Patiño headlines crop headed to Rays in Snell deal
The Rays have made a deal for some important future batterymates. The reigning American League champions finalized a trade on Tuesday to acquire No. 23 overall prospect Luis Patiño from the Padres along with fellow right-hander Cole Wilcox, catching prospect Blake Hunt and big league backstop Francisco Mejia in exchange
The Rays have made a deal for some important future batterymates.
The reigning American League champions finalized a trade on Tuesday to acquire No. 23 overall prospect
The 21-year-old Patiño made his Major League debut on Aug. 5 and appeared in 11 games, making one start, over the latter part of the abbreviated season. In that time, San Diego's No. 3 prospect posted a 5.19 ERA with 21 strikeouts and 14 walks over 17 1/3 innings. Seeing action in the postseason, Patiño allowed one earned run over 2 2/3 innings in three appearances.
That followed a 2019 season in which the Colombia native earned MiLB Organization All-Star honors after putting up 2.57 ERA and fanning 123 batters while holding opponents to a .198 average over 94 2/3 innings across two levels.
Wilcox, a third-round pick in this year's Draft out of the University of Georgia, has all the stuff to become a star. At 6-foot-5 and 232 pounds, he's a big presence on the mound and has a fastball that can reach triple digits to go with a sneaky slider. Whether he will be a starter or reliever in the pros has yet to be determined.
The 69th overall pick in the 2017 MLB Draft, Hunt is a sturdy backstop -- 6-foot-3 and 215 pounds -- who's come along defensively in recent years. At the plate in 2019, his first full Minor League season, the 22-year-old from California put up a .255/.331/.381 slash line with five homers, three triples, 21 doubles, 35 RBIs and 40 runs scored in 89 games with Class A Fort Wayne.
The addition of Patiño increases to seven the number of Top 100 prospects in the Rays system, as ranked by MLB Pipeline. The others are shortstop