The Padres announced on Thursday evening that the club acquired lefty reliever Tim Hill from the Royals in exchange for outfielder Franchy Cordero and pitcher Ronald Bolaños.
Hill, 30, was solid out of the bullpen for the Royals since debuting in 2018. Over 85 1/3 innings of relief, the southpaw has a 4.11 ERA with 81 strikeouts and 27 walks. As can be seen in the image above, he’s a side-winding lefty. It is no surprise that he has held left-handed hitters to a .524 OPS compared to .766 for right-handed hitters.
Cordero, 25, has hit .240/.306/.431 with 10 home runs and 29 RBI over 273 plate appearances over parts of the past three seasons. He put up impressive numbers at Triple-A El Paso in 2017 but he hasn’t quite translated the success to the majors yet.
Bolaños, 23, made his major league debut last year. He struggled in his 19 2/3 innings of work, yielding 13 runs on 17 hits and 12 walks with 19 strikeouts. MLB Pipeline rated him the No. 16 prospect in the Padres’ system.
Cordero was ticketed for a bench role with the Padres this season. Meanwhile, Hill provides the Padres another lefty arm out of the ‘pen, and those are always valuable.
