Padres Rumors: Josh Hader Seems to be Saying Goodbye to San Diego on Social Media
Josh Hader spent somewhere around a year and a half with the San Diego Padres after being acquired from the Milwaukee Brewers at last year's trade deadline, and his time was memorable.
Being a free agent, his return to the team has been up in the air these last few weeks, but now, Hader might be pulling back the curtain on his looming free agency.
He recently took to social media to thank San Diego for the last year-plus.
Hader entered the league with the Brewers in 2017 and became the team's full-time closer in 2019. Since then, he has been arguably the best closer in baseball.
A down-ish year in 2022 saw Hader and a slumping Brewers lineup turn into sellers at the trade deadline.
That was when the Padres pulled off a blockbuster deal to acquire the All-Star closer.
Things seemed too good to be true and it was for the first month. In August, Hader made eight appearances for his new club and posted a 19.06 ERA over 5.2 innings. In half of his appearances that year he did not record a full inning of work.
After that month Hader regained his former glory and he has been dominant ever since.
This year, Hader tossed 56.1 innings and recorded 33 saves for the Friars while striking out 85 batters and owning a 1.28 ERA.
Even with the impressive track record and incredible year with the team, he may have played his last game as a Padre.
Rumors recently started swirling about the Padres not wanting to bring back Hader or Blake Snell, who is most likely going to win the NL Cy Young this year.
The biggest reason for this is the fact that the Padres spent a lot of money locking up talent last offseason with the contract extensions for Yu Darvish, Manny Machado and Joe Musgrove along with the free agent signing of Xander Bogaerts.
The Padres may be out of money and unfortunately Hader will most likely be suiting up for a new team in the Spring.
