Joe Musgrove, Padres close on deal to keep All-Star pitcher in San Diego

All-Star starting pitcher Joe Musgrove and the San Diego Padres are near an extension agreement worth $100 million over five years, multiple reports said Friday night.

Dennis Lin of The Athletic first reported a deal was close and Jon Heyman of the NY Post added the financial details.

Musgrove is eligible for free agency following this year. The 29-year-old is in his final year of club control, playing under an $8.6 million contract signed to avoid arbitration.

He’s a local guy who went to school in La Mesa before being drafted by the Blue Jays. Since then he’s been involved in several trades, and played for both the Astros and the Pirates before being dealt to his hometown team.

In the 48 starts since, he has posted a 2.98 ERA (good for a 128 ERA+) and racked up a 61.3 win percentage.

This season his ERA is 2.63 and he has 106 strikeouts in 109 innings. He’s been worth 2.5 WAR per Baseball Reference and made his first All-Star roster ever.

A good player at a fair price, the agreement appears to be a good one.

Joe Musgrove, Padres’ agreement adds some clarity before future deals

This agreement doesn’t necessarily have to mean anything more, but it does help the Padres as they put together a plan for the future.

They went over the luxury tax minimum in 2021 with a 40-man roster payroll of about $216 million, per Cot’s Contracts. In 2022, they’re pushing the limits again at $230 million.

While the Padres have been connected through rumors to stars like Shohei Ohtani or Juan Soto, the question remains whether they’d actually want to add that much additional cost to their payroll.

There’s been speculation that they’d even deal a pitcher like Blake Snell (who’s been disappointing this year, to be fair) in order to get his contract off the books for the remainder of this year and next ($16 million). In order to avoid the cap and have financial flexibility, they’d have to get creative.

Locking in Musgrove now helps the Padres have clearer calculations about what their future obligations look like.

They already had $131 million on the books for 2023. That’s just counting  the10 contracts in place, not contracts for players under club control whose contracts will be inked in the offseason. It does include the $1 million buyout for Wil Myers, who’d be owed an additional $19 million if the club exercises its option for 2023.

Now they’ve got a little clearer view, with Musgrove’s presumed extension putting them up to $151 million.

GM AJ Preller still has work to do, with starting pitchers Mike Clevinger and Sean Manaea set to become free agents after season.

But at least with a Musgrove agreement in place he’s got a little clearer view of what the future holds during the final three days before the trade deadline.