[Passan] San Diego, remains in financial limbo, needs rotation help with Cease and King free agents and Darvish out for 2026. After striking gold with Pivetta, they could do it again by signing 6’6″ righty Cody Ponce, the highest-ceiling low-cost starter out of the KBO
Signing a pitcher from Korea has worked so well the last 2 years! Lets just do it again
A guy named Cody Ponce out of the KBO is the most padres thing ever
Dumpster diving like it’s the late 2000s again.
I mean with Ruben and a pitcher friendly ballpark, it wouldn’t be the worst idea. We need at least 2 starters and don’t have a lot of options with little free agent money to spend and no farm system depth.
So when the Padres make every effort to spend money and build a winning team we’re the fucking morons, but when LA builds an infinity gauntlet of thirty year defferals they’re “saving baseball” according to some? Yeah, the system is definitely broken.
i’m hoping Cease’s performance (and Niebla) convince him to sign a team-friendly deal, he wasn’t on top of his game this year but he does have ace potential
King might have played himself out of a contract from us, which sucks because if we aren’t able to keep him, we practically gave up Soto & Grisham for nothing
We sell out almost every game and were still in financial limbo. Baseball is unfair.
you can almost guarantee a KBO/NPB pitcher reclamation signing from Preller each offseason
Padres are at their financial threshold when it comes to payroll and more specifically, not paying the luxury tax.
We’re not having a fire sale like the 90s. A couple contracts are going to hurt in a few years when they start to age – Xander and Manny – but with better player development on the starting pitching side under Ruben, developing a couple hitters from the system and allowing them to contribute at the MLB level, plus some shrewd acquisitions, Padres will remain competitive.
I’m just confused where this financial limbo stuff is coming from. Like Boob and Passan have now reported it, but it seems confusing considering we just sold out 72/81 home games last year and looking at the forbes calculated 2024 revenue ($432 mil) to 2025 payroll ($275 mil). Even with the cost of everything else for the everything else (concession workers, front office staff, etc.) I would think they would be positive on revenue. Not saying the team has tons to spend (probably not), but financial limbo or being broke seems to be an exaggeration.
hey, wasn’t Kyle Hart dominant in Korea and even won their equivalent of the Cy Young Award? whatever happened to him?
Nope, too expensive
The Padres have been top 10 spending for the past 5 years or so. Why are there continuous articles about “financial limbo’? Have they not proven they are going to spend?
Hell, they exceeded with the luxury tax this past season , which i don’t think a lot of people expected.
Kyle Hart was the KBO Cy Young equivalent and he was booty cheeks.
The Dodgers reportedly making over $300 million annually from their TV deal, while the Padres generate between $20 and $30 million. Dodgers also make over $200 million in marketing and sponsorship, the highest of any franchise in pro sports in US. We can go on but you get the point. Lock out coming after 2026 is gonna be all about the massive disparity in have’s and have-not’s in MLB.
Ponce is estimated total different level to Hart. Higher ceiling than Kelly, maybe the highest of all among KBO foreign pitchers all time. The problem is competition is already high, I think he will get at least 10M/year. But I think Padres should go for him after all
Passan is a known big market fan boy/small market hater. everything hes written about the padres post Soto has been “padres are in trouble”
![[Passan] San Diego, remains in financial limbo, needs rotation help with Cease and King free agents and Darvish out for 2026. After striking gold with Pivetta, they could do it again by signing 6'6" righty Cody Ponce, the highest-ceiling low-cost starter out of the KBO](https://www.rawchili.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/32tu2sc5xo0g1-1356x1024.png)
17 comments
Signing a pitcher from Korea has worked so well the last 2 years! Lets just do it again
A guy named Cody Ponce out of the KBO is the most padres thing ever
Dumpster diving like it’s the late 2000s again.
I mean with Ruben and a pitcher friendly ballpark, it wouldn’t be the worst idea. We need at least 2 starters and don’t have a lot of options with little free agent money to spend and no farm system depth.
So when the Padres make every effort to spend money and build a winning team we’re the fucking morons, but when LA builds an infinity gauntlet of thirty year defferals they’re “saving baseball” according to some? Yeah, the system is definitely broken.
i’m hoping Cease’s performance (and Niebla) convince him to sign a team-friendly deal, he wasn’t on top of his game this year but he does have ace potential
King might have played himself out of a contract from us, which sucks because if we aren’t able to keep him, we practically gave up Soto & Grisham for nothing
We sell out almost every game and were still in financial limbo. Baseball is unfair.
you can almost guarantee a KBO/NPB pitcher reclamation signing from Preller each offseason
Padres are at their financial threshold when it comes to payroll and more specifically, not paying the luxury tax.
We’re not having a fire sale like the 90s. A couple contracts are going to hurt in a few years when they start to age – Xander and Manny – but with better player development on the starting pitching side under Ruben, developing a couple hitters from the system and allowing them to contribute at the MLB level, plus some shrewd acquisitions, Padres will remain competitive.
I’m just confused where this financial limbo stuff is coming from. Like Boob and Passan have now reported it, but it seems confusing considering we just sold out 72/81 home games last year and looking at the forbes calculated 2024 revenue ($432 mil) to 2025 payroll ($275 mil). Even with the cost of everything else for the everything else (concession workers, front office staff, etc.) I would think they would be positive on revenue. Not saying the team has tons to spend (probably not), but financial limbo or being broke seems to be an exaggeration.
hey, wasn’t Kyle Hart dominant in Korea and even won their equivalent of the Cy Young Award? whatever happened to him?
Nope, too expensive
The Padres have been top 10 spending for the past 5 years or so. Why are there continuous articles about “financial limbo’? Have they not proven they are going to spend?
Hell, they exceeded with the luxury tax this past season , which i don’t think a lot of people expected.
Kyle Hart was the KBO Cy Young equivalent and he was booty cheeks.
The Dodgers reportedly making over $300 million annually from their TV deal, while the Padres generate between $20 and $30 million. Dodgers also make over $200 million in marketing and sponsorship, the highest of any franchise in pro sports in US. We can go on but you get the point. Lock out coming after 2026 is gonna be all about the massive disparity in have’s and have-not’s in MLB.
Ponce is estimated total different level to Hart. Higher ceiling than Kelly, maybe the highest of all among KBO foreign pitchers all time. The problem is competition is already high, I think he will get at least 10M/year. But I think Padres should go for him after all
Passan is a known big market fan boy/small market hater. everything hes written about the padres post Soto has been “padres are in trouble”