The San Diego Padres finally made a major baseball move yesterday, bringing starter Michael King back in the fold with a three-year, $75 million deal that stabilizes their starting rotation to at least some extent.
But this move is also something of a double-edged sword. According to Dennis Lin and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, signing King puts the Padres back over the luxury tax level, which is a payroll number of $244 million, with San Diego now at $259 million, according to FanGraphs.
That would seem to indicate the possibility of further moves to unload payroll, and the specific money numbers of King’s deal also point in that direction. King will get a $12 million signing bonus to go with a $5 million salary this year, and there are player options for $28 million for 2027 and $30 million for 2028.
There’s also a provision for a $5 million buyout for 2027, although it’s unclear from the report whether that buyout is mutual, player-generated or something the team might do.
The move is something of an immediate coup for the Padres, given that several East Coast teams were interested in King. Instead he’ll be back with the Padres, and those player buyouts indicate that this is really more of a one-year deal where King will hit the market again if he can pitch well enough to prove that he’s cleared the thoracic outlet surgery that wiped out most of his contract year this season.
This signing could also prevent the Padres from bottoming out in the NL West. They still have plenty of questions in their rotation, but at least they have four viable starters after losing ace Dylan Cease to free agency, with the other starters being Nick Pivetta, Joe Musgrove and Randy Vasquez.
The luxury tax part of this is ominous, though, given that the Padres are currently up for sale. It indicates that more moves are coming, and the Padres may have to include a reliever like Mason Miller to get a team to take on one of their mid-level contracts. Fernando Tatis Jr. has been declared untouchable, but do we really know that for sure given the current sale situation?
The Padres were projected to have a payroll of just over $200 million before this signing, and that number seems to represent the reverse money version of baseball’s Mendoza line, i.e., going over it edges teams toward or over the cap.
More moves are coming for sure, though. The Padres probably won’t enlighten us if and when GM A.J. Preller talks about King’s return, but this move will almost certainly generate a series of domino deals or trades now that King is coming back.