Who is Tayron Guerrero?

On Friday morning, the Miami Marlins reached a deal with the San Diego Padres to exchange Josh Naylor, Luis Castillo, Carter Capps, and Jarred Cosart for Andrew Cashner, Colin Rea and Tayron Guerrero. Many of us will recognize six of the names on that list, but who in the world is Tayron Guerrero?

Guerrero is a 25 year old 6-foot-7 reliever who the Padres signed out of Colombia in 2009. He has a plus-plus fastball that hovers around 95 mph on average with an excellent slider, but his control is severely lacking. Here is his 2016 prospect profile courtesy of Minor League Ball and the 2016 Baseball Prospect Book:

Tayron Guerrero, RHP, San Diego Padres

Bats: R Throws: R HT: 6-8 WT: 210 DOB: January 9, 1991

2015: Grade C+

Tayron Guerrero still struggles with his command; his walk rate in Triple-A was unacceptably high. His radar gun readings are also extremely high: 95-100 MPH. He has a plus slider, too. You look at him on the right day and think "closer," but then you see him miss the strike zone by two feet and you hold back. That said, his control issues used to be much worse and he’s made some real progress ironing them out. We’ll hold with a Grade C+.

This season in AAA, Guerrero produced a BB/9 of 6.75, an unacceptably high number. In AA his numbers were slightly better (his BB/9 was 3.97), but that could be due to the level of competition he was facing. Such poor command has led him to amass a 6.00 ERA with a 6.36 FIP over 12 innings in AAA, and a 5.16 ERA with a 3.49 FIP over 22.2 innings in AA. He is certainly no Carter Capps. For now, unless we see improvement, Guerrero projects as nothing more than a middle reliever.