{"id":358216,"date":"2025-12-20T19:12:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T19:12:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/358216\/"},"modified":"2025-12-20T19:12:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T19:12:14","slug":"padres-notes-king-kelly-darvish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/358216\/","title":{"rendered":"Padres Notes: King, Kelly, Darvish"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Padres reunited with Michael King<\/a> this past week on a three-year deal that offers him the opportunity to opt out in each of the next two offseasons. As noted by Jeff Sanders of the San Diego Union Tribune<\/a>, however, negotiations between the two sides didn\u2019t kick into gear until very recently.<\/p>\n

Sanders notes that president of baseball operations A.J. Preller instructed manager Craig Stammen<\/a> and pitching coach Ruben Niebla to message King less than two weeks ago to see if King was interested in returning to San Diego. At the outset of the offseason, the right-hander initially preferred a return to the east coast, where he pitched for years with the Yankees after growing up in Rhode Island and going to college in Boston. King indicated to reporters (including Sanders) that while some teams had \u201cblown [him] away\u201d\u00a0with strong offers, he didn\u2019t believe those teams had the roster and commitment to winning necessary to field a World Series contender in 2026. King added that he was prioritizing winning \u201cfor the duration of the contract,\u201d\u00a0and that he was willing to take less in order to make that happen.<\/p>\n

It seems that ended up being what he did with San Diego, which Sanders adds was the only west coast team King had interest in playing for. While King\u2019s $75MM guarantee came in just shy of the $80MM guarantee MLBTR predicted for the right-hander at the outset of the offseason, it\u2019s nonetheless a strong deal given the higher average annual value and opt-out opportunities after each season. With that said, King clearly was trending towards a nine-figure contract prior to his injury woes this past season. It\u2019s not inconceivable that there was a team willing to look past the medical concerns and offer him that sort of deal this winter, given King\u2019s comments. The Marlins, Cubs, Orioles, Yankees, and Red Sox were among the teams known to have interest in King\u2019s services this winter, though Jon Heyman of the New York Post reports<\/a> that the Yankees ultimately never made an offer to the righty.<\/p>\n

With King in the fold alongside Nick Pivetta<\/a> and Joe Musgrove<\/a>, Preller indicated that he\u2019s satisfied with the front of the club\u2019s rotation. It seems the Padres had a strong desire to add to the front of their rotation this winter, however, as Dennis Lin of The Athletic<\/a> reports that San Diego made a \u201ccompetitive\u201d offer to right-hander Merrill Kelly<\/a> before landing King. Kelly ultimately landed with the Diamondbacks on a two-year, $40MM deal. The Athletic\u2019s Ken Rosenthal<\/a> recently reported that Kelly received a three-year offer from a west coast team that would\u2019ve guaranteed the right-hander \u201cmore than $50MM,\u201d\u00a0and it\u2019s not clear if the Padres were the team references in Rosenthal\u2019s report, it certainly wouldn\u2019t be a shock if the \u201ccompetitive\u201d\u00a0offer Lin reports that San Diego made to Kelly was in that ballpark. A three-year offer in that range could theoretically have been similar to the four-year, $55MM contract the team signed Pivetta to last winter.<\/p>\n

Perhaps Preller\u2019s desire to add a front-of-the-rotation arm this winter in part stems from uncertainty surrounding Yu Darvish<\/a>\u2019s future. The veteran right-hander underwent UCL surgery last month<\/a> that will keep him out of commission for at least the entire 2026 campaign. What\u2019s more, Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune reported<\/a> earlier this week that Darvish is not certain if he\u2019ll pitch again following his rehab process. The 39-year-old hurler was limited to 15 starts this past year due to injury and struggled when he did take the mound, with a 5.38 ERA in 72 innings of work. Given that he\u2019ll celebrate his 41st birthday during the 2027 season, it\u2019s perhaps not a shock that Darvish is uncertain about his ability to return to a major league mound after this latest health-related setback.<\/p>\n

Of course, the possibility of Darvish stepping away from baseball is complicated by his contract situation. The veteran righty is under contract for $16MM in 2026 and is set to make $15MM per year in both 2027 and 2028. If Darvish were to retire, as Acee has reported he\u2019s contemplating, He would stand to lose out on at least some of that money. It\u2019s also possible that Darvish and the Padres could negotiate a buyout, not unlike the process the Angels and Anthony Rendon<\/a> are reportedly in the midst of<\/a> ahead of the final year of his contract with the organization. Perhaps that sort of buyout could help create financial flexibility for the budget-conscious Padres, who have had to get creative with their contracts in recent years in order to remain competitive and continue spending in free agency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Padres reunited with Michael King this past week on a three-year deal that offers him the opportunity…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":355288,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,10621,16304,462,82,28425],"class_list":["post-358216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-merrill-kelly","tag-michael-king","tag-mlb","tag-sports","tag-yu-darvish"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358216","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=358216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358216\/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=358216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}