Bradgley Rodriguez Is the Key To Unlocking Padres' Playoff Bullpen

[Randy Holt]

With the San Diego Padres set to reprise their Wild Card Round matchup with the Chicago Cubs from a year ago—only this time with the opportunity to host the best-of-three series—avenging their 2025 loss is top of mind for Craig Stammen's club. And as far as the bullpen goes, the Padres' most important reliever may not be Mason Miller or Adrian Morejon but rookie arm Bradgley Rodríguez.

Don't get it twisted. Miller & Morejon will, in reality, be the two most frequently deployed relievers out of Craig Stammen's relief corps. In matters of playoff baseball, though, two relievers does not a bullpen make. It'll be a collective effort in the late innings, with Rodríguez representing the third part of a potential dynamite back three in high-leverage situations. 

That Rodríguez could earn that level of trust speaks to just how good he's been in 2026. With just a shade over seven big league innings to his name prior to this season, Rodríguez's 1.6 fWAR in relief ranks tied for 16th out of 150 qualifying relievers. He threw an even 74 innings in the regular season, with a 26.9 percent strikeout rate and a walk rate of only 6.6 percent. 

The numbers themselves don't quite tell the story like the percentile chart does, though:

Even with an electric fastball and 84th percentile whiff rate, Rodríguez isn't a pitcher who has to rely solely on either one to find results. He can punch out opposing hitters, but his game relies even more on utilizing his stuff in a way that mitigates hard contact and gets the ball on the ground. Rodríguez's opposing hard-hit rate trails only Mason Miller and, weirdly, Yuki Matsui for the Padres' team lead, while his ground-ball rate is behind only Morejon. But as an arm not necessarily seen as an eighth or ninth-inning guy, the Friars have the ability to extend the skill set of their two best relievers into an even earlier frame than we might normally see Miller or Morejon trot out to the mound.

Therein lies the biggest perk of Bradgley Rodríguez as a playoff reliever. His upside is, quite obviously, not what either of the team's two stalwarts possess in the eighth and ninth inning of games. But he offers a sort of blend of the two in mitigating quality contact and generating groundballs. When in doubt, the strikeouts are there too. It's a dynamic skill set that speaks to just how good the Padres are at developing (and maximizing) arms exactly like this. 

Rodríguez should immediately be penciled in as one of the more crucial arms in the relief corps with the playoffs soon to begin. Sure, the team has other arms that proven exceptionally reliable as the season has worn on. But Rodríguez is as close a quantity to either of Miller or Morejon as a team can get without actually having to rely solely on their top two guys.

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