Padres sign 8 to minor-league deals

The San Diego Padres have agreed to terms with a number of players in their organization in the past 24 hours, working out minor-league contracts with left-hander Juan Oramas, outfielder Travis Buck, right-hander Jason Ray, catcher Eddy Rodriguez, right-hander Sean O’Sullivan, infielder Gregorio Petit, right-hander Daniel Stange, and catcher Rene Rivera, reports the team and Corey Brock of MLB.com.

All eight of the deals include invites to major-league spring training in March. While most of the players are likely to have little to no impact on the big-league club in 2013, a few of the names stand out.

Oramas, 22, was signed by the Padres out of Mexico in 2007 and made the jump into a stateside league in 2010, where he put up a 2.73 ERA and 10.5 K/9 rate in 99 innings of Low-A ball. The left-hander moved up to Double-A in 2011 and had similar success, but only made it part way through this past season before requiring Tommy John surgery.

Buck, 29, has never lived up to the promise he showed as a rookie in 2007, when he hit .288/.377/.474 with seven home runs in 82 games with Oakland. Buck has appeared in just 171 games in the five seasons since, hitting just .219/.282/.358 with 13 home runs. The lefty hitter has obviously lost the swing that made him a player to watch early in his career, but he still puts up solid defensive numbers in the outfield.