It's shaping up to be a very crucial offseason for the San Diego Padres. After shooting for the stars over the past few years, the Padres are cutting costs and looking to recoup value for some of their biggest stars, hence their decision to trade away Juan Soto to the New York Yankees. Now, in addition to Soto's departure via trade, it's looking likely that star closer, lights-out southpaw Josh Hader, will also be departing for greener pastures, this time via free agency.
Not to worry, however, for the Padres appear to have a ready replacement in the wings. But their Hader replacement won't be coming from within the roster, as it looks like San Diego is “close to signing” Korean righthanded pitcher Woo-Suk Go, according to Jon Heyman of the New York Post.
Heyman added that Go is “likely” to be the Padres' closer, so the 25-year old reliever will have big shoes to fill if he does end up winning the ninth-inning role for a San Diego team that would look to remain competitive in 2024.
The Padres, however, won't have any shortage of options when it comes to late-inning relief even in the likely departure of Josh Hader. San Diego also signed Japanese reliever Yuki Matsui in late December, and Matsui has all the incentive in the world to try and win the ninth-inning role over Go.
Matsui's contract with the Padres, which pays him a base salary of $28 million over five years (with an opt-out after three years), can rise up to $33.6 million if he becomes the team's closer, according to Associated Press via ESPN. And a cursory glance at the statistics shows that he is more qualified to win the closer job than Woo-Suk Go.
This past season in the NPB, Yuki Matsui tallied 39 saves and put up an impressive 1.57 ERA in 57.1 innings of work. Meanwhile, Go didn't have the best of 2023s. He saw his ERA rise from 1.48 in 2022 to 3.68 in 2023, and he saw his walk rate rise quite considerably as well (from 3.1 per nine innings in 2022 to 4.5). Go, however, is the younger option, so perhaps the Padres decide to groom him as their long-term closer.
