Padres: Franchy Cordero delivers heartfelt goodbye to San Diego

Traded to the Royals on Thursday, Franchy Cordero thanked the San Diego Padres and the City on Twitter.

In what was supposed to be a healthy, breakout season for Franchy Cordero, now he’ll be looking to do the same in Kansas City. The San Diego Padres sent him, along with Ronald Bolanos, to the Royals in exchange for reliever Tim Hill. And Franchy took to Twitter to deliver his thanks.

Cordero was limited to just nine games at the big league level and 15 games in the minors last year. That’s been the story on the 25-year-old thus far being limited by injuries. In 2018, he gave us a glimpse of what he was capable of, smacking seven home runs and driving in 19 runs in 40 games.

He’s been lauded for his exit velocity and likely would have made the Opening Day roster had the shutdown not happened. Edward Olivares was making noise in spring training, and he has performed well in summer camp, too.

Olivares homered on Thursday night just moments after the news broke that Cordero had been traded. Along with the starting three in Pham-Grisham-Myers in the outfield, playing time was going to hard to come by with Taylor Trammell expected to make the roster as well.

And while the Padres have the DH to use how they see fit this year, that was likely reserved for Josh Naylor, who has a .936 fielding percentage in the outfield.

I guess closing the book on Cordero, Olivares is going to make the 30-man roster. It’ll be interesting to see how he fares against Major League talent, as he could potentially be among the first wave of cuts when the roster is trimmed to 28 and 26 two weeks after.