{"id":355287,"date":"2025-12-19T10:34:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/355287\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T10:34:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:34:09","slug":"padres-to-re-sign-michael-king","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/355287\/","title":{"rendered":"Padres To Re-Sign Michael King"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Padres have an agreement to re-sign Michael King<\/a> to a three-year contract with opt-outs after the first two seasons. The Excel Sports Management client is reportedly guaranteed $75MM.<\/p>\n

He\u2019ll receive a $12MM signing bonus and a $5MM salary for the 2026 season. He\u2019d collect a $5MM buyout if he opts out of the remaining two years and $53MM. King would make $28MM in 2027 if he opts in and would then have a $30MM player option for the \u201928 campaign. While the Padres have yet to announce the deal, he has reportedly already passed his physical.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a surprise strike for a San Diego team that had seemed likely to lose King and\u00a0Dylan Cease<\/a> in free agency. It wasn\u2019t clear whether they\u2019d have the short-term spending capacity to keep either pitcher. While they were never expected to come close to the $210MM guarantee which Cease received, they\u2019ll bring King back on a short-term deal to help a rotation that was their top priority.<\/p>\n

The 2026 season will be the righty\u2019s third in San Diego. The Padres acquired King as the centerpiece of their\u00a0Juan Soto<\/a> return over the 2023-24 offseason. He had run with a limited rotation opportunity late in his final season as a Yankee after years of strong work out of the bullpen. San Diego committed to him as a full-time starter and was rewarded with a career season.<\/p>\n

King pitched to a 2.95 earned run average with 201 strikeouts over 173 2\/3 innings. He finished seventh in NL Cy Young balloting and entered his walk year as a candidate for a nine-figure contract. He looked on his way to a $150MM+ deal after getting out to an even better beginning to the \u201925 campaign. He turned in a 2.59 ERA while striking out 28.4% of batters faced over his first 10 starts.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Padres scratched King from his outing on May 24 with stiffness in his throwing shoulder. Then-manager Mike Shildt initially framed it as a minor issue that arose when the pitcher slept awkwardly. It proved a much bigger problem. King went on the injured list with what the team called inflammation. They subsequently determined it was a nerve injury that came with a nebulous timeline. He wound up missing almost three months.<\/p>\n

King made his return on August 9. He made one start before going back down with left knee inflammation. That cost him another month, and he wasn\u2019t as effective when he made it back for good in September. King didn\u2019t get beyond five innings in any of his final four starts. He gave up 10 runs over 15 2\/3 innings. Most of the damage came in an eight-run drubbing at the hands of the Mets on September 16. King\u2019s final two appearances were scoreless, but those came with an uninspiring 7:6 strikeout-to-walk ratio.<\/p>\n

The Padres didn\u2019t fully trust King going into October. They opted for Nick Pivetta<\/a>, Cease, and Yu Darvish<\/a> to start in their Wild Card Series loss to the Cubs. King\u2019s only playoff action was one scoreless inning of relief in the decisive Game 3. He struck out three of four batters while averaging 95.6 MPH on his fastball. That was his highest single game velocity of the season. That\u2019s to be expected during a one-inning appearance with the heightened adrenaline of a must-win game, but it was an encouraging sign for the health of his shoulder.<\/p>\n

San Diego issued the $22.025MM qualifying offer. It was an easy call for King to decline in search of a multi-year deal. This arrangement functions as a bit of a pillow contract but with a much higher floor than the one-year QO would have provided. King would make $22MM if he opts out after one year. That result would be the same as if he\u2019d accepted the qualifying offer. \u00a0The extra two guaranteed seasons afford him a lot more injury protection.<\/p>\n

King\u2019s guarantee technically falls just shy of MLBTR\u2019s four-year, $80MM prediction. However, the higher average annual value and the opt-outs make this a stronger overall deal for the player. He\u2019ll have a chance to return to free agency in advance of his age-32 season and cannot be tagged with another qualifying offer. A healthier season could position him for a four- or five-year contract.<\/p>\n

Health is no small caveat. The \u201924 campaign is the only time King has reached even 105 innings in a season. While that\u2019s in part because the Yankees used him as a reliever, King missed extended stretches in 2021 (finger contusion) and \u201922 (elbow fracture) in addition this year\u2019s shoulder woes. The Padres are taking on some injury risk but get the upside of a potential top-of-the-rotation arm on a short-term deal.<\/p>\n

King and Pivetta project as their top two starters. San Diego has reportedly discussed the latter in trade conversations but would need a huge return to move him. Joe Musgrove<\/a> is back from Tommy John surgery and slots into the #3 rotation spot. They\u2019ll be without Darvish for the entire season<\/a>, so the final two starting jobs are up for grabs.\u00a0Randy V\u00e1squez<\/a> and\u00a0JP Sears<\/a> lead the internal options, but the Padres could look for a cheaper back-end\/swing type later in the winter. They\u2019ll surely kick the tires on controllable arms in trade, as well, as both Pivetta and King can opt out.<\/p>\n

San Diego\u2019s projected payroll climbs to $218MM, as calculated by RosterResource<\/a>. The backloaded nature doesn\u2019t change the $25MM AAV used for luxury tax purposes. They\u2019re up to a projected $259MM in tax commitments. They\u2019ll exceed the $244MM base threshold for the second straight season. Repeat payors are taxed at a 30% rate for their first $20MM in overages. Re-signing King costs around $4.5MM in taxes.<\/p>\n

The more significant development is that it moves them closer to the $264MM second tier, at which the rate climbs to 42%. The Padres had nearly $280MM in luxury tax commitments this year, according to Cot\u2019s Baseball Contracts<\/a>. Their actual salary obligations were around $209MM, though, so it\u2019s unclear how much more flexibility the front office has at its disposal. In addition to the need for a back-end starter, they should acquire another bat to plug in at first base or designated hitter and could use a better utility infielder than Will Wagner<\/a> and Mason McCoy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

King\u2019s deal is the second-largest of the offseason in what has been a slowly developing market for free agent starting pitchers. Cease is the only other starter who has signed for more than $40MM so far. The rotation market should pick up in the next few weeks. NPB star\u00a0Tatsuya Imai<\/a> needs to sign before his 45-day posting window closes on January 2.\u00a0Framber Valdez<\/a>, Ranger Su\u00e1rez<\/a> and\u00a0Zac Gallen<\/a> join Imai as the top unsigned arms.<\/p>\n

Mark Feinsand<\/a> of MLB.com<\/a> was first<\/a> on the agreement, contract terms, and the note that the physical is already complete. Image courtesy of Vincent Carchietta, Imagn Images.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Padres have an agreement to re-sign Michael King to a three-year contract with opt-outs after the first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":355288,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,16304,462,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-355287","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-michael-king","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}