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The Padres and one of their players could face off in an arbitration hearing for the first time in more than a decade.
The team failed to come to an agreement on a one-year contract with starting pitcher Michael King by Thursday’s 10 a.m. PT deadline, which means an arbitration hearing next month will decide his 2025 salary unless the sides agree on a contract before then.
The sides must submit their proposed 2025 salaries by 5 p.m. PT Thursday. But arbitration hearings are in February, and a deal can occur any time before then.
The Padres agreed to terms with their other five arbitration-eligible players — infielder Luis Arraez ($14 million), starting pitcher Dylan Cease ($13.75 million), reliever Jason Adam ($4.8 million), pitcher Adrián Morejón ($2 million) and catcher Luis Campusano ($1 million).
An agreement on a one-year deal after the deadline that passed Thursday is rare. Sometimes, teams and players agree to multi-year contracts before going to arbitration.
King, like Cease and Arraez, is in his final year of arbitration eligibility and is due to be a free agent after the upcoming season.
The Padres would like to lock up King on a long-term deal. But there are multiple challenges toward that end, including the team’s need to stay under the Competitive Balance Tax threshold and the same lack of comparable pitchers that hampered their coming to an agreement before Thursday’s deadline.
Going against King would mark the first arbitration hearing for the Padres under president of baseball operations A.J. Preller.
The last hearing the Padres had was the year before Preller took over, in 2014. Starting pitcher Andrew Cashner won that case.
Preller loathes the idea of a hearing in which the team has to essentially devalue the player over what is a relatively small gap in salary demands. But King presents a unique case.
The 29-year-old right-hander finished seventh in National League Cy Young voting in 2024, his first season as a full-time starter. He ranked fifth in the NL with a 2.95 ERA and 201 strikeouts and was second on the Padres and 14th in the NL with 173⅔ innings.
The lack of historical comparisons portended a potential impasse. It is not known where the Padres and King will fall in the salary numbers they submit to the league, but those numbers could be $3 million or more apart.
Originally Published:
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