Padres MiLB May 13, Players of the Day

Hitter of the Day

n/a

Pitcher(s) of the Day

Mat Latos (Low-A): 7.0 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 7 SO, 1 HR
Tim Stauffer (AA): 2.2 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 2 SO, 0 HR

Commentary

Latos is a stud! He also can’t be staying in Fort Wayne very long.

Season stats:

18.2 IP, 7 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 19 SO, 1 HR

Midwest League hitters clearly can’t hit him. The Padres have to be promoting him to High-A soon.

Tim Stauffer's presence on this list is significant… Even when he was up and down as a starter in ’06-08 he would show us a few 93 mph fastballs. Before I go on, let’s review so no one makes inaccurate judgments:

May 2003: Tim Stauffer is one of 4 consensus top players in the upcoming draft (along with Delmon Young, Rickie Weeks, and Kyle Sleeth).
June 2003: In his last collegiate game in the Super Regionals (I think) Stauffer’s coach leaves him in the game for 150+ pitches.
June 2003: The Padres draft Stauffer #4 overall.
August 2003: Stauffer signs for approximately $750,000 (MLB recommended amount for slot is $2.8m) after revealing that he had something wrong with his shoulder (he only found out in July when he had an MRI).
April 2004: Stauffer makes his professional debut and spends only dominant 35 innings in High-A. Scouts, however, say that while he is overpowering High-A hitters, his pitches do not have the movement they had in college. His fastball is now straight.

The rest of his history is similar. He was not dominant in AAA (he skipped AA) but he did post a 3.54 ERA in 81 innings in 2004. He made his MLB debut the next year and was hit pretty hard. In 94 big league innings between ’05 and ‘07, Stauffer has posted a 6.37 ERA.

Why did I tell you all that? Stauffer missed all of 2008 recovering/rehabbing from an injury and is just now pitching again in official games. If he can get a little more “stuff” back that he previously lost, he could end up as a nice bullpen arm. Will he ever be the stud he was in 2003 as a University of Richmond Spider? No. But that does not mean he cannot be effective. We’ll keep tabs on him.