Since former owner Peter Seidler passed away in November 2023, the Padres have cut back on the sky-high spending the team became known for during Seidler’s quest to bring a World Series to San Diego. After finishing the 2023 season with a 40-man payroll of roughly $257.2MM, that number was reduced to just under $172MM in 2024, before bouncing back up to roughly $221MM in 2025. (All numbers via Cot’s Baseball Contracts, though RosterResource had the Padres’ 2025 payroll at around $211.1MM.)
The question going into next season, naturally, is just how much the team has available to spend, and the answer appears to be that same $211MM-$221MM range. “We anticipate payroll will remain at a similar level to last year….We’re operating the club as we have for the last five or six years,” Padres chairman John Seidler told the San Diego Union-Tribune’s Kevin Acee and other reporters on Monday at the Winter Meetings.
This latest update from Seidler himself essentially restates the approach that Acee reported as the Padres’ direction back in November, when the Seidler family announced they were exploring a potential sale of the team. That doesn’t mean the Padres won’t still be looking to shed or re-allocate some payroll space, as evidenced by reports that the club is open to moving Nick Pivetta or Jake Cronenworth.
Cot’s projects that the Padres have about $196.2MM allotted to its 2026 payroll, with a $233.2MM luxury tax number. RosterResource’s calculations are a bit higher on both fronts, with a $201.3MM payroll and a $234.5MM tax number. That leaves A.J. Preller’s front office with only a little bit of payroll room before hitting the 2025 figure, and a similarly low level of breathing room to keep San Diego under the $244MM tax threshold. The Padres got under the tax line in 2024 to reset themselves to first-timer status, so they’ll pay a reduced penalty for crossing the secondary threshold again in 2025. Presumably ownership would be okay with another tax bill in 2026 as a cost to keeping the team in contention.
Dylan Cease has already left in free agency to sign with the Blue Jays, and Michael King, Robert Suarez, and Luis Arraez are the most prominent of San Diego’s other free agents. Yu Darvish will also miss the 2026 season in the aftermath of an internal brace procedure, so starting pitching is therefore clearly the biggest need for the team. A seemingly counter-productive move like a Pivetta trade would therefore be geared towards getting some salary off the books, perhaps adding multiple arms back in the return, and maybe getting out from under the uncertainty of Pivetta’s player opt-out following the 2026 campaign.
Intriguingly, Acee also hears from a pair of sources that Preller is working on at least one blockbuster-type deal. No specific players were named as being involved, and Acee notes that it isn’t certain if these talks will lead to a trade any time soon, or if the talks are anything more than speculative. Preller is no stranger to swinging huge trades, so it isn’t surprising that the president of baseball operations is again exploring a headline-making move as he looks to make the final touches necessary to finally get San Diego back to the World Series.
Preller also said Monday that some flexibility could be built into the Padres’ spending, once the team has a better idea of what kind of moves — big or small — could be realistic.
“We’ll have an idea about where we’re at from a payroll number and then see what’s out there in terms of conversation coming out of this week. And then that could be a higher number [or a] lower number. I think it really just depends a little bit on the conversations about who’s out there and what we think we can do,” Preller said.
