'He's my guy': With pitchers' backing, Fermin teed up for special '26 campaign

PEORIA, Ariz. -- On the same day Mason Miller was traded to San Diego last summer, the Padres acquired Freddy Fermin in a separate deal with Kansas City.

Immediately, Royals right-hander Lucas Erceg, Miller’s former teammate with the A’s, reached out. He wanted to let Miller know about his new batterymate.

“He was like, ‘He will be living and dying with you on every single pitch,’” Miller said. “And I would say that was one of the most accurate descriptions I’ve heard. … Nobody cares more than [Fermin].”

Pitchers and catchers reported to Padres camp earlier this week, and it’s no understatement to say Fermin has been building toward this season for a decade.

He was an unheralded, undersized prospect when the Royals signed him as a 19-year-old out of Venezuela in July 2015. He broke through at age 27 and spent most of the past four seasons as Salvador Perez’s backup in Kansas City.

Now, Fermin will get his first crack at being a starting catcher in the big leagues. Not that he’s approaching the season any differently as a result.

“I just try to enjoy the game,” Fermin said. “I’m not trying to do too much -- enjoy the game, learn the most that I can, be there for my pitchers.”

The reviews on Fermin from Padres pitchers have been glowing -- which is impressive considering how little time Fermin had to acclimate to those pitchers last year. It can be difficult for any player to assimilate midseason. It’s especially difficult for a catcher, who must learn the nuances of an entire pitching staff on the fly.

Fermin, the Padres say, handled it as well as anyone possibly could have. To an extent, that’s why they made the trade in the first place. They’d done extensive background work on Fermin’s makeup and were convinced he could handle the transition.

• Fermin is new to the Padres, but his roots with SD run deep

Naturally, of course, there were growing pains.

“There’s always going to be some learning curves,” said Padres manager Craig Stammen. “I think there were some times he was calling a lot of sliders for Jeremiah Estrada, and we needed him to be throwing high heaters and the changeup. Those things will happen. But we’ve got to be OK with having a little bit of grace, like, ‘It’s all right, you’re learning.’”

That last part is key. Fermin was learning. Actively learning. His pitchers noticed. Estrada, for example, saw Fermin working to better understand his pitches.

For one, when Estrada missed badly with his changeup, he noticed Fermin shying away from it at first. But, well, Estrada’s changeup is nasty. It’s so nasty that, when it’s moving that much, it might actually be time to lean into the pitch. Fermin didn’t know this yet; he’d never caught Estrada. But sure enough, by the end of the season, they’d developed and built that rapport.

“He’s never caught me,” Estrada said. “It takes time. … There’s adjustments to be made. And there’s adjustments that have been made. That’s the thing about Fermin: He builds that relationship. He doesn’t want to let things slide. He wants to get better every day.”

Spring Training is typically the best time for that. Fermin will be afforded the opportunity to learn the nuances of these Padres pitchers -- where they like targets, their philosophies behind each individual pitch, where to set up.

That makes it all the more remarkable that Fermin was so effective defensively last season without a dedicated time period to learn those things about his new pitching staff.

“He’s my guy,” right-hander Randy Vásquez, who took a serious step forward after Fermin’s arrival, said through interpreter Jorge Merlos. “He just trusts us with whatever we have. … Just a really great guy and a special catcher.”

Fermin’s learning process culminated with a dramatic stretch run. In the season’s final week, he hit a walk-off single to clinch the Padres’ place in the postseason before a raucous Petco Park. He followed with a strong showing in the playoffs, going 4-for-11 with a double, while helping limit the Cubs to just six runs across three Wild Card Series games.

“What we saw from him in the playoffs against Chicago -- the game not speeding up on him, him having complete control of the game, getting us out of a bunch of jams in those games and then his at-bats were great, too -- he showed us who he really was in the playoffs,” Stammen said. “That’s got us really excited about this season.”