The Padres have reached agreement with Jason Heyward on a free agent deal, reports Dennis Lin of The Athletic. Lin indicates that Heyward is expected to split time in left field with San Diego’s other recent free agent pickup, Connor Joe. Terms are unreported, but it seems likely to be a one-year major league deal for the Excel Sports Management client. The Padres have four openings on the 40-man roster and can accommodate Joe and Heyward without any corresponding moves.
Heyward is headed into his age-35 season. He has spent the past two years as a left-handed platoon bat in the corner outfield. That role suited him quite well in 2023. Heyward caught on with the Dodgers after being released by the Cubs before what would have been the final season of his eight-year contract. He had his best offensive showing in some time, hitting .269/.340/.473 with 15 homers across 377 plate appearances.
The Dodgers brought him back on a $9MM contract early last offseason. He was unable to match the previous year’s production. Heyward missed six weeks early in the season rehabbing a lower back injury. He hit fairly well immediately upon his return but suffered a bone bruise in his left knee at the beginning of July. That knocked him out of action for another three weeks. He fell into a slump upon coming back from that injury. The Dodgers designated him for assignment towards the end of August.
Heyward was sitting on a .208/.289/.393 line when the Dodgers cut him. He quickly landed a big league deal with the Astros, where he fared a bit better in a small sample. Heyward hit four homers in 24 games with Houston, posting a .218/.283/.473 slash across 61 trips to the plate. He cracked the playoff roster and got the start in left field for Game 2 of Houston’s Wild Card series loss at the hands of the Tigers.
Between the two teams, Heyward finished the year with a .211/.288/.412 slash over 258 plate appearances. He posted roughly average strikeout and walk rates while showing a bit of power, connecting on 10 homers in around a half-season’s worth of playing time. He hit a lot of ground-balls to the pull side, though, an approach that wasn’t conducive to strong ball in play results. His .226 average on balls in play was a career low; only seven hitters with 250+ plate appearances had a lower BABIP.
Heyward has only taken 50 plate appearances against left-handed pitching over the past two seasons. He’s hitting .188 with a .220 on-base percentage in that tiny sample. The Padres will limit him to almost exclusively facing right-handers. He had a .214/.298/.422 line with the platoon advantage last year and is two seasons removed from a strong .276/.347/.471 showing against righties. It’s unlikely that he’ll get back to the ’23 level, but he can potentially turn in slightly above-average numbers with the platoon advantage. Joe, a right-handed hitter, had a .251/.353/.418 line against left-handed pitching over his two seasons with the Pirates.
The Friars used David Peralta as a lefty platoon corner outfielder last season. He hit .273/.329/.431 across 234 plate appearances in that role — strong work for a player who joined the team on a minor league deal in the middle of May. Peralta remains unsigned, while the Friars didn’t make a serious effort to retain Jurickson Profar because of payroll limitations. A Heyward/Joe platoon is going to be a significant step down from Profar’s unexpected .280/.380/.459 performance. They were inevitably going to downgrade at the position. Profar played last season on a $1MM salary, making him the biggest bargain signing of last offseason.
Neither the Joe nor Heyward terms have been reported, but they’ll each be modest deals. They join Elias Díaz’s $3.5MM signing as San Diego’s free agent acquisitions this winter. RosterResource calculates their competitive balance tax payroll around $247MM (pending the Joe and Heyward deals). That puts them about $6MM above the luxury tax threshold; they ended last season with a CBT number in the $228MM range. A late-offseason trade to clear payroll and add affordable help to the back of the rotation remains a possibility.
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Padres got busy all of a sudden.
Finally a Padre that has come class.
He has 25 homes in his last 562 at-bats.
No way he was going to sign with SF Giants, because Buster Posey robbed him of the ROY in 2010.
Robbed? They had similar numbers but Posey had a higher BA OPS SLG and struck out 80 less times.
He also helped his team win a world series that year.
“ Padres didn’t need to be busy. Went into offseason needing just a backup catcher, a 5th-6th starter, and depth”
There’s no 4th starter. There’s no DH. Right now Joe and Heyward would be in line for a lot of ABs.
They’re not done.
Don’t care what your WAR stat says, Posey was a rookie catcher who played solid D and posted a slash of .305/.357/.505, Heyward played in more games sure but Posey had similar offensive numbers while playing a premium position. And I don’t even like him lol
Padres didn’t need to be busy. Went into offseason needing just a backup catcher, a 5th-6th starter, and depth. The bench is now full.
Both Heyward and Joe are depth type signings. Bench guys. Joe had 416 PA last season and only got that many because he played for the Pirates..Heyward had 258.
These are the same caliber of additions that Preller made after the 2024 season was underway when he signed Peralta and Solano.
Preller on the prowl!
Tow you ok
He cant hit and he cant catch.
Bull
Not a horrible platoon for cheap.
So.. the bros getting control loosened the bargain purse strings? Alright.. waiting to hear on numbers for Hayward and Joe, but not hating it.
Kinda seems like trading away Cease isn’t happening.
Why? This has nothing to do with Cease. These are standard depth roster transactions.
This defeats the need to trade Ceaase because they aren’t trying to fill the other holes. They are filling them with cheap talent instead.
Makes sense to me. They can always still trade Cease in July if they have to.
There’s 2 giant holes at the back of the rotation and there’s no DH right now.
The padres need another bat and 2 starters.
2 giant holes? That’s a bit dramatic
They could use another hitter and a back end starter.
The point of trading Cease is to shed salary and get cost controllable young talent. It has nothing to do with roster moves around the margins.
The Padres needed OF depth with or without Cease.
And yes, they can wait until July if they aren’t receiving offers they like.
The point of trading Cease would be to get players to help them win in 2025. I don’t think the future is all that important to the Padres.
The Padres needed 2 outfielders. It sure appears like they have them now.
Absolutely not. They can’t have their cake and eat it too. Now I’m not saying the Padres can’t get a young established mlb pitcher like Butto or Megill that can help them fill out their major leauge pitching depth, but nobody is trading a cost controllable established every day player for 6 months of Cease. No FO would ever agree to that.
No FO would trade a top 50-100 prospect for 6 months of Cease.
If AJ Preller and the Padres FO thinks the Padres can win now in this window, then don’t trade Cease. But if you decide to trade Cease and try to still improve in the short-term? Well, it doesn’t work like that. The idea of trading a player you know you will lose in free agency is to stretch out and improve your long-term outlook, especially when the Padres aren’t spending any money any time soon.
The Padres situation is a rather unique one. They are still trying to win now no matter what they do with Cease. But they don’t have the money to spend to keep it going so it’s either trade a Cease or Arraez or sign guys dirt cheap to fill out their roster which is what it appears they are doing. We will see. My guess is the Padres aren’t trading anyone.
I agree it’s very unique situation which is why I think they go with the roster they have and they re-evaluate at the deadline.
They’ll likely hold on to Cease until they’re out of contention. They want to defer the decline in attendance until 2026 when Kong, Suarez, Arraez in addition to Cease are gone and replaced with low-priced players.
I would agree. I think that’s the direction they eventually go in.
World Series here we come! The Dodgers have to be shaking in their boots.
Sarcasm works !
Meanwhile back in La Jolla, the Seidlers divy their chips. The part that sucks is that the Dodger kids are in control of the Friars.. I called it 5 years ago. Who listened?
None of the Seidlers are in La Jolla. Matt, Robert, and John live in LA. Sheel lives in Texas.
Tom Seidler—La Jolla address.
fastpeoplesearch.com/tom-seidler_id_G3297839377503…
Paging @Tow
Seems like Heyward is pretty cooked at this point, but I’m sure it wasn’t more than a couple mill and if he sucks Tirso gets his chance. If he turns out like solano or perlata last year that would be best case scenario
Cooked? He put up 1.2 WAR in half of a season. He’s fine. He’s not a star or anything but he’s perfectly adequate on a platoon.
This headline be, “Padres to sign the carcass of Jason Hayward.”
Ground ball to the second baseman is Heyward’s calling card. If he can’t elevate the baseball it’s an easy out.
Two signings in one day? Happy late Christmas Padres fans!
SantAJ brought them coal 🙁
He brought them two bench players. Which was exactly what they had been asking for.
Hahaha he brought them their new LF platoon.
gonna say it again, Justin Turner and Jason Heyward hammering some “legendary” doggie pitching sounds so good!
Padres have so much talent. No idea what they are doing. Their pitching is nasty also. Why trade cease and king? What’s the plan?
There it is. The awful sarcasm that’s got to be in every one of these posts.
Just can’t help yourselves.
Two bats. Check! Two Arms. ???
Is it me or were you also surprised to read he’s only 35? I was thinking he was 40 or so. Seems like he’s been around forever.
Same first thought.
Heyward will always have a spot in Cubs lore, but his contract certainly felt like it was forever. Nice guy but was glad he was cut.
Hah! I was just looking at his Bref page and then jumped over to Baseball Savant. He could be over 45 WAR by retirement and not that many players have acheived that. An excellent career despite all the naysayers.
Felt like he had a 10 year career in each of Atlanta, St Louis, and Chicago
Jason Heyward is so old…
(HOW OLD IS HE?)
… he’s so old that he his first big league contract was written in pictures on the side of a cave.
Does this mean the Padres are not lowering payroll?
The Connor Joe signing puts them definitively over the tax line so Heyward will probably pay the Pads to play for them to stay below it. And then trading Dylan Cease of course.
3 depth signings for a total that is likely less than $10MM certainly doesn’t say anything. They had 4 40 man slots open without solid upper minor candidates to take the jobs.
A cease trade dips them right back under the line
I was being sarcastic. The whole media narrative this offseason is that the Padres are broke and must trade Cease (or King and Arraez) when everything they’ve done so far is to the contrary.
Puts them at $251+ million CBT payroll. $10 million or more over.
Meaning that trading Cease and his $13.75M salary plus whatever they pay Heyward puts them right around the line. Not to mention Cease’s replacement which puts them right back over. But the Padres are still trying to lower payroll, right?
From what they are saying on the radio here, the total for the two is over $5 million, so Padres at $254 million CBT payroll.
We will see when they release the numbers.
I don’t think they were ever lowering payroll. But it seemed like they might trade a Cease or Arraez in order to pay for help at other positions. Now I don’t think they will do that because they are filling those positions on the cheap. We will see.
Connor Joe, like Tommy John and Les Paul and Domingo Jean. 2 first names!
Frank Thomas
Good one
The anti-Jackson Holliday, if you will.
Hank Aaron gets my vote for all time greatest player with two first names. On the other end there is Tommy Irwin .111 career avg,(1-9) in three games played over two days.
Always thought Mookie Wilson and Darryl Strawberry should have exchanged names. You’d end up with one accountant and one Baskin Robbins flavor of the month
Yeah it almost seems like a typo and his name should be Joe Connor.
Stars and scrubs (and more scrubs), baby!
I hope Tirso Ornelas makes both of today’s signings even less significant…
Why bother Dodgers gonna win it anyway! lol
Giving 7 figures for a has been……I’d fire anyone who propsed this for lack of thought.
This could be like a Donovan Solano/ David Peralta / Jurikson Profar signing or
a Nelson Cruz, Matt Carpenter situation you never know. You are trying to add some veterans to platoon through OF and an occasionally DH . Let Shildt put them in the right situational position and see what happens.
The Padres picking up another former Dodger.
Forget his hitting…if he can just give speeches then he’s worth all that money! /s
Heyward has played at a 3 win pace over 600 at bats the last couple years. Thats pretty good, especially if it’s a low salary deal which it probably is. Padres also needed a lefty hitter. Hard not to like this deal.
How Broke are the Padres really today for 500
“Awfully cheap deal for elite defense on 1 or 2 tough plays a month.” – the Cubs, probably
I wonder if any outfield needy team will nab Peralta. For a bench/platoon role and as a good veteran presence. Seems like he’d be an alright grab. Heyward, Joe, and Peralta all had similar numbers, with Peralta having a better average, and Heyward having the better overall war. Joe is just kind of there, kind of in the middle of the two. They all hit 8, 9, and 10 home runs lol.
Anthony, the Padres made a solid offer to Profar. $24 million over 2 years, $8 million with a $16 million option, is nothing to sneeze at. That the Braves went 3/42 and he signed there isn’t an indication that the Padres were not negotiating with Profar. The Padres didn’t value Profar as highly as the Braves did.
Obviously no other team did either since there were no rumors of any other teams making any kind of an offer. Everyone else apparently thought 2024 was an outlier for a player going into his age 32 season.
Oh good. Now I know for sure they made no offer at all to Profar. I keep you around for confirmation as to what didn’t happen.
Preller must have been watching MLB Network earlier this evening because during a segment on the best remaining free agents Chris Young threw this out there as a good fit
not sure what he has left in the tank but maybe he can help reign in the talented but rampant egos on that squad. solid man if nothing else.