The Padres have declined their two-year, $32MM club option on the services of right-hander Michael Wacha for the 2024 and 2025 campaigns, per Dennis Lin of The Athletic. Wacha will now have the opportunity to decide between exercising a $6.5MM player option for the 2024 season or hitting the open market, with Lin noting that Wacha is expected to become a free agent.
Wacha first signed with the Padres this past offseason on a four-year, $26MM guarantee, though it now appears likely that deal will wind up being for just one year and $7.5MM. At the time, the 32-year-old righty was coming off his best season in several years after posting a 3.32 ERA and 4.14 FIP across 23 starts with the Red Sox in 2022. Though at the time it was easy to wonder if Wacha would regress back to the 4.62 ERA he had posted from 2016-2021, he managed to build upon his 2022 with an even stronger 2023 season. In 24 starts (134 1/3 innings), Wacha posted a 3.22 ERA that was 27% better than league average by ERA+ with a 3.89 FIP and a 22.4% strikeout rate.
Given that improvement, it’s something of a surprise that the club would decline to retain Wacha on what would have effectively been a two-year, $32MM pact, particularly with both Seth Lugo and Nick Martinez now slated to join Blake Snell in departing San Diego for the open market. Indeed, a poll of MLBTR readers revealed that nearly 44% of respondents expected the Padres to pick up Wacha’s options, a total that edges out the 39% of respondents who suggested that Wacha would return to the open market this offseason.
Of course, it’s necessary to consider the financial component of the move. After all, the Padres seem to be facing budgetary issues this offseason that could require them to pare payroll down to around $200MM. The departures of Lugo and Martinez, along with the club’s decision to decline Wacha’s option, have cut the club’s payroll for 2024 to just over $197MM, per RosterResource. Should Wacha decline his option as expected, that would drop the figure to just under $191MM.
That could allow the club to avoid more drastic changes to cut payroll, such as a possible trade of star left fielder Juan Soto. Of course, a payroll of $200MM would allow them just $9MM of room in the budget to replace three of the club’s regular rotation members and their top depth option for the starting staff, to say nothing of the loss of closer Josh Hader or potential upgrades to the lineup. If the Padres hope to patch the holes in their pitching staff and fine-tune their position player group, it seems reasonable to expect additional moves to trim the club’s payroll.
As for Wacha, he appears poised to join a free agent market that’s particular deep in starting pitching options. While he won’t compete at the top of the market alongside the likes of Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Snell, and Aaron Nola, Wacha will add another interesting mid-rotation option to a group that already includes the likes of Lugo, James Paxton, Marcus Stroman, Lucas Giolito and Eduardo Rodriguez in the event that he decides to decline his player option and test the open market.
Possible rebuild in coming?
Nah, these option being declined were the most likely cases whether they can afford them or not. His injury concerns makes 2×16 pretty risky. Think you will see the padres go after Yamamoto and or someone of that level.
They and half of MLB are dreaming of Yamamoto. His contract will be north of $200MM. This doesn’t seem the offseason they’ll be the big spenders.
I’m telling you they will be going after him and or other top of the rotation guys.
I don’t know where people get off making claims like this. If nothing else Preller/Seidler are known for making big splashes. Lets wait and see
I expect the Padres to field a competitive team. I expect them to make trades and signings to fill some holes, all while reducing payroll. I do not expect them to win the Yamamoto sweepstakes.
Expecting them not to win the Yamamoto sweepstakes is reasonable. I do expect them to be one of the teams in on him. We shall see who wins that, not great odds on a single team doing so since he will have plenty of suitors.
Seems like he is worth that much, Padres definitely be having financial issues.
Nahhhh. If he was worth that much the Padres would have exercised the option and then traded him. Even if they did have “financial issues.”
This isn’t the nba. Can’t sign and trade.
Exercising a club option isn’t signing a player tho. The Padres have done this before. First that comes to mind is Joaquin Benoit. Exercised his option and then immediately traded him to Seattle for Enyel de los Santos and Nelson Ward. Served two purposes: got them EDLS and Ward who might become something later on and eliminated the option buyout from the equation.
You’re assuming a team that massively overpaid to extend Machado is rational.
He had back to back best years he’s had since his rookie season? Lol I’d love to see him come back to stl on a one year deal
Wacha will get 2/30M easily, in this market.
@CleaverGreene If that’s the case why did no one trade for him just now? You really think Preller didn’t shop him around before declining the option?
The team option was 2 years and 32 million, now he has an option he’ll definitely decline for 1 year, $6.5 million.
Or they can put 16 mill towards a healthier more reliable starter.
Is 16 mill worth a guy who pitched 23 games in 2022 and 24 games in 2023? Not really. They need a guy who can give them 30+ starts. Wacha hasn’t cracked 30 starts since 2016.
He was the only one giving them decent starts besides snell for a while he was their stud
Wacha sounds like an Andrew Friedman guy, health risk, good in regular season, forgets how to pitch in October.
how about you double that for a guy that hasnt made more than 15 starts in a year since before covid?
The Padres need to find the right mix of guys who can give them the best possible 162 starts.
Getting 30+ starts as your primary condition is senseless, really.
The Giants’ Zaidi put it best in this regard when he said something a lot like ‘we’re not looking for 5 starting pitchers, we’re looking for starting pitchers who can combine to give us 162 starts.’
I could give them 30+ starts. They might not like my ERA of 100+ though
He hasn’t pitched a full season in his career. He had a shoulder injury this season. In no way is he worth a $16 million gamble for 2 years.
People tend to forget he started the season as the Padres number 5 starter.
Rather see the Padres invest that in Yamamoto who is 25 years old.
Had back to back best years since he came up in 2013? I’d love to see him come back to STL on a one year deal? But he’s gonna be shooting for 3-4
So, why’d preller even give him a god damned team option at that price? How much better should he have pitched for them not to decline it?
Now the Padres havearviah, Musgrove, and Avila.
Gonna be really awful in San Diego until AJ Preller gets fired
It gives you options. Preller decided he would rather spend the money elsewhere. Wacha has real shoulder issues and is unlikely to pitch a season without a month on the injured list.
Fair enough. Just feels like the roster is really thin outside of MACHADO Tatis and bogaerts.
Hopefully Preller figures something out, something he hasn’t been able to do in his career with the padres
Yeah they also have mustgrove, darvish, cronenworth, Soto, Kim, Campusano. They really don’t have many needs on the position player side. They do have a lot of pitching needs mainly starting pitching.
Carlos Mendoza will manage the starting pitching staff of Darvish, Musgrove, Luis Severino, Domingo German, Luke Weaver and maybe Lance Lynn. All marked down for quick sale, and on the discount rack. Then AJ Preller can take the Yankee Clipper Train from the GM meetings back to San Diego.
Yet, he was worth 2.5 WAR regardless. 130 IP a year at that production is more than worth that price tag.
War means nothing when you’re on the injured list
2nd half of the season he only pitched in 9 games and had an era of 3.88. Wasnt as dominate as prior to his injury.
Committing 16 mill a year to a guy who will miss chunks of time isn’t a smart investment. Padres learned that the hard way with Drew Pomeranz. Least with Drew it was more a fluke than him having an injury history. As good as Wacha was committing 16 mill in 2024 and 2025 with the risk of injury isn’t wise.
I’m sure padres would have loved for him to pitch more in the 2nd half of the season while they were trying to push for a playoff birth. Missed July 1st till August 15th.
As someone else stated, if the Padres were confident he was worth the money and they just didn’t have it, they could have exercised and traded him for something, even just cash. I’m surprised too, though.
The offseason just started. Unlike the Angels, the Padres actually have a really good core of players and an owner that has shown he is willing to spend and spend on the right kind of players.
You might want to look at the pitching staff before declaring we have a “really good core of players.” Especially since that core isn’t likely to be better in ‘24 than it was in ‘23. And we all know what happened last season.
This time last year Pads were in similar boat with SP staff; went out and signed Lugo and Wacha and brought back Martinez. They will have do do the same again this offseason, and replace Snell. Tall order. I think they have to work a trade or two involving prospects.
Yes, a VERY tall order. We entered last year needing to fill out a starting staff that was only 3/5 complete, but it was a pretty good 3/5 with Darvish, Musgrove, and Snell. And there was still no depth to speak of. Now, we’re down to 2/5, still no depth, and adding anything of quality is going to involve quite a bit of luck.
I’m thinking this makes a Soto trade almost mandatory.
@SDHotDawg You can’t trade Soto after giving up ALL THAT to get him!
@thelegendary …
Don’t get me wrong, I hate that Soto’s probably gone. But what I hate even more is that we’ll NEVER come close to getting back what we gave up to get him. I think he was gone the moment Preller unnecessarily signed Bogaerts to that crazy contract.
No point in trading him unless you get back what you gave up to get him.
If he wanted $16 million after years of injuries, he should have made 30+ starts. Instead he got hurt again and missed more than a month of the season.
More cost cutting. Wacha did good work for the Padres in 2023 but the loans are coming due.
My guess is that the Padre brass figures the team was so unlucky in 2023 that they can stumble into contention in 2024 even with a much lower payroll. Who knows, they may be right.
Wacha was garbage down the stretch. My guess is they try to bring him back on a 2-3 year deal with an AAV somewhere in between the AAV of the club option and that of the player option.
I literally see the Padres signing no free agents this offseason other than minor league deals.
Cool let’s place a wager. I’ll take that bet.
One of the silliest comments I’ve seen on this site
Is it? Seems they are bleeding money. They just declined reasonable options to bring back two useful pitchers. Snell and Hader are also as good as gone. And they even started shopping Soto before the playoffs began.
Keep living in denial I guess. Judging by the avatar, you’re used to it.
Are they even shopping Soto? Just because teams call doesn’t mean it’s a thing… who really knows, right? Not one single team picks up Wacha’s Option(s) at that price. If he does get a larger guarantee, it will come with a hit to his AAV.
They didn’t shop Soto even the Yankees rumors have been cleared up to say they haven’t had any real talks about Soto.
Martinez at 16m was a terrible price not even close to reasonable.
Wacha I will say was more boarder line but they decided to decline it. It’s not because of the money. If wacha was a no brain decisions at 16m per year they would have picked it up and traded him. They prob even asked around to see if anyone was interested and nobody was so they declined it.
Remember his season with the six two years ago. You could say he was worth a decent amount and yet signed with the padre for peanuts.
Can you point to any specifics re: them “bleeding money” – the hyperbole on here is insane.
Yes they are bleeding money that’s why they just spent 20m on ball park improvements that’s started this week.
That’s what broke teams do.
Dude, once you put on those Padre rose-colored glasses, all of this makes perfect sense – all those big contracts are like a symphony – and you realize SD could double their payroll and still have room to make savvy additions. You see clearly the organization has never been more financially sound – hey, all kinds of companies get loans every day to cover payroll, etc. Normal! In short, those glasses prevent your vision from being obscured by facts.
@solaris yes, in fact, corporations take out loans and take on debt all the time for strategic reasons.
@solaris I have worked for billion dollar corporations my entire adult life and every one of them took out large loans.
Do you have insight into their books? I didn’t think so. Saying they will sign nobody is silly and you know it. I like the teams that I like at least I’m not a fair weather tool.
“Bleeding money”
Lmao. Dumb.
1. Padres trying to get under tax penalty =/= Bleeding money
2. Paying wacha 16 mill a year when he only started 9 games 2nd half of the season and had a 3.88 era isn’t a wise investment. It’d come with a lot of risk. They’d be better off pursuing Yamamoto who’s younger at 15 mill a year. (Using kodai senga’s contract as a comp).
3. Nick Martinez is a great swing guy spot starter pen guy. Not an actual viable option as a regular starter and not worth 16 mill a year.
You didn’t really think things through very well did you kruk?
All large corporations (including major league baseball teams) take on debt. They do so not because Peter Seidler is out of cash and can’t pay the bills but because they get tax breaks for doing so.
I guess you missed the article where they had to take out a $50M loan; and that it had to be approved by the commissioner.
theathletic.com/5021659/2023/11/01/padres-payroll-…
Everyone loan has to be approved. Large companies take out loans all the time. Even in that article it says 25-33% of the teams do every year.
I thought it through enough. Hader and Snell were ruled out for being re-signed before the season was even over. Soto rumors began before the season was over. Conflicting reports about the teams finances are all over the place. There’s certainly smoke in terms of the logic that they may be over extended.
Martinez was solid. I guess the buyout mashes sense for him. It’s how they handled him last year.
Wacha, unless he truly is hurt, was making what the market is for a 3-4. When you have a arguable #1 starter walking, and lose your swingman, this becomes a more questionable decision.
Signs point to them doing nothing of significance in terms of a bigger free agent signing. They may make some small ones. Or they will trade Soto and fill as many holes as they can by doing so.
They most likely won’t sign him to an extension. But they probably could have instead of signing Boegarts when they already had three shortstops in house. Pretty odd decision to say the least.
Of course many teams use both short and long-term financing, but the interesting thing was that it specifically mentioned payroll, which isn’t usually the case. Yes, it could be related to whatever signing bonus structure there may be in the Machado extension. Does anyone know if they took season ticket holder playoff ticket orders/deposits/payments (despite missing the playoffs)?
@PoisonedPens …
Per The Athletic, the Padres wanted to take out a $100MM loan, but MLB would only approve them for the $50MM. That implies their debt ratio my be getting close to the line.
He literally had one bad game in September vs. the Dodgers.
@Hambre, he was 6-3 in Sept and Aug. In 6 starts in Aug he only gave up more than 3 Rs once and he won final 3 starts of the season.
Pitcher wins and losses need to be retired, scrubbed from the record books and forgotten.
That’s why I also took the liberty of mentioning him only allowing more than 3 Rs once in Aug. And that was over the course of 6 starts.
@Hambre, he was 6-3 in Sept and Aug.
===========================
The 1st and 2nd half difference was mostly about BABIP.
And most of the damage done to Wacha’s ERA was in April, with a 6.75 ERA. Wacha had a 2.39 after April.
Not taking sides either way, since $32M/2 is a decent chunk of change. But it feels like SD fans are in permanent “perfect move” mode.
The point is if someone were willing to pay Wacha this kind of money the Padres would have exercised the option and traded him. Yes, it’s allowed. Yes, Preller knows if teams are willing to take him. Don’t even think about saying otherwise.
Obviously money issues in SD. He won enough games for the option to be picked up.
Injured again. Missed 8-9 starts on the IL. No, he didn’t play well enough to get $32 million guaranteed.
Some Padres fan had suggested something along the lines of $39M/3 as a reasonable compromise, when the subject first came up.
“He won enough games…”
LOL!
Snell, Hader, Lugo, Martinez, Wacha all gone. Lots of quality innings to replace.
Losing like half their pitching staff. Gonna need alota innings replaced n now they’re trimming the fat frm club jettisoning pricey players. Didn’t see whole lota promise in organizations minor league pitching depth last season. Pads do have nice lil core of regular players but will only go as far as their pitching will take em.
SP wasn’t their problem last year, which is saying something given the injuries. And last year they were in a similar situation offseason, then went out and got Wacha and Lugo and kept Martinez to fill void. And all three were decent values overall. Now they are too costly so they will try to make similar value FA pick ups, and wouldn’t surprise me if they go after a #2-3 SP too.
Some great SP prospects coming soon from minors, but not so much in 24
They declined him because his shoulder is suspect.
Every pitcher has their warts
All these jizzlobbers throwing crayons from the top deck thinking this is the Pads being cheap…
LoL!
Jizzlobber is a great Faith No More song.
I agree. Bow tie Bob tries to trash the Padres every chance he gets. They are fine financially. Trying to make something out of nothing.
For all you guys who are saying they let all these guys go because of money issues are going to be wrong. I believe the padres will spend again this year and still expected them to decline these options. Martinez isn’t worth 16m per year. Lugo opted out which he should have. Nothing the padres could do to stop him. Wacha at 16m per knowing he has major shoulder issues is a huge risk. He is virtually certain to miss at least a month of the season. He had a good year for the Sox before signing with the padres and still didn’t get paid.
The padre will replace all these guys with quality guys. Don’t over buy into the padres are so broke they can’t afford anyone. They will be players in this year free agent class…book it
The Martinez decline is expected, his deal was stupid to begin with for someone with one decent MLB season under his belt
Wacha pitched the same amount of innings with better results than Darvish, yet Darvish gets an extension. I’d take Wacha over Yu at this point.
So would the Padres. But Darvish’s contract is already set in stone.
Lol
Darvish made 30 starts and pitched 194 innings in 2022 then got an $18 million AAV extension.
Wacha made 24 starts and threw 134 innings in 2023 while spending more than a month on the IL.
The difference is pretty obvious.
sandiegouniontribune.com/sports/padres/story/2023-…
Clearly they have money problems they couldn’t cover payroll.
This coming from the same guy who last year said the padres had 5m to spend and spent 400m. Even preller himself said last year we hear what acee says for us to do and we do the opposite. Don’t get drawn into that click bait.
In the article from MLB by Mark Feinsand about the top 25 FA this offseason, the Padres were mentioned as being one of the top 3-4 favorites to sign almost half the FA on his list. mlb.com/news/mlb-free-agent-rankings-2023-2024
Not sure how that meshes with the one article I have seen that says they will be cutting payroll.
the point I’ve been making too. Writers unit in paradigm confusion
Padres let Wacha go and replace him with Yamamoto who’s younger and will be keeper (assuming he signs a 5 year 75 mill contract like Senga)
.
Lugo walks. Padres put his money and Snell money towards Montgomery, Sonny Gray.
Padres can sign a reclamation project like Giolito, Lynn, etc if they need a 5th starter.
Roll into 2024 with
Darvish
Musgrove
Yamamoto
Montgomery/Gray
Lynn/Giolito
Though I think Waldron and Avila could be very good #4s and #5s which they’re on cheap contracts.
That’s alota hoping. Yamamoto is going 2get more than 75MIL.
“Though I think Waldron and Avila could be very good #4s and #5s which they’re on cheap contracts”
Yamamoto will cost much more than 5/75, more like 8/200, but would still be preferrable to spending $32 million over the next 2 seasons on an oft injured player like Wacha.
That doesn’t mean the Padres are not working to resign Wacha and Lugo, just at a lower number then the $16 million of the team option for Wacha.
I’d be shocked it someone committed 8 years 200 mill to a guy making the jump from npb to the mlb as that deal could be a huge issue if he doesn’t meet expectations.
At best I can see 5 years 100-125 mill. I don’t see teams committing 8 fully guaranteed years.
It’s been pretty well known Yamamoto is going to get 200m or close to it because of his age. He will get a 7-8 year deal. Somewhere around 20-30m per.
Yamamoto is getting at least 8/160M minimum.
So, Yamamoto’s a guaranteed stud in MLB?
NoSubscriptions4Lyfe
Padres let Wacha go and replace him with Yamamoto who’s younger and will be keeper (assuming he signs a 5 year 75 mill contract like Senga)
=========================
You’ll be off by a facto of 2. I’d bet on him getting $150M.
Next team for Wacha the Cardinals?
No
Pirates.
Wacha isn’t a 16 million a year pitcher. He’s a back end rotation guy. I’d take him at 6.5m but like the article states he’ll decline it because he’ll get a little more and another year im guessing on the market. Club options are there if wacha were to become what he once was with the Cardinals the Padres could have had him at a healthy discount but that didn’t happen. He’s a serviceable back end rotation guy right now nothing more
Didn’t he start the season as the Padres #5 with Lugo as the #6?
That is exactly where he was in the rotation.
Free agent 4/5 starters get 10-15M AAV. Key words: free agent.
They need to put a limit on the # of people you can mute. To combat the Pads Fans’, Longtimecoming’s and filihok’s of the world.
Who’s monkeying around with our resident gorilla?
Safe to say they’re not invited to your next summer’s BBQ?
Someone named fever pitch guy muted me because I pointed out he was arguing against something I never said. This community is strange
FPG is one of the few good ones here. Perhaps a misunderstanding on his part? As long as you expect this place to never not be strange, you’ll be alright here.
Sure, maybe, I gave him many opportunities to go back and reread what I actually said but he was pretty overzealous and self righteous tbh. No big deal – I have no idea who he is.
Expect the unexpected here, but just expect that unexpected to be weird and you’re straight, bruv.
Squad didn’t actually think they could sustain a top 5 payroll, did they? In that city, with that GM? Lmao.
Know your role and remember who you are: Peasants
You started a new account. Good for you. How long until this one gets banned? Think you will make it past the one week it took for your last one to get booted off here? Maybe if you changed the names a little more it wouldn’t be so obvious.
@outinleftfield You have no room to talk when your accounts “Koamalu” and “YourDaddy” were banned already.
Could be worse. Padres could be stuck with Conforto and Haniger
Oh you mean two career 120 wRC+ bats? Yeah, how awful. Shoulda given them both 8 year deals for 144 m actually
No I mean Michael Conforto who hit
.238/.334/.399 for an OPS+ OF 99 for the Giants in 2023
And
Mitch Haniger who hit
.209/.266/.365 for an OPS+ of 73 for the Giants in 2023.
Lot of good “career” numbers did both in 2023.
Luckily for you. Ross Stripling exercised his 12.5 mill player option. That 5.36 / 5.21 FIP also from 2023 sure looking good as well.
Lotta words w no career totals. Still waiting
xFIP:
What did conforto and haniger hit in 2023? Leave it to a giants fans to live in the past lmao. Must not have much going on in the present or future. Sad.
FIP and xFIP are different stats.
So we should expect Tatis and Machado to have .760 OPSs moving forward?
You clearly have very minimal understanding of how to forecast performance
What was his xFIP?
Forecast =/= reality. Dream all you want. Doesn’t mean it’ll become reality. Projections are nothing more than educated guesses.
If youre curious use fangraphs. Baseball reference shows era and fip. More you know.
There is no reality yet. That’s the entire point bub.
We get it tho, it takes you a while
So youre hoping it happens? Based on last year you’re expecting a lot. Most likely gonna be disappointed. Again.
Using only the previous year to forecast performance is wildly shortsighted
They’ve only played 1 year in SF
Expecting them to hit like they did in Seattle and NY (different stadiums) doesn’t make much sense.
You do know they played for different teams before joining the giants right man? Different stadiums? And you do realize ball park factors do come into play and impact hitters i assume? I’m sure SF gets the same marine layer issue SD does that impacts hitters at night.
You know how ops+ works dawg? It adjusts for park, lmao. And Seattle is an even tougher place to hit than SF
You do know playing for SF Conforto hit 99 OPS+ and Haniger hit 73 OPS+
LMAO you walked right into that one smooth brain. LMAO ROFL
Anyways. Been fun. But you’re not really good at this debating thing brother. Probably worst person I’ve seen on here. Running circles around you is getting boring.
xFIP is based on how many HR a pitcher should have allowed instead of how many they did allow.
“It’s calculated in the same way as FIP, except it replaces a pitcher’s home run total with an estimate of how many home runs they should have allowed given the number of fly balls they surrendered using the league average”
If they are below average in the HR/FB rate that is part of the problem and its why I never consider it.
Conforto had a 100 OPS+ in 2021 and then missed an entire 2022 season with injuries. Were you really expecting that he would get back to his career averages in his first season back?
In his last 4 seasons, Haniger has 332 games or 2 seasons worth of games. His injuries are why the Giants should have passed on him. If you are not on the field your past OPS+ doesn’t matter. Then his bat fell apart this season too.
Because hr/fb is incredibly variable from year to year. I already said that. Can you read or nah
The problem is that he only got 229 PA this year and 247 last year. But then you know that and are just here to troll just like you did on your last account that got banned.
Any of those “stats” that start with a lower case “x,” (xFIP, xOBA, etc) aren’t STATS. They are nothing more than guesses and probabilities, and as such, are practically meaningless.
That city? We drew 3.2 million fans! They all spend a lot on food, drinks, and gear. We have a very affluent fan base.
Siegler is worth 2.8 billion dollars. We are fine financially.
he’s obv coming back to boston
Soto and Machado for Clarke Schmidt and Higashioka. Throw in a jar of ball rubbing mud or two too from the Yankees
No.
Right now, after the option decisions, arbitration raises and likely free agent departures, it looks like the Padres have maybe $170 million in projected payroll for 2024. That number could change some, of course, with possible trades (Soto being the obvious big possibility) or other player moves.
If San Diego really is looking to trim payroll to $200 million or so, that leaves some wiggle room for free agent signings, if not blockbusters. The team is obviously going to have to shore up the pitching staff with so many hurlers departing. This year’s free agent class is pitching-rich, so maybe the Padres can pick up a bargain or two.
The owner and GM have said payroll is remaining the same as last year. What source do you have they are cutting back to 200 MIL ?
And rumor has it Seidlers health is not great. He has a 2 billion dollar war chest to play with if he wants to go for it.
seidler claims his $ will continue to fund the singular goal of bringing not just a parade to SD but long-term consistent winning. It’s a family promise to SD, set up to continue long after he dies. We’ll see. The SD Sports Curse is one big bad Balrog.
While I doubt they cut spending to 200m. The gm has t said anything about what payroll will be other then he hasn’t gotten the number yet.
Right, all we have to go by is that they repeatedly say the same thing; that they’re committed to investing in full as they have been to deliver a parade and more. It doesn’t matter that they don’t say it every day, they’ve been saying it (and acting on it) for 4-5 years now. I see little evidence they will cut back on spending, and not just the MLB payroll, throughout the minors, development, international.
Given that, it’s really hard to buy into Acee’s speculation that they’re massively dumping payroll.
sandiegouniontribune.com/sports/padres/story/2023-…
Maybe if you post this one more time people will believe Kevin acee.
See if maybe you can follow this. Maybe he was right they didn’t have the money. They went for it they failed they also then needed to borrow the money to cover expenses because they were not going to have the playoff revenue to cover all they spent….. huh seems realistic but you have to be able to think critically
Lots of maybes in there – what’s the point…you or Acee have no friggin clue about internal padres strategy.
My company will be involved in the construction part of the development of Tailgate Park which is a block away from Petco. The Padres will need about $120 million to fund the first phase of that development by May of next year. At least that is what my part of the contract calls for.
I cannot say with any certainty what they borrowed that money for because I was not involved in any way, but that it happened so late in the season tells me it wasn’t to pay players since they get their last check in the middle of the month.
Seems more likely it was to help fund the Tailgate Park development at least in part. Its a $1.5 billion development and the Padres are neck deep in it.
Who are you responding too?
I thought Cisterra was the developer? They are a local company.
No use arguing with ostriches. There is a lot of sand in San Diego to bury their head in.
They are the developer. We will be doing the actual construction of the 1st residential building and the retail and office space.
Just noticed that the story added a projected $190 million payroll for San Diego in 2024. Maybe I’m being a little optimistic on the arbitration front with my $170 million estimate. Or maybe I’m just expecting more cost cutting.
But the basic point remains. If the rumors about a target payroll of $200 million are true, San Diego only has a little wiggle room for free agents. Not saying they won’t do anything but I don’t expect blockbuster signings.
It’s about 170m now if they only arb Soto and let the others go. Of course if you add in players benefits and what not it can go up another 17m. So some of the numbers depends on what you count as player payroll.
Yeah, there’s obviously some uncertainty in projected payrolls. But if there really is a mandate to cut payroll – and after a while all that smoke probably indicates a little fire – then there’s some room for free agent signings but not huge deals.
The wild card, of course, is Soto. Moving him in the off-season would free up a lot of payroll space to rebuild the pitching staff. Then you could see a big signing or two.
It might be an interesting offseason for the Pads. Or it could be a very quiet one. Everything seems to hinge on that one outfielder.
How would the Padres replace Soto’s production and why would they trade a 25 year old superstar? If they did that would be the dumbest move since the Red Sox traded Mookie Betts. Soto is the kind of young player, possibly a HOF player, that every team wants to build around.
They can’t replace his production with any player that another team would make available in trade or that is on the FA market with the exception of Ohtani, who will cost more. The Padres have said their first order of business this offseason is to extend Soto. They know the cost and think he is worth it. I agree.
I loathe that this site has become mlb salary cap rumors. The offseason is to speculate on the players that can be acquired via trade, free agency (including international) and promotions. Fans shouldn’t care about team budgets – this is so silly.
Unless you work for a company that doesn’t require budgets, then every move must be considered in the context of how it affects the budget.
There is no second option.
@JoeBrady …
You’re right, but since we aren’t privy to any team’s budget … it really doesn’t matter.
1-In most cases, but certainly not for SD, you can make an educated guess.
2-In most cases, most fans can at least voice an opinion as to whether or not a player is worth their contract.
In any case, you cannot separate salary from value. Basically, I’d love to see my RS acquire Trout, while I’d hate to see them pay him $260M over the next 7 years.
That is the thing, we are privy to the budget of any team that is owned by a publicly traded company. Two are. The Blue Jays and the Braves.
I think that’s exactly what they and the Mets will do. You severe ties with what didn’t work. Wacha isn’t a difference-maker. For the $16MM, take on cheaper riskier pitchers with potentially a higher ceiling than Wacha.
Which is exactly what the Padres did WITH Wacha. He was a huge risk coming off multiple injury plagued seasons. Its also what they did with Lugo and Martinez.
I can see them making a big run at Yamamoto, especially after Preller went to Japan to watch him play.
Shota Imanaga is another player the Padres are known to be in on and they are considered one of the favorites to sign him.
We know that the Padres were one of the teams that were at Yariel Rodriguez workout after he stayed in the US after playing for Cuba in the WBC. He was granted FA by MLB today and he is 27 years old.
Eric Fedde is a pitcher that is flying under the radar. He went to the KBO and had an exceptional season there. HE might be the next guy to go to the Asian leagues and return to the majors a better pitcher like Miles Mikolas, Nick Martinez and others.
With the exception of Yamamoto, all of them would be far cheaper than Wacha.
Imanaga, Rodriguez, and Fedde combined will probably not get $16 million next season.
If the Padres signed Yamamoto and those three it would most likely cost them less than Snell, Wacha, Lugo, and Martinez did in 2023.
Wacha’s not worth $16 million a season. Hasn’t pitched more than 134 innings in seven years. Hasn’t has more than 24 starts in just as long and has only done so twice in his 11 year career. Not worth the money, especially considering how erratic his overall results have been. If you’re only getting 20 or so starts, you better be assured you’re getting great results for $16 million.
Cronenworth can pitch. He’s the answer to Ohtani for the Padres. He just doesn’t hit like Ohtani.
And this year he didn’t hit at all. Fastball take down the middle for strike 3 consistently.
This is coming from a diehard padre fan.
Off-season plans for Cronz is to level up his swing, he overemphasized lift to hit more HRs and the result was a big drop in good contact
More desperate cost cutting, Soto trade soon
I see it for what it is. Preller signed Wacha, Martinez, and Lugo at a discount and all three delivered. Pads rotation had the lowest ERA in baseball last year. Wisely, Preller will let some other team now pay top dollar for those guys, and he’ll find more Lugo-like bargains out there to replace them. They keep Soto. Maybe sign Yamamoto. Toss in a Giolito and some pesto pasta and mama Mia!
That seems like a good call by the Padres. I really didn’t watch him much, but he has not had more than 24 starts in a very long time. He gets hurt every season. No reason to give him $16 million AAV.
Maybe they will give him a 3 year deal for less AAV with an option year, maybe even a vesting option.
I think the Braves should sign Wacha to a two year deal. 4/5 starter, reliever.
Please no.
With all their injury issues, do you think they would take on a guy that gets injured every season?
Wachas problem is he keeps putting runners on base by not throwing strikes. Wacha wacha wacha.
Padres probably do need to get their Payroll down. MLB restricted how much money they could borrow, that certainly suggests that there are some serious financial issues.
I can understand what they’ve done so far but supporters seem to think they can or will replace all these players for “Less” than what they were paying.
Wacha at 16.MM is high but are you going to get a better Pitcher for that amount? If so, Who?
To get back to contending they will need to go past the LT Threshold and I’m not sure they can afford that. They may need to back off for 2024 and reboot and go for it in 2025.
Wacha’s ERA+ in 2022 and 2023 was 127.
An ERA+ of 125 gets you into the HOF if you can do it for 3000 innings. Wacha obviously doesn’t have that kind of durability, but he did give you HOF caliber pitching for 2/3 of the 2022 and 2023 seasons.
He’s done nothing but pitch 124 to 137 innings over the last 4 full seasons, albeit not at that level, and at 32-33 in 2024-25 he won’t be ancient—so the Padres must be figuring Wacha is ready to decline significantly, since there are few teams aiming to contend who wouldn’t cheerfully sign up for 2/32m and get 130 innings of 127 ERA+ in return. A guy who can pitch like that, you find a place in the rotation for him when he’s healthy and you don’t sweat the missed starts. You plan for them. .
True and he got peanuts after one of those years with the Sox. Teams are very concerned about his shoulder. He has also pitched better than his expected results the last two years. Underlying numbers say there is regression coming. Not that they are bad but closer to a 4 era guy than a low 3 era guy. With real injury history. Padres decided not to roll the dice on him repeated what he did. I believe most teams will feel the same. Perhaps the padres wait it out and bring him back if another team doesn’t take a larger chance on him.
He went 14-4 on a team that struggles getting through the game, clearly the white sox should give him a tier offer, without saying this is our big signing and done with the offseason like usually.
would be a good pickup for the reds
Wacha is just not a five man rotation piece. It’s only a matter of time before we see the six man rotation become normal. Sigh.
Woul r mind him on the Cardinals again for like 2 years.
The pitching departures are going to be an accumulative problem.
They have just lost 627.IPs with a combined 2.88 ERA. What they have left is 814 IPs with a combined 4.39 ERA. That is a heck of lot of quality innings to replace.
As you said earlier, you cannot separate salary from value. Neither Wacha nor Martinez produced $16 million worth of value. Especially when you consider the Padres would have to commit to 2/32 for both of them.
Wacha was not worth that money because he missed more than a month and Martinez because he was only good in low leverage relief situations and was unable to win a spot in the starting rotation.
Wacha’s ongoing injury issues will keep him from getting even close to that $16 million as an AAV. He might get $12 if everything goes his way in FA.
Martinez is unlikely to get more than the $8 million AAv he turned down unless some team sees him as a starter. It might happen, but not with a contender.
All three of Wacha, Lugo, and Martinez were pitcher picked up inexpensively and were not expected to be near as good as they were once they became Padres. Wacha and Lugo were the Padres #5 and #6 starters prior to Musgrove breaking his foot. Martinez could not even break into the rotation.