SAN ANTONIO — The Padres have spent the past couple weeks at all levels of the organization reviewing 2024 and working on forecasts for 2025.
That includes an analysis of last year’s revenues and getting a general idea of how much money they have to spend next year.
No payroll number has been formally discussed.
A.J. Preller and members of his baseball operations department have been assessing the free agent market and brainstorming trade possibilities since before the season ended. Preller and a few of his lieutenants are here at the general manager meetings this week talking with other executives and players agents to get a better idea of what it will cost to participate in those arenas.
In the next week, Preller will sit down with team chairman Eric Kutsenda and CEO Erik Greupner and lay out a few different possible paths to roster building based on his group’s research and aspirations.
“I have a general sense of what its going to look like,” Preller said Wednesday. “But I wanted to go through these last couple of weeks and especially this week here to know, like, Heres the free agent piece, heres what the agents are telling me … this is what we think the markets gonna be, this is what this type of team looks like, thats what that type of team looks like.
Based on current contracts and projected salaries for arbitration-eligible players, the Padres’ payroll commitment for 2025 already exceeds $200 million. They are also projected to be pushing up against the Competitive Balance Tax threshold. (A teams CBT payroll is not calculated until the end of the season. There are numerous avenues for the Padres to lower that number, which they anticipate doing.)
Those totals do not account for adding at least one starting pitcher and either re-signing or replacing free agent left fielder Jurickson Profar, among other necessary additions.
Last year’s $171 million payroll ranked 15th among the 30 major league teams after four consecutive seasons in which the Padres ranked in the top 10. It marked the first year of a planned transition toward a sustainable fiscal model. Especially given the success the team had in 24, winning 93 games and advancing to the National League Division Series, every indication is that they will stay on that course.
Preller and others in the organization maintain the Padres will continue to spend at a level that allows them to build a perennial championship contender.
“This week is digging in, seeing what the different options are,” Preller said. “Ill go back. Well have the conversation. We’ll figure out, ‘This is the number’ and go from there.”