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2024-25 MLB Free Agent Power Rankings

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The season is underway, which makes this a good time to look ahead to next winter with the first installment of the 2024-25 MLB Free Agent Power Rankings! It’s an annual series here at MLBTR, wherein we try to rank the upcoming class of free agents by measure of their estimated earning power.

MLBTR will take periodic looks at the top of the class from now through the remainder of the season. Season performance will start to influence these rankings, but two to three weeks into the season, it’s not a huge factor. By the end time the season draws to a close, however, 2024 results will weigh heavily into the rankings. A strong platform year can elevate any player’s status in free agency, just as a poor walk year can tank their stock.

Our power rankings are compiled collaboratively. I worked with colleagues Anthony Franco and Darragh McDonald as well as MLBTR founder and owner Tim Dierkes for the first installment of this year’s rankings. Players with opt-out clauses and player options are included, even if they’ve previously given indications they may forgo the opportunity to return to the market.

Statistics are up-to-date through April 12.

* denotes players who are ineligible for a qualifying offer

1. Juan Soto, OF, Yankees

Were it not for Shohei Ohtani reaching the open market a year sooner, Soto might have a claim to the most coveted free agent ever. Because he skyrocketed through the minor leagues and took MLB by storm beginning at age 19, Soto’s final year of arbitration eligibility comes in just his age-25 campaign. He’ll play the entirety of his first free agent season at 26 years of age. For some context, Aaron Judge — who re-signed on a nine-year, $360MM contract with the Yankees upon reaching free agency — debuted at 24 and had 773 big league plate appearances heading into his own age-26 season.

Soto is a freak of nature who was one of MLB’s best hitters at an age when most top prospects are still in college or just entering the low minors. He hit .292/.406/.517 as a teenage rookie in 2018, and his preternatural plate discipline, bat-to-ball skills and raw power have only improved since. Through more than 3400 career plate appearances, Soto has walked at a staggering 18.9% clip and struck out in just 17% of his plate appearances. He entered the current season with 160 home runs, and while he’s never had a 40-homer campaign before, a move to Yankee Stadium and its notorious short porch in right field could help him get to 200 long balls before he turns 26.

Since his 2018 debut, Soto leads qualified big leaguers with a mammoth .422 on-base percentage. Mike Trout’s .415 mark ranks second, and Freddie Freeman (.402) is the only other hitter north of .400. Soto is “only” 16th in home runs in that time, but his 154 wRC+ — which indicates he’s been 54% better than an average hitter after weighting for home park and league run-scoring environment — is tied with Mookie Betts for fourth-best in baseball, trailing only Trout, Yordan Alvarez and Judge.

If there’s one wart to Soto’s game, it’s that he’s limited to the outfield corners and isn’t regarded as an especially strong defender. He’s had seasons with positive grades from both Defensive Runs Saved and Outs Above Average, but on the whole he has negative marks from both in his career — both in left field and in right field. That said, he’s also only had two truly *bad* seasons per both of those metrics, and taken in totality, he sits around -2 DRS and -4 OAA per season. Obviously, that’s not great, but it’s also not exactly egregious. And given the otherworldly contributions he makes at the plate, playing a slightly below-average left or right field is more than an even trade-off.

Soto famously rejected a 14-year, $440MM extension offer from the Nationals before being traded to the Padres. Rejecting an offer of that magnitude led to plenty of jaws dropping, but when considering that it included his three final arbitration seasons and 11 free agent years, it’s not as jarring as it seems at first blush. Soto wound up earning $71.1MM over those three seasons, meaning he really “only” needs to earn $370MM or so in free agency to come out ahead. There’s already talk of a potential $500MM free-agent deal for Soto. Barring a catastrophic injury, he’ll likely come out ahead in that bet on himself. He’s the clear No. 1 free agent on next year’s market and will be one of the most sought-after free agents not only in baseball history but in all of professional sports.

2. Corbin Burnes, RHP, Orioles

Since his 2020 breakout, Burnes ranks fifth in the majors in innings pitched, eighth in strikeout rate, fourth in K-BB%, second in opponents’ batting average, fifth in ERA, second in FIP and third in SIERA. Put another way — regardless of which metric you prefer to judge pitchers, Burnes ranks in the top-eight in just about any metric. He’s a bona fide No. 1 starter — very arguably one of the five best pitchers the sport has to offer at the moment.

Detractors might point to Burnes’ 2023 numbers as the potential beginning of a decline. His 3.39 ERA, 25.5% strikeout rate and 8.4% walk rate were all more “very good” than elite. Through three starts in Baltimore, he’s trending back in the other direction. Small sample caveats obviously apply, but Burnes has opened his first season with his new club on a tear, tossing 18 2/3 innings of 1.93 ERA ball with a 28.6% strikeout rate and superlative 2.9% walk rate. His velocity is as strong as ever; his devastating cutter is averaging 95.1 mph — an exact match for his career-best mark, set back in 2021 when he won the National League Cy Young Award.

Burnes won’t turn 30 until October. He’s never been on the injured list due to an arm issue. His only IL stints were due to an oblique strain and Covid. Burnes might not be quite as dominant as he was when he was striking out more than 35% of his opponents from 2020-21, but he’s a workhorse ace and former Cy Young winner who still ranks among the game’s elite arms. Gerrit Cole’s nine-year deal with the Yankees began in his age-29 season. Teams have generally been wary of committing to long-term deals for pitchers that span beyond their age-37 season (though there are exceptions, as evidenced by Jacob deGrom’s current five-year deal).

Burnes is dominant enough that he could prove to be an exception, but even if he’s limited to eight-year terms, he’ll have a chance at surpassing a $250MM guarantee. With a big enough year, nine years and/or $300MM+ could be on the table.

3. Alex Bregman, 3B, Astros

Bregman would’ve hit free agency in the 2022-23 offseason were it not for a five-year, $100MM extension he signed upon first reaching arbitration. That locked in his first — but very likely not his last — nine-figure contract and still allowed him to hit the open market at a fairly standard point, heading into his age-31 season.

There’s perhaps a perception that Bregman is declining or trending in the wrong direction, as his production has dipped from the MVP-caliber levels he displayed in 2018-19. He also doesn’t have the most appealing batted-ball profile, which we saw work to Cody Bellinger’s detriment in free agency this offseason. Bregman’s 88.6 mph average exit velocity and 38.2% hard-hit rate in 2023 were both pretty pedestrian marks.

One key difference between Bregman and Bellinger, however, is that Bregman has never had gaudy Statcast numbers — even when he was putting up the type of numbers that led to consecutive All-Star nods and top-five MVP finishes in 2018-19. Bellinger, on the other hand, previously had top-of-the-scale exit velo and hard-hit numbers, leading to more questions about whether his resurgent 2023 showing was truly sustainable.

Bregman has always possessed sensational contact skills. He’s never fanned at higher than a 15.5% clip in a full season. The former No. 2 overall draft pick legitimately possesses one of the best hit tools in all of baseball. He couples that with elite plate discipline, too; Bregman has walked at a 12.6% clip in his career and a 13.7% rate dating back to 2018. He’s walked more than he’s struck out in four individual seasons and in the aggregate from 2018-24. His 41-homer campaign from 2019 looks like a clear outlier in what’s now known as the juiced-ball season, but Bregman still popped 48 homers from 2022-23.

Some may question how much power he can manufacture following a potential change of scenery. Minute Maid Park’s short porch in left field — the Crawford Boxes — seems practically tailor-made for Bregman’s fly-ball heavy, pull-side approach. (Or, perhaps alternatively, he reworked his swing to take advantage of that quirk in his home park.)

There’s little doubting that he’s had some home runs that are Crawford Box specials over the years, but a look at Bregman’s career splits don’t paint the picture of someone who is a product of his hitter-friendly home environment. Bregman’s a career .273/.377/.473 hitter in Houston and a .275/.368/.498 hitter on the road. He’s actually hit nine more homers on the road in his career despite having only 64 more plate appearances away from Minute Maid Park than at home.

Defensively, Bregman isn’t an elite third baseman, but he’s posted average or better marks in DRS and OAA nearly every season of his career. There’s no reason to expect a position change in the near future, but if he does need to move off the hot corner at some point, a shift to second base, left field or first base seems feasible for the former shortstop. And as someone who’s been 36% better than average at the plate in his career — and 25% better dating back to 2020 — he has more than enough bat to profile as a regular anywhere on the diamond.

A seven- or eight-year deal seems plausible in free agency, and there’s always the chance that a luxury-paying team will gauge his interest in a longer-term deal with a non-premium AAV in order to tamp down the CBT hit. A deal north of $200MM seems plausible for Bregman. The Astros have said at multiple points in the past they’ll make an extension offer at some point, but there haven’t been serious talks on that front yet and Bregman can justifiably seek the type of long-term pact that owner Jim Crane has completely avoided over the years.

4. Pete Alonso, 1B, Mets

The Polar Bear is raw personified, bashing 40-plus homers on the regular since his 2019 debut. Alonso has not only established himself as one of baseball’s premier sluggers — he’s done so while maintaining a strikeout rate that’s lower than the league average. At a time when many prodigious sluggers are comfortable selling out for power, Alonso has the type of easy, plus-plus power that doesn’t require him to do so. He’s fanned in just 20.7% of his plate appearances dating back to 2021 and popped the fifth-most long balls in baseball along the way. He trails only Aaron Judge, Matt Olson, Kyle Schwarber and Shohei Ohtani in that span. All four of those sluggers have whiffed at higher rates than Alonso.

Alonso’s extreme fly-ball approach does lead to a glut of pop-ups and some low BABIPs — though last year’s bottom-of-the-barrel .205 average on balls in play (and .217 average overall) were likely outliers. He’s a career .250 hitter who walks at around a 10% clip — enough to boost his OBP into the .340 range most seasons. Paired with his prodigious power, that’s plenty to make Alonso one of the most feared hitters in the National League.

After debuting as a 24-year-old back in 2019, Alonso is on pace to hit the open market heading into his age-30 season. He’s not unusually young like Soto but is reaching free agency at the same point that’s seen plenty of sluggers get paid. He’ll be two years younger than Freddie Freeman and Paul Goldschmidt were when signing their current contracts (Freeman’s in free agency, Goldschmidt’s as an extension). That pair of contracts pays those star first basemen $26-27MM annually.

Alonso isn’t as good a pure hitter as either Freeman or Goldschmidt, nor is he the same defensively. He’s consistently graded out as a sub-par defender, per OAA, and a roughly average first baseman by measure of DRS. But Alonso is younger, has more power than either of those two former MVPs, and has the benefit of Mets owner Steve Cohen likely being extra-motivated to keep his franchise slugger. It wouldn’t be at all surprising to see Alonso follow a similar path to Judge. That’s not to say he’ll sign a $360MM deal — he won’t — but he could reject a qualifying offer, explore what the market has to offer, and then take the top offer back to the Mets and effectively ask that they match it.

A six-year deal would run through Alonso’s age-35 season. Seven years would take him through age-36. Either of those terms feels plausible, as does an AAV in the vicinity of — or even slightly in excess of — the Freeman and Goldschmidt deals.

5. Blake Snell, LHP, Giants*

Will the second time prove to be a charm for Snell? The $200MM+ contract he sought in free agency this past winter never materialized, likely due to a confluence of factors. Beyond the sheer scope of his ask, Snell hit free agency at a time when roughly half the league was experiencing uncertainty regarding its long-term television status. We’re also slated for a record number of CBT payors, including several big spenders — Yankees, Dodgers, Mets — currently paying a 110% tax that made a long-term deal for Snell wholly unpalatable. Further yet, recent high-profile spenders like the Padres, Rangers, Red Sox, Blue Jays and Mets all took steps back in terms of their aggression.

None of that even touches on Snell’s command troubles, though his penchant for issuing free passes hasn’t stopped him from dominating opposing lineups over the past several seasons. Snell is now a two-time Cy Young winner — one of just 22 in MLB history — who’ll spend the 2024 season pitching in an even more spacious home park than he enjoyed in San Diego.

Snell will turn 32 in the coming offseason, so he won’t have age on his side. But he already rejected a qualifying offer from the Padres, meaning he’s ineligible to receive another one at any point in his career. That lack of draft pick compensation will be a bonus, and it’s possible next offseason’s market will bear more favorable circumstances. If the Mets, Red Sox, Rangers or Padres begin spending again and if even a couple of CBT payors are suddenly in position to dip back under the threshold, Snell could find more suitors this time around.

He’s not a lock to hit the market, of course. Snell’s two-year $62MM deal with the Giants allows him to opt out at season’s end, leaving a $30MM player option on the table. So long as he remains healthy and effective, he’ll be a lock to do so. The left-hander ranks 11th in ERA (3.05) and seventh in strikeout rate (31.7%) among qualified big league starters dating back to the 2018 season. He’s had a couple rough seasons along the way, but the broader body of work is genuinely excellent.

As previously mentioned, teams are typically wary of committing beyond a starting pitcher’s age-37 season. For Snell, hitting the market at 32, that’d make it tough to secure a contract lengthier than six years. A six-year deal checking in at $28MM or more would allow Snell to still claim that he topped $200MM in free agent earnings (when combined with his current $32MM in earnings). That type of offer seemingly wasn’t there this time around, but if Snell turns in a third straight dominant season — he had a 2.72 ERA and 31.7% strikeout rate in 2022-23 — someone’s likely going to pony up with a big offer.

6. Max Fried, LHP, Braves

Few starters in baseball have been as consistent as Fried on a year-to-year basis. The former No. 7 overall draft pick has turned in a sub-3.00 ERA in three of the past four seasons, with the lone exception being a 3.04 mark in 2021. Fried’s strikeout rate has fallen between 22.3% and 25.7% for five straight seasons. His walk rates in that time have landed between 4.4% and 8.5% (though that 8.5% came in 2020’s short season and is something of an outlier, he’s been under 7% in every other full season). His ground-ball rate sits between 51.2% and 57.7% each year.

Fried isn’t an overpowering ace in the sense that he hits triple digits with his heater and strikes out a third of his opponents. He has above-average but not elite velocity, leading to average or slightly better strikeout rates. However, Fried has plus command and ground-ball tendencies, and he dodges hard contact at consistently excellent levels.

Prior to the 2023 season, Fried was also quite durable, ranking 19th in the majors in innings pitched and 21st in games started. That doesn’t include his 10 postseason starts (and four relief outings) — a total of 58 2/3 additional innings. A forearm strain suffered in early May last year, however, knocked Fried out of action for about three months. Though he was characteristically excellent when health — 2.55 ERA, 3.14 FIP, 3.38 SIERA — Fried was limited to 14 starts and 77 2/3 innings.

Proving that forearm strain is behind him will be paramount to his free agent platform. Another 30-plus starts won’t completely eliminate any trepidation stemming from last year’s injury, but another season with considerable missed time — particularly due to an arm injury of any nature — would create cause for clear concern.

Fried has been more durable than Carlos Rodon (six years, $162MM with the Yankees) and has a far lengthier track record of success. He and his reps will likely take aim at toppling that mark in free agency. Braves fans would surely like to see an extension, but it hasn’t happened in the past, and Fried is plenty justified in asking for the type of long-term deal and semi-premium AAV that the Braves have steered clear of in recent years. He seems likelier to follow Freddie Freeman and Dansby Swanson out the door than he does to receive an extension offer that’s commensurate with his market value.

7. Cody Bellinger, OF/1B, Cubs*

Bellinger didn’t get the mega-deal he sought this past offseason. Excellent as his 2023 campaign was, there were surely teams wary of his woeful 2021-22 showing on the heels of shoulder surgery. Beyond that, his exit velocity, hard-hit rate and other batted-ball metrics were decidedly pedestrian.

Agent Scott Boras has pointed to Bellinger’s massive decline in strikeout rate as a factor, painting his client as a hitter who adopted a two-strike approach more focused on putting the ball in play than on doing massive damage. There’s surely a blend of truth and garden-variety agent spin woven into that defense.

A repeat of his 2023 production — or anything close to it — would strengthen Bellinger’s case immensely. It’d further distance him from that awful 2021-22 showing, lending further credence to the notion that injuries played a significant role in his perceived decline. And whether Bellinger replicates his numbers by returning to his maximum-damage approach or simply proves that his newer brand of more well-rounded, low-strikeout offense is sustainable, either approach should prove lucrative.

Even though an opt-out would trigger Bellinger’s third trip to free agency, he’ll still be heading into just his age-29 season next year. He can still play a fine center field (or corner outfield, presumably) and remains a good option at first base as well. There’s plenty of defensive and baserunning value to supplement his bat.

Bellinger will pocket $30MM in the first season of his three-year, $80MM deal with the Cubs, meaning he’ll be opting out from two years and $50MM. That seems likely, barring a 2021-22-esque collapse or a massive injury. Because of his age, that immense long-term deal that eluded him this past offseason still feels plausible. That he can no longer be saddled with a qualifying offer — players can only receive one in their career, and he rejected one last offseason — only strengthens his case.

8. Willy Adames, SS, Brewers

Adames joins Javier Baez, Trevor Story and Dansby Swanson as the latest in a line of high-end shortstops to reach free agency heading into his age-29 season. That trio signed for respective guarantees of $140MM (Tigers), $140MM (Red Sox) and $177MM (Cubs). Adames doesn’t have the individual accolades that group possesses. He’s never been an All-Star like each of that trio has. He hasn’t won Gold Gloves like Swanson and Baez. He hasn’t won the Silver Sluggers that Story has.

Yet despite the lack of hardware, Adames has a strong claim to be valued in similar fashion. It’s true that he had a down year at the plate in 2023, but that was in part driven by a career-low .250 average on balls in play. Since 2020, Adames is a .240/.316/.450 hitter. He’s been 8% better than average overall, by measure of wRC+, and he peaked with a 121 wRC+ (21% better than average) from 2020-21. Adames fanned at a sky-high 36.1% back in 2020 but has reduced that mark considerably; over his past 1300 plate appearances he’s punched out at a worse-than-average but far more manageable 26.2% rate. He struggled badly against lefties early in his career (despite being a right-handed hitter) but has improved against them in recent seasons.

From 2021-23, Adames averaged 26.67 homers per season — topping out at 31 round-trippers in 2022. He’s walked at an above-average but not elite 9.4% rate in his career — including a personal-best 11.1% in 2023. Adames has long been touted as having plus defensive tools, but his execution and consistency were lackluster early on, leading to some middling grades. Over the past two seasons he’s been outstanding, tallying 17 DRS and a flat-out elite 26 OAA.

If Adames can bounce back from last year’s .217/.310/.407 line and turn in something closer to the .251/.319/.471 slash he logged from 2020-22, he’ll have an easy case to be paid comparably to Story, Baez and Swanson. He’s likely to hit the market on the heels of four straight 20-homer campaigns. He’s a plus defender. He’s relatively young. He’s not the most consistent hitter on a year-over-year basis, but that was true of Baez, Story and Swanson. They all got paid. Adames will also draw bonus points for his gregarious personality and leadership skills. Both the Rays and Brewers have lauded him in that regard, and the primary reason Tampa Bay traded him — Wander Franco’s looming emergence — now looks regrettable (even if getting Drew Rasmussen in return for him has yielded plenty of value).

9. Ha-Seong Kim, SS/2B, Padres

Kim came to MLB with great fanfare as a 25-year-old KBO superstar who’d been posted by the Kiwoom Heroes. He signed a four-year, $28MM deal with San Diego that contains a mutual option for a fifth season. Mutual options are generally accounting measures and are almost never exercised by both parties. In Kim’s instance, it’s a no-brainer to decline his end of the option and hit free agency in search of a deal that could pay him three to four times his original MLB guarantee.

While Kim’s rookie season didn’t live up to the hype, he’s since acclimated to MLB quite nicely. Now 28, he posted a .256/.338/.391 batting line (109 wRC+) from 2022-23. His power has increased in each MLB season, resulting in a career-high 17 homers last year, and he swiped a hefty 38 bases in 47 tries for the Friars last season. Kim’s walk rate has climbed every MLB season as well, topping out at a robust 12% in 2023, and after fanning in 23.8% of his plate appearances as a rookie he’s dropped that mark to 18.5% in 2022-23.

Decent power, strong on-base skills and plus speed give Kim plenty of appeal, but his glove is perhaps his greatest selling point. Kim is an elite defensive infielder capable of handling any of second base, shortstop or third base. He won his first Gold Glove for his play at second base last season, though that’s unlikely to be his last. (He also won a Gold Glove in his final three seasons of KBO play.)

There’s no defensive metric that pegs Kim below average at any of those three positions. He’s logged more than 1000 innings at second base, nearly 600 at third base and more than 1600 at shortstop. Defensive Runs Saved, Outs Above Average and Ultimate Zone Rating agree that he’s excellent at all three. The Padres signed Xander Bogaerts to an 11-year contract and moved him to second base just one year later despite Bogaerts posting decent numbers at short in 2023. Kim has racked up 23 DRS and 10 OAA in his 1600+ innings at shortstop. He has fluid infield actions, sure hands and is a regular source of highlight-reel defense.

Kim doesn’t have a strong batted-ball profile, but it’s not out of the question that he could crack 20 homers, walk in more than 10% of his plate appearances, swipe 40 bags and play Gold Glove defense this season. He’ll play all of the 2025 season at 29 years old. A nine-figure contract isn’t out of the question.

10. Jordan Montgomery, LHP, Diamondbacks

As the old adage goes, if at first you don’t succeed — hire a new agent and try again. Montgomery languished in free agency all winter, never landing the six- or seven-year contract he was seeking. He took a one-year, $25MM deal with the D-backs that’ll afford him a player option at $20-25MM basically just for staying healthy. The contract wasn’t finalized before Opening Day, meaning Montgomery can’t receive a qualifying offer this winter. Barring a major injury, he’ll likely decline that player option and return to the market.

Montgomery, 31, has made at least 30 starts in each of the past three seasons. In that time, he’s pitched 524 1/3 innings of 3.48 ERA ball with a 22.5% strikeout rate, a 6.2% walk rate, a 44.5% ground-ball rate and just 1.00 HR/9. His 2023 campaign was the finest of his career, featuring a personal-best 188 2/3 innings of 3.20 ERA ball, plus another 31 innings of 2.90 ERA ball in the postseason — a strong performance that helped push the Rangers to their first-ever World Series title.

Though he doesn’t miss bats at an elite level, Montgomery is better than average in just about every meaningful category for starting pitchers and has been a workhorse since his 2020 return from Tommy John surgery. We at MLBTR erred in thinking a six-year deal was attainable heading into the 2023-24 offseason. Another typical Montgomery season could put him in position for a strong four-year or perhaps a five-year deal at a lighter AAV than we predicted last offseason. He should be able to top teammate Eduardo Rodriguez’s four-year, $80MM contract — and a deal in the $100-110MM range over five years doesn’t feel out of reach if Monty continues at his recent trajectory.

Honorable Mentions (listed alphabetically): Walker Buehler, Matt Chapman*, Gerrit Cole^, Jack Flaherty, Paul Goldschmidt, Teoscar Hernandez, Rhys Hoskins, Frankie Montas, Tyler O’Neill, Luis Severino, Max Scherzer*, Gleyber Torres, Justin Verlander*, Christian Walker

^=Cole is currently on the 60-day IL and expected to be out into June. He can opt out of the remaining four years and $144MM on his contract at season’s end, though if he signals his intent to do so, the Yankees can override his opt-out by tacking on a tenth year at another $36MM. Because Cole is currently injured and because the Yankees can effectively veto his opt-out, we’re not including him on the initial version of our rankings. If, as the season wears on, he’s pitching well enough to trigger that opt-out and there’s talk of the Yankees allowing him to walk, he could land on future installments of the list.

Padres To Move Xander Bogaerts To Second Base

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Padres manager Mike Shildt told members of the media today that Xander Bogaerts will be moving from shortstop to second base, with Dennis Lin of The Athletic among those to relay the news. Ha-Seong Kim will cross the bag in the other direction to take over the shortstop position.

It was just a little over a year ago that the Padres signed Bogaerts to an 11-year, $280MM contract. At the time, it was a bit of a puzzling fit on the club’s roster. Fernando Tatis Jr. was supposed to be the franchise shortstop once upon a time. In February of 2021, he and the Friars agreed to a historic 14-year, $340MM extension to keep him on the club for the bulk of his career. He ended up missing the 2022 season both due to injuries and a PED suspension, but he was expected back early in 2023. While he was out, Kim provided excellent glovework at the position.

Going into 2023, there was a bit of uncertainty. Tatis was coming off an entirely missed season and the club was thinking about moving him to the outfield. But even if that scenario, they still had Kim to cover short. It wasn’t really expected that they would head into the offseason looking for a mega deal but they landed Bogaerts nonetheless.

Bogaerts’ first year in San Diego resulted in fairly typical offensive production for him. He hit 19 home runs and slashed .285/.350/.440 for a wRC+ of 120. Defensively, Outs Above Average gave him a positive grade of +3 but Defensive Runs Saved had him at -4. He has long been considered a candidate to move off of shortstop, even as a prospect, and it seems the time has now come. For his career, his tallies at short are -31 OAA and -54 DRS.

In the short term, the move is probably best for the 2024 version of the Padres, as Kim is excellent with the glove. He has played 1,505 1/3 innings at short in the majors, just over a full season’s worth. In that time, he’s tallied 22 DRS and 7 OAA. Having him at short and Bogaerts at second should give the club a great middle infield, as even mediocre shortstops often provide solid defense on the other side of the bag.

But taking the wide view, the decision making from the Padres becomes questionable. Twice now in recent years they have given around $300MM to a shortstop on a deal longer than a decade, and now neither will be playing short. Tatis, who has now been moved to right field, is under contract through 2034 and Bogaerts through 2033. Kim is set to become a free agent after 2024, as his deal has a mutual option for 2025 and those provisions are almost never triggered by both parties.

Assuming Kim reaches free agency a year from now, the club will then be looking for a solution at short for 2025 and beyond. They could always move Bogaerts again but he’ll be 32 years old by then and his abilities at that position will only be trending downwards with age. One of the club’s top prospects, Jackson Merrill, is a shortstop who reached Double-A last year. He could perhaps be a solution at that spot down the road but he is reportedly coming into camp as an outfielder, with the club trying to get creative in covering the spots vacated by trading Juan Soto and Trent Grisham. He could move back to short in 2025 but that might be a bit tricky if he spends this year in the outfield with the big league club instead of getting reps in Triple-A.

The Soto/Grisham deal was necessary because the club is paring back spending this winter. That’s partially a result of their TV deal with Diamond Sports Group falling apart but also connected to their extreme aggression in recent years, which includes giving a massive deal to a shortstop they didn’t really need.

Padres Have Shown Interest In Sal Frelick

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The Padres are known to be on the lookout for outfield help and spoke to the Brewers about Sal Frelick at some point, per a report from Dennis Lin of The Athletic.

The San Diego offseason has largely been defined by financial concerns. The club’s aggressive spending in past offseasons, as well as the collapse of their TV deal with Diamond Sports group, left them having to cut payroll this winter. The largest chunk that they cut out of their spending was when they traded Juan Soto and Trent Grisham to the Yankees for several young pitchers. Soto eventually agreed to a $31MM salary in his final arbitration year and Grisham agreed at $5.5MM.

The Friars have since signed a few relievers but the payroll is well down. Roster Resource has them at $159MM in terms of pure payroll and $216MM in terms of the competitive balance tax, the wide disparity owing to some backloaded deals, since the CBT is calculated by a contract’s average annual value. Per Cot’s Baseball Contracts, the Padres had an Opening Day payroll of $249MM last year, which they are now significantly below. The club reportedly prefers to keep their CBT under the $237MM threshold, giving them about $20MM of wiggle room, which tracks with recent reporting that the club has about $20-30MM left to spend this offseason.

But they still have many holes to fill. The rotation could use another arm or maybe two. There’s room for a designated hitter or potent bench bat type, while the two outfield vacancies still remain. The club recently re-signed Jurickson Profar, but he would be best served to be in a bench/utility role rather than an everyday player.

Given the number of spots to fill and the tight budget, the club has naturally explored cheap external options. It was reported last week that the club had interest of Jarren Duran of the Red Sox. Both he and Frelick are still in their pre-arbitration years, meaning they could potentially provide the Padres with many years of cheap control. However, the flip side is that the acquisition cost in terms of players heading the other way would naturally be higher.

Frelick, 24 in April, made his MLB debut last year and generally performed well. His 16.6% strikeout rate was well below league average and his 12.2% walk rate a few ticks above. He only hit three home runs in his 57 games, but his .246/.341/.351 slash line still got him close to league average overall, a 92 wRC+. He also stole seven bases without being caught while getting strong grades for his glovework. He produced six Defensive Runs Saved and seven Outs Above Average in that brief showing last year, while also getting a mark of 4.5 from Ultimate Zone Rating.

In addition to that promising debut, he also carries prospect pedigree with him. He was selected by the Brewers with the 15th overall pick in 2021 and was been considered a top 100 prospect while pushing towards the big leagues. Even though his power impact is considered limited, he is still expected to be a viable gap hitter who provides value via his on-base abilities, speed and defense. If the power were to develop later as he matures, that would only improve the equation.

It’s understandable that the Padres would be interested in such a player, as he is clearly talented and also comes with six cheap years of control. That also makes him attractive to the Brewers, however, and they are undoubtedly setting a high asking price.

It’s possible they have some openness to a deal based on their roster, as they have plenty of other outfielders on hand. Prospect Jackson Chourio could be in the picture this year after signing an $82MM extension. Christian Yelich is still a regular in left. Frelick would be in the mix for playing time alongside players like Garrett Mitchell, Joey Wiemer, Blake Perkins and Chris Roller. It’s possible to subtract Frelick from there and still have a decent outfield. Frelick, Wiemer and Mitchell are all glove-first types but Chourio is expected to cover center field for years to come, so perhaps they would be better off trading someone from that group and getting a typical power bat to put into a corner.

It’s unclear when these talks took place or if anything got close. Despite their recent Corbin Burnes trade, the Brewers aren’t tanking, as they targeted MLB-ready pieces in that deal and have spent money on players like Rhys Hoskins, Gary Sánchez and Jakob Junis. If they were to consider any kind of Frelick trade, they would likely be looking for players who could help them compete in 2024. Whether the Padres have the pieces to get that done, and the willingness to give them up, remains to be seen.

Elsewhere in Padres’ notes, Lin adds that it’s unclear if Ha-Seong Kim would be eligible for a qualifying offer if traded between the Padres’ Seoul Series and the resumption of their season. Players are normally ineligible for a qualifying offer if traded midseason. The Padres have an unusual start to their schedule, with two games in Seoul against the Dodgers March 20 and 21, then a gap until they play the Giants on the league-wide Opening Day of March 28 in San Diego.

Kim is an impending free agent, as his deal has a mutual option for 2025 but those provisions are almost never picked up by both sides. With the Padres looking to cut some costs, Kim’s name has popped up in trade rumors. The Padres could move Jake Cronenworth back to second base and then use the money saved by trading Kim to find first base help. Speculatively speaking, it’s possible that they may prefer to hold off on such a deal until after the Seoul Series so that Kim can play in front of the fans of his home country.

But taking such a path may not allow them to market a future QO to a trading partner. Hypothetically, a team acquiring Kim might plan on making him a QO at season’s end and recouping some the value that they gave in the trade. Such a situation has never previously occurred and Lin reports that MLB and the MLBPA would have to discuss it if it came to pass, which would seem to muddy the waters a bit on a possible trade.

Padres Continue To Explore Outfield, Rotation Markets

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Padres president of baseball operations A.J. Preller met with reporters on Tuesday afternoon as spring camp got underway. Pointing to a “late-developing market,” Preller made clear the team anticipated making a few more acquisitions (link via AJ Cassavell of MLB.com).

“We’ve had, honestly, trade conversations that are still ongoing. Usually at this point in the season, most teams are focused on: They have their roster, getting into Spring Training, going and playing,” Preller said. “We’ve been pretty active. … We’re always going to be looking to add and improve. The team that starts camp here in the next couple days, it’s not going to be the team that, obviously, we finish with.”

That’s self-evident given the state of the team’s outfield. The Padres have two clear openings alongside Fernando Tatis Jr. after trading Juan Soto and Trent Grisham. Light-hitting center fielder José Azocar is the only other outfielder on the 40-man roster. Jurickson Profar will join him once his one-year contract is finalized, yet he’s more of a depth option after a rough season in Colorado.

San Diego has had recent conversations with the Red Sox regarding Jarren Duran. He’s surely one of a number of possible options the front office has considered. With five years of club control, Boston figures to stick to a high asking price on the lefty-hitting outfielder. San Diego has also shown interest in Michael A. Taylor, the top unsigned free agent center fielder beyond Cody Bellinger, this offseason.

Budget constraints have been the prevailing theme of the Padres’ offseason. They allowed a number of key free agents to depart and offloaded upwards of $30MM in the Soto blockbuster. That cut their projected season-opening spending to around $160MM, as calculated by Roster Resource.

Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune reports that the team is planning on carrying a player payroll in the $180-190MM range for the upcoming season. That’d leave $20-30MM in remaining spending room, although Acee writes that the team may prefer to keep some of that in reserve for midseason acquisitions. They should be able to bring in a couple low-cost free agents but will have to rely on some internal options to take a step forward.

In the outfield, that could be top prospect Jackson Merrill. He spent much of the offseason training as an outfielder in addition to his customary shortstop work. Merrill enters camp with what appears to be a legitimate chance to make the Opening Day roster as a 20-year-old. He has all of 44 games above A-ball, however. He finished last season with a .273/.338/.444 showing at Double-A San Antonio and hasn’t played at the top minor league level. 22-year-old Jakob Marsee only has 16 games of Double-A experience but put together an impressive .273/.413/.425 showing in High-A and impressed in the Arizona Fall League.

While the outfield is the biggest concern, San Diego could use additional rotation depth and perhaps another bench bat. Preller left open the possibility of bringing in another starter. Only Joe Musgrove, Yu Darvish and Michael King are locks for the season-opening five. Jhony Brito, Randy Vásquez, Jay Groome, Pedro Avila and prospects like Jairo Iriarte and Drew Thorpe could all vie for season-opening roles. Top prospect Robby Snelling also received an invite to big league camp but seems a long shot for the Opening Day roster, as he has made all of four starts in Double-A.

That group is very light on MLB experience. Even King, who is locked into a mid-rotation role, was a reliever for the Yankees until last August. The Athletic’s Dennis Lin reported last week that the Padres were showing some level of interest in free agent starters Michael Lorenzen, Hyun Jin Ryu, and old friend Eric Lauer. Acee recently added Noah Syndergaard to that list.

Acquiring controllable pitching in trade at this stage of the offseason would be challenging. That’s particularly true if the Padres are loath to part with the likes of Snelling and Dylan Lesko towards the top of the farm system. If they were to consider dealing from the MLB roster for help in another area, middle infielder Ha-Seong Kim has been their most valuable realistic trade chip. He’s due $10MM this year and will become a free agent when his 2025 mutual option is declined (very likely by Kim) at the beginning of next offseason.

Bob Nightengale of USA Today tweets that interest in Kim from other teams remains very high. Yet Preller didn’t sound urgent to deal the Gold Glove winner, characterizing talks more as due diligence. “With the Kim situation, we were pretty consistent through the offseason. You’re never going to hang up the phone. You’re always going to listen on any player when anybody calls. But it wasn’t something we were pushing,” he told reporters (including Cassavell). “We see him as a huge part of our team. Most likely, if we’re going to play well, it’s Ha-Seong Kim in the middle of the diamond.“

Trade Candidate: Ha-Seong Kim

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After an underwhelming 2021 rookie season, Ha-Seong Kim has emerged as a standout big leaguer over the last two years, posting an 8.1 fWAR due to his combination of above-average (109 wRC+) hitting, excellent baserunning, and top-tier defense.  The Padres have certainly gotten a great return on the four-year, $28MM contract they signed to attract Kim from the KBO League during the 2020-21 offseason, yet with Kim now entering the final year of that deal, his time in San Diego could be running short.

While a mutual option is in place for the 2025 season, such options are almost never exercised by both parties, and the 28-year-old Kim seems like a lock to again hit the open market next winter now that he has an established MLB track record.  If the Padres don’t feel they can extend or re-sign the infielder, a trade remains a possibility, and The Athletic’s Dennis Lin writes that “internally, at least, San Diego has been discussing the idea for weeks.”

Whether or not a trade actually happens remains to be seen, as a Padres official told Lin that the return would need to be “way above the line” to get the club to actually move Kim.  In addition, Kim will also naturally be one of the centerpieces of the season-opening two-game series between the Padres and Dodgers in Seoul on March 20-21, and Lin doubts that the Friars take the awkward position of moving a Korean star prior to the first MLB regular-season games to ever take place in South Korea.

That being said, adding multiple long-term assets for one year of Kim’s services is obviously a tempting concept for a Padres team that has a lot of needs to address.  Trading Kim would create a big hole in San Diego’s infield, though the team is still in dire need of outfielders and as many as two starting pitchers to slot behind Yu Darvish, Joe Musgrove, and the newly-acquired Michael King.  The high cost of pitching would make signing a starter more expensive for the Padres than perhaps signing an infielder as a stopgap Kim replacement, plus top prospect Jackson Merrill could be part of the big league infield picture at some point in 2024.

Cost-cutting has been one of the major storylines of the San Diego offseason, and since the Padres seem to be stepping back from their financial splurges of the last couple of seasons, retaining Kim looks like less of a possibility.  The team is reportedly looking to reduce spending to around $200MM in payroll in 2024, and ideally get under the $237MM luxury tax threshold if possible.  After signing Yuki Matsui and Woo Suk Go to upgrade the bullpen, the Padres are projected (via Roster Resource) to have a $156.3MM payroll and a tax number of just under $212MM, so there isn’t a ton of flexibility for the team to add meaningful outfield and rotation help.

Kim is a big part of this financial picture, in the sense that he’s quite a bargain at only an $8MM salary.  Since Manny Machado might be limited to early-season DH duty while he recovers from elbow surgery, Kim carries even greater import within San Diego’s infield, as he might be needed to handle third base while Machado heals up.  Jake Cronenworth would likely move first base to second base in the event of a Kim trade, but that would then leave the Padres in need of a first baseman and at least a temporary replacement at the hot corner.

It isn’t a reach to suggest that Kim might be just about the most prized trade asset on the market if the Padres made him available, as Lin notes that the Friars have already drawn “widespread interest” in Kim from rival teams.  Though he primarily played second base last season, Kim won the NL utility Gold Glove for his all-around defensive work at second, third, and shortstop.  Considering how many contenders and would-be contenders have a need at at least one of these infield positions, up to half the league could be seen as plausible suitors to bid on Kim, even if some teams are better equipped than others to meet San Diego’s high asking price.

Kim’s $8MM salary might fit the budget of smaller-market teams like the Rays, Guardians, Pirates, or Royals, though perhaps only Tampa (who has a long history of trades with the Padres) is the only true World Series contender of that group that might be inspired to make an all-in move to land Kim.  The Brewers, Blue Jays, Mariners, Giants, Angels, Tigers, Cubs, and Marlins all have holes to fill in their infield, even if San Francisco might be less likely if San Diego doesn’t want to deal Kim within the NL West.  Clubs like the Twins, Braves, Yankees, Red Sox, or Phillies are more speculative candidates since another infielder probably would have to be moved to create space for Kim, but an aggressive play can’t be ruled out.

Though Kim is only under contract for 2024, some teams might view him as a longer-term opportunity if they feel they have a chance to extend or re-sign him next offseason.  Even if clubs could also see a Kim trade as strictly a move for the coming season, he is certainly a candidate to receive a qualifying offer, so a team could recoup a draft pick as compensation if he signed elsewhere.

Padres “Prefer” To Stay Under Luxury Tax In 2024, Could Reduce Payroll Below $200MM

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The Padres have long been expected to pare down payroll significantly this offseason, with early signals indicating a target payroll of no more than $200MM for the 2024 season as they look to get back into compliance with the league’s debt service rules. The Athletic’s Dennis Lin reports that the club may plan to cut payroll even more drastically, suggesting that the club’s final payroll next season could come in “more than a little lower” than that aforementioned $200MM figure as club officials reportedly “prefer” to stay under the luxury tax threshold in 2024. Importantly, Lin notes that the club would be willing to go “slightly” over the luxury tax if the right opportunity were to present itself later this winter, though it’s unclear what sort of opportunity would be necessary to convince San Diego to push their payroll over the threshold.

While RosterResource projects the Padres for a payroll of just over $152MM as things stand, it projects a significantly larger $205MM payroll for luxury tax purposes. That would leave the club with just under $32MM of budget space remaining for luxury tax purposes if they intend to remain below the first luxury tax threshold, which will sit at $237MM in 2024. That roughly $30MM of wiggle room for luxury tax purposes tracks with Lin’s suggestion that a payroll of around $180MM could allow the Padres to duck below the threshold next year.

Lin goes on to report that the club’s pursuit of outfielder Jung Hoo Lee, who signed with the Giants earlier this week on a six-year, $113MM deal, was impacted by the club’s budget constraints. While Lin notes that San Diego’s offer to Lee was reportedly considered “competitive” but nonetheless was not especially close to the figure offered by San Francisco. Lee’s contract with the Giants sports an average annual value of roughly $18.8MM, meaning landing the outfielder would have required more the remaining space the Padres have available to them below the luxury tax threshold.

As Lin notes, the Padres themselves demonstrated as recently as last offseason that there are ways to creatively structure a deal to deflate its AAV. Right-handers Michael Wacha and Nick Martinez, for example, commanded salaries of $7.5MM and $10MM respectively in 2023 despite carrying AAVs of just $6.5MM and $8.7MM for luxury tax purposes thanks to the complex structures of their contracts. It’s possible that similar deals could allow the Padres additional room to maneuver this offseason as they look to rebuild their starting outfield after shipping Juan Soto and Trent Grisham to New York as well as a pitching staff that lost Wacha, Martinez, Seth Lugo, Blake Snell, and Josh Hader to free agency last month.

It’s possible some of the club’s holes can be filled internally, with Lin noting that the Padres see the likes of Jackson Merrill, Jakob Marsee and Robby Snelling, among others, as prospects who could impact the big league club in 2024. Even in San Diego manages to successfully embrace a youth movement, however, it’s hard to imagine the club being able to fill two outfield spots, one rotation spot, and restock the bullpen without making several external additions.

With so many holes on the roster and relatively little wiggle room in the club’s budget for 2024, Lin notes that infielders Jake Cronenworth and Ha-Seong Kim are both potential trade candidates for the Padres. Kim would surely be an attractive trade candidate if available on the heels of a strong season that saw him slash .260/.351/.398 while playing superb defense all around the infield, and a deal would allow the Padres to shed his $8MM salary in 2024 while potentially bringing back major league ready talent in return.

Cronenworth, on the other hand, would be far more difficult to deal, as MLBTR’s Anthony Franco explored earlier this week. The 29-year-old is coming off the worst season of his career in 2023 and is owed a whopping $80MM over the next seven seasons, making him a less-than-palatable trade target for the majority of clubs. While Cronenworth’s salary is just over $7MM for the 2024 campaign, his contract’s AAV of around $11.5MM counts as a more significant hit against the luxury tax. While Cronenworth is far from the only player locked up long-term the Padres could consider trying to move, others would like present even more significant obstacles.

Right-handers Yu Darvish and Joe Musgrove figure to anchor the club’s rotation next season, and dealing either veteran arm would be counterproductive for a club hoping to bolster its rotation depth. It’s a similar story for Robert Suarez in the bullpen. Meanwhile, the likes of Xander Bogaerts, Manny Machado, and Fernando Tatis Jr. are due hundreds of millions through at least the 2033 season, making them all far more complicated to move for fair value than Soto, who will be a free agent next season, was. Making a trade for any of the aforementioned names even more complicated is that each player is coming off a season that either saw them produce below their recent career levels, struggle with injury, or both. With plenty of holes to fill and few realistic options for shedding salary available, the Padres face a major uphill battle as they look to improve upon their 82-80 season in 2023 that saw them just miss out on playoff contention.

Red Sox Rumors: Second Base, Rotation, Turner, Outfield

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The Red Sox have a clear need at second base this winter, and as recently noted, newly installed chief baseball officer Craig Breslow indicated to reporters that he feels a trade is likelier than a free-agent signing. Jen McCaffrey of The Athletic adds some more context from Breslow’s media session, noting that he called the “ideal” acquisition a right-handed bat and plus defender.

Second base was a black hole in the Boston lineup last year. Ten different players saw time there — Christian Arroyo, Enmanuel Valdez, Luis Urias and Pablo Reyes primarily — and combined for a .240/.286/.376 slash on the whole. Urias has since been traded to the Mariners. Arroyo was outrighted and became a free agent. Reyes and Valdez remain on the roster, but the former is a career .256/.318/.367 hitter who’s best suited for a utility role, while the latter has all of 149 MLB plate appearances to his name.

Veteran Whit Merrifield headlines the free-agent crop of second basemen, though bounceback candidates like Amed Rosario and Adam Frazier hold some appeal to clubs in search of help at second base as well. The trade market offers far more intriguing possibilities. The Reds have an enviable surplus of infield talent, and 2021 Rookie of the Year Jonathan India has been an oft-rumored candidate to change hands (though Cincinnati president Nick Krall downplayed the possibility recently). The Twins have their own glut of infield talent and are open to offers on veteran Jorge Polanco as they seek to reduce payroll and bolster the pitching staff. McCaffrey suggests that San Diego’s Ha-Seong Kim would be of interest if available, although that would presumably only be the case if the Padres continue to scale back payroll — and the prospect cost to acquire Kim would hardly be insignificant.

As one would expect for a newly hired baseball operations leader who’s trying to turn around a last-place team, Breslow has plenty of balls in the air at the moment. In addition to the pursuits at second base, Boston has also been active in the rotation market. Reports this week indicated they’re among the top suitors for Seth Lugo, and McCaffrey writes that the Sox were interested in Luis Severino before he signed with the Mets. Jon Heyman of the New York Post tweets that the Sox had interest in a reunion with Eduardo Rodriguez but didn’t want to make a commitment with NPB newcomers Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Shota Imanaga both still in play via free agency. The Sox have interest in both.

Beyond the pitching staff, the Sox remain engaged with Justin Turner about a potential reunion, Breslow confirmed yesterday (via Pete Abraham of the Boston Globe). Turner declined a player option with Boston after hitting .276/.345/.455 with 23 home runs in his first year with the team. That was a foregone conclusion, however, as the net $6.7MM value of that option (after factoring in the buyout he received) is well shy of what Turner can command in free agency, even at 39.

Breslow also suggested that he’d like to add a right-handed bat who can handle center field (via Abraham), though he stopped short of calling it a “need.” MassLive.com’s Chris Cotillo tweets that Breslow also implied the Sox could stand pat in the outfield and head into the 2024 season with the current group of Wilyer Abreu, Jarren Duran and Ceddanne Rafaela, though that’s obviously an inexperienced group and a further addition clearly hasn’t been ruled out. Boston was linked to right-handed-hitting outfielders Michael A. Taylor and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. this week, though only the former is an option in center field (and a very good one, at that).

Gold Glove Winners Announced

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Major League Baseball announced the Gold Glove winners tonight, as selected by a group of managers, coaches, and statistical analysis.  Twenty-five percent of the selection total was determined by SABR’s Defensive Index metrics, while the other 75 percent was determined by votes from all 30 managers and up to six coaches from each team.  Of the latter pool, managers and coaches were limited to voting on players in their own league, and they weren’t allowed to vote for any players on their own team.  The utility Gold Glove wasn’t determined with any votes, but rather via a defensive formula calculated by SABR and Rawlings.

The list of winners…

 

Injury Notes: Correa, Kim, Feltner, Gallegos

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Carlos Correa exited Monday night’s game against the Reds in the first inning following a flare-up of his plantar fasciitis. The shortstop told reporters (including Do-Hyoung Park of MLB.com) that he felt a tweak in his heel as he ran to catch a pop fly.

Correa has been playing through the painful condition throughout most of the season. He was diagnosed with plantar fasciitis and a muscle strain in his left foot arch back in May but has avoided a trip to the injured list thus far. The two-time All-Star suggested he could sit out a few games to preserve his body for the playoffs, although he emphasized that neither he nor the Twins have determined a course of action just yet. He acknowledged that time off his feet would do him some good, but even so, he might prefer to keep playing until Minnesota has officially clinched the AL Central crown.

The 28-year-old is in the midst of a down year, slashing just .230/.312/.399. His injury could certainly be responsible for his dip in production, in which case a few days of rest would make even more sense. The Twins are all but certain to reach October, and now is the time for Correa to focus on restoring his health. That being said, it’s understandable why he’d want to take the field every day down the stretch. As the most accomplished and highest-paid player on the roster, the 2017 World Series champion has a leadership role to play in the Twins’ clubhouse.

In other injury news around baseball:

  • Ha-Seong Kim sits out a second straight game, as he continues to deal with discomfort in his abdomen. The Padres infielder told reporters, including Jeff Sanders of the San Diego Union-Tribune, that he isn’t sure why he feels so unwell, and he’s waiting on test results that he hopes will reveal the cause. Kim has been a bright spot in a difficult season for San Diego, hitting 17 home runs, stealing 36 bases, and playing excellent defense all around the infield. Unfortunately, he has been slumping as of late, with a .204/.291/.282 slash-line over the past month; it’s unclear if his slump has anything to do with his abdominal pain.
  • The Rockies are preparing to reinstate starting pitcher Ryan Feltner ahead of Tuesday’s contest with the Padres, reports Thomas Harding of MLB.com. Feltner has been on the 60-day IL since late May, as he recovered from a concussion and a fractured skull. The Rockies have an open spot on their 40-man roster, so they can reinstate the righty without making a corresponding move. However, they’ll still need to free up a spot for him on the active roster. Feltner was off to a rough start in 2023 (5.86 ERA in eight starts) even before a liner off the bat of Nick Castellanos nearly ended his season. Suffice it to say, it’s remarkable that he’ll be returning to the field after such a scary injury.
  • The Cardinals have placed Giovanny Gallegos on the 15-day IL with right shoulder rotator cuff tendonitis. Jake Woodford was recalled from Triple-A to take his spot on the active roster. The team told reporters (including Jeff Jones of the Belleville News-Democrat) that the injury doesn’t seem serious, but they’re playing it extra safe as the season draws to a close. Indeed, they might have shut the righty down even sooner, but Gallegos wanted to ensure that he had properly addressed the pitch tipping issues he was having earlier in the season.

The Padres’ Underrated Team MVP

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Not much has gone right for the Padres in 2023. They entered this year as the pre-season favorites for the NL West title, looking as though they were ready to finally assert themselves as the big dog in the National League and dethrone the Dodgers, who have resided comfortable at the front of the pack for most of the past decade. They signed Xander Bogaerts to an 11-year contract before extending Yu Darvish, Jake Cronenworth, and Manny Machado on big money deals of their own, signalling they were all-in with the team that had traded for Juan Soto and Josh Hader at 2022’s trade deadline. With Fernando Tatis Jr.’s return to the baseball diamond on the horizon, the future looked bright in San Diego.

Needless to say, things have not gone as planned this season. With a 63-73 record, the Padres are ten games under .500 and in fourth place in the NL West, behind not only the division-leading Dodgers but also both the Giants and Diamondbacks. LA has a stranglehold on the division title at this point, but both San Francisco and Arizona have solid odds at a Wild Card, per Fangraphs: 58.5% and 43.6%, respectively. The Padres, meanwhile, are all but eliminated from postseason contention this year with just a 0.6% chance at a Wild Card berth.

With the notable exceptions of Soto and Hader, the club’s expected stars have faltered this year: Darvish, Bogaerts, Cronenworth and Machado have all had down years to varying degrees after signing those big money deals in the offseason, while Tatis hasn’t looked like the superstar he once seemed to be and right-hander Joe Musgrove has spent much of the season on the injured list. With the exception of lefty Blake Snell, the club’s success stories have largely come by way of their more unheralded players: Seth Lugo and Michael Wacha have both looked like absolute heists after being plucked from free agency to fill out the rotation, while a catching tandem of post-hype youngster Luis Campusano and minor league addition Gary Sanchez has been quite impressive.

Given that, perhaps it’s no surprise that the team’s MVP isn’t one of their many nine-figure contracts, their shutdown closer, or even Soto and his perennial .400 OBP. Instead, it’s infielder Ha-Seong Kim, who has followed up a major step forward in 2022 with yet another step forward this year to become one of the best infielders in the sport.

Kim first broke into the majors with the Padres back in 2021, after signing a four-year, $28MM deal with the Padres to come over to MLB from the KBO. Kim had been an elite player during his time in Korea, slashing .294/.373/.493 across 7 seasons with the Kiwoom Heroes. He posted a particularly strong platform season before heading overseas, with a .306/.397/.524 slash line in his final season with the Heroes. Unfortunately, he didn’t come particularly close to living up to that promise during his age-25 campaign, his first as a big leaguer. While he played strong defense at second and third base in addition to his home position of shortstop, he posted a meager 72 wRC+, hitting just .202/.270/.352 with a 23.8% strikeout rate, a massive jump from the 10.9% figure he posted in his final year in Korea.

While Kim played in 117 games with San Diego in 2021, he was largely a part-time player, accumulating just 298 plate appearances. Things changed for the youngster in 2022, however. Between the injuries and PED suspension that plagued Tatis, the club’s regular shortstop at the time, Kim was given a full season’s runway at shortstop, and he made the most of it. His offense improved from nearly 30% below league average to slightly above in 2022 as he slashed .251/.325/.383 with a wRC+ of 106. That offensive performance combined with his stellar defense at shortstop and a reduced 17.2% strikeout rate allowed Kim to finish the season with 3.8 fWAR, 11th in the majors among shortstops and not far off from the likes of Nico Hoerner and Carlos Correa.

Kim’s major step forward in 2022 was not enough to guarantee him the everyday shortstop role headed into 2023, however. While Tatis was moved to the outfield during his absence, the club signed Bogaerts to play shortstop, leaving Kim to slide over to second base as Cronenworth moved to cover first following the departure of Josh Bell. While he has spent time elsewhere in the infield while covering for Machado and Bogaerts, over two thirds of Kim’s innings have come at the keystone, where he’s flourished defensively. Kim sports +7 Outs Above Average this season, on par with the likes of Ryan McMahon and Andres Gimenez. Meanwhile, he ranks tied for seventh in the majors with Gimenez on the DRS leaderboard with a sensational +16 figure.

Perhaps even more impressive than Kim’s glovework is the leap forward he’s made on offense. While he made himself a slightly above-average offensive contributor in 2022, he’s made himself an All-Star caliber bat in 2023 with a .277/.367/.434 slash line in 527 trips to the plate this season. While his 18.6% strikeout rate in 2023 is slightly higher than last year’s figure, he’s more than compensated by taking more walks, allowing his 8.8% figure from last season to shoot up to 12.1%, top 20 in the majors. Of the nineteen players with higher walk rates, only Mookie Betts, Alex Bregman, and Adley Rutschman strike out less than Kim, putting him in elite territory when it comes to plate discipline. On top of this improved discipline, Kim has turned himself into a major asset on the basepaths this year, swiping 29 bases in 37 attempts.

Between his defensive prowess and greatly improved offense, Kim has made himself not only the Padres’ team MVP, but one of the most valuable players in the National League. His 4.6 fWAR this season is sixth in the NL, sandwiched between Rookie of the Year favorite Corbin Carroll and two-time All Star Matt Olson. When looking at Baseball Reference WAR, Kim is only eclipsed by Betts, Freddie Freeman, and Ronald Acuna Jr. among NL players.

While Kim’s standout season hasn’t saved the Padres this year, the 27-year-old could still provide impact for a future playoff chase given that he’s under contract for just $8MM next season. With his contract ending in a mutual option worth $8MM for 2025, Kim seems likely to join Soto in departing for free agency following the 2024 campaign barring an extension. Whether the Padres decide to retool for the future and field offers on their pair of star free-agents-to-be or go all-in for the 2024 season while the duo are still under contract, Kim is a clear player to watch even as the majority of eyes will be focused on Soto’s potential final season in San Diego and impending free agency following the 2024 season.

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