The San Diego Padres agree to a split contract with the Dominican catcher Pedro Severino. The deal will pay him $1.95MM if he’s in the Majors. and contains an additional $550K in performance bonuses. The 29-year-old, 6-foot-1, Severino has appeared in the Majors in each of the past eight seasons.
He broke into a depth player with the Nationals, playing in a combined 35 games from 2015-17. The backup got his fair share of action over the next four seasons, which he split between the Nationals and Orioles. While he struggled a lot during his final season in Washington, he posted respectable offensive numbers for a receiver during his three years in Baltimore:
From 2019-21, Severino hit .249/.315/.397 in 938 plate appearances. He hit 29 home runs with about league-average strikeout and walk numbers. However, the Orioles did not offer him in lieu of a projected $3.1MM arbitration salary last offseason.
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While he was partially motivated by the upcoming arrival of Adley Rutschman, the O’s decision also reflected defensive deficiencies from Severino. Public metrics have cast him as a far below average defender behind the plate. He routinely rates himself as a worse-than-average pitching framer, according to Statcast, which pegged him as 10 runs under par in that regard in 2021.
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