Padres Predicted To Lose Star Pitcher To NL Team In Free Agency

Wake up baseball fans, it’s time for the best season of the year – rumors are running rampant, predictions are being made and the hot stove is heating up.

The offseason is always a fun time for fans to get excited and worked up over who’s going where and which players their team is predicted to sign. For a team like the San Diego Padres, the fanbase will expect big moves in order to stay competitive.

The trade deadline didn’t do much to help the Padres’ playoff run, but San Diego did sweep the Chicago Cubs in the National League Wild Card Series and took a game from the eventual World Series champion Milwaukee Brewers in the NL Division Series.

San Diego was the hottest team in Major League Baseball heading into the postseason and took out the best offense with very little fight, thanks to a dominant performance from the Padres’ pitching staff.

The Cubs stood no chance at Petco Park, and the soon-to-be NL Most Valuable Player and Platinum Glove winner Pete Crow-Armstrong didn’t record a hit in the series, but neither did the rest of the team – Chicago collected just eight hits and one run in the lopsided series.

The 8-0 Game 1 victory was headlined by a stingy performance by ace right-hander Michael King, who tossed 6.1 no-hit innings amid seven strong with eight strikeouts and three walks.

The 31-year-old made two more appearances against Milwaukee and ended his postseason run with a 0.64 ERA and 15 strikeouts over 14 innings pitched. After declining his player option and opting out of his three-year, $75 million deal that he signed last offseason, King will test the free agent market yet again.

The Padres need to offer him the bag to stay and continue being the man at the top of the rotation, but I don’t see them retaining King this time – I think he ends up with the team he held to one hit over seven innings in the Wild Card Series.

The Cubs have a ton of free agents hitting the market, many of them starting pitchers, and King has been a name that’s floated around in the same breath as the same team he shut down so efficiently over the past few seasons.

Chicago needs to add firepower to a rotation that hasn’t been special for a long time, so I think president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer will make a big offer to lure King to the north side. Hoyer attempted to sign him last offseason, but King opted to return to San Diego on a well-structured deal that allowed him to be where he is now.

King made a career-high 32 starts while posting a 12-10 record with a 3.21 ERA, 1.18 ERA and 159 strikeouts to 70 walks over a career-best 185 innings pitched in 2026.