Michael King and Dylan Cease are headed to free agency.
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The two pitchers have decided to reject the Padres’ qualifying offer — a one-year, $22.025 million contract for 2026 — and test the open market. Jesse Rogers of ESPN was the first to report King’s decision Tuesday. Mark Feinsand of MLB.com was first to report Cease’s decision.
Only 14 of the 144 players previously extended qualifying offers prior to this season had accepted them. This year, four of 13 took the offer.
— Mark Feinsand (@Feinsand) November 18, 2025
The news comes as no surprise. King, 30, was limited to 15 starts in 2026 due to injuries, but went 5-3 with a 3.44 ERA when healthy. Cease, 29, is the most durable starting pitcher in baseball. He went 8-12 with a 4.55 ERA in 32 starts in 2025 — the fifth consecutive season in which he’s made at least 30 starts.
Cease is 65-58 with a 3.88 ERA in 188 career starts with the Padres (2024-25) and Chicago White Sox (2019-23).
In two seasons since he was acquired from the New York Yankees in the trade that sent Juan Soto to The Bronx, King is 18-12 with a 3.10 ERA.
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Now, the Padres face the task of filling three vacancies in their starting rotation. Besides King and Cease, Yu Darvish will not be available to the Padres after undergoing internal brace surgery on his right elbow in October.
King and Cease are both possibilities to return to San Diego in 2026, but both are likely to command strong offers in free agency.
MLB Trade Rumors ranks Cease as the number-3 free agent this winter, behind only Kyle Tucker and Bo Bichette. He’s projected to get seven years and $189 million.
King ranks 14th on the same list, with a projection of four years and $80 million.
“Every year, every team in here is talking about starting pitching,” Padres president of baseball operations A.J. Preller said to Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune. “But especially with [Michael] King and [Dylan] Cease in free agency and [Yu] Darvish’s injury, it’s probably our top need going into the offseason. We’ve had just very limited talks so far. That’s what these meetings are for … to kind of get a little bit more sense of what is out there.”
Four players accepted qualifying offers from their teams Tuesday: Yankees center fielder Trent Grisham (part of the Soto/King trade), Tigers infielder Gleyber Torres, Brewers pitcher Brandon Woodruff and Cubs pitcher Shota Imanaga.
Woodruff and Imanaga might have been among the top targets for teams looking for starters, had they decided to test the market. Now, not only is neither pitcher available to the Padres in free agency, but the demand for Cease and King just went up.
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