Michael King is staying put after all.<\/p>\n
The Padres re-signed their 30-year-old free agent to a three-year deal, the Union-Tribune confirmed Thursday night. King will make $75 million if he plays out the entirety of a contract that includes a $12 million signing bonus on top of a $5 million salary for 2026.<\/p>\n
Additionally, he\u2019ll get a $5 million buyout against a $28 million player option for 2027 and a $30 million player option without a buyout for 2028.<\/p>\n
In other words, King will make $22 million for one year, $45 million for two years or $75 million for three years.<\/p>\n
MLB.com first reported the agreement, the Padres\u2019 first significant move of a hot-stove season that began with both Dylan Cease and King headlining the Padres\u2019 departing free agents.<\/p>\n
Cease quickly signed a seven-year, $210 million deal with the Blue Jays. Because he declined a qualifying offer from the Padres,\u00a0 the Padres received a draft pick after the fourth round.<\/p>\n
King also declined a qualifying offer.<\/p>\n
The biggest piece coming to San Diego in the Juan Soto trade to the Yankees, King made the full-time move to the rotation upon joining the Padres in 2024, going 13-9 with a 2.96 ERA and striking out 201 batters over 173\u2154 innings.<\/p>\n
He went on to win the first postseason start of his career, striking out 12 over seven shutout innings in Game 1 of the NL Wild Card Series against the Braves.<\/p>\n
He was poised to lead the rotation in 2025, but a nerve issue that surfaced after sleeping awkwardly on his shoulder derailed his second season in San Diego.<\/p>\n
King went on the injured list in mid-May, tweaked his knee after one start in August and missed another month before making four starts in September.<\/p>\n
They were not great starts (5.74 ERA), prompting the Padres to give Yu Darvish the Game 3 start in the NL Wild Card Series against the Cubs. Instead, King struck out three over a scoreless inning relief after an abbreviated start from Darvish.<\/p>\n
All told, King\u2019s workload dropped by more than 100 innings from 2024 to 2025, which may be a reason he agreed to another creative contract that could give him another bite at free agency as soon as next season.<\/p>\n
Before the season, King agreed to a $7.75 million deal to avoid arbitration. That deal paid him a $3 million signing bonus on top of a $1 million salary and included a $3.75 million buyout against a $15 million mutual option.<\/p>\n
The $22 million King will make in 2026 just about matches the qualifying offer ($22,025,000) that he declined last month.<\/p>\n
His return plugs a big hole in the Nick Pivetta-led rotation as Cease has left to join the Blue Jays and Darvish\u2019s elbow surgery will sideline him the entire season.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Staff writer Kevin Acee contributed to this report.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael King is staying put after all. The Padres re-signed their 30-year-old free agent to a three-year deal,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":457311,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,1370,1266,3549,1306,7264,62,7289,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-457310","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-latest-headlines","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-san-diego","14":"tag-san-diego-padres","15":"tag-sandiego","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-top-stories-sdut","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-united-states-of-america","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","22":"tag-us","23":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115745139252467638","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457310\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}