Padres once again validated for letting Jurickson Profar go after latest bombshell

The San Diego Padres don’t get a lot of “clean wins” these days. Too many plans come with asterisk energy.

But Jurickson Profar getting popped again? That’s one of those rare moments where San Diego can look around and say: yeah, we dodged that one.

According to ESPN’s Jeff Passan, Profar is facing a 162-game suspension after a second positive test for a performance-enhancing drug. And for Padres fans, it lands with an unavoidable echo.

Padres’ choice to let Jurickson Profar walk just got an ugly confirmation

Profar’s 2024 season in San Diego was legitimately fun. He made the All-Star team and posted a career-best offensive year, finishing with an .839 OPS for the Padres. It was the kind of late-bloom breakout that made the “keep him” crowd loud — and made a three-year commitment feel tempting. 

Then he left for Atlanta on a three-year, $42 million deal. 

Then came the first shock: an 80-game suspension in late March 2025 for violating MLB’s Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program — MLB reported the positive test was for chorionic gonadotropin (hCG). Profar said it was unintentional. 

Now it’s the sequel nobody asked for. And it’s worse.

This is exactly why the front office didn’t want to get emotionally attached to a career-year storyline. The team didn’t predict this. But they also didn’t handcuff themselves to it. When you’re operating with financial pressure, long-term bets on volatile profiles are how you end up paying for the memory of production instead of the actual production.

This is also what risk management looks like in real life. Not a victory lap, but more like a grim validation.

Meanwhile, Atlanta gets stuck holding the bag: a big contract, a big hole, and a headline that swallows the season. 

For the Padres, letting Profar walk wasn’t just defensible. After March 3, 2026, it looks downright necessary.