The Padres won 93 games and went into October as a trendy pick for a long playoff run. Their bats stalled out in the final two games against the Dodgers, sending them into an offseason that could see a decent amount of turnover with a handful of important free agents.
Guaranteed Contracts
- Manny Machado, 3B: $314MM through 2033 (including $35MM in remaining signing bonus payments)
- Fernando Tatis Jr., RF: $306MM through 2034
- Xander Bogaerts, 2B: $225MM through 2033
- Jake Cronenworth, 1B: $71MM through 2030
- Yu Darvish, RHP: $63MM through 2028
- Joe Musgrove, RHP: $60MM through 2027
- Robert Suarez, RHP: $26MM through 2027 (can opt out after '25)
- Yuki Matsui, LHP: $24.75MM through 2028 (can opt out after '26 barring intervening Tommy John surgery)
- Wandy Peralta, LHP: $13.15MM through 2027 (can opt out after '24, '25 and '26)
Option Decisions
- LHP Wandy Peralta can opt out of final three years and $13.15MM on his deal
- Team, SS Ha-Seong Kim hold $8MM mutual option ($2MM buyout)
Additional Financial Commitments
- Owe $12.24MM to Red Sox as condition of Eric Hosmer trade
2025 financial commitments: $138MM
Total future commitments: $1.117 billion
Arbitration-Eligible Players (projected salaries via MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz)
- Luis Arraez (5.121): $14.6MM
- Dylan Cease (5.089): $13.7MM
- Tyler Wade (5.058): $900K
- Michael King (5.004): $7.9MM
- Adrian Morejon (4.140): $1.8MM
- Jason Adam (4.132): $5.3MM
- Luis Patiño (3.061): $800K
- Luis Campusano (2.144): $1.7MM
Non-tender candidates: Wade, Patiño
Free Agents
- Tanner Scott, Jurickson Profar, Ha-Seong Kim, Kyle Higashioka, Donovan Solano, David Peralta, Martín Pérez, Elias Díaz, Nick Ahmed
It seems like every offseason in San Diego results in a significant shakeup. This winter will probably be no exception, even if the Padres aren't going to make a single move that is as impactful as last winter's Juan Soto/Michael King blockbuster. Between a hefty arbitration class, a number of free agents who played key roles in 2024, and a late-season injury that dealt a hit to their rotation, there's a lot for the front office to address.
The offseason kicks off with option and qualifying offer decisions. There's not much intrigue with San Diego's pair of option calls. Wandy Peralta will forego his chance to opt out of the remaining $13.15MM on his free agent deal. Ha-Seong Kim will collect a $2MM buyout on his mutual option and test the market.
San Diego probably won't issue a QO to any of their free agents. The midseason trade renders Tanner Scott ineligible, not that the Friars were likely to offer a $21.05MM commitment to a reliever anyhow. Kim once seemed like an easy call for the QO, but his late-season labrum surgery makes that too risky. The only other candidate would be Jurickson Profar, who'll be one of the tougher free agents to value after a career year. If the Padres expect Profar to repeat this year's production, he'd be worth the QO price. Profar's career has been wildly inconsistent, though, and there's probably not enough payroll space to offer the first-time All-Star more than $21MM while addressing multiple holes on the roster.
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Replace Profar, NO QO
Trade Cease, sell high, clear 14 mill off payroll
Bring back Perez, possibly sign Kikuchi?
Bogaerts at SS, cronenworth at 2B, Arraez at 1B.
Bring in a bat DH. Ozuna? Turner? Pederson? Martinez?
Call it an off season.
I think the Padres should trade Salas if they can get a good offer. The team is in win now mode. I think the Padres crushed it in last years draft they got some really exciting young guys in the system and they will probably draft well again next year. Might as well keep trading them away for now.
Old friend Tommy Pham?
With friends like Tommy Pham, who needs enemies!
Lol underrated comment. Just don’t play fantasy football with him and you’ll be fine!
Legend has it Mike trout has never been a fantasy football commissioner ever since…
Legend also has it that joc pederson is still getting fantasy trade proposals every day from Pham
And it ain’t gunna happen, Ringer…
😉
@Fernando
I don’t know which fans you mean re:Pham, but sports fans are a fickle bunch. San Diego Charger fans wanted Marty Schottenheimer gone, until they got their wish after a 14-2 season and Norv Turner was the replacement. Then they chanted “Marty!”
who were these so-called clamoring fans?
The only clamoring fans were Ryan and his many accounts.
I would much rather resign Profar than sign Pham. I am not sure if suggesting Pham was serious.
No team is ever winning a world series with Manny Machado as their best player.
Good thing manny isn’t their best player.
He is the 4th best player and the captain.
He sure is.
The problem isn’t so much that he’s the best player, it’s that he’s the dominant personality, so the team are loudmouth showboats when it goes well but meek chokers when the opposition fights back. That said, the Padres have made improvements in culture lately–getting rid of the laughable Grisham, acquiring Arraez who provides professionalism at the plate and who should absolutely be kept, and I like what I heard from Merrill in the face of losing–he’s a gamer. Machado is a very useful player but the team should not take its character from him, and hopefully offseason adjustments can help with that.
@highfly
How are the Pads supposed to take winning, or losing? Is there a magic sweet spot of “just enough edge without being an a-hole” you will find acceptable? Just enough humility in defeat without being a meek loser? Do we need score cards to judge this?
I have seen zero difference, none whatsoever, in the way a Tatis or a Manny celebrates a home run or backs up their guys vs. the way a Betts or a Roberts does it. Except for this: the Pads aren’t liars. Roberts enlisted Ken Rosenthal to cry wolf about the ball throw that wasn’t, and he knew it wasn’t. I’m even old enough to remember Dave Roberts shoving then Padre manager Andy Green. He got a pass for that, and for lying now, but Manny is still a bad guy no matter what he does.
People who want to paint Manny as a villain will do it however they need to get there. It’s beyond tedious at this point. When the rest of the league decides not to back up their guys, celebrate home runs with chest bumps (or crotch bumps if you’re a Dodger), and execute legal slides, I’ll be willing to listen on how dastardly Manny is. As stands, I think his critics just blame him for Dustin Pedroia, and should admit their bias against him.
I mean…the guy purposely hit Derek Norris with his back swing and then threw his bat Josh Donaldson because he didn’t like that he was tagged. He’s a punk and a villain. And since you brought it up as your example…in my opinion, the Pedroia play was nothing more than a baseball play. He slid late, to break up a double play. He raised his spikes once he got to the bag so he doesn’t jam his foot/ankle into the bag, and hit Pedroia. He didn’t extend his leg at all. He didn’t drive his foot into his leg. Yeah…I’m sure he did want to hit him, but I don’t think he truly meant to hurt him.
kzw- Thanks for the post, but I would remind you that your 2 examples (Norris & JD) happened over 10 years ago. Anecdotally speaking, and I am honestly not being biased here, but Manny has been a class act since his San Diego introduction. Informed Sportsball’s comment above absolutely crushed it.
I loved how Manny handled the Flaherty thing. He was honest and forthright that Flaherty made a great pitch and gave him credit. Now, Tatis……that’s a different story. One could argue that his mocking the LA crowd stirred up a laying beast in LA. I saw a different intensity from LA after that game. We used to call that “bulletin board” material.
That’s fair, Dwight. I was shaking my head at Tatis’ hip swivelling; he might do better to just “pay them no mind” in the future, but he’s “intense” and loves the spotlight.
Yes, he does. Incredibly talented young man. Clutch in big spots. Still only 25. If he can mature a little bit then the sky’s the limit.
I don’t think that mattered at all. It’s not like the dodgers won game 3 after that. The dodgers also didn’t hit well him game 5. Bottom line was the padres just didn’t hit the last two game. Nothing to do with dancing peacock. Give the dodgers pen credit they did a great job.
All fair points, have a great day gents
While watching projectiles being tossed at my teammate in LF, I would have hip-swivelled, if not more, at the fans in RF too. I might have gone Jim Morrison on them.
The class(ier) SD fans aren’t so easily taunted to the point of embarrassing themselves, the Roberts and Flaherty tried.
As a Dodger fan, that was quite an embarrassing display. Unfortunately, those few knuckleheads give LA fans a bad name.
@Shrutefarm. Agree on that, it’s not the fanbase, just a few crazies
Sadly, the crazies are everyone that sits in the Pavilion in Chavez Ravine. Several thousand of them.
Man, those are some bad contracts waiting to happen starting in about 3 years til 2033. Bogaerts may already be there.
I can’t disagree on Bogaerts. Not hitting, missed two months, and tossed in errors at his natural position down the stretch.
My heart wants him to somehow put together a few great years, but my head says even solid years would be a dream at this point. Seidler’s push to win it all had at least one downside, and his name is Bogaerts.
I think that the team knew that the contracts would be trash at the end, and might even plan on releasing guys before their contracts are up.
Machado will turn 41 in July 2033, and Bogaerts will turn 41 on October 1 of that year.
This season there were zero position players aged 41, and only Yuli Gurriel was 40 and he only played 18 games.
Manny’s contract will probably age better than Bogaerts, and Manny seems to be in great position to reach 3000 hits as a Padres. Bogaerts also has a chance, albeit much smaller, or reaching 3000.
It will be well in advance of 41 though, when Machado’s contract is really bad. Bogaerts is already there pretty much. They better win in the next couple years.
Boy they have some really horrible contracts
If they can get a WS title, the contracts won’t hurt as much.
Are you sure you understand ?
Some of the players are grossly underperforming !
Hard to win a WS with a bunch of underperformers !!
Off season outlook looking bleak and not enough
To be fair to Boegarts, after he returned from his shoulder injury he hit .292/.333/.429 (113 OPS+) in the 2nd half. Similar to the .285/.350/.440 (117 OPS+) he posted with SD in ’23. A definite downgrade from his Boston days, but I don’t think he is a lost cause by any means.
I expect he’ll hit well enough to be an everyday player for 5 or 6 years while spending the last 3-4 years as a vet bat to spot start. Not a great outcome, but he will provide some value and his approach to hitting should age well.
I agree ! Everyone’s line takes a hit playing in SD too (except profar apparently). Plus he was consistent rock in Boston. He will be just fine with a bat in his hand
Plus he was consistent rock in Boston.
==========================
In Fenway really. He had an .870 OPS in Fenway, and more like .760 on the road. He can still hit some, but can’t really play SS, and feels like he is developing chronic wrist issues.
Sucks that these offseason outlook articles used to be free.
First rule of introducing fees: never take away what was already free in the past. Only charge for new content.
Doesn’t really matter. It’s either numbers you can see on your own or an opinion piece.
Most fans of these teams aren’t really getting anything from this article that they don’t get from reports on the team that can be seen many other places. They don’t have some inside connection to these teams. I come here because the value is one spot that collects information as well as being able to chat with other fans.
I don’t come here because I get ground breaking Padres news. Reporters break stories before they are ever on this site.
Oh I agree. I’m just saying, as a follower of the site for more than a decade, they are kind of doing the subscription thing incorrectly IMO and it’s disappointing.
That Tatis deal looks like a steal compared to other contracts on the books.
Thanks for letting them live rent free in your head.
Padres will have some hard decisions to make soon, the tv contracts they sign with Machado, Darvish, Bogaerts, Cronenworth, these four contracts alone will not be off the books until the 2030’s. All four of these players will be in their upper 30’s and 40’s. Who and what team will want these players in trades, they will not be everyday players. There skills will erode no stopping father time. Face it, Padres will be stuck with an old roster down the road, unless they just decide to release and pay the contracts off, heck they still owe the Boston Red Sox over 12 mil for the Hosmer contract.
@desertdawg Not hard decisions. The Pads signed those contracts with the understanding they would outlive the effectiveness of the players.
Getting revenue streams to replace the defunct Bally TV deal, and continually getting good players out of the farm system; those are the tasks requiring heavy lifting.
Darvish is signed through 2028, he turns 42 that year. Were you thinking about Tatis?
Ohtani will be in his 60s then he comes off the books
@Brew LMAO!!
Padres made many long term contracts trying to reduce the average annually. How much of the Manny signing was because of the Boegarts signing ? They had no choice, and Manny played his hand hard.
Just wonder how is these going to look in 4 years?
@pepenas34
Not sure why the Manny signing would be related to the Bogaerts signing.
Signing Bogaerts was seen as a hedge against Soto not being retained, which turned out to be needed and, thus far, has not been that much of a hedge.
Arraez, Bateman, Tears, Pena and King to Seattle for Luis Castillo and cash.
Throw in Phil Nevin and Brian Giles and they’ll think about it
By King I mean Lamar King Jr. Take Matsui and keep the cash. Padres take back Tears.
Bring back Perez. Higgy and Solano were productive. Profar is a difficult situation. I guess his price will decide. There’s no loyalty in MLB. Extend Merrill asap. Leave the rest of it alone.