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The Padres and general manager AJ Preller have had a fairly active day today. In addition to their selection of four players in the Rule 5 Draft and their acquisition of catcher Christian Bethancourt from the Braves, they also signed two pitchers to minor league deals, as first reported by Baseball America's Matt Eddy. One, Philip Humber, is a bit more well known than the other, Ryan Buchter.
Humber's claim to fame is the perfect game he pitched against the Mariners in 2012 as a member of the White Sox; he also set career highs that year in games, starts, ERA, ERA+, innings pitched, strikeouts, wins, and strikeout-to-walk ratio. Prior to that, the third overall pick in the 2004 draft was best known for being included with Carlos Gomez and others in the trade that sent Johan Santana from the Twins to the Mets before the 2008 season. Along with New York and Minnesota, Humber also pitched for Kansas City before heading to Chicago; he appeared in only a single-digit amount of major league games in each of his first five seasons, 2006 through 2010. Following his aforementioned best season, the White Sox waived him, and he pitched his 17 most recent big league games for the Astros in 2013, going 0-8 with a 7.90 ERA in 17 games, seven of which he started. Humber spent all of 2014 with Oakland's AAA team in Sacramento, pitching mostly in relief. From there it was to Korea, where he put up a 6.75 ERA in 11 starts and one relief appearance for the Kia Tigers last season.
Buchtler has also been perfect in the majors, although in a completely and less noteworthy way. He has a flawless record, having picked up the victory in his lone major league appearance. He pitched all of one inning for the Braves on June 20, 2014. Brought in for the twelfth frame, he struck out the first batter he faced, the contemptible Jayson Werth, then walked Adam LaRoche, who was then erased on a double play ball hit by Ryan Zimmerman. His teammates then scored two runs in the top of the thirteenth to get him the win. The lefty performed ably for Atlanta's top farm team that season, and was lights out last year for the Dodgers' and Cubs' AAA clubs, to the tune of a 1.78 ERA in 50.2 innings over 43 relief appearances. He struck out 62 batters, which comes out to a rate of 11 per nine innings.
#Padres bring RHP Phil Humber back from Korea and sign hard-throwing LH reliever Ryan Buchter, both to minor league deals.
— Matt Eddy (@MattEddyBA) December 10, 2015