The Padres have extended qualifying offers to free agent lefties Blake Snell and Josh Hader, reports AJ Cassavell of MLB.com. The club also announced a batch of transactions, which includes each of Michael Wacha, Seth Lugo and Nick Martinez electing free agency. Meanwhile, Matt Carpenter exercised his player option to stick with the club. Additionally, the club outrighted right-hander Nick Hernandez and claimed right-hander Jeremiah Estrada off waivers from the Cubs.
The decisions of Lugo and Martinez were previously reported, as was the news on Carpenter. As for Wacha, it was reported on the weekend that the club was declining a two-year option to retain him for 2024-25. Wacha then had the opportunity to trigger a $6.5MM player option for 2024 but has now turned that down.
Wacha signed a four-year deal with the Padres, though one with a convoluted structure. The club would first have to decide on a two-year, $32MM option for the 2024-25 seasons, which they declined. Wacha then had three straight player options which could have paid him $6.5MM in 2024 and then $6MM in the following two seasons. But he has now turned that down, leaving three years and $18.5MM on the table in search of a new deal.
Although he was largely injured and/or ineffective for much of the 2018 to 2021 period, Wacha has now had two straight solid seasons. He posted a 3.32 ERA with the Red Sox in 2022 and a 3.22 mark in his first season in San Diego. Injuries still limited his total volume of work, as he logged 127 1/3 innings for the Sox and 134 1/3 for the Friars, but the combination of workload and effectiveness was nonetheless the best form he’s showed in years.
He’ll now head back to free agency in search of his next deal. The starting pitching market is headlined by guys like Snell, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Aaron Nola and Jordan Montgomery but Wacha will be somewhere in the tie of solid mid-rotation or back-end guys, alongside Lugo, Jack Flaherty and Mike Clevinger.
The fact that Snell and Hader received $20.325MM qualifying offers is no surprise. The two of them are going to be some of the top available free agents this winter, making them a lock to reject them, something recently highlighted by MLBTR. Snell posted a 2.25 earned run average in 2023 and could receive the second Cy Young Award of his career in the coming days. Hader has long been one of the most dominant relievers in the league and had a 1.28 ERA in the season that just ended. Both should be able to receive nine-figure contracts even with a QO attached.
Any impending free agent can receive a qualifying offer as long as they spent the entire season with just one club and haven’t received a QO before. If Hader and/or Snell sign with other clubs after rejecting the QO, the Padres will receive draft pick compensation.
The departures of Wacha, Snell, Lugo and Martinez will leave the Padres fairly short-handed in their rotation. They still have Yu Darvish and Joe Musgrove but they are followed on the depth chart by unproven options like Matt Waldron, Jay Groome, Adrián Morejón and Pedro Avila. They will presumably be looking to add to that group but will have to do so while juggling significant financial concerns.
Hernandez, 29 next month, was just added to the roster in September. He made two appearances, allowing four earned runs in three innings, giving him a career ERA of 12.00 in that tiny sample. He threw 61 innings in the minors in 2023, split between Double-A and Triple-A, with a 3.84 ERA, 32.7% strikeout rate and 8.4% walk rate. Any of the 29 other clubs could have added him to their roster today but decided to pass.
Estrada, 25, made 17 appearances for the Cubs over the past two seasons with a 5.51 ERA in that time. His 25.9% strikeout rate is a bit above average but his 18.5% walk rate is concerning. That’s generally been a pattern in the minor leagues as well, with Estrada striking out 31.2% of hitters at Triple-A in 2023 but walking 18.8%. He is still optionable next year, so the Padres will add some pitching depth that comes with roster flexibility, while they will presumably try to help Estrada improve his control going forward.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
All expected.
Everything is lining up for a rather large payroll cut in S.D. in 2024. Wild, reckless spending failed them in ’23, so a belt tightening is sure to follow.
These moves were happening and were good decisions. Doesn’t lineup a large payroll reduction. You will find out and be wrong soon enough.
I did some math and have them saving 30+ million here. The issue is these guys are worth the money
The padres would pay them 30m right now to keep them. The prob is they are going to get 50m. If you are talking about hader and snell.
Agreed.
The issue is these guys are worth the money
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I did the calculations, but have since tossed them. I think the guys that opted out or weren’t kept account for close to half their IPs (664?), and by far their quality IPs.
Even if they were to get back to their $300M, they will have a problem getting the gang back together. Ballpark guess to re-sign Snell, Wacha, Lugo, Martinez and Hader is maybe $75M+, and they are already at $242M.
This will be a fun off-season for the accountants.
Padres aren’t at 242m without thee guys. More like 185m
They are not worth the $41.5 million the Padres are saving.
While I think WAR is over used, if 1 WAR on the free agent market is about $8 million nowadays and Snell alone put up 6 bWAR last year, he alone is worth more than the $41.5 million. You can make it $7 million/WAR and get the same math.
Hader put up another 2.4 bWAR.
8.4 combined WAR for $41.5 million would be a pretty solid bargain on the free agent market. Roughly 60% of the going rate.
What belt tightening? LONG post filled with some reality coming for you.
The Padres turned down their options on guys like Wacha and Martinez that would be hugely overpaid if the their 2/32 team options had been exercised and Lugo rightly turned down his 1/7.5 option in search of a longer deal with more money guaranteed, not necessarily a new team.
You have to remember that Wacha was a cheap pickup for the Padres that was their #5 starter. Likewise Lugo was inexpensive and was their #6 starter to begin the 2023 season. They were not top of the market pitchers. They aren’t now.
Both will get a little more guaranteed money than the $18.5 million Wacha would have gotten or the $7.5 million Lugo would have gotten, but these are not guys you build your rotation around. They are back of the rotation starters.
Wacha has not made more than 24 starts since 2017 and he was on the IL for more than 1 month in both of 2022 and 2023 with the same shoulder injury.
Martinez was a reclamation project from the NPB who had not pitched well in MLB before spending 3 seasons in Japan. He was not even able to win a spot in the Padres starting rotation. $32MM over two years would be a high price to pay if they consider him to be primarily a reliever. As much as I like him as a person, I don’t see him getting much more than the $8 million AAV he was due if he had not opted out. Maybe he gets another year, but unless he is seen by another team as absolutely a starting pitcher he is not getting much more in AAV.
Padres could bring in Yamamoto for just a few million more AAV than the 2 year $16 million AAV team option on Wacha and he is 25 years old with no serious injury history.
Imanaga would be much, much cheaper than Wacha and has a chance to provide similar performance.
Montgomery is a horse and not likely to get near as many years or as much AAV as Snell. 5/90 to 6/120 at the top end.
Fedde is another player that went to the KBO and cut down on walks, increased his velocity, and had a very effective season. He would not cost more than $3-4 million. He would be a good replacement for Martinez.
None of them would cost draft picks.
All good points, @Pads Fans.
Also, don’t forget their over 30 ages. Pitchers don’t necessarily age well after age 29 or 30. I cringe everytime I hear a GM (re: Preller) offer a multi-year contract to a guy in his early 30’s. Drew Pomeranz was a classic example of such a contract. How does 32 year old Suarez’s contract look, after his injury filled year of 2023. He’s got $32M and four years left on that contract.
It’d be a whole different situation, if any of these Padres pitcher FA’s were in their mid-20’s.
I think the risk that teams are taking on these older pitchers, is just … well, it’s a rich man’s gambling club. I don’t fault Preller, either. That club is usually the club that provides Worlds Series victories. It involves huge $risk$ taking.
I would be surprised, honestly, if one of the three, Martinez, Wacha, or Lugo don’t return to the Padres on a new, slightly richer deal.
Wacha only pitched 9 games in the 2nd half and had a 3.88 era. Giving his 16 mill is 2024 and 16 mill in 2025 was risky.
Martinez is a great pen arm great 6th man spot start long relief. Not a great starter. Not worth 16 mil.
Blake Snell is going to turn 31, they’d be better off pursuing Yamamoto who’s 6ish years younger.
They have some cheap arms in Waldron and Avila who showed promise Avila pitched to a 3.22 ERA and 3.67 FIP. Waldron pitched to a 4.35 era but less inspiring 5 something FIP. But as a #5 starter you could do worse.
Riding into 2024 they probably pursue 1 of Yamamoto or Montgomery
Darvish
Musgrove
Yamamoto
Avila
Waldron
They could also pursue someone like Sonny Gray as a #4 and a reclamation project arm like Giolito for #5.
Avila and Waldron will not both be in the rotation this year and likely neither.
I liked watching Avila. They may let him start or be hybrid (Nick Martinez role).
Depends where Padres want to invest money.
Currently at 125 mill before arb numbers come in.
Kim needs an extension.
Soto needs an extension.
Combined that’s 60 to 70 mill
Yamamoto and Montgomery are in the 20-25 mill range a piece.
Imagine what they could’ve got for Snell and Hader in an extreme sellers market. Terrible hold by San Diego
The mistake by SD was not adding at the deadline.
Sure, in hindsight. They were still competing for playoffs.
I’m not sure it was hindsight. They were 5.5 games out of the playoffs, but by far the best PyW/L. And this isn’t some small market team living hand-to-mouth. Once you’re at $300M, adding another $20M salary for 2 months should provide a lot of upside if they make the playoffs.
@JoeBrady.
At the end of July they weren’t out of it by any means, and there were major consequences to them NOT making the playoffs, so front office went for it and stood behind the players. In hindsight. Choi could have not waited till his 35th AB before getting a hit (then getting hurt), and Wacha and Cronenworth could have stayed healthy and Tatis and Manny could have not spiraled into deep slumps. They ended the season 2 gms out.
They paid a price at TD, but was it a terrible hold? They certainly have the means (Seidler) to compete at a high level in 24, and 2025 is looking even better.
Hader is done with SD.
Snell is unlikely to stay, but he might.
Snell is not likely going to accept a qualifying offer and i imagine Preller’s access to the check book will be extremely limited this winter
Preller and Peter Seidler are wild cards. You and every media outlet are always wrong about what the padres will do at any deadline. So why even speculate?
Everyone was saying the padres can’t afford to trade for Soto… Then they did. No one thought they would get another shortstop then they got Bogaerts. No one thought Hader was an option then they got him on trade deadline from a first place team. No one thought they could get Machado then they did 2x. No one thought they will extend Cronenworth then they did. No one thought they will extend Darvish for 6 years then they did. No one saw the Tatis extension happening at that time.
Just stop you will look stupid really soon.
And no one knew that they would need $300M to make the playoffs either.
Everyone knew the dodgers would out spend the league for a decade to win nothing but a micky mouse but hey…
Yeah, Dodgers do have the 2020 NL Pennant and World Series championship in the books, no asterisk. Then San Diego beat LA in the NLDS, props and promptly flames out in NLCS to PHI. Padres then went on a spending spree, had over $320M in payroll, and dropped out of Wild Card by August and never could get hot enough to get close. Whoopie! For all that money, not even an NLDS banner or NLCS pennant.
Can we say Padres efforts to “buy a championship” so far hasn’t got them back to the postseason? It’s always fun to claim
Other teams do that, but when your team does and flames out, be prepared to get criticized.
And yeah, the Dodgers did well in the regular season again, and got bounced out again in the NLDS so they don’t get any slack either.
Padres fans are way too aggressive, man. Just relax.
More like SD is done with Hader. He showed that as talented of a pitcher as he is, he is not a team player. Winning is not his priority.
Personally, I’d love to see owners leave Hader hanging for a long time this off season. Then offer him 1 year only. Same amount of years as innings he is prepared to pitch.
Hader and Snell gonna look real good in Dodger blue next season
Zero chance the Dodger sign Hader.
Ohtani, Yamamoto, Snell and Nola are in likely mix.
I’d Pass on Ohtani and instead sign Snell, Yamamoto, Hader, Neris.
Ohtani is like buying a used BMW great performance but the repairs are always devasting and costly.
You can get 6 innings every 5 days combined out of both of them for 50m a year.
Snell is pretty open about not really liking the Dodgers. So I doubt it because he can probably get similar money from many teams. I am guessing his top preference would be Seattle but they may not pay that much for another starting pitcher.
I’ll take a guess that Snell goes to Philly, but Seattle would probably be his preference (as would SD but I doubt they make a play at him).
All of that makes total sense.
Padres declined a 2/32 team option on a guy that has not made more than 24 starts since 2016 and the player turned down 3/18.5 because he thinks he can get more guaranteed. Both were right in their decisions. Wacha may still return to the Padres on something more like 3/30 or even 2/24 with a 3rd year mutual option that brings it to 3/36. With his injury history he is not getting a deal with a $16 million AAV even for 2 years.
Snell is looking for a deal that will give him Rodon type compensation as a minimum. Even if he doesn’t win his 2nd Cy Young, getting 6+ years and $27-30 million AAV is almost a given.
Hader is looking at a Diaz type deal that guarantees him $20 million AAV. Way too much for a closer. Suarez is in house and there are guys on the FA market that can fill in the slack in setup for him. His lack of willingness to do what it took to help the team win if it meant pitching in any other inning than the 9th or for more than 3 outs seals the deal for me. Goodbye. Don’t let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya.
Agree with most of your take, but the league is a bit weary of Snell’s year-to-year inconsistency, lack of innings per start, and need for good vibes (been called a head case).
I can’t see anybody going 30 mil/ year on Snell with the other top options around. If he’s wise he holds out for 6 years 150 total. Most teams will want 4 years around 110.
He may, just may, take the san diego discount cuz he likes the place and teammates. Can’t see SD offering him more than 5/110, won’t be his best offer.
We’ll see about Snell. I bet he gets a guarantee north of $150MM. Might be less “stupid” money on the market this year though. Would think the Phil’s want Nola back & the Mets don’t look like they’re going to go crazy buying. How many more long term deals to 30-something’s are the Pads going to put on the books?
But I might be surprised. Some of these mid market teams might splurge. Would be a Nats move to bring in a starter.
Not the case. Fans are weary of those things, but teams are not. Rodon got 6 years and $27 million AAV and he averaged less innings than Snell and had a higher ERA in his platform year. baseball-reference.com/players/r/rodonca01.shtml vs baseball-reference.com/players/s/snellbl01.shtml
Snell is going to get paid as much or more than he did. That is a given, Its only a question of how much.
If a team started the conversation with Boras with less than that $162 million, he would hang up. No doubt about that.
Snell picked a good time to put it all together.
Who doesn’t have a career year going into free agency
No kidding and a very big reason why I want Soto in SD for 2024. They could be getting the best season out of an amazing player. A 1000 OPS and 40 bombs isn’t that far fetched.
@VegasSDfan Trevor Story is the first that comes to mind.
Estrada is a great pickup.
For about 10 years (at least), I followed the Padres like hawk, knew all the prospects down to the Arizona rookie leagues, lived and died with each trade or draft pick, and all of that for me, was interesting “real baseball stuff”. I moved out of the SD area about 2015, and while the Pads are still “my team”, I’ve been watching remotely. After the ups and downs since Preller, I’ve become pretty jaded. I’m a lot more detached about the moves and decisions, and don’t care much about prospects, other than the truely interesting ones (e.g. Salas).
Prospects are ALL suspects, most until they’ve proven themselves for 2-3 years in the big leagues. (Take Jake Cronenworth, as one example.) The “sophomore slump” is an over used description of a rookie ball player being figured out by the league. There are so few, true, superstars, and no real formula for discovering them. Whatever Preller’s faults, he excels and finding diamonds in the rough. The rest of his management, .maybe bah…, but there again, there aren’t so many of those top GM types, either, and they all have faults (how many W.S. has Billy Beane’s teams won?). I do, truely wish Bochy had signed with the Pads rather than Melvin, but then again, I’m detached. Melvin was a good choice, too, because everyone in the industry said so.
Anyhow, I look at all these moves from a detached viewpoint, like looking at an interesting chess game. Yep, San Diego is in a real fix. Their NL ranked #2 pitching staff is in tatters, after FA abandonments, but then, that was all really expected. Finding Wacha and Lugo were “lighting in a bottle”, rare, fortunate signings (but not perfect, either, due to injuries – also not unexpected for these guys). Expecting that Preller can come up for quality replacements for Lugo, Wacha, Martinez, and Hader for the same coin, is a bit unrealistic. Keeping Soto, or even extending him, seems beyond Padres projected payroll, unless he unloads Machado, Tatis, or Bogaerts. (I was certainly skeptical of the signing of Bogarts and extention of Machado, pushing them to near age 40 or past it. But again, what do I know?)
Watching how Preller solves these problems, is all part fo the fun of major league baseball. Yeah, I’d love to see the Pads win the division and W.S., but all 30 teams aren’t going to do that every year. This part, the part going right now, the trades, the signings, the team building – that fun part happens with EVERY team. The Preller-Padres have done at least an interesting job at this, over the past 7-8 years, even if the teams haven’t been winners.
So, warm up the popcorn on the hot stove, and let’s have a look at what the Pads will do between now and January. I guarantee y’all that it’ll be pretty interesting (even if sometimes, agonizing).
Preller – gets an A for effort and entertainment value, but a D for smarts. Judge went back to NY even though SD made a better offer as was the case with several other high end stars last offseason. What does Preller do but make a ridiculous offer to Bogaerts! The Red Sox really did not want to re-sign him as he is a bad defensive SS, and he refused to move off SS. He does not hit well enough at 1B, and SD is stuck with him until he is 41.
SD will need to shed salaries, so there have been a lot of Tatis trade rumors. It will be interesting to see what happens, but SD is no closer to their first WS championship. Texas got their first this season. Milwaukee, Seattle, Colorado, Tampa, and SD still zero. I would not bet on SD being the next to win their 1st WS.
Ram, F350, Silverado are. Estrada was cut by a team with half a pitching staff under contract for next season. He’s not a great pick up
Snell has been pretty vocal about staying in SD, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see him stay.
Harder and his, “I can’t pitch more than 3 innings, 3 days a row…” tail to the flippin’ Doyers. Let Roberts mismanage him for a season. He’ll be a TJ candidate by the end of the ‘24 season for sure! The Doyers are to pitchers like the Padres are to most decent players careers, a disaster!
If they do decide to unload Soto and not extend him, I’m sure they’ll get 1 or 2 decent pitching prospects back, hopefully at least one Major league ready.
It’s going down for the yellow and brown… THAT’S WHAT’S IN. Spending on a whim, now Padres gonna trim… THAT’S WHAT’S IN.