The Padres had a meeting with highly sought-after free agent pitcher Koudai Senga in San Diego yesterday, according to Dennis Lin of The Athletic. He recently met with the Mets in New York, and has been drawing interest from a number of other teams, including the Angels, Red Sox, Rangers, Blue Jays, Mariners, Cubs and Dodgers.
Senga is seeking to make the move from Japan to the US after a sterling season in Nippon Professional Baseball. The right-hander tossed 144 innings of 1.94 ERA ball across 22 starts for the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks, striking out batters 27.5% of the time and walking them at an 8.6% rate. It’s an ideal platform year for a hurler who has been one Japan’s best for the past decade, and in over eleven seasons he boasts a 2.59 ERA across almost 1,100 innings.
The 29-year-old (30 in January) combines an upper-90s fast ball with a split-finger pitch to great effect, although there have been some concerns raised over his command and breaking pitch. With that being said, his track record in Japan speaks for itself, and it’s not surprising there’s a lengthy line of potential suitors showing interest.
For the Padres, Senga would be a boost to a rotation that already features Yu Darvish, Blake Snell, Joe Musgrove, and the recently extender Nick Martinez. As Lin notes, Senga is close with Darvish and played with both Martinez and reliever Robert Suarez in Japan, so there’s some familiar faces in that pitching corps there that certainly wouldn’t hurt when trying to sell Senga on San Diego.
As Senga is a true free agent after reaching nine years of service time in Japan, his signing won’t require the acquiring team to pay a posting fee to Fukuoka. MLBTR predicted a five-year, $75MM deal for Senga recently. According to RosterResource, the Padres 2023 payroll is already projected to be right around their 2022 mark, although owner Peter Seidler hasn’t been afraid to make a big splash in recent seasons, so it certainly wouldn’t be a surprise to see their payroll increase next year.
Dennis Lin just said yesterday they’re 3 M south of the tax and won’t go over it
Tough scene w 8 holes to fill
He didn’t say that at all.
“It probably would come as a surprise if they finish next season near the second tax threshold ($253 million). And, given how close they already are and what they need, it would be a surprise if they don’t easily eclipse the first threshold.”
Direct quote. He said insiders believe they won’t go over 2nd tier CBT threshold of $253 million, but that they would definitely go over $233 million.
This dude can’t read.
No need for the graphic sex talk ….
Padres are going to blow pass the first tax line. I wouldn’t be surprised if they pass the second line as well. They probably don’t pass the third line.
They still need a 1b, dh, 2 starters and could even use an outfielder.
Everyone keeps trying to say what they can spend and then seidler just keeps on spending.
I’m good as long as they don’t go past the “top draft pick moves down 10 spots line.
AJ Preller in his natural habitat.
They are going $30mil over..
Senga is meeting with all the contenders east and west coast, it will up his price. I see the Dodgers as a sleeper for him.
Seattle has been raving about this guy. Would free up even more of there pitching depth for trades if they could land him as there 5th starter.
His name is Senga, not Tenga. Don’t call him that he’ll be pissed.
Dennis Lin said no such thing. We can all tell by now that you hate the Padres GMoney, but lying is a bit extreme.
Trash Padres again can’t build a team from within so they have to hit the FA market or look for another trade.
Trash Padres? You mean the team that went to the NL Championship this year? I guess that means that there are at least 26 other MLB teams that are WORSE than trash?
Trash Padres? What about your team? Who might that be? Go get this guy, AJ.
Phillies get a meeting…..asking for an entire city….?
$15M a year, for 5 years, for a 29 year old, proven, nine-year-veteran pitcher? Assuming he has endorsements from Darvish, Suarez, and Martinez, plus maybe Nomo, yeah, the Padres can do that. Plus, AJ Preller will negotiate in person, in his fairly fluent Japanese, as the present their offer.
No one knows the mind of this guy, his personal priorities, e.g. some foreign players grew hoping to someday play for the Dodgers or maybe Yankees, and such dreams are difficult to defeat; or, there maybe family considerations favoring a team like the Giants (i.e. easier flights SF to Tokyo, than SD). No way would I consider San Diego signing Senga a slam dunk, but if AJP wants him, he’ll be able to make a pretty convincing case, and Seidler has proven that he’ll pay the price.
Yeah I’d give the best chance to the padres signing him.
Padres only drafted Luis Castillo, Max Fried, Trea Turner, Eric Lauer, Ty France, Cal Quantrill, Hunter Renfroe and wait till MacKenzie Gore, Robert Hassell, James Wood and CJ Abrams get some true playing time. Padres have built a farm system from within, but saw a window of success with Machado and Tatis on the team so they built a MLB ready team to win now through trade and free agency. They’ve proved they can build a team through draft, trade and free agency…not many teams can say that.
The Giants were the team that originally signed Luis Castillo…