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All-Star outfielder Jackson Merrill and the San Diego Padres have agreed to a $135 million, nine-year contract covering 2026-34, a person familiar with the negotiations told The Associated Press.
The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the deal, first reported by FanSided, had not been announced.
Merrill’s deal includes a $30 million team option for 2035 that would convert to a player option if he has a top-five finish in MVP voting at any point during the contract.
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Merrill, who turns 22 on April 19, made his major-league debut last season and became an All-Star, hitting .292 with 24 home runs, 90 RBIs and 16 stolen bases. He finished second in NL Rookie of the Year voting to Pittsburgh Pirates starting pitcher Paul Skenes.
He has an $809,500 salary while in the major leagues this year after earning the $740,000 minimum last year and gaining $1,191,534 from the pre-arbitration bonus pool.
Merrill would have been eligible for arbitration after the 2026 season and for free agency after the 2029 World Series.
For the Padres, this gives at least some indication of their plans going forward, following the late-2023 death of principal owner Peter Seidler. His brother, John Seidler, took over as the Padres’ control person, with the team as a whole staying in control of the family and remaining brothers. While the team has cut payroll where it could to get back under the luxury tax threshold while attempting to remain competitive in the National League West, extending Merrill at least signals that they plan on keeping key pieces together for as long as possible.
Signing Merrill now, instead of later — in essence, paying him more in his earliest big-league years to be able to pay him less later than they would’ve had to once he became arbitration-eligible and had more leverage in contract negotiations — shows how the Padres plan to thread this particular needle going forward.
And for Merrill, it’s clear that he expects to win, and to win while with San Diego, as FOX Sports’ Rowan Kavner detailed just last week. “Win a World Series, that’s always the next step. I mean, I could have personal achievements all the live long day, but it doesn’t matter if we’re not winning. That’s how I’ve played the game since I was born — it doesn’t matter what I’m doing on the field if we’re not winning.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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