The Padres announced that they have signed right-hander Ty Adcock to a one-year deal for the 2026 season. The Friars have multiple 40-man vacancies and don’t need to make a corresponding move.
Adcock is still a bit of a project, even though he was drafted over six years ago and will turn 29 years old in February. The Mariners selected him in the in eighth round of the 2019 draft but he wouldn’t make his professional debut for a few years. The pandemic wiped out the minor leagues in 2020 and then Adcock required Tommy John surgery in 2021. He has been back on the mound but has also spent time on the minor league injured list in each of the past three seasons.
Those stops and starts have limited his ability to rack up innings and have also pushed him into a fringe roster position. The M’s called him up in 2023 but he got bumped off the roster the following year. He went to the Tigers and Mets via waivers in 2024. The Mets released and re-signed him later that season. He was added back to the roster in 2025 but was later outrighted. He was able to elect free agency at season’s end.
Around all of that, he has thrown 23 major league innings, allowing 14 earned runs for a 5.48 ERA. He has thrown 94 innings in the minors with a 4.40 ERA. Those numbers may not leap off the page but the Padres are probably more interested in the stuff. Adcock’s fastball averaged over 97 miles per hour in his limited big league action this year. He also averaged over 93 mph on his cutter while mixing in a splitter, sinker and slider.
That stuff hasn’t yet translated into results but it’s still a small sample of work. He has a 20.4% strikeout rate in his major league innings but a more robust 25.2% rate in his slightly larger collection of minor league innings.
Adcock has exhausted his three option years but the Padres could be in position to apply for a fourth. A team can apply for a fourth option when a player has played fewer than five full seasons. In these instances, a “full season” involves spending 90 days on an active roster, either in the majors or minors. It’s also possible to be credited with a full season with 30 active days and then 90-plus days on the roster total when combined with injured list time. As mentioned, Adcock didn’t make his professional debut until 2022, so he would seem to qualify.
More clarity on his option status will perhaps be revealed in time. For now, he adds a wild card arm to the Padres’ bullpen, likely at minimal cost. Adcock has less than a year of service time and will probably make something close to the $780K league minimum.
That’s surely attractive for the Padres, given their ongoing financial crunch. Their bullpen has lost Robert Suarez to free agency and they also might end up moving Mason Miller and/or Adrián Morejón to the rotation. If Adcock thrives with the Padres, he can be retained until he gets to six years of service time and he is still years away from qualifying for arbitration.
Photo courtesy of Gregory Fisher, Imagn Images
Looks like a low risk, medium reward situation. I doubt the Padres will give someone who has only thrown 23 MLB innings more than 1 million or little more than 1 million.
But explain the need for a major league deal.
The most likely reason the Padres gave Ty Adcock to a major league deal is because they see something in Addock. With Morejon and Miller possibly moving to the rotation, the Padres hope they can score something. The need for a major league deal isn’t always needed, but the Padres saw something and decided to give him a major league deal.
Several players who are bubble candidates for the 40 man get multiple split level deals where they only make a rate of 100 something thousand dollars while in the minors.
It’s very attractive to that player to get a guaranteed 780k instead and will get them to take that offer over, say, their hometown team.
Guys like this only have so many chances at a for sure payout.
Padres have to put a *little* skin on the game to jump the line on somebody many teams see a spark of potential in.
I think a major league deal also protects him from the upcoming Rule 5 draft.
If you are on the 40-man, then you are protected.
Dewey, no options. They can’t promote him and then send him down. It also means he would be subject to the Rule V draft.
Thanks all.
Padres Addcock
In hopes to stick it to the dodgers
Seems like a cheaper version of Wandy Peralta.
I thought Bradgley Rodriguez was a cheaper version of Wandy Peralta?
Speaking of Wandy, think they’ll find a trade partner?
I hope they can, it would clear a little cash. Garbage time pitchers are a dime a dozen so hopefully another team sees something I don’t.
Peralta is still a Padre isn’t he? Peralta is also a lefty.
…more like Jeremiah Estrada’s replacement.
Who knows? Trading Estrada (who is paid peanuts) wouldn’t free up payroll but his trade value is high.
Only reason to trade Estrada is because he has a bunch of trade value and the bullpen is the main area of depth so he can be more easily replaced than if you trade from other position groups. Emilio Pagan and Devin Williams just got paid in FA so one can imagine that a pre-arb Estrada making very little and controlled for 4 more years would be attractive to a team in a trade.
If Adam was healthy he would be a better option to move because you could clear salary for a starter and get something back but since he might not be ready at the start of the year that might be hard to pull off
Rebuilding teams trade players because they have a lot of trade value. Contending teams add more of that type of player. From their FOs comments the Padres seem to be one of the latter type of teams. With the team exploring a sale, I may be wrong about that.
Relievers rarely are traded with much team control and outside of Chapman have not netted enough in trade to make up for the loss of their performance. What did the Padres give up for Hader? Other than Gasser none of those players are even in the majors today. With only 2 years of decent 3.22 ERA performance for the Padres and only a handful of appearances as a closer, I doubt Estrada would net the Padres more than a couple of middle of the top 30 prospects. Is that worth it for a contending team? He is pre-arb, so he is not making much money. If I was the GM, I would keep him.
I would keep Estrada too. I mean I love Hawkins, Bradgley Rodriguez and even Tucker Musgrove as righty options for the pen eventually but are they ready now?Tucker Musgrove is a huge sleeper reliever. And Jason Adam is still rehabbing his leg.
Rodriguez is ready now, but I agree that they should keep Estrada as a low cost high performance cog in the pen. Especially with Adam recovering and Suarez moving on and who knows…maybe one of Morejon, Miller or Morgan moves to rotation…
Poor Mets must feel woefully inadequate now
Big daddy
Mets could not have signed Ty. They already signed Richard Lovelady, no way they were going to Adcock to the bull pen.
So the Mets have discovered that too much man meat isn’t good
Interesting that the team with the best bullpen in baseball and plenty of depth is adding a low leverage reliever with no options left.
Someone is getting traded most likely – or converting to SP.
Sounds to me like the latter might be coming. That would fill the need for additions to their rotation as well.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see a Rule 5 guy or two in the rotation mix
There might be a surprise SP option in house that allows Miller and Morejón to continue to anchor the pen. Perhaps Morgan….and Brito and Hoeing aren’t out of the question either.
Brew- I’d like to see Marinaccio get a crack at it. He pitched a couple of times more than an inning. He has a decent pitch mix and got people out.
Exactly! He was excellent.
Marinaccio was solid. What is his status?
hints that one or two RPs will be converted to SP?
The low leverage guys are variations of mid and interchangeable. Plus Jason Adam is coming back from a pretty serious injury so extra depth doesn’t hurt
you mean… as opposed to Lester Johnson?
Was hoping reds would sign him only because the other 2 Adcocks in mlb history have been Reds. I’d like to have them all
So, you want to Adcock to your clubhouse?
Unless they have found someone to take Peralta and Matsui off their hands, why bother. Backend White flag relievers are not in short supply.
Guess you’ll find out soon enough.
I’m guessing it hasn’t hurt that in Dominican Winter League ball this year he’s pitched nine innings, allowing two earned runs with 15 K’s and zero BB’s.
Copy and paste that to the season every 9 innings pitched.
Dubbs
Not sure your comment “measures up”.
I’m laughing like a middle school kid here.
Obviously as some have stated this has a reliever or two moving to a starter. Or a reliever or two being traded.
Padres have a deep pen, this dude seems to have some stuff. Will see if the Padres can hone that stuff to results.
He’s been stellar in the Dominican winter league this year with excellent K/BB ratio. Maybe he’s already starting to harness that stuff and Pads see it as an upside turn.
Could be this years Estrada.
He has been touching 100 pretty often in Winter ball. From what I have read today, the question with him has been all the injuries.
yeah he sounds a like a legit talent. Hopefully he pans out. Not a lot of risk if he doesn’t but I’m sure the padres are handing out guaranteed money if they don’t think he will.
I think if pitchers get this type of “Hype” from the Dominican where some of the best hitters come from, Adcock should not disappoint if he stays healthy. Thats a big concern in my mind.
Always was a sneaky rule-5 pick up in OOTP 25.
I’m hoping he stays healthy.
Or the next David Morgan!
Where do you fellow Padres fans go for message boarding?
I’m not sure where they go but I would love to know also. I’ve gotten away from Reddit’s Sub for the Padres because most of those posters either use the sub to degrade or verbally abuse other Padre Fans.
Faithful Padres Fan, Reddit’s not the only place that’s not fan friendly. I tried to sign onto the madfriars.com site and they simply told me they were sorry but no thanks. Oh well..
I just don’t get fans anymore. I really don’t .
I had the similar scene happen with me on the same platform .So I look at it like “Its their loss”
I’m sorry that happen to you.
That happened to you at madfriars too? Wow. I’m sorry for you too. Doesn’t feel good, does it. I’m not a fan of their Administrators. I’ll leave it at that.
There are lots of them on padres Reddit.
It’s literally know worse than here as far as being called out.
Question: I know it is a picky point but, as I understand it, teams don’t apply for that 4th option, MLB just grants it after looking at the circumstances of every out-of-options player on ML 40-man roster. The circumstances for Adcock appear to be cut and dry so he should get it. Is this correct?
I get the premise of signing someone like “Adcock” – he seems to have the stuff we sorely need as far pitching goes. I think what concerns me somewhat is the “stints” Adcock has on the IR. This is one thing that the Padres don’t need after not having Musgrove for 2 or 3 seasons and with the uncertainty for the 2026 season, then with losing Darvish for the entire 2026 season and who knows for how much longer after that.
Of course, with the talk of moving Miller into the Rotation seems to me a disaster in the making. The time or two Miller was tested in the rotation he ended up on the IR with a bad case of “Tired Arm” straining his bicep.
Don’t get me wrong, I really hope Adcock can provide a special piece of the Playoff puzzle we lost but we won’t know until he’s out there showing his stuff.
They really need legitimate starting pitchers (at least two) that can be counted on instead of converted relief pitchers but that might be too expensive for an ownership group looking to sell. I really hope I’m wrong
Adcock will be in the pen. They likely aren’t paying him much
I wasn’t aware of AJ doing that and the Performance Adcock put on .
Who knows. If Adcock normally has overpowering stuff like that he might even be better than Estrada or Reynolds
BTW – Has there been any update on Sean Reynolds? Is there any chance of seeing him in 2026?
Reynolds was non-tendered on 11/21 so he’s a free agent and no longer on the Padres roster