Michael King eager to win championship, tackle ‘unfinished business’ in return to Padres

Michael King was born in Rochester, N.Y. He prepped in Rhode Island. The Miami Marlins drafted him out of Boston College and he ultimately debuted with the New York Yankees.

Yes, the pull back to the East Coast this winter was real.

So was the attachment that took root in two years in San Diego.

“Family got started here,” King said Friday afternoon as his wife Sheila and his five-month-old daughter Grace sat in the front row alongside his parents in the Petco Park auditorium. “We have roots here. The foundation that we have, the atmosphere playing here is just second to none. The players that (A.J. Preller) has put together, the staff that he has put together made it so it was very familiar to me and very fun to be a part of.

“And I think we have some unfinished business, and I want to be a part of a championship team.”

King’s return on a three-year, $75 million deal — with opt-outs — is a step in that direction for a franchise that’s endured a curious offseason.

Manager Mike Shildt suddenly retired after leading the team to back-to-back postseason berths for just the second time in franchise history. The man hired to replace him, Carig Stammen, was a special assistant who was on no one’s radar outside the front office. And, with a lawsuit contesting control of the team still pending, the Padres were officially put up for sale. All the while, the front office charted a course forward as the likes of King, Dylan Cease, Robert Suarez, Luis Arraez and Ryan O’Hearn waded into free agency.

Cease signed with the Blue Jays for $210 million over seven years, which seemed to signal that the demand for starting pitching could price the Padres out of a reunion with King. But the 30-year-old right-hander was realistic about his market after injuries limited him to 73⅓ innings in his walk year.

“Dylan signs a seven-year contract because he hasn’t missed a start in maybe his entire career,” King said. “That adds length to a contract. Coming off an injury, I knew I wasn’t going to get a seven-year contract. I think you pay for length based on durability, and then you pay dollars based on performance. Dylan was obviously able to do both of those. Unfortunately, I was only able to do one this past year, but I’ve got to prove it in these next few years for my next contract.”

The structure of King’s contract certainly suggests that he’ll get another bite at the apple.

While an average annual value of $25 million pushes the Padres’ luxury tax hit to just under $258 million — firmly above the first $244 million threshold, according to Fangraphs.com — the breakdown presents advantages for both the pitcher and a team intent on fielding a winning team.

King will receive a $12 million signing bonus spread across the three years of the deal. He’ll get $9 million to start 2026 as the Union-Tribune projections put the Padres’ current commitments at just under $200 million for next season.

If King opts out after this season, a $5 million buyout will cap the value of one year of the contract at $22 million ($14 million this year, with $8 million of his signing bonus owed over the following two seasons). If King opts in, his player options will pay him $28 million in 2027 and $30 million in 2028.

It’s a risk that the Padres were willing to take on even after nerve and knee issues derailed King’s encore to an impressive first year in the rotation. He posted a 2.95 ERA over 173 ⅔ innings in 2024, finishing seventh in NL Cy Young voting.

“We know the work ethic,” said Preller, the Padres’ president of baseball operations. “We know the aptitude and the mind. What know what type of competitor he is. … Any time you’re looking to make any type of investment, you’re just looking for somebody you trust.”

King was certainly hoping the Padres would come around.

Preller and Co. checked in on King early in the offseason but didn’t circle back until 10 days ago, after it went public that the Yankees, Red Sox and Orioles were among the teams with interest.

It was about that time that Preller had pitching coach Ruben Niebla and new manager Craig Stammen send text messages to feel out King’s interest in a return.

As King expected, his market had been impacted by a disappointing walk year.

“There were a couple (of teams) that lowballed me,” King said with a laugh. “But then there were a couple that blew me away and unfortunately weren’t in cities that had a winning mentality or a roster that I believed in for the next few years. I told my agent — and he probably wasn’t happy with it — that I wanted to win for the duration of the contract, and I don’t care if that means I have to take less of a deal than whatever you’re negotiating.”

The Padres not only checked all those boxes, they were the one West Coast team that King was willing to play for.

“I think geography played a little bit in terms of where I would like to go,” King said. “I think that the unknown of being on those teams is a little different. The willingness to win on those teams is just foreign. I had no idea what I was walking into. I had those meetings, and yeah, in those Zoom calls and those in-person meetings, you kind of get a feel for it.

“But ultimately, when you sit back and think about a winning team and winning mentality, I know that I got one of the best (GMs) in the business to get us to where we want to be and feeling the playoff atmosphere and pressure in San Diego was something I want to feel every year for the rest of my career.”

Likewise, the Padres view King’s return as an important piece of a rotation puzzle that had been jumbled by the loss of Yu Darvish to elbow surgery and the prospect of losing both King and Cease to free agency.

The Padres’ ace during King’s injury-riddled 2025 season, Nick Pivetta has even been mentioned in trade rumors this winter, but “we go into it now with Nick Pivetta coming off a Cy Young-type season and Joe Musgrove coming back (from Tommy John surgery), which is super exciting for everyone, and Michael,” Preller said.

“I think the front of the rotation is in any order, however you want to do it. You have to start with starting pitching and elite performers that can throw innings, and I think for us having those three leading it and a lot of competition after that. Obviously there’s still a lot of offseason left and we’re going to look to continue to improve our team. …

“But putting Michael in that spot with Nick and Joe kind of fronting it, that’s a good feeling for (Stammen) and Ruben and everybody here in San Diego.”