Padres avoid arbitration with three-time batting champion

The Padres have avoided arbitration with three-time batting champion Luis Arraez, reports Robert Murray of FanSided. Arraez will earn $14M in 2025, his final year of arbitration eligibility. A $14M payday represents a nice raise for the infielder, who made $10.6M in 2024, though it’s slightly less than his projected $14.6M salary (per MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz).

The Padres acquired Arraez in a trade with the Marlins last May. Although he represented San Diego at the All-Star Game this past summer and finished the season with an NL-best .314 batting average, the 2024 season was a down year for Arraez. His .739 OPS and 109 wRC+ were well below his .829 OPS and 130 wRC+ from 2022-23. In addition, his defensive numbers were worse than ever. He accrued -3 DRS and -6 OAA at first base and -3 DRS and -7 OAA and second base. Thus, the Padres used him as their DH a good amount of the time, decreasing his overall value.

If Arraez can shore up his defense and get back to hitting like he did in 2022 and ’23, he will still be a bargain for San Diego at a $14M salary. However, the Padres are thought to be trying to cut payroll this winter. According to RosterResource, their projected payroll for the 2025 season is $39M higher than their final payroll at the end of 2024. President of baseball operations A.J. Preller is reportedly trying to bring the payroll down somewhere between its current projected figure and last year’s final tally. If Preller plans to reduce payroll and still make any additions this winter, he will almost certainly have to trade some of his more expensive veterans. Thus, Arraez’s name has popped up in trade rumors.

About a month ago, Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune reported that the Padres had engaged in internal discussions about trading Arraez. It’s not hard to see why. His contract is more tradeable than the longer-term deals belonging to Manny Machado, Xander Bogaerts,  Fernando Tatis Jr., Jake Cronenworth, Joe Musgrove, or Yu Darvish. Dylan Cease has more trade value than Arraez, but the Padres might likely want to keep him around for the same reasons. Cease is projected to earn $13.7M in arbitration, similar to Arraez’s $14M salary. So, trading Cease would free up a similar amount of payroll as trading Arraez, but it would mean giving up a far more productive player.

Yet, the only team to be formally linked to Arraez this winter is the Yankees, and it’s unclear how interested New York is. ESPN’s Jeff Passan recently wrote that the Yankees have “continued to discuss” Arraez with the Padres, but the New York Post’s Jon Heyman and SNY’s Andy Martino have pushed back on that connection. Martino reports that the Yankees “briefly” checked in on Arraez in November and “have not engaged with the Padres” since.

To further complicate matters, Bob Nightengale of USA Today now reports that the Padres “plan to keep” Arraez after all. That’s somewhat surprising if the team is still serious about trimming payroll, but perhaps the Padres decided teams around the league were undervaluing Arraez after his down year in 2024. That might be the right decision. After all, if he can return to being the hitter he was from 2022-23, the Padres would have a hard time replacing that production for less than $14M.