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With the San Diego Padres losing in the NLDS to the eventual World Champion Los Angeles Dodgers, it’s easy to forget exactly how close they were to maybe winning the whole thing.
The Padres had the Dodgers on the brink of elimination for two games in the Division Series and had they won, would have been a true World Series threat. Instead, they couldn’t close out their division rivals and are now in a precarious financial position.
USA Today’s Bob Nightengale broke it down in a column published on November 25.
“They have have to win this year or it could soon turn ugly in America’s Finest City,” he wrote. “The Padres, who shoved in most of their prospect chips to go for it last year, now are faced with massive player raises and two of their top starters entering the final year of their contracts.”
The math checks out. Manny Machado has nine years and $334 million left on his contract, Fernando Tatis Jr. has 10 years and $306 million left, and Xander Bogaerts is still due $225 million over nine years. As long as those three are producing at the superstar levels they were signed for, the Padres could be okay. But those three combined for 6.9 bWAR in 2024 while making a combined $54 million-plus, with Tatis set for a $9 million raise next year.
As Nigthengale noted, that could make it difficult to retain Dylan Cease and Michael King, both free agents after next season. It wouldn’t be as big a deal if the Padres has prospects coming up behind them, but they dealt 12 of their 21 top minor leaguers in trades.
It truly is “win now” time in San Diego.
The Padres are clearly willing to spend, and Nightengale reports that they are “quietly confident they have a realistic shot” at landing Roki Sasaki. He points to San Diego pitcher Yu Darvish, who has been a mentor to the 23-year-old Sasaki as something that could give them a leg up over the heavily favored Dodgers.
It won’t be all about money, as MLB rules limit Sasaki’s earning potential out of the gate. He’s under 25 and has fewer than six seasons of service time in the NPB, meaning he’s subject to international bonus pool limitations. The team that signs him will need to cough up the posting fee (20% of the total value of the contract) plus a contract based on how much pool money San Diego has. The Athletic reports that bonus pools range from $5.1 million to $7.6 million in 2024-25.
If Sasaki ends up in San Diego, he can be a shockingly affordable, massive add for right now. And in a few years when it comes time for the Padres to negotiate a bigger contract, just keep in mind the exorbitant numbers the team has already committed to its other superstars.
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