Padres Make A SNEAKY Good Signing... | Padres Free Agent News

In 2025, a right-handed pitcher in Korea struck out 207 hitters in 178.2 innings. He finished that KBO season with a 2.87 ERA and his team, the Hanwha Eagles, made it to the Korean series. Then he came home and signed with the Houston Astros. But in 26 MLB innings this year, his ERA was 7.62. By June, Houston had designated him for assignment, and on October 29th, the Astros declined his option for next season. But on Tuesday night, the San Diego Padres just signed him. His name is Ryan Weiss, and the deal is one year with a club option for 2028. The money hasn't been reported as of recording, and it's his second MLB contract in 11 months. So which pitcher are the Padres getting? The one with the sub-3 ERA in Korea? Or the one with the over 7 ERA in Houston. To answer that, you really have to know how long of a road it has been for him. Weiss is a 29-year-old right-hander out of Wright State in Dayton, Ohio. In 2017 at Wright State, he posted a 2.13 ERA over 88.2 innings. That summer, he pitched in the Cape Cod League for Hyannis and finished with a 2.52 ERA there as well. In 2018, his last college season, he struck out 92 hitters in 98 innings. That June, Arizona took him in the fourth round of the 2018 draft. In 2019, his first full season, he made 26 starts and threw 128.1 innings across two levels of Class A. And then there was no minor league season in 2020, and when play came back in 2021, Arizona moved him to the bullpen for 26 of his 34 outings. He then reached AAA Reno that year, and in July 2022, Kansas City claimed him and sent him to their AAA team in Omaha. In Omaha that year, his ERA was 7.82, and the Royals took him off the 40-man roster in October. He started 2023 back in Omaha and walked 14 batters in 14 innings. By that summer, he was with the High Point Rockers in the Atlantic League, an independent league with no MLB team behind it. That August, the Fubon Guardians in Taiwan signed him. There, he made 5 starts with a 2.32 ERA, and he struck out 25 hitters in those 31 innings. In 2024, he was back at high point, and later that year, the Hanwha Eagles brought him to Korea. His first KBO season, 2024, ended with a 3.73 ERA in 16 starts. Across two KBO seasons with Hanwha, he made 46 starts with a 3.16 ERA. His 2025 record was 16 wins and 5 losses. Fans in Dijon, where Hanwha plays, gave him a nickname, Dijon Jesus. That run earned him a Major League deal with Houston last December. His MLB debut came on March 27th of this year, almost 8 years after Arizona drafted him. And then San Diego will make it seven different clubs since the draft, and teams keep giving him another chance. So TJ Stats run a pitch model called Stuff Plus, which grades each pitch on its velocity, movement, and spin. On that scale, 100 is average, and TJ Stats has Weiss at 108 overall. The highest grade of any of his pitches goes to the sweeper at 113. The four-seam fastball and the changeup both come in at 109. So using that model, you can tell that all three of his main pitches grade above average. But keep in mind that Stuff Plus doesn't tell the entire story when it comes to pitchers. According to Baseball Savant, his fastball averaged 95.2 miles per hour in the majors this year. And the average right-handed four-seamer was at 95.3 miles per hour. So he sits right on the line. The sweeper was his second most used pitch and it comes in at about 11 miles per hour slower than the fastball. And when hitters swung at the sweeper, they missed 32% of the time. Plus, the changeup got even more misses at 38% of swings. His sinker at about 93 miles per hour was the only one of his pitches that finished on the plus side of Savant's run value at plus one. So across all of his pitches, hitters missed on 23.7% of their swings. And those misses turned into strikeouts. He had 30 strikeouts in his 26 MLB innings, more than one an inning. In the majors this year, Weiss struck out 22.9% of the batters he faced. The MLB average was 22.2%, so even in a 7.62 ERA season, he struck out a little more than the typical pitcher. It also held up in AAA as well, with 72 strikeouts for Sugar Land. Savant also has an expected ERA, built from how hard and at what angle hitters made contact, and his was 6.43. Now that's still high, but it's more than a run below the ERA he actually posted. Hitters batted 315 against him while the quality of their contact pointed to 269. The other thing on his record is how many places he's pitched. You have Rookie Ball in Arizona, then Class A in Hillsboro, Kane County, and Visalia, plus AA in Amarillo, and AAA in Reno and Omaha. And then the Independent Ball in High Point, the CPBL in Taiwan, the KBO in Korea, AAA Sugar Land, and then MLB in Houston. That is 12 pro teams in three countries at every level from Rookie Ball to the majors. And if you're getting something out of this breakdown so far, hit the like button and help this video beat our best of the month. So now the 2026 results. Weiss pitched in nine MLB games for Houston this year. Two of them were starts, and his ERA was 7.62 over 26 innings. The MLB average ERA this year was 417, and hitters collected 35 hits off of him in those 26 innings. His WHIP was 2.12. So more than two batters reached base for every inning he pitched. The MLB average WHIP this year was 1.30. He also gave up eight home runs, which is about one every three innings. On May 4th, against the Dodgers, he lasted 4.1 innings and gave up seven runs. That was one of three outings out of his last six in the majors, where he allowed at least three earned runs. With that, Houston optioned him to AAA on May 5th and designated him for assignment on June 12th. Every other team passed on him and he spent the rest of the season with AAA Sugar Land. Sugar Land then used him for 22 games, 13 of them were starts. But even in AAA, his ERA was 5.42 over 76.1 innings. But there were good nights in there too. On September 13th, he threw 5 scoreless innings for Sugar Land. Then five days later, he threw 8.1 shutout innings, the longest outing in Sugar Land history. But the first number that really jumps out is the walks. In the majors, Weiss walked 15.3% of the batters he faced. The MLB average was 8.4%, so he walked close to twice as many hitters as the typical pitcher. And that came out to 20 walks in his 26 MLB innings, and in AAA, he walked 38 more. And when hitters did put the ball in play, they hit it hard. Against him, 49.4% of balls in play left the bat at 95 mph or more, against an MLB average of 37.1. That's about one of every two balls hit in play. And the pitch that hurt him the most was his fastball. He threw the four-seamer on 37% of his pitches this year, More than any other pitch. Baseball Savant's run value on his four-seamer was minus nine, meaning it cost Houston about nine runs compared to an average pitch. And yes, that's the same fastball that the model grades at 109 stuff plus. So now your question is, how is the stuff so good, but the result so bad, and how can he fix it? In Korea in 2025, Weiss walked 56 batters in 178.2 KBO innings. That works out to 2.8 walks per nine innings. In AAA this year, it was 4.5 per nine. And in the majors, it was 6.9. So first things first, you have to fix the control. The walks are out of hand and it's not going to play at a major league level. Then you either have to fix his fastball and make it more competent, or you have to find some secondary pitches to go along with his fastball and complement it to hide its deficiencies. John Morosi summed up the Padres' situation in one line on X. The Padres have a lot of innings to cover in 2027. The last time Weiss had a full season as a starter in Korea was in 2025, where he made 30 starts. This year, between Houston and Sugar Land, he threw 102.1 innings with 15 starts. If this sounds familiar, it's because San Diego went this route a year earlier with Kyle Hart, another pitcher who came to the Padres from the KBO. Hart signed with the Padres in February 2025, coming off a season with the NC Dinos in Korea. In that 2024 season, he had a 2.69 ERA, second in the KBO, led the league with 182 strikeouts, and won its top award for starting pitchers. Then in 2025, Hart made 40 appearances for San Diego, six starts and 14 in relief. But his ERA was 5.86 over 43 MLB innings. Hart did strike out 37 and walked 13 in those innings, about 2.7 walks per 9. And then after that, he mostly worked out of the bullpen with an occasional opener start for him. But this year, he made 46 appearances for San Diego, and only four of them were starts, with a 4.92 ERA over 64 innings. Weiss's deal is built the same way. One year, then a club option. That lets the Padres decide on 2028. So, if he's good enough, he's a starter. If he's just okay, he's the next Kyle Hart. Good stuff, bad results, that's a long reliever. I like the move, it's nothing flashy, but the upside, if it works out, will make the deal worth it. Just don't expect much, but hope for the best. This is an attempt to take trash and turn it into a sculpted work of art. So you guys tell me what you think of Ryan Weiss. Do you think he'll be a starter? Do you think he'll be a long reliever or AAA guy? Or do you think we'll release him in general? Let me know in the comments down below. And thank you so much for watching. Please subscribe.