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Manny Machado Planning To Exercise Opt-Out Following 2023 Season

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Padres superstar Manny Machado today confirmed to reporters, including Chelsea Janes of The Washington Post, that he plans on opting out of the remainder of his contract following the 2023 season. Machado signed his current 10-year, $300MM agreement with San Diego ahead of the 2019 season, and in opting out would leave five years, $150MM left on the table from his current contract.

This decision is no real surprise, as that $150MM figure appears to be one Machado should have no trouble beating on the open market next offseason, provided he remains healthy. After an offseason that saw top free agent Aaron Judge sign a $360MM deal that begins in his age 31 season, it seems like a reasonable bet that Machado, who would also be entering free agency ahead of his age 31 season, might become the first ever player to sign multiple $300MM contracts in his career, though he obviously would not be playing through the entirety of his first one.

Machado’s certainly performed at a level to this point in his career that would warrant such a contract. The runner-up for the NL MVP award in 2022, Machado has six All Star appearances, five top-5 MVP finishes, two Gold Gloves, and a Silver Slugger award under his belt. With a career 124 wRC+, strong defense at third base, and 46.4 fWAR already accrued in his career, Machado appears to be on a Hall of Fame trajectory, particularly considering the fact that his offensive game has taken a step up in recent seasons. Since the start of the 2018 season, Machado’s wRC+ is 133, and it jumps to 139 when examining the 2020-2022 seasons.

As Stephanie Apstein of Sports Illustrated notes, Machado is looking to sign for double-digit years, a mark Judge barely missed with his nine-year pact this offseason but shortstops Trea Turner and Xander Bogaerts both managed to eclipse. This appears to be a reasonable ask, particularly given that Machado seems likely to be the consensus top free agent in the 2023-24 free agent class after two-way unicorn Shohei Ohtani. A 10-year deal for Machado would take him through his age-40 campaign, an age teams seem to be increasingly willing to sign players through this offseason than in years past.

The Padres, themselves, are at the forefront of this movement toward signing players to longer deals. They signed both Bogaerts and Yu Darvish to deals that will take them beyond their 40th birthdays this offseason, and made similar offers to both Turner and Judge as well. Despite Machado’s plans to opt-out following the 2023 campaign, there appears to be interest in an extension, with the Padres reportedly set to pursue a new deal with Machado this spring, it’s possible that San Diego’s comfort in signing players through their age-40 seasons would give them a leg up in negotiations.

On the other hand, the Padres are in a somewhat difficult payroll situation. They’re a lock to pay into the luxury tax in 2023, already have two long-term megadeals on the books in Bogaerts and Fernando Tatis Jr., and on top of all that, Juan Soto’s free agency is looming following the 2024 season. It seems to be a reasonable question as to whether or not they can maintain their current payroll levels at all, much less add to them as they would need to in order to retain Machado and Soto.

Rene Rivera Announces Retirement

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Longtime big league catcher René Rivera took to Instagram to announce his retirement Friday morning. “In June 2001, I had the opportunity to make one of my dreams come true, to get signed as a professional baseball player,” Rivera wrote. “21 years later, I thank God for the career he has allowed me to have. Today I want to announce that I am retiring as a professional baseball player.”

The 39-year-old goes on to thank every organization for which he played. He also expressed gratitude to his family, coaches, representatives and fans before concluding he’s “ready for the next step of (his) career.”

Rivera, a native of Puerto Rico, was selected by the Mariners in the second round of the ’01 draft. He was in the majors a little more than three years later, debuting as a September call-up in 2004 not long after his 21st birthday. Rivera spent a few seasons as a depth catcher for Seattle, combining to appear in 53 MLB games over his first three years.

After the 2006 campaign, Rivera kicked off a nomadic path that’d define his entire career. He was out of the majors entirely between 2007-10, bouncing between various organizations’ upper minors affiliates and spending some time in independent ball. Rivera returned to the bigs with the Twins in 2011 for a 45-game stint and played the following year in Triple-A.

A brief showing with the Padres in 2013 set the stage for Rivera to improbably break through as San Diego’s primary catcher at age 30 the next year. He connected on 11 home runs over a career-high 329 plate appearances during the ’14 season, hitting .252/.319/.432. The following offseason, San Diego sent him to the Rays in the three-team blockbuster that moved Wil Myers to Southern California, Steven Souza to Tampa Bay and then-prospect Trea Turner to Washington.

Rivera played in a personal-high 110 games with Tampa Bay but couldn’t recapture his prior year’s success at the plate. He hit .178/.213/.275 over 319 trips to the dish with the Rays and was released before the following season. He quickly signed with the Mets and would see a decent amount of action in Queens over the latter portion of his career. Rivera played in 65 games for the Mets in 2016 before logging 74 contests between New York and the Cubs the next year. He split the 2018 campaign with the Angels and Braves, then returned to the Mets as a depth catcher from 2019-20. Rivera’s final major league action came in 2021, when he got into 25 games between the Indians and Nationals.

While Rivera was rarely much of an offensive contributor, his strong defensive reputation earned him repeated opportunities. He ultimately logged parts of 13 MLB campaigns over a professional career that spanned two decades, suiting up at the MLB level for ten different teams. Rivera played in 542 big league contests, hitting .221/.273/.354 with 43 home runs across 1629 plate appearances. He spent nearly 4000 innings behind the plate, posting consistently strong marks from pitch framing metrics and cutting down a fantastic 36.5% of attempted basestealers.

MLBTR congratulates Rivera on his lengthy run in the professional ranks and wishes him the best in his post-playing endeavors.

Padres, Cole Hamels In Agreement On Minor League Deal

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10:18pm: Hamels’ deal would contain a $2MM base salary if he cracks the MLB roster, reports Bernie Wilson of the Associated Press.

3:20pm: The Padres and left-hander Cole Hamels are in agreement on a minor league deal, reports Robert Murray of FanSided. Presumably, Hamels will receive an invitation to major league Spring Training once the deal is finalized. The southpaw is represented by John Boggs & Associates.

Hamels, 39, is a wild card at this point in his career. He spent many years as one of the most reliable and consistent hurlers in the big leagues but has barely pitched at all over the past three seasons. From 2006 through 2019, he logged just shy of 2,700 innings with a 3.42 ERA in that time. He pitched at least 132 frames in all 14 of those campaigns and topped 180 in 11 of them. His ERA was never higher than 4.32 in any individual season and he kept that mark under 4.00 in all but three of those years. He also pitched in the postseason in eight of those campaigns, winning NLCS and World Series MVP honors in 2008 with the world champion Phillies.

But as mentioned, the story has been flipped in recent years. Hamels signed a one-year, $18MM deal with Atlanta for 2020 but was slowed by shoulder irritation as the start of the season neared. The pandemic ended up putting everything on pause, giving him time to recuperate. Once things ramped up again, however, he was dealing with triceps tendinitis. He came off the injured list in September and made one start, but went right back on the IL after that.

He didn’t sign with anyone in the subsequent offseason, eventually holding a showcase in July of 2021 to demonstrate his health to interested clubs. The Dodgers signed him at that point but he was ruled out for the season just a couple of weeks later with his shoulder pain returning. He didn’t pitch at all in 2022, recently telling the Associated Press that he underwent three surgeries in the past year, on his left shoulder, right knee and left foot. Nonetheless, he still had his sights set on a comeback and held a showcase for scouts last month. The Padres were connected to him and Michael Wacha in rumors a few days ago and have now added both pitchers to their staff.

It’s tough to know what to expect from Hamels at this point. That single start in 2020 is his only appearance over the past three years and he’s been under the knife quite a bit since then. But since this is just a minor league deal, there’s no real risk for the Padres. They can bring him into camp and see if Hamels is capable of getting back on track at all.

Up until recently, the club had a fairly lopsided rotation. Joe Musgrove, Yu Darvish and Blake Snell provided them with a strong front three but there were question marks behind them. The frontrunners for the backend spots in the rotation were Nick Martinez and Seth Lugo, both of whom are not really established as starters. Martinez had better results out of the bullpen last year while Lugo hasn’t really been a starter since 2017. The signing of Wacha this week could help to firm up the back of the rotation since he put up a 3.32 ERA with the Red Sox last year.

Hamels will be trying to prove himself healthy and force his way into that mix. If either Lugo or Martinez struggle in their attempts to secure rotation jobs, the Padres will need other options on hand. And there are also the inevitable pitcher injuries to consider. They have other options on the roster, such as Adrián Morejón, Jay Groome, Brent Honeywell Jr., Reiss Knehr, Ryan Weathers and Pedro Avila, but if Hamels looks anything like his old self, he could leapfrog all of those guys. If he does so, he’ll be pitching for his hometown team, having been born and raised in the San Diego area.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Padres Remain Narrowly Below $273MM Third CBT Threshold After Wacha Deal

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The Padres finalized their agreement with starter Michael Wacha this morning. That pact contained options from both the team and player perspective designed to meet the right-hander’s asking price while keeping the deal’s average annual value down for luxury tax purposes. It’s officially a four-year, $26MM guarantee, leading to a $6.5MM CBT hit.

That contract structure brings the Padres’ estimated luxury tax number around $272.2MM, as calculated by Roster Resource. That’s about $800K shy of the $273MM mark that delineates the third threshold of tax penalization. Public payroll figures are estimates, though Dennis Lin and Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic confirm with team officials the club remains narrowly below the $273MM figure. That’s no coincidence, of course, with the Padres’ front office intentionally structuring some recent contracts to add to the roster while staying under that threshold.

At the start of the offseason, the Friars signed Nick Martinez to a deal that was similarly built with dual club/player options and technically came out to an approximate $8.667MM average annual value. More recently, San Diego’s extension negotiations with Yu Darvish were shaped by the team’s CBT situation. The Friars signed the All-Star righty to a five-year, $90MM extension covering the 2024-28 seasons last week. That paired with Darvish’s preexisting $18MM salary for the upcoming season to result in a matching tax hit. Before the extension, Darvish had counted for $21MM against the luxury tax (reflecting the AAV of his prior front-loaded six-year, $126MM agreement with the Cubs). The extension trimmed $3MM off the team’s tax bill this year, which freed up breathing room under the $273MM mark for the Wacha money.

In the process, San Diego made a commitment to Darvish running through his age-41 season. Investing for that long in a pitcher of his age certainly isn’t without risk, though it’s one the Friars preferred to a shorter-term deal that could’ve come with higher annual salaries. Lin and Rosenthal report that Darvish’s camp initially broached extension talks seeking a two-year, $60MM deal. Instead, the Padres made a longer commitment that guarantees the veteran hurler an extra $30MM altogether but comes at a much lower annual value.

According to the Athletic, San Diego also pursued a multi-year guarantee with player options for Johnny Cueto before he signed with the Marlins last month. San Diego was known to be involved in the Cueto market. Rather than accept a deal similar to the ones Martinez and Wacha ended up taking, Cueto took a one-year, $8.5MM pact with a 2024 club option from the Marlins.

Ultimately, the Padres’ maneuverings allow them to open Spring Training a hair south of the third tax threshold. A team’s luxury tax number is calculated at the end of the season, not during exhibition play or on Opening Day. Depending on how much room exists below $273MM, the Friars could certainly wind up above that number — either by making a midseason acquisition via trade or waivers or simply by selecting the contract of a non-roster Spring Training invitee whose deal contains a base salary above the league minimum (i.e. Pedro Severino).

For the time being, however, the organization has an obvious desire to keep south of the $273MM figure. Finishing a season above the third tax threshold results in a team’s top draft choice for the following year (2024, in this instance) being moved back ten spots. It also subjects a team to higher payments. The Friars are set to pay a 50% tax on any spending between $233MM and $253MM and a 62% fee on spending between $253MM and $273MM. They’d be taxed at a 90% rate on spending from $273MM to $293MM. The latter penalties are ones they’re clearly looking to avoid right now.

San Diego heads into the season as one of the favorites in the National League. Perhaps they’ll eventually go beyond the third threshold to maximize this roster’s chances of contending. As of now, they project for the third-highest CBT payroll in the majors. The Mets are running away from the rest of the league in spending, while the Yankees are reportedly just under the final tax threshold at $293MM and reluctant to surpass that figure.

Padres Sign Michael Wacha

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The Padres announced Thursday they’ve signed free-agent righty Michael Wacha. The CAA client will reportedly receive a $3.5MM signing bonus and a $4MM salary in 2023. After the upcoming season, the Padres will have to decide whether or not to pick up successive $16MM options for 2024 and 2025 — essentially a two-year, $32MM deal. If the club declines that option, Wacha will have a series of player options, respectively valued at $6.5MM in 2024 and then $6MM in 2025-26. Unlike the team option, Wacha’s options are a series of one-year decisions he’ll be able to make each offseason.

Since player options are considered guaranteed, all this amounts to a $26MM guarantee over four years, combining this year’s money with the three options. Additionally, Wacha can earn an extra $500K for reaching 20 and 25 starts and $1MM for 30 starts this season and any year under a player option. The incentives would not be available for 2024-25 if the club triggers its option. In a corresponding 40-man roster move, the Padres placed infielder Eguy Rosario on the 60-day injured list. It was reported a couple of weeks ago that Rosario suffered a broken ankle and would be out until “midsummer.”

Wacha, 31, was the best remaining starting pitcher on the market and arguably the best free agent left standing overall. The right-hander turned in 127 1/3 innings of 3.32 ERA ball in 2022 — a fine rebound showing after a tough three-year stretch from 2019-21. Wacha’s 6% walk rate in 2022 was particularly sharp, and he scaled back his home run rate quite a bit in 2022 (1.83 HR/9 from 2019-21; 1.27 HR/9 in 2022). He was better than average at limiting hard contact from his opponents, surrendering an 88.2 mph average exit velocity and 35.4% hard-hit rate.

The 2022 performance, however, wasn’t without its red flags. A pair of trips to the injured list, one for an intercostal strain and another for shoulder inflammation, limited him to 23 starts. That shoulder issue was his fourth IL placement due to shoulder trouble since 2014. Wacha’s 20.2% strikeout rate and 41% ground-ball rate were below the league average, albeit by a matter of a couple percentage points each.

Ultimately, Wacha had a solid season but can’t reasonably be expected to replicate that shiny 3.32 ERA. Beyond some of last year’s under-the-hood numbers, it should be pointed out that from 2019-21, Wacha pitched 285 1/3 innings with a 5.11 ERA between the Cardinals, Mets and Rays. Wacha’s strikeout, walk and ground-ball rates in that stretch all compare favorably to his 2022 work, however, and the main culprit for his struggles in that stretch could well have been an anomalously high home-run rate that trended back toward his career levels in 2022.

In all likelihood, Wacha’s true talent level lies somewhere between the extremes of that 2019-21 stretch and his sharp 2022 output. Fielding-independent marks pegged him around 4.00 last year (4.14 FIP, 3.99 xFIP, 4.07 SIERA). That’d make him a solid option closer to the back end of a big league rotation, which is just where he’s likely to slot in with his new club in San Diego. Joe Musgrove, Yu Darvish and Blake Snell are slotted into the top three rotation spots, but Wacha will give the Friars a solid No. 4 option.

Both Nick Martinez and Seth Lugo have been expected to be utilized as starters with the Padres in 2023, but it’s not a given that Wacha will push either to the bullpen. There’s been talk of a six-man rotation in San Diego, which is only sensible given that Martinez and Lugo both worked primarily out of the bullpen in 2022. Martinez made 10 starts for the Padres but 37 relief appearances, finishing out the season at 106 1/3 innings. Lugo has been exclusively a reliever in 2021-22, with his last start coming for the 2020 Mets. Both righties will likely see their workloads monitored in 2023, so bringing Wacha into the mix both gives the Padres some sorely needed depth and gives them an organic mechanism with which to manage the innings counts for Martinez and Lugo.

Even looking beyond the possible six-man rotation, the Padres are now simply better positioned to withstand an injury to one of their top five arms. That’s of particular importance, as recent trades have thinned out the system’s depth. Gone are MacKenzie Gore, Chris Paddack, Luis Patino, Cal Quantrill and Robert Gasser, who were traded in the respective packages that netted Juan Soto, Taylor Rogers, Snell, Mike Clevinger (who departed as a free agent) and Josh Hader.

The top depth options behind Martinez and Lugo on the 40-man roster had been Adrian Morejon (57 1/3 innings in 2022), Ryan Weathers (6.73 ERA in Triple-A), Reiss Knehr (6.88 ERA in Triple-A), Pedro Avila (13 1/3 MLB innings) and Jay Groome (zero MLB experience; 67 innings in Triple-A). Non-roster veterans in camp include Julio Teheran, Wilmer Font and Aaron Brooks. Suffice it to say, any serious injury to the starting staff pre-Wacha would’ve stretched the depth; two might have been disastrous. Wacha helps to lessen such risks.

Wacha’s deal was surely structured with care, in an effort to keep the team shy of the third luxury tax barrier. The convoluted option sequence serves to tamp down the deal’s average annual value. Wacha’s deal comes with a $6.5MM hit for competitive balance tax purposes, with the 2023 money and three player options all treated as guaranteed years from a CBT angle.

San Diego had been estimated less than $7MM away from the third tier of luxury penalization, which kicks in at $273MM. If the Friars exceed that point, they’ll begin to be taxed at a 75% rate for any money spent up to $293MM (rather than the 45% rate at which they were taxed on the previous $20MM spent). That’s a small slap on the wrist by itself, but stepping into the third bracket of luxury penalties also pushes a team’s top pick in the next year’s draft (i.e. 2024) back by ten places. The team’s league-allotted bonus pool is also inherently reduced, in conjunction with the diminished slot value of that pick.

The Padres are a team in all-out win-now mode, but they’ve ostensibly been unwilling to pass the $273MM threshold and incur the associated draft penalties. Even this agreement with Wacha would likely not have been possible had the team not signed the aforementioned Darvish to an extension that tamped down the AAV on his own contract, giving them a couple million dollars of extra wiggle room with regard to the tax.

The apparent unwillingness to step into tier three of the luxury tax is understandable, to an extent, given that the front office surely wants to recoup some of the minor league talent that was lost in trades for Soto, Hader and others. That said, it’s still possible that in-season needs will prompt the team to make a tough decision on that front, as the trade deadline could come down to a matter of taking on salary (and crossing into that tax bracket anyway) or persuading trade partners to pay down the salary of any players being sent to San Diego, which would likely require the Padres to surrender additional minor league talent anyhow. There’s an argument that the Padres should’ve just barreled past the tax line in the offseason, but it seems they’ll continue trying to thread the needle of fielding the strongest possible club while preserving the strongest possible 2024 draft. Whether that path remains tenable come July remains to be seen.

Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic was first to report the agreement, financial terms and incentive breakdown.

Latest On Padres’ Outfield Plans

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In comments to reporters (including Kevin Acee of the San Diego Post-Tribune), manager Bob Melvin confirmed his plans for the Padres’ outfield in 2023. After spending all of 2021 and 2022 in right field, superstar Juan Soto will be shifting back to left field, where he spent most of the 2018-20 seasons, for the upcoming campaign. Soto graded out well as a defender in right over the course of the 2021 season, but defensive metrics soured on his glovework in 2022, when he rated as the second-worst defender in all of baseball by Statcast’s Outs Above Average metric with an OAA of -16.

Elsewhere in the outfield, Fernando Tatis Jr. figures to be a regular starter once he has finished serving his suspension for PED usage. Tatis, of course, had primarily played shortstop to this point in his career, but Xander Bogaerts now figures to fill that position on the diamond following the Padres signing him to an 11-year deal earlier this offseason. With Tatis now displaced, he appears poised to get regular starts in right field once he’s eligible to return in late April.

While right field figures to be where Tatis finds most of his playing time, Acee notes the star slugger has his eye on another position: center field. While Tatis is certainly athletic enough to handle center field, having already logged 56 innings at the position in his career, it seems unlikely that he would displace incumbent center fielder Trent Grisham, who won a Gold Glove for his work up the middle in 2022. That being said, Grisham struggled at the plate in 2022, slashing a meager .184/.284/.341 (83 wRC+) in 524 plate appearances.

Given Grisham’s offensive struggles, it stands to reason that Tatis could still slide over to center on occasion, opening up right field for a player like Matt Carpenter, Jose Azocar, or Brandon Dixon. This would make particular sense against left-handed pitchers, over whom either Azocar or Dixon would hold a platoon advantage in contrast to Grisham’s same-handed bat.

For his part, Melvin was non-committal as to where Tatis will play once he can return from his suspension, noting the club has to get through not only Spring Training, but the first 20 games of the regular season before Tatis can play anywhere. That being said, he did admit he could see Tatis moving around the field to play multiple positions as necessary, leaving open the possibility Tatis could get some starts in center over the course of the 2023 season.

Padres Optimistic Regarding Drew Pomeranz’s Readiness For Season

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The Padres were without a key bullpen piece for all of last season. Left-hander Drew Pomeranz missed the whole year after suffering a setback in his recovery from August 2021 surgery to repair a torn flexor tendon in his forearm.

With camp opening this week, San Diego skipper Bob Melvin provided reporters (including AJ Cassavell of MLB.com) with an update on the veteran reliever’s status. While the club plans to take things cautiously early in exhibition play, they’re anticipating a fairly normal build-up to the regular season. “I wouldn’t say (Pomeranz) is on a program where he’s completely a ’go’ like everybody else,” Melvin said. “That could happen at some point in time early in camp. There’s still probably some restrictions on him. But once we get to games, hopefully he’s in a place where he’s just trying to get ready for a season.”

If all goes as expected, the 34-year-old will be in the Opening Day bullpen. A healthy Pomeranz would have a chance at carving out a key late-game role. Prior to his season-ending injury in 2021, he’d posted a 1.75 ERA with a 29.4% strikeout percentage through 25 2/3 innings. That came on the heels of an even more dominant 1.45 ERA, 39.7% strikeout rate over 18 1/3 frames during the shortened 2020 season. All told, Pomeranz has a 1.62 ERA while punching out a little more than a third of his opponents in 47 appearances during this stint as a Padre.

Signed to a surprising four-year deal over the 2019-20 offseason, Pomeranz has more than made good on the organization’s faith on a rate basis but unfortunately been unable to accrue many innings. He’s headed into the final season of that contract and playing this year on a $10MM salary. That makes this a pivotal season for the former All-Star, since he’s slated to return to the open market next winter.

Pomeranz will at least be joined by star closer Josh Hader and ground-ball specialist Tim Hill as left-handers in the bullpen. Adrián Morejón would likely join them if he’s not given a rotation opportunity. San Diego would have to keep Rule 5 selection Jose Lopez on the big league staff if they want to retain his long-term contractual rights, while José Castillo, Tom Cosgrove and Ray Kerr could all find themselves in the mix. There’s ample depth, though Pomeranz may have the highest upside of the bunch aside from Hader. From the right side, Robert Suarez, Luis García and Steven Wilson all look likely to assume important innings in what should be a very strong relief corps.

Padres Showing Interest In Michael Wacha

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The Padres have recently checked in with righty Michael Wacha, reports Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune. San Diego has also shown recent interest in veteran southpaw Cole Hamels as part of his comeback effort, according to Acee.

Those hurlers are in very different spots of their careers. Wacha is the best remaining free agent starting pitcher and the only hurler who made MLBTR’s top 50 free agents at the start of the offseason who is still unsigned. The 31-year-old is coming off a solid season for the Red Sox, making good on a $7MM free agent deal to turn in a 3.32 ERA across 23 starts and 127 1/3 innings.

Wacha’s camp apparently entered free agency with a fairly lofty goal on the heels of that showing. USA Today’s Bob Nightengale reported last month his camp had been seeking around $30MM over two seasons. There hasn’t seemed to be sufficient interest from the market to push prices to that level, and Acee suggests Wacha’s asking price has lowered as the regular season draws nearer.

On the surface, a $15MM average annual value over two years isn’t an outlandish ask for a pitcher who posted such a strong ERA during his platform year. However, there are a handful of other indicators that raise questions about Wacha’s ability to sustain upper mid-rotation production. The 2022 season was the first in four years in which the veteran hurler allowed fewer than four earned runs per nine innings and came on the heels of consecutive campaigns with an ERA above 5.00. Wacha’s peripherals weren’t dramatically different from those of his prior showings.

Last year’s 20.2% strikeout rate was his lowest since 2019, as was his 9.5% swinging strike percentage. Wacha’s average fastball speed was at exactly 93 MPH after sitting at 93.6 MPH and 93.8 MPH, respectively, in 2020-21. His ground-ball rate was up a couple percentage points relative to his past couple years and he demonstrated the above-average control he’s owned throughout his career. Yet the most significant difference in 2022 was that opponents hit only .260 on balls in play after combining for a .324 BABIP between 2020-21.

Of course, there’s room for Wacha’s ERA to regress while still remaining palatable. Thanks largely to his plus strike-throwing, he’s posted a SIERA between 3.99 and 4.07 in each of the last three seasons. He’s a capable back-of-the-rotation starter, making him a reasonable fit for a win-now San Diego team that’s prepared to take some risk in their starting staff. Converted relievers Nick Martinez and Seth Lugo are respectively penciled into the fourth and fifth rotation spots behind Joe Musgrove, Yu Darvish and Blake Snell. The Friars are taking a leap of faith in both pitchers’ ability to hold up as starters — Martinez fared better as a reliever last year, and Lugo hasn’t topped 100 innings since 2018 — and adding a stable veteran like Wacha could alleviate some of the pressure on Martinez and Lugo.

It doesn’t appear San Diego is looking to displace either of that duo from the rotation. Manager Bob Melvin told reporters this afternoon the club had yet to decide whether to proceed with a five-man or six-man starting staff (link via AJ Cassavell of MLB.com). That could well depend on the team’s personnel, and bringing in Wacha would likely lead to the expanded rotation. Among internal options, Adrián Morejón, Reiss Knehr, Jay Groome and Pedro Avila are among those could battle for starts if the Friars want to lessen the load on their top five and/or incur any injuries.

The club’s openness to a six-man rotation could play into their interest in Hamels, although he certainly wouldn’t secure a guaranteed rotation job at the time of his signing. The four-time All-Star has had his last three seasons derailed by injuries. He’s started just one MLB game since the start of the 2020 season, missing the past two and a half years as various ailments (most notably recurring shoulder problems) have kept him out of action. He didn’t sign anywhere last year but is hoping for a comeback at age 39.

To that end, the longtime Phillie threw in front of scouts in late January. He’ll have to settle for a minor league contract after two lost seasons but seems likely to get a look from some club in Spring Training if healthy. Hamels is no stranger to the area, having grown up in San Diego and entering pro ball as a first-round pick out of Rancho Bernardo High School back in 2002.

Padres Project To Join Revenue-Sharing Payor List

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By the 2024 season, the Padres are projected to join the list of teams who pay into Major League Baseball’s revenue-sharing fund, Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune writes.  The list of revenue-sharing payors is mostly comprised by teams in large markets, and though San Diego is only 26th of 30 teams in terms of market size, the Padres’ huge payroll increase over the last few seasons is likely to change their status, based on projected revenues for the 2023 season.  Exact details of the Padres’ spending isn’t known, but the increase in spending has correlating with an increase in sponsorship money and ticket sales at Petco Park.

The huge payrolls aren’t likely to last forever, as Padres CEO Erik Greupner said that “to get to that optimal state in our market, it is going to require a greater contribution coming from our farm system,” so the front office doesn’t have to keep building talent with high-priced acquisitions.  But that said, Gruepner noted that “The ultimate validation involves winning a World Series championship.  So (increasing revenue to this level) is validation insofar as the investment in the team and the investment in the ballpark and the ballpark experience is yielding increased revenue….We’re in the process of making hay while the sun is out to get the very most out of the team that we’re going to have on the field this year and the excitement around it.”

Padres Sign Yu Darvish To Extension

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Feb. 10: Darvish will be paid a $6MM signing bonus and receive a $24MM salary in 2023, tweets Jon Heyman of the New York Post. He’ll then be paid $15MM in 2024, $20MM in 2025, $15MM in 2026 and $14MM apiece in 2027-28. The contract also contains a full no-trade clause, and any Cy Young win in the contract’s first five seasons would boost his 2028 salary by $1MM.

Feb. 9: The Padres have locked up a second key member of the rotation for the long haul. San Diego announced a new six-year contract with right-hander Yu Darvish that’ll keep him in the fold through the 2028 season. The deal reportedly guarantees the Wasserman client $108MM overall. Since Darvish had already been under contract for $18MM for 2023, it’s five years and $90MM in new money.

It’s a remarkable contract when considering Darvish’s age, although at an average annual value of $18MM, Darvish hardly needs to perform like an ace in order to continue to justify the price tag. That’s the same AAV the Phillies committed to Taijuan Walker this offseason, for instance, and over the life of the new contract, the AAV for high-end pitching only figures to continue to increase. That said, any long-term deal running through a pitcher’s age-41 season — Darvish will turn 42 about six weeks before the contract ends — is obviously teeming with risk.

As things currently stand, however, Darvish remains among the game’s best starters. The right-hander’s age-35 campaign saw him pile up 194 2/3 innings of 3.10 ERA ball with strikeout and walk rates (25.6% and 4.8%) that were far better than league average (particularly the walk rate). Darvish’s 95 mph average fastball was actually the second-best mark of his career, and those 194 2/3 fames were the second-highest single-season total he’s logged since signing with the Rangers back in 2012.

Darvish had Tommy John surgery back in March 2015, missing the entirety of that season and a substantial chunk of the 2016 campaign while recovering. His 2018 season with the Cubs, who originally signed him to the six-year $126MM deal on which he’d previously been playing, was limited to just 40 innings thanks to a triceps injury. Since that time, however, Darvish has been quite durable. He made all 12 of his starts during the shortened 2020 season, and in each of his past three 162-game seasons, he’s taken the hill at least 30 times.

The Padres had been set to lose both Darvish and Blake Snell to free agency following the 2023 season, with both heading into the final seasons of their respective contracts. Darvish, however, now looks likely to not only remain in San Diego but finish out his career as a member of the Padres under president of baseball operations A.J. Preller, who played a major role in signing Darvish when he was in the Rangers’ front office. Darvish joins San Diego native Joe Musgrove, who inked a five-year extension last summer, as the bedrock of the Padres’ rotation for the foreseeable future.

Keeping Darvish under contract is of particular benefit with the final two spots on the starting staff already going to relievers who’ll be making the shift to full-time starters in 2023: Nick Martinez and Seth Lugo. Both players have player options on their contracts for 2024, meaning if things go smoothly they’ll likely opt out of the contracts and test free agency on the heels of improved platform seasons. If the shift to starting roles don’t work out, then the Padres will obviously be seeking alternative options, be they in-house or external acquisitions. Either way, prior to the Darvish extension it was possible — if not downright likely — that San Diego would’ve entered the 2023-24 offseason in search of as many as four starting pitchers. That’s no longer the case.

Darvish carries extra importance from a long-term vantage point when considering the Padres’ dealings in recent years. Preller is among  the sport’s most aggressive executives on the trade market, and with the Friars in an all-out, win-at-all-costs blitz, they’ve shown little concern with dismantling their once-vaunted farm system as a means of bringing in Major League talent. Trades of names like MacKenzie Gore, Chris Paddack, Cal Quantrill and Luis Patino have depleted the organization’s pitching pipeline, while the general attrition (injuries and/or poor performances) from the remaining prospects like Ryan Weathers, Adrian Morejon and Pedro Avila leave the system without much immediate help on the horizon.

Beyond the sheer need for long-term help in the rotation, there’s surely an element of financial creativity at play here. Darvish’s preexisting six-year, $126MM contract came with a $21MM luxury hit (based on the contract’s AAV). Since this new deal is being tacked onto the end of that old contract, it effectively becomes an 11-year, $216MM deal. That comes with a reduced luxury hit of $19.64MM. It’s not a major savings, but the Padres were right up against the third tier of luxury penalization, so any newly created breathing room is quite welcome. Once crossing into that third luxury tier, a team is penalized not only in the form of steeper tax rates but also by having their top pick in the next year’s draft dropped by 10 places.

The Darvish extension puts some distance between the team and that particularly undesirable slap on the wrist. It also makes things slightly easier for Preller and his staff if they hope to remain under that tax level but still want to create some wiggle room for in-season acquisitions on the trade market.

The deal is also heavily front-loaded, with Darvish’s 2023 salary jumping from $18MM to $30MM. That leaves $78MM to be distributed over the final five years. That’s of particular note given changes in the recent collective bargaining agreement, which stipulate that upon being traded, only the remainder of a player’s contract counts toward the new team’s luxury tax. Previously, the tax hit would remain the same. In other words, a potential trade of Darvish down the road will come with a considerably lighter luxury hit for an acquiring team by virtue of the contract’s front-loaded nature. Of course, with the full no-trade protection he’s been granted, that could very well end up a moot point.

If the $273MM tax barrier remains a hard stopping point for the Padres once the season’s underway, that’ll likely require the Padres to convince a trade partner to include some money or take on a contract in return. Nonetheless, this extra bit of space could prove useful in accommodating more complementary additions like bullpen help or added bench depth. Alternatively, it could provide necessary space to eventually select the contract of a non-roster veteran with a salary of modest note — someone like reliever Craig Stammen or catcher Pedro Severino, for instance.

As we saw with the Padres’ 11-year signing of Xander Bogaerts — and their reported overtures toward Aaron Judge and Trea Turner — the team is clearly comfortable paying a player into his early 40s if it means lowering the overall luxury bill. All of those offers, Bogaerts and Darvish included, featured annual rates comfortably shy of where the players might have otherwise landed on a more conventional structure. Darvish’s newly added $90MM in guarantees, for instance, could perhaps have been obtained over a three- or certainly a four-year deal had he opted to play out the final season of his contract and return to free agency. Instead, he’ll effectively take three- or four-year money and spread it out over a five-year extension of his contract in order to remain with a contending team and a setting where he’s clearly comfortable.

Those benefits, in the end, are generally secondary. The Padres clearly had a desire to extend Darvish, and likely agreed upon the requisite dollars before determining the length of the contract and, thereby, the extent to which they could tamp down their tax bill. The end result is that Darvish and Musgrove will continue to form a formidable one-two punch in the years to come. And while paying Darvish in his age-40 and age-41 seasons might prove an untenable outcome, it also perhaps creates some present-day savings in terms of luxury taxes that will make those final years a bit easier to stomach.

AJ Cassavell and Mark Feinsand of MLB.com first reported Darvish and the Padres had agreed to a six-year, $108MM contract. Feinsand reported it was a front-loaded deal that contained a $30MM salary for 2023.

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