AP sources: Musgrove, Padres close to $100M, 5-year deal
By BERNIE WILSON
AP Sports Writer
SAN DIEGO (AP) — All-Star right-hander Joe Musgrove is on the cusp of receiving a $100 million, five-year contract from his hometown San Diego Padres that would start next year.
“We’ve been working on this thing for a while. We’re definitely as close as we’ve been throughout the whole process, but I wouldn’t say it’s done,” Musgrove said after the Padres beat the Minnesota Twins 10-1 Friday night.
Two people with knowledge of the deal said before the game it should be finalized in the next few days. The people spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the deal isn’t completed.
Musgrove said his agent has “made it easy on me” by taking the brunt of the negotiations during the season, “and then we talk at night and we go over what the options are, what it looks like, what the numbers would look like if we get there, is that going to do it, is it not going to do it?
“It’s been relatively easy. It’s been tiring,” Musgrove added. “I’m going to continue to go over it and stuff. Talking about it constantly has gotten a little tiring, but I’ve been excited about the whole thing. The better I pitch, the better position I put myself in. If a deal comes along the way, even better.”
The deal was first reported by the New York Post.
Musgrove, coming off the first All-Star Game appearance of his seven-year career, is 8-3 with a 2.63 ERA heading into his scheduled home start against the Twins on Saturday. He has an $8,625,000 salary and was on track to be eligible for free agency after the World Series.
The two sides talked up to the All-Star Game but weren’t able to get anything done.
“We didn’t get to have much communication over those couple of days like we wanted to so we spent the next couple of days trying to make up some ground. Talks went really good. We’ve definitely got a lot closer,” Musgrove said.
Musgrove grew up in suburban El Cajon and played at Grossmont High. He etched himself into Padres lore when he threw the first no-hitter in franchise history in just his second start for San Diego, at Texas on April 9, 2021. It was in the team’s 8,206th regular-season game.
He grew up a Padres fan and his family once had season tickets. He idolized Jake Peavy, who won the NL Cy Young Award with the Padres in 2007, and wears No. 44 in Peavy’s honor. When he was 18, he got a tattoo of a baseball with the Padres’ logo in it, along with his last name and the year he was born.
Musgrove was obtained from Pittsburgh on Jan. 19, 2021, as part of a three-team trade. He is 48-50 with a 3.83 ERA in his career.
Musgrove said it would be “very exciting” to stay in San Diego five more years.
“When I first came here, just the idea of staying in San Diego was enough for me. Playing in my hometown, with my family here, my friends, to experience all the things I dreamed of as a kid and get to live that out,” he explained. “But the longer I’ve spent here, it’s become more about the people that are in the room and the staff and the growth I’m making here. So the clutch of people has made it more appealing than the fact that it’s my hometown.”
He mentioned teammates Manny Machado and Fernando Tatis Jr. specifically, saying the idea of playing next to those stars for the next five-plus years “is something that was extremely appealing to me.”
Padres manager Bob Melvin, who lined up his rotation so Musgrove would start the home opener this year, said he’d love to see the contract finalized “and so would everybody in the room. He has become that guy for us, where it would be welcome to not only us and the players, but certainly the city as well.”
Musgrove was selected by the Toronto Blue Jays in the first round of the 2011 amateur draft and traded to Houston in July 2012, making his big league debut with the Astros in 2016. He earned the victory in Game 5 of the 2017 World Series, which the Astros won in seven games against the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Astros traded him to Pittsburgh in January 2018 as part of the deal for Gerrit Cole.
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