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Hot hitting “kind of” catcher Francisco Mejia is back on the IL with an oblique strain.
The injury is fairly common among baseball players, but it’s worth questioning if the Padres are partially responsible for it with the position swapping.
Mejia has sporadically played outfield as well as Catcher. The team desperately wants to keep his bat in the lineup, which is understandable.
The only other player they’ve moved around this much is Wil Myers. We all see how that’s gone...
The question is simple: Are the Padres putting this young man (with upside but serious defensive questions) at risk by playing the position swap game? It’s true he’s only played 4 games in the outfield, but you’d think the organization would learn their lesson with these sort of things.
We could be reading into it too much or being overly critical. However, he’s really not very good defensively. That’s actually the nice way of putting it. I still believe the team has to make a decision. He’s either a catcher or an outfielder. Bottom line, no in between.
Hopefully this truly is a 10 day injury.
Click here to read the Union Tribunes coverage of Mejia, Chris Paddack and the continued rehab of Garrett Richards.