Sources: Padres, Juan Soto reach $23M deal, avoid arbitration

Outfielder Juan Soto and the San Diego Padres agreed Friday on a one-year, $23 million contract to avoid arbitration, sources told ESPN, in what is expected to be the richest deal on a day when hundreds of players settle on their salaries for the 2023 season.

The arbitration process allows players with more than three years of major league service time to negotiate their salaries with teams for the upcoming season. In cases where the sides cannot come to terms on a deal by the Friday deadline, they exchange numbers that they then take into an arbitration hearing, where a three-person panel listens to a case and chooses a side.

Today is the deadline to reach terms on arbitration-eligible players or exchange figures for arbitration.

The Padres Go for Broke With a Roster of Superstars

“It’s really a credit to our scouting and development group, really over the last seven or eight years,” General Manager A.J. Preller said at a news conference in San Diego. “The ability to constantly have players that other teams covet, hopefully that’s for here in Petco a lot of times, but it also potentially puts you in position to make this type of deal.”