The San Diego Padres made a minor pitching move today, signing left-hander Marco Gonzalez to a minor league deal that also includes a spring training invite with a chance to make the roster.
At 34, Gonzalez is an experienced starter, so he’s getting a larger contract than usual for this sort of thing. According to Darragh McDonald of MLBTradeRumors.com, who reported the move via Jon Heyman of the New York Post, Gonzalez will get a base salary of 1.5 million if he makes the team, and the CAA Sports client can also earn an extra $1 million in incentives if he can actually contribute as a member of the rotation.
The experience factor here is significant. Gonzalez threw 776-2/3 innings for the Seattle Mariners from 2018-2022 with an ERA of 3.94. His strikeout rate of 17.7 percent was low, but he also had an extremely low walk rate of 5.8 percent.
Unfortunately, Gonzalez has struggled with injuries the last couple of years. He was sidelined in 2023 with nerve issues in his forearm and had to undergo surgery, and since then he’s been on and off the injured list. He made seven starts for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2024, then had flexor tendon surgery in August.
That made it an easy call for the Pirates to turn down his $15 million option last year, and he ended up not pitching at all in 2025.
For the Padres, Gonzalez represents a significant risk, but signing him is also a sign of how desperate they’re getting. The Padres haven’t made any significant pitching moves this offseason other than re-signing starter Michael King, and given their payroll limitations and the fact that pitchers and catchers report in about a month, it doesn’t feel like they’ll do any big moves going forward.
Gonzalez will join a group of back-end starters that includes pitchers like Randy Vasquez, JP Sears, Kyle Hurt and Matt Waldron, and Vasquez was the only pitcher from that group to post an ERA under 5,00 last year, according to McDonald. There’s an opportunity here if he’s healthy, but first he has to make the roster coming out of spring training.
The Padres have been rumored to be shopping erstwhile ace Nick Pivetta given that he has a player option at the end of the upcoming season, but to date there haven’t been any bites, probably because the asking price from GM A.J. Preller is high. Preller could desperately use an innings eater or two to bolster the rotation, but that would mean further weakening a group that’s already somewhat marginal health-wise as currently constructed.