NEWSLETTER
Reports earlier this year suggested that the free-spending San Diego Padres were finally going to rein it in a little this offseason, maybe even needing to unload payroll at the behest of ownership. The reasoning could be a lot of things – disappointment in how things turned out this year at such a high price? Worries about the changing landscape in the league? The loss of full RSN money? Debt-service rules? A combination of it all?
The uncertainty about the precise reason(s) made it a little hard to be 100 PERCENT confident that the Padres were going to unload, which made speculation about a Juan Soto trade feel reasonable, but, well, speculative.
Well, I think it feels less speculative now (The Athletic):
“The Padres, as they wade into an uncertain offseason, must better optimize an expensive roster. Ownership has committed to a plan to return to compliance with the league’s debt-service rules, which helps explain early indications that payroll could drop to the $200 million range. Preller, even if he doesn’t want to, may be forced to explore trading Juan Soto ahead of the outfielder’s final season before a potentially record-setting free agency.”
If the real issue is getting into compliance with the league’s debt-service rules – it was previously suggested as a possible component, but not a specific “plan” – then there’s a hard line that the Padres are going to be trying to get below in 2024 payroll. It’ll mean that, rather than an amorphous desire to reduce costs, the Padres’ front office will be attempting to meet a very specific payroll threshold that can help get their overall finances into a specific place. And if that payroll threshold is $200 million, then it would be borderline impossible to pull it off while retaining Juan Soto at his estimated $33 million arbitration price tag. (The debt-service rules, generally speaking, hold that your debt cannot exceed eight times your annual earnings.)
Right now, with half the rotation missing and no back end of the bullpen, the Padres are projected at Spotrac to have a luxury tax payroll of almost $210 million. Sure, maybe they could deal Ha-Seong Kim and eat a bunch of money to move Jake Cronenworth’s deal and keep Soto, but that seems like a waste of a whole lot of trade value at the moment – you can capture that value while also achieving your payroll-cutting goal.
Throw in the fact that, if debt-service rules are the issue, then the Padres signing Soto to a $400+ million long-term deal after this season is out of the question. So if you know for sure he’s going to walk in free agency anyway, again, it seems OVERWHELMINGLY LIKELY that Soto is traded this offseason.
From there, the Cubs absolutely must be involved in those Juan Soto trade conversations, as we’ve discussed.
