According to Ken Rosenthal on Twitter, the Mets have acquired lefty Alex Torres from the San Diego Padres.
In return, the Padres will receive Mets prospect Cory Mazzoni and a player to be named later.
Torres, 27, went 2-1 with a 3.33 ERA (20 earned runs/54.0 innings) in 70 games with San Diego in 2014. He held righties to a .209 (23-110) batting average, the sixth-lowest mark among NL lefthanded relievers. Lefties hit .256 (23-90) against him last year.
The 5-10, 185-pounder stranded 39 of 44 inherited runners, tied for the fourth-best rate in the majors last season.
Torres is 1-0 with a 2.25 ERA (two earned runs/8.0 innings) in eight spring games with San Diego this year.
The native of Valencia, Venezuela is 7-4 with a 2.55 ERA (34 earned runs/120.0 innings) and 122 strikeouts in 113 major league games with the Rays and Padres.
Torres will make the league minimum this season and is not eligible for arbitration eligible until 2017.
Torres is perhaps known best around baseball for wearing the isoBLOX protective hat that MLB introduced due to countless pitchers experiencing traumatic head injuries after being struck with line drives.
Mazzoni is a former 2nd round pick that has missed big chunks of the last two seasons with injury. He made 14 starts across 4 levels last year finishing with a 7-2 record and a 4.68 ERA. The inflated ERA doesn’t tell the whole story though, he had a 4.18 FIP and 4.08 SO/W at Las Vegas.
Cory looked to get more comfortable as the year progressed winning his last 4 decisions and producing a 41/2 K/BB over his last 41.2 innings. His fastball and slider are very good but some scouts question whether his splitter is a good enough 3rd pitch to stick as a starter. He hasn’t pitched in relief (besides Spring Training) since 2011 but the Mets obviously are pretty stacked when it comes to starters.
He ranked No.17 in the MMO Top 25 Prospects this year.
