Padres somehow made the Matt Waldron situation even harder to understand

Matt Waldron is still with the Padres, which somehow made this whole thing more confusing. After a strange 24-hour stretch that made it look like Waldron’s time in San Diego might be ending, the Padres did not designate him for assignment. Instead, they placed him on the 15-day injured list with a right brachialis muscle injury and recalled Alek Jacob from Triple-A El Paso to take his spot on the active roster.

So, Waldron remains in the organization. According to Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune, Waldron had been receiving treatment in the biceps area for some time. The specific injury is to the brachialis, a muscle in the upper arm near the elbow that’s often described more generally as a biceps injury. Acee also reported that Waldron had not previously complained of the sort of discomfort he described to the medical staff Thursday after pitching two innings on one day of rest.

That changes the way we have to read everything that came before it. One day, the conversation around Waldron was about a bullpen role. Craig Stammen had publicly framed him as a potential relief option after his rotation spot became increasingly difficult to justify. The next day, Alek Jacob was on his way up and Waldron was headed to the injured list instead of the DFA wire. That is a lot of whiplash for a struggling knuckleballer.

This isn’t about accusing the Padres of hiding anything, because that would be a reckless leap. Something manageable can become something that requires an IL stint quickly, especially when a pitcher throws multiple innings on short rest. 

But from the outside, the Padres’ handling of Waldron still looks clunky. It looked like a baseball decision. Then it became a medical decision. In between, the bullpen plan aged badly because it suddenly felt like an incomplete explanation.

Matt Waldron’s IL move makes the Padres’ pitching plan look even less settled

The Padres may have avoided losing Waldron for nothing, which is the good news. If they had DFA’d him, there was at least a chance another team would take a shot on the knuckleball. Now, the Padres can keep him in the building while he gets healthy.

Waldron was already in a fragile spot competitively. His rotation case had collapsed. The knuckleball had not been good enough to cover for the damage around it..

Again, maybe the Padres were working with different information at different times. That’s entirely possible. Waldron’s discomfort after Thursday’s outing may have changed the situation enough for the club to pivot. But fans are allowed to look at the sequence and ask the obvious question: if Waldron had already been receiving treatment in that area, why did this ever sound like a clean bullpen transition?

Either way, the Padres did not quiet the Waldron conversation. They gave it a second life. Now the question is not just whether Waldron has a role when he comes back. It’s whether the Padres ever really had a firm plan for him in the first place, or whether his injury simply gave them a way to delay a decision they were not fully ready to make.

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Follow