Padres talking to Luis Garcia, Robert Suarez

The Padres, notable upgrades in their bullpen, are in talks with a pair of options that are somewhat less likely to debut on the free agency market. FanSided’s Robert Murray tweets that San Diego is negotiating with righty Luis Garcia, while Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported (also via Twitter) that the Brothers are seriously discussing with the person on the right Robert Suárez.

Garcia, 35 in January, was revived with the Cardinals after joining the organization in a small league deal over the summer. Through 33 innings of the third, the former Phillies, Rangers and Angels hurdles achieved a 3.24 ERA with strong strike (25.2%), walk (5.9%) and grounding rates. (45.7%) while rapidly increasing the odds of entering high leverage situations (11 tackles, two saves).

Suarez, 31 in March, is perhaps an unknown to many readers but has been on the radar of clubs in this winter’s Major League. The Venezuelan-born right winger has never pitched in the Juniors but has spent several years playing Japan’s Nippon professional baseball, splitting his time between the SoftBank Hawks (2016-19) and the Hanshin Tigers ( 2020-21). The right as a whole has an outstanding track record but has a dominant campaign in 2021, pitching to a 1.16 ERA with a 25.3% hit rate and a very small 3.5% walk rate with 42 saves in 62 1/3 frames.

More will come.