Padres Free Agency Wish List: Randy Arozarena Would Arm Friars With Fearsome Lineup

While the San Diego Padres had one of MLB’s best offenses over the last two months of the regular season, there was a little bit of magic fairy dust built into that. All you have to do is look at the left field position.

Beginning Aug. 1 and up through the end of the regular season, Dustin Harris, with his third franchise of the 2026 season, posted a slash line of .299/.342/.383 with one homer, 15 RBIs and six steals. Meanwhile, Samad Taylor, playing for his third franchise in the last three seasons, had a .284/.341/.392 slash line with one homer, seven RBIs and eight stolen bases. Other than the power output, that is pretty solid production.

But can the Padres depend on that for 2027? It's very unlikely. The 27-year-old Harris had a combined 21 MLB games with the Texas Rangers in 2024-25, putting up a .217/.280/.435 slash line, two homers, five RBIs and a stolen base. The 28-year-old Taylor, meanwhile, had 38 games with the Kansas City Royals and Seattle Mariners that yielded a .532 OPS. It's hard to argue that the Padres didn't benefit from peak performances from the pair.

There is a solution to getting sustained power and speed from left field, though. His name is Randy Arozarena.

The Cuban turns 32 at the end of February and is one of five players in MLB history with six consecutive 20-homer, 20-steal seasons, the last two being 25-25 years. The others? Willie Mays, Bobby Bonds, Barry Bonds and Bobby Abreu. Arozarena’s 2026 slash line with the Seattle Mariners was .281/.381/.484, his best since his second MLB season and first with the Tampa Bay Rays, where he became a national star in the postseason.

Picture Arozarena hitting behind Fernando Tatis Jr. and ahead of Manny Machado, Ty France and Jackson Merrill. Or even a scenario with Merrill second and Arozarena behind Machado with France fifth. However it would go, that is a pretty dynamic top half of the lineup.

There are a lot of reasons to like Arozarena at this moment. He most definitely is looking for a winning situation, which the Padres certainly are coming off their franchise-record third straight postseason appearance, and his fiery personality would fit right in with the Friars.

One thing that makes his 2026 numbers more impressive is that the Mariners’ stadium, T-Mobile Park, is famously suppressive for hitters, which does bear out in Arozarena’s splits. At home, the right-handed hitter slashed .250/.366/.422 with nine homers, 31 RBIs and 14 stolen bases. On the road, those numbers ballooned to .309/.394/.539, hitting 17 homers, driving in 48 and stealing 12 bases. All of that contributed to him leading the AL with 113 runs scored, while he hit 10 of his 26 homers from Aug. 16 onward. Arozarena also logged top-10 finishes in on-base percentage, slugging percentage, hits, doubles and extra-base hits.

There was some bad stuff mixed into those good numbers. Arozarena’s hard-hit percentage dropped from the 90th percentile in 2025 (50.6%) to the 67th in 2026 (43.5%). Similarly, his barrel rate fell from the 71st percentile (11.5%) to the 52nd (8.15%), while his bat speed went from the 53rd percentile (72.3%) to the 31st (70.9%). But he did make improvements in his squared-up percentage (47th, 25.5% last year to 60th, 26.1%) and launch-angle sweet spot (23rd, 32.6% to 68th, 36%).

Arozarena is likely to get a qualifying offer from the Mariners, which would guarantee him $23.15 million for 2027. He will decline and be one of the top bats available this offseason, the first time he'll be available on the open market. The qualifying offer has tended to be a scarlet letter for some teams when pursuing free agents, but not really for Padres president of baseball operations A.J. Preller. He signed right-handed starter Nick Pivetta two offseasons ago, costing the Padres a second-round draft pick in 2025.

But with the Padres being a competitive-balance tax payor this offseason, that penalty stiffens to a team’s second- and fifth-highest picks and $1 million in international bonuses. Preller loves to play in the international market, so that could factor into his decision to pursue Arozarena. There won’t be any sort of discount considering how popular Arozarena will be in this thin market and with his agent being Scott Boras, who gets every penny and then some he can from ownership (see the Xander Bogaerts contract).

The Athletic projects Arozarena to get a five-year, $124 million deal, mentioning the Mariners, Philadelphia Phillies and Atlanta as primary suitors. That price would seem palatable for the type of production Arozarena provides, perhaps front-loading the deal to minimize the impact of the last two years when he is 35 and 36.

Regardless of the structure, dreaming on Arozarena’s bat alongside Tatis, Machado and Merrill along with France is tantalizing. Add in bounce backs from Bogaerts and Jake Cronenworth and sprinkle in the potential of 20-year-old catcher Ethan Salas, and that would make for an awfully impressive lineup.

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