San Diego Padres top pitching prospect Humberto Cruz was placed on the restricted list last month, per the team’s transaction log on MiLB.com.<\/p>\n
The Padres released a statement to MadFriars<\/a> regarding Cruz.<\/p>\n \u201cHumberto Cruz has been placed on the restricted list. We have no further comment at this time as it is a pending legal matter,” the Padres said.<\/p>\n Cruz, 19, is the Padres’ No. 5 overall prospect, according to MLB Pipeline. He was expected to miss the entire 2026 season after having surgery on his right elbow last September.<\/p>\n Players can be placed on the restricted list for a variety of reasons, including violating the sport’s Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program or other legal proceedings. As of this writing, the league has not announced any penalty for Cruz.<\/p>\n In addition to Cruz, the Padres have also placed right-handed pitching prospect Emmanuel Pinales on administrative leave for an unrelated legal matter, per MadFriars. He’s facing sexual battery charges from a 2024 incident.<\/a><\/p>\n Pinales was active during spring training but was placed on administrative leave instead of being assigned to a minor league team.<\/p>\n Who is Humberto Cruz?<\/p>\n Cruz signed with the Padres in 2024 as an international free agent out of Mexico. He was in the same class as Leo De Vries<\/a>, so the Padres traded 2023 12th-round pick Blake Dickerson to the Detroit Tigers in exchange for international signing money to sign Cruz, who they inked for $750,000.<\/p>\n Cruz was in the Arizona Complex League in 2024 and the start of 2025 before reaching Single-A.<\/p>\n Across six starts in Single-A last year, Cruz went 0-3 with a 6.97 ERA and 20 strikeouts across 20.2 innings pitched. He then underwent internal brace surgery on his right UCL that’s likely to sideline him for the entire 2026 season.<\/p>\n Cruz has shot up the Padres’ prospect rankings, currently ranking as the team’s No. 5 prospect overall and No. 4 pitching prospect.<\/p>\n Cruz’s fastball sits in the mid-90s, and he also has a slider and changeup.<\/p>\n Who is Emmanuel Pinales?<\/p>\n Pinales, 24, signed with the Padres in 2022 out of the Dominican Republic. He came stateside in 2023, where he slowly began working his way through the minor league ranks.<\/p>\n He made it to Double-A in 2025, where he made 20 appearances (15 starts), sporting a 5.32 ERA with 81 strikeouts across 88 innings. He was dominant across five starts in High-A last year, sporting a 1.40 ERA with 27 strikeouts across 25.2 innings pitched.<\/p>\n Sign up to our free newsletter<\/a> and follow us on Facebook<\/a> and X\/Twitter<\/a> for the latest news.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Diego Padres top pitching prospect Humberto Cruz was placed on the restricted list last month, per the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661337,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2407],"tags":[5,4,43,137,18,4339,4338],"class_list":{"0":"post-661336","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego-padres","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-padres","11":"tag-san-diego","12":"tag-san-diego-padres","13":"tag-sandiego","14":"tag-sandiegopadres"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116342332261222553","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}