padres’ spring training was immediately shut down with a tentative resume date of April 9.

However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended that groups of 50 or more prohibit from doing so for at least eight weeks. That said, USA Today posed an interesting option for teams when games pick up again.

They mentioned that rosters would almost certainly need to expand for these early-season games because of a lost spring training. How does that impact the Padres? Fringe guys like Javy Guerra could find his way onto the roster. In a normal season, he’s one of the first guys outside of the bullpen.

Guerra, 24, is a failed shortstop turned reliever who displayed remarkable life on his pitches. He tossed just eight innings last year, but he’s looking for an increased workload in 2020. Does Jayce Tingler trust him enough even in an expanded roster scenario?

Other News

• No surprise here, but MLB has decided to cancel their Mexico City series, which impacts the Padres-Diamondbacks series in late April. Instead, the two-game series will be rescheduled sometime later in the year to be played at Chase Field.
• MLB writer Anthony Castrovince ranked his top ten rotations for 2020, and he omitted the Padres from consideration. I think the Padres could be in the conversation, assuming everyone stays healthy.
• Keith Law ranked the top 30 prospects in the draft. To no surprise, Spencer Torkelson from Arizona State is number one. He has left-handed starter, Reid Detmer, as his eighth overall prospect, which is also the slot that the Padres pick from.
• Jonathan Mayo discussed the state of the Padres’ farm system, and he really likes shortstop, Gabriel Arias. He even goes as far to say that Arias is the best hitter of the 2016-2017 international signing period.