Former Padres pitcher seemingly takes shot at SD at Dodgers spring training

Of all of the minor-league contracts with invitations to spring training that the Dodgers have doled out this offseason, reliever Nabil Crismatt may be one of the most likely to actually make the Opening Day roster. Earlier signings of Stephen Gonsalves and Jesse Hahn, neither of whom have played professional baseball in any capacity since 2021, will probably be a longer shot.

But Crismatt, along with Dinelson Lamet, are both former Padres who actually did good work for San Diego not too long ago. Crismatt's best season was 2022, when he pitched 67 innings out of the bullpen for a 2.94 ERA. His 2023 was ugly; he gave up 12 earned runs over 11 innings pitched and was DFA'ed in late June before the Diamondbacks scooped him up. He pitched two almost spotless innings there before being DFA'ed again, signing with the Dodgers shortly thereafter.

His LA deal came with an invitation to spring training, so he reported to Camelback on Feb. 9 with the rest of the Dodgers' pitching staff. He took to Instagram to post a picture of himself in a Dodgers spring training uniform with the caption, "Day 1 on the books. Nice to be in blue now," which could very fairly be read as a shot at his old team in San Diego.

New Dodgers pitcher Nabil Crismatt shades Padres at spring training

The Padres clubhouse seemed like a mess last year and their roster is a mess now, so it would make sense for Crismatt to be relieved that he's away from all of that. It might not have been an intentional slight, but the comments from enraged Padres fans on his post show that it's definitely being taken like one. It's sort of weird for them to expect any kind of loyalty from a pitcher that was literally DFA'ed by their team, but fandom is as fandom does.

Even if Crismatt doesn't make it out of Triple-A during spring training, he'll get more time to rehabilitate in the minors and try to fix whatever went wrong in 2023, and could be an easy call up to majors if needed down the line. Good riddance, Padres.