Padres lefty Brad Hand is back in Miami as an All-Star and a trade candidate

Brad Hand is an All-Star with the Padres after getting cut loose by the Marlins in 2016

 MIAMI -- Over the last 16 months the San Diego Padres have turned a waiver claim into one of baseball's most valuable trade chips at the 2017 deadline.

Left-hander Brad Hand, who was poached from the Marlins at the end of spring training last year, is back in Miami this week for the 2017 All-Star Game. He's become a dominant reliever in San Diego and owns a 2.71 ERA with 171 strikeouts in 136 1/3 innings with the Padres since coming over in that waiver claim.

"I feel like I've found something that works in the bullpen. I've found my role," said Hand on Monday.

In parts of five seasons with the Marlins the 27-year-old Hand had a 4.71 ERA in 288 2/3 innings spread across 43 starts and 47 relief appearances. He made at least 10 starts and 10 relief appearances in three different seasons for Miami. The club never gave him a set role.

Since arriving in San Diego, Hand has remained in the bullpen full-time, and he's gradually worked his way into more important innings. He's gone from long man to setup man to high-leverage relief ace thanks in part to a self-taught slider he's really started to emphasize over the last calendar year. Hand never had that sort of job stability before. Never a set role.

"I could never really find what it was I was going to do," he said. "I was still kind of pitching in a long relief role for a bit (with the Padres). My first few outings I was going three or four innings out of the bullpen there. Then I gradually worked into one-plus innings, after that it'd be one inning."

Because he's been lights out this season -- Hand has a 2.30 ERA with 60 strikeouts in 47 innings in 2017 -- and because the Padres are rebuilding, Hand's name has popped up in a ton of trade rumors. Just about every contending team has been connected to him at some point. Strikeout heavy lefties under team control through 2019 are mighty valuable.

Hand is not thinking about the trade rumors -- "I've seen them. There's nothing I can really do about them. Whatever happens at the end of the day happens," he said -- but he did admit returning to Marlins Park for the All-Star Game is mighty special.

"I always believed in myself," he said. "I knew that I was capable of doing it."