Report: Padres agree to 1-year deals with veteran OFs Heyward, Joe

The San Diego Padres have found their left fielders in free agency.

San Diego agreed to one-year contracts with five-time Gold Glove outfielder Jason Heyward and outfielder/first baseman Connor Joe, sources told Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune.

The full details of both deals are not yet known.

The right-handed hitting Joe and left-handed Heyward are expected to platoon in left field this season, a source told Dennis Lin of The Athletic.

The Padres had been trying to fill left field since All-Star Jurickson Profar signed a three-year deal with Atlanta last month. Before their reported agreements with Joe and Heyward, the team was projected to platoon Brandon Lockridge and Tirso Ornelas in left.

Heyward, a veteran of 15 big-league seasons, hit .211/.288/.412 with 10 homers and 37 RBIs across 87 games split between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros last season. He also continued to play excellent defense, tallying five defensive runs saved in 580 defensive innings.

However, left field will be a relatively new experience for Heyward, who's primarily manned right during his career. He's made only 15 appearances in left, with all of those coming sporadically over the last two seasons.

The 35-year-old is a lifetime .256/.337/.410 hitter with 184 homers and 718 RBIs across 1,790 games with five teams.

Joe, a San Diego native who attended Poway High School and played college baseball at the University of San Diego, was non-tendered by the Pittsburgh Pirates in November after putting up a .688 OPS with nine homers in 2024. He's a lifetime .242/.337/.391 hitter with 35 homers and 141 RBIs across parts of five big-league seasons with three teams.

The 32-year-old Joe brings some versatility to the Padres, as he has plenty of experience manning both corner outfield spots as well as first base. Last year in Pittsburgh, he mostly split time between first and right, tallying positive defensive numbers at both positions.

Joe and Heyward are just the second and third big-league free-agent signings by San Diego this winter, following a one-year deal with catcher Elias Díaz in late January. Questions about San Diego's ownership have dominated the team's offseason amid a battle within the Seidler family for control of the team.