Right-hander Griffin Canning has agreed to a free-agent contract with the Padres, pending a physical, a source told MLB.com’s AJ Cassavell. The club has not confirmed the agreement.
A ruptured left Achilles tendon ended Canning’s 2025 season in June. To that point, he was in the midst of a renaissance campaign, the best of his six-year career. Overall, he posted a 3.77 ERA in 16 starts for the Mets, a linchpin to a rotation that emerged as the league’s best over the first several months of the 2025 season.
It was a remarkable turnaround for Canning who, just a year earlier, went 6-13 with a 5.19 ERA in 32 games (31 starts) for the Angels, allowing more earned runs (99) than any pitcher in the American League. Following the ‘24 season, the Angels traded Canning to the Braves for Jorge Soler in a de facto salary dump for Atlanta. The Braves promptly non-tendered the righty, making him a free agent. That’s when the Mets swooped in, taking a flier on a pitcher in need of a change of scenery and a second act.
With New York, Canning overhauled his repertoire. He re-tooled his slider and his changeup – adding more depth to each pitch – and leaned on them more often, sometimes even pitching “backward,” throwing offspeed pitches earlier in counts and using the fastball late. His slider is his best swing-and-miss offering, with a 33.5% whiff rate, while the opposition hit just .196 against his revamped changeup.
While Canning allowed a lot of hard contact – his hard-hit rate (45.7%) was in the 11th percentile – he excelled at keeping the ball on the ground. He induced ground balls at a 51.6% clip, easily the highest rate of his career.
A second-round Draft pick by the Angels in 2017, Canning debuted with them in 2019 as a 22-year-old. He was the organization’s No. 2 prospect and No. 60 overall, per MLB Pipeline. But he never quite lived up to the hype in Anaheim, pitching to a 4.78 ERA across five seasons before being traded last November.
Entering his age-30 season, Canning profiles as a solid back-of-the-rotation arm, when healthy. He could miss the start of the 2026 season as he continues his recovery from the Achilles tear.
