Padres positioned to chase Michael King after mutual option decision

The San Diego Padres’ offseason just gained a fresh layer of intrigue. Right-hander Michael King has declined his mutual option, turning down a $15 million salary for next season in favor of a $3.75 million buyout and a trip back to the open market. 

It’s the move many around the league expected, given the scarcity of mid-rotation (and better) arms available and King’s ability to miss bats, carry bulk, and adapt to game plans. For San Diego, this is just the opening act in what will be an eventful offseason. Declining a mutual option doesn’t close the door; it resets the negotiation, invites market comps, and lets both sides test leverage before circling back if the fit and the price still make sense. 

With mutual option declined, Padres map out Michael King pursuit

Context matters here. The Padres and King rebuilt his deal last winter to avoid arbitration, $7.75 million guaranteed in 2025 (including a $3M signing bonus) with a $15 million mutual option for the following year and a buyout that could scale to $4 million based on starts. That structure always hinted at a crossroads: if King held or improved his value, the mutual option would be a soft landing pad en route to free agency. 

That’s exactly what happened, and now the market will tell both sides who values him most and at what term length. The broad expectation from industry chatter has placed King in the robust multi-year tier, with some predictions in the $70–$90 million neighborhood depending on health grades and bidder urgency. 

Mutual options almost never bind both parties, and that’s by design. They function as a hedge, not a handcuff: if the player outperforms the tag, he declines; if he underperforms or gets hurt, the team declines. Either way, the buyout mediates the risk taken in the prior season. In other words, a mutual option is a pause button before free agency, not a guarantee, and it’s common to see them lead to exactly this outcome.

From a baseball perspective, King’s appeal is straightforward. Since arriving in San Diego and transitioning full-time into a starter’s workload, he’s shown the mix to anchor playoff-caliber rotations. Even in a year with some interruptions, he flashed the top-end: 15 starts, a 3.44 ERA, and a complete-game shutout underscored the ceiling evaluators still see. If you zoom out to his first full-season runway as a starter, the results looked like a co-ace profile, bulk innings, strikeouts, and the kind of pitchability that travels.

So where does this leave the Padres? First, they can, and probably should, extend a qualifying offer (worth $22.025 million); even if King declines, the draft compensation helps cushion the risk of a walk year turning into a departure. Second, San Diego can negotiate in parallel, monitoring a starter market with headline names like Framber Valdez and Dylan Cease at premium prices, while making a targeted case for King’s return at a number that balances 2026 competitiveness with longer-term payroll planning. Given recent projections for King’s next deal, the Padres’ pitch is less about being the highest bidder and more about offering familiarity, a rotation lane near the top, and a run-prevention environment he already knows

King’s decision doesn’t slam the window on a reunion; it reframes it. The mutual option did its job, delivered cost certainty for 2025, then converted into a market check for 2026 and beyond. Now the Padres have to decide how aggressive “positioned to chase” really means: do they set the early market with years and AAV, or do they play for value while surveying broader rotation upgrades? Either route is defensible. The only indefensible one is drifting. San Diego needs top-end innings, and King, ironically by declining, just gave them a clear path to go get them, whether from him or by using the clarity of his market to pivot quickly elsewhere.