Joe Musgrove, Padres at “impasse” over contract extension talks

The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reported this morning that the San Diego Padres and Joe Musgrove are at an “impasse” in their contract extension discussions. San Diego “recently made multiple attempts” to lock up their hometown guy but their recent approximately 8-year, $88 million offer doesn’t seem close to what Musgrove is asking for.

The definition of an impasse on Google, is “a situation in which no progress is possible, especially because of disagreement”. I wouldn’t describe the Joe Musgrove extension talks with the San Diego Padres as an impasse because there’s a possibility for progress by season’s end. The progress, though, is going to have to come from Peter Seidler.

Musgrove is making a little more than $8 million this season so he’s expecting more of a pay raise than the $11 million a year the Padres have reportedly offered him. I wrote earlier this month that Musgrove should be smiling after he saw the $60+ million extension Kyle Freeland got with the Rockies ($12.9 million AAV) because Freeland is not near the pitcher that Musgrove is right now.

If Freeland got almost $13 million a year coming off of two straight seasons with a 4.30+ ERA, Musgrove is thinking he has to get more than that when he is coming off a 3.18 ERA last season. So far in 2022 “Java Joe” owns a 2.16 ERA, which is the best in the Padres rotation (minimum four starts). Not too shabby.

Assuming Musgrove’s asking price is around $20 million, that is a fair one based on FanGraphs’ value metric. In each of his last two full seasons, FanGraphs had him valued at over $26 million a year if he were to hit the free agent market after each of those seasons.

As Rosenthal noted in his article today, Jose Berrios (who had a WAR less than a run better than Musgrove last season) signed an extension worth $131 million with the Toronto Blue Jays this past offseason when he was supposed to be a free agent after 2022. Berrios is going to be paid approximately $20 million a year during his free agent years.

Musgrove should be asking for the moon right now and if the Padres aren’t going to get closer to his asking price, he’s going to hit free agency. Seidler knows that Padres fans wouldn’t be happy if this happened.