Padres Sign Griffin Canning

The Padres have signed right-hander Griffin Canning, as initially reported overnight by the Divine Sports Gospel.  Canning’s deal will be official once he passes a physical, according to FanSided’s Robert Murray.  San Diego has a full 40-man roster in the wake of the Nick Castellanos signing, so the Padres will have to make another move to open up 40-man space for Canning, who is represented by Wasserman.

It’s something of a SoCal homecoming for Canning, who was born in Mission Viejo and played his college ball at UCLA.  The 29-year-old also spent his first first Major League seasons with the Angels, posting a 4.78 ERA over 508 innings (starting 94 of 99 games).  This was less than was expected of a pitcher who was once viewed as a top-100 prospect, and the Angels parted ways with Canning via a trade with the Braves last offseason for Jorge Soler.  Atlanta then chose to non-tender Canning, since the Braves’ chief goal of the trade was to unload Soler’s contract.

Canning then signed a one-year, $4.25MM contract with the Mets that initially looked like it was going to be a steal, as the righty posted a 2.47 ERA over his first nine years in New York.  Some struggles over his next seven outings boosted his ERA to 3.77, yet that’s unfortunately where Canning’s story ended, as he suffered a season-ending ruptured Achilles tendon in late June.

Reports from earlier this offseason suggested that Canning is hoping to be ready for Opening Day, or at least relatively early in April.  He was feeling good enough to throw for scouts in a showcase last week, and his velocity was up to 93mph even at this relatively early stage in the preseason ramp-up process.  The Mets, Cardinals, and White Sox were all linked to Canning earlier this winter, but he’ll now be part of San Diego’s rotation mix.

The Padres’ starting pitching situation has been a key issue for the team all winter, as Dylan Cease left for the Blue Jays in free agency and Yu Darvish will miss all of 2026 while recovering from an internal brace procedure.  Re-signing Michael King helped the Padres restore some stability, and Canning joins a list of arms that consists of King, Nick Pivetta, Randy Vasquez, JP Sears, and Joe Musgrove in his return from Tommy John surgery.  Assuming everyone is healthy, Canning will probably push Vasquez or Sears into a relief or depth role once Canning is ready to pitch.

While 76 1/3 innings isn’t the largest of sample sizes, Canning’s 2025 season saw him post a 50.9% grounder rate, in a marked change for a pitcher who had only a 39.5% groundball rate during his time in Anaheim.  Keeping the ball out of the air helped somewhat counter-act all of the hard contact Canning was allowing, as his 45.7% hard-hit ball rate was only in the 11th percentile of all pitchers.  Canning’s 10.7% walk rate was the highest of his career, and his 21.3% strikeout rate was nothing special.

Pivetta’s breakout in 2025 is evidence that the Padres can help pitchers unlock their potential, but for now, Canning projects as a back-end starter with some upside.  How Canning responds to his Achilles injury is another x-factor, and his health history also includes a stress fracture in his back that cost him the entire 2022 season.

Terms of Canning’s deal aren’t yet known, though it is fair to assume he’ll earn something close to the $4.5MM he received from New York in 2025.  The price tag was surely attractive to the Padres, who have been operating within a seemingly limited budget this offseason.  Not counting Canning’s deal, San Diego is projected (by RosterResource) for roughly a $220.9MM payroll and a $265.48MM luxury tax number — both are slightly up from 2025, when the Padres had a $211.1MM payroll in 2025 and a $263MM tax number.  The addition of Canning’s contract now puts San Diego over the second tier ($264MM) of tax penalization.