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Adrian Morejon, the standout relief pitcher, is now a free agent and faces a critical decision regarding the $23.1 million qualifying offer extended by the San Diego Padres. The Padres may find it difficult to compete with the guaranteed money other teams could offer, even though Morejon has delivered elite performance and shown loyalty to the franchise. If the decade-long partnership between Morejon and the Padres ends soon, it would not come as a major surprise.
The Padres have already made the one-year qualifying offer to Morejon, and he has until Tuesday to accept or decline. Should he reject it and sign with another team, the Padres would receive a compensatory draft pick for the 27-year-old. Even if the Padres' projected payroll increases under new ownership led by Kwanza Jones and Jose E. Feliciano, the club would still face a significant challenge in replacing Morejon's rare combination of durability and success. However, the Padres have a history of regenerating relief excellence at low cost, dating back to the 1970s.
There would be nostalgia if Morejon departs. He has said the Padres were the only Major League team eager to sign him out of Cuba in 2016 for about $11 million. He often praised teammates, medical staff, and pitching coaches Ruben Niebla and Ben Fritz, who provided invaluable guidance during his comeback from struggles as a starting pitcher and a torn elbow ligament more than five years ago. Morejon ultimately rewarded the franchise's long-held belief that patience would pay off. Over the past three years, he posted a 2.58 ERA with an adjusted ERA 61% better than the big-league average. During that stretch, he cost the team about $7 million while his production was worth approximately $50 million, based on Fangraphs' estimate of what a player would have received in free agency.
Knowing free agency loomed, Morejon could have begged off pitching so much, and no one would have second-guessed him. But like Padres starter and fellow Scott Boras client Dylan Cease did late in his San Diego tenure, Morejon continued to take the ball deep into a high-workload season because the team needed him. He finished with 78 outings and 90 2/3 innings pitched this year, including a pair of two-inning appearances in the playoffs. Morejon became the first Padre since closer Heath Bell in 2007 to amass 75-plus outings and 90-plus relief innings, and the first lefty to do so since Craig Lefferts in 1986.
"Adrian had an amazing year," manager Craig Stammen said early this offseason. "Heavy workload. Was able to take the ball whenever we asked him to throughout the season. A big reason we were able to have success in the regular season. Was able to get us to the postseason and win that first series, and have a chance in the second series." Morejon, broad-shouldered and thick through his base, averaged 99.4 mph on his fastball and was still hitting triple digits in October.
Stammen was asked if the Padres would lighten Morejon's workload going into the 2027 season, in effect playing the long game. "If we were able to retain Adrian, which would be a really big win for the Padres," he said, "there's definitely ways to help him handle that workload this next year and take care of him in the best way that we can." But, he added, "in the end, Adrian has the ability to pitch a lot, pitch frequently and pitch really well while doing that. So that's a big part of his value in who he is. If you asked him, 'Do you want to pitch less? Do you want to pitch more?', he'd probably say more."
Cease's free agency went well; he got a seven-year, $210-million deal from the Toronto Blue Jays. Cease, less apt to tip his pitches this year, had a Cy Young Award runner-up season. Morejon finished the season with a 2.83 ERA over 86 innings and 76 outings, averaging 11.2 strikeouts per nine innings. MLB front offices esteem pitch and batted-ball data; Morejon landed in the 93rd to 99th percentile in several of those underlying statistics.
In the postseason, when the Padres' starting pitching and offense weren't particularly good overall, the team probably needed greatness from Morejon and closer Mason Miller similar to what they'd provided over the six months. Ideally, Morejon would have dazzled like Lefferts did in 1984. Lefferts, relying on pitches that darted and sank, tossed 10 scoreless innings across six games in the 1984 postseason after his own high-volume season. The Padres won the National League pennant. The Brewers' William Contreras hit Morejon's 99-mph sinker for a tie-breaking homer in Game 1 of the Division Series, and the Brewers went on to win. Morejon didn't pitch again. Stammen cited shoulder stickiness but said the lefty would have been the closer if Game 4 had gone into extra innings.
Reminding us that the baseball gods have their own designs, the Brewers got an all-time great postseason from their own ace lefty reliever who was coming off a high-volume year: Aaron Ashby. Ashby, a nephew of former Padres frontline starter Andy Ashby, said he found a zen-like groove in October. He never left it. And that factor was as big as any in the Brewers, whose first season came a year after the Padres' debut in 1969, collecting their first World Series trophy.
Originally reported by headtopics.