Pitcher Michael King served as an anchor for the San Diego Padres this past season.<\/p>\n
Now, he’s hoping to be paid like one.<\/p>\n
In 2025, King signed a\u00a0three-year deal worth $75 million to return to the Padres. As part of that deal, King made $5 million with player options in 2027 and 2028. In late October, King opted out of his contract with San Diego to explore free agency.<\/p>\n
While the Padres might be willing to spend during free agency, King might not be an immediate priority this offseason.<\/p>\n
Should Padres bring Michael King back?<\/p>\n
The Padres should strongly consider bringing back King to serve as a starter in the rotation once again.<\/p>\n
San Diego would know what it would have after having King on the roster the past three seasons and what he was willing to do this postseason.<\/p>\n
King posted a 12-10 record in 32 starts this season. King pitched a career-high 185 innings during the regular season, allowing 148 hits, 68 runs (68 earned) and 20 home runs. He struck out 159 while walking 70.<\/p>\n
King started two of the three postseason games he appeared in this season, allowing five hits and one earned run while striking out 15 in 14 innings.<\/p>\n
In the game he did not start, he was called upon to protect a one-run lead in the eighth inning of Game 3 in the National League Division Series at home against the Milwaukee Brewers. King came out of the bullpen after closer Mason Miller was a late scratch and was placed on the postseason paternity list.<\/p>\n
King became the only MLB pitcher to start a postseason game and then notch a 6-plus out save within the next two days (since saves became official in 1969), according to OptaStats.<\/p>\n
“This is where we started a family,” King said after the NLDS Game 4 loss. “We started our foundation here. San Diego’s been incredible for me, and it’s all the way across the country from home. But now I feel like I have a second home on the West Coast, so it’s been awesome. And yeah, I hope to continue.”<\/p>\n
Why Padres might not bring back Michael King?<\/p>\n
The Padres have been linked to pitcher Tarik Skubal, considered one of the gems of free agency.<\/p>\n
King might also be considered one of the top prizes among free-agent pitchers and will also receive his fair share of attention on the open market.<\/p>\n
If the Padres make a strong push for Skubal and manage not to sign him, King could have already moved on and gone elsewhere, leaving San Diego with nothing.<\/p>\n
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Should the San Diego Padres re-sign pitcher Michael King?<\/p>\n
Reporting by James H. Williams, USA TODAY \/ USA TODAY<\/p>\n
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pitcher Michael King served as an anchor for the San Diego Padres this past season. Now, he’s hoping…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":780827,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2407],"tags":[5,4,43,137,18,4339,4338,185],"class_list":["post-852366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego-padres","tag-baseball","tag-mlb","tag-padres","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-padres","tag-sandiego","tag-sandiegopadres","tag-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117607587049099947","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=852366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/780827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=852366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=852366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=852366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}