The Padres Need to Give Luis Campusano Another Chance
The Padres have given Luis Campusano multiple chances to take their catcher's job and run with it, but a strong minor league showing this year may have proved that he's earned one last shot.
Over in the National League West, the San Diego Padres are hanging tough with their division rival Los Angeles Dodgers. As we enter the month of June, the former is 34-24 and just one game behind the latter in the standings.
By runs scored, fWAR, and wRC+ the Padres are a below-average team, but their record and +17 run differential will tell you that they’re doing just fine on offense.
A typical lineup consisting of Fernando Tatis Jr., Jackson Merrill, Luis Arraez, Xander Bogaerts, and Manny Machado should be just fine and should be much higher on the leaderboards than they are.
So, what gives?
A look further down the lineup to the catching position will paint a better picture of why the Padres are buried in some of the top categories for measuring offensive success or failure. Sure, oft-used secondary pieces like Tyler Wade and Brandon Lockridge also need to step up but to this point, the catcher’s spot in the starting lineup has been a virtual black hole for San Diego.
Fortunately, the club may already have the solution to their little problem already on the 26-man roster. Let’s break down what the Padres are working with behind the plate and why Luis Campusano, a forgotten asset on this team at this point, may be the answer.
Breaking Down the Padres’ Dreadful Catching Situation
Entering the new year, Padres fans were more than a little bit squeamish when their team addressed a Jurickson Profar-less hole in left field by bringing in Jason Heyward and Connor Joe. To be clear, they were absolutely justified in feeling this way, as Heyward is injured and has a 38 wRC+ and Joe is no longer in the organization, but not enough people talked about their dire backstop situation.
Elias Diaz and Martin Maldonado, two well-respected veterans who are nearing the end of their careers, were brought in to shore up the position. Instead, things haven’t gone very well.
Diaz, 34, has made it into 47 games for the Padres so far and is hitting just .218 with a .604 OPS and 75 wRC+. In his defense, he hasn’t been much of a hitter since a random offensive breakout back in 2018, but he’s only been worth 0.1 fWAR so far and has a DRS of -3 behind the plate too.
Maldonado, 38, is a former Gold Glover but has one of the worst bats in MLB history. He’s good for 10-15 home runs a year if he’s playing consistently, but he also strikes out constantly and hasn’t hit over .200 since 2020. Through 31 games, the 15-year veteran is hitting .173 with a .472 OPS and 32 wRC+ that’s led him to an fWAR of -0.5.
Combined, Padres catchers are 26th in baseball with a .210 batting average and 27th with a 67 wRC+. Defensively, they’re 19th in DRS and 21st in Framing.
This just won’t work.
Historically, Maldonado has graded out as a much worse defender than Diaz has, so the Padres should cut bait with the former soon so the latter can function as a backup to Campusano, who may be ready for another look behind the dish.
Luis Campusano Deserves Another Chance
It’s hard to believe that Campusano has been getting sporadic looks at the big league level since all the way back in 2021. The former second-round pick of the 2017 MLB Draft did absolutely nothing but rake all the way through his ascent up the minor-league ladder for the Padres and was one of the top catching prospects in baseball for a while because of it.
Campusano, now 26, hasn’t shown much potential at the game’s highest level outside of a Herculean 49-game stretch in 2023 that was cut short by a thumb injury.
This year, he’s 0-for-13 with six walks and six strikeouts through seven games. He has yet to appear in a single inning behind the plate, having been exclusively used as a designated hitter to this point.
He’s historically been a tough watch defensively as a catcher, but the Padres need to roll with the hot hand here and let the bats play. With Gavin Sheets occupying the designated hitter spot on most nights, San Diego will have to go with an offense-over-defense mindset from their catcher situation.
The overarching point here is that the Padres cannot simply sit on their hands and do nothing. Right now, Diaz and Maldonado continue to provide basically zero value. Especially when you take into account just how dominant Campusano was in Triple-A prior to his recent promotion (back) to the big leagues, this could be such an easy issue to fix.
Minor League Numbers Prove He’s Ready
In a 37-game sample, Campusano was absolutely money for Triple-A El Paso. The backstop recorded seven doubles and 10 home runs while driving in 29 runs and scoring 28 of his own. Along the way, he also showed off a sense of patience and pitch recognition that he hadn’t shown in the past; walking 28 times while striking out just 23 times.
Campusano’s .313 batting average looks an awful lot like it did back in 2023 when he caught fire in the big leagues, but his .432 OBP, .611 SLG and 1.043 OPS all were so much better than they were a few years back. In the month of May, he made it into 13 games for El Paso, hitting three home runs while driving in 13, walking 10 times and hitting .304.
This provides the Padres with something the rest of their in-house catchers can’t: hope.
Closing Thoughts
With Ethan Salas climbing up through the ranks and Campusano already having received multiple looks over the years, this sure feels like the final opportunity for Campusano to make good on the Padres’ long-term faith in him.
The organization has stuck with him through thick and thin since drafting him as an 18-year-old way back in 2017. He’s given them glimpses of both high highs and low lows over the years, but they can’t just let him ride the bench and desperately search for his first hit of the year like they’ve been doing lately.
A 37-game showing in Triple-A mixed with the awful performances of Diaz and Maldonado seems to be nudging the Padres into giving Campusano one last look before they can comfortably determine that things aren’t working out.
Written by
Eric Treuden (troy-din) has covered baseball for years for multiple different outlets including FanSided, Yardbarker, and Wisconsin Sports Heroics. He recently was the editor for Jays…