Padres Land the Prize Catch : Santiago Agrees to One-Year Deal for $175,000

At the end of a winter-long struggle to sign their young players, the Padres landed the big one Thursday. Their rookie of the year is finally under contract.

One day before the club promised to automatically renew his contract--something few clubs have done with a league’s top rookie--catcher Benito Santiago agreed to a one-year deal worth $175,000.

The figure is substantially less than the $250,000 accepted Wednesday by American League rookie of the year Mark McGwire of Oakland.

It is also less than the $180,000 that Santiago was requesting. But it is more than the $140,000 the Padres originally offered.

It happened Thursday, on the eve of the Padres’ spring opener with the Angels, after a two-hour meeting between Santiago’s agents and General Manager Jack McKeon.

After bickering for weeks with lead agent Joe Maenza of Boca Raton, Fla., McKeon met with Maenza and Manny Sanguillen, both of the Davimos Sports Firm. Two hours later, after the agents took several breaks to chat with Santiago, the deal was done.

“It was good to finally be able to talk to these people in person,” McKeon said. “It was all done very professionally and, I think, well enough to satisfy everyone.

“I’m not surprised it took this long. It was just a matter of us sitting down with them face to face.”

Santiago and his agents were not in their hotel rooms Thursday night and were unavailable for comment.

“I think he’s happy. There’s no question we want him to be happy,” McKeon said. “I think now that this is out of the way, he has a real good chance to come with a clear head and do for us what he did last year.”

In becoming the second Padre to win the league’s top rookie honor, Santiago set a major league rookie record by hitting in 34 consecutive games. He had two hits on the season’s final day to reach the .300 level, to go with 18 homers and 79 RBIs.

Defensively, his 146 games played were a major league high for catchers, and he threw out 33% of runners attempting to steal, considered above average by major league standards.

He committed 22 errors, high among major league catchers, but many were early in the year. After 14 errors and 11 passed balls in his first 49 games, he only had eight errors and nine passed balls in his final 97.

The Padres also announced the signings of pitcher Jimmy Jones, reserve catcher Mark Parent, infielder Mike Brumley and first baseman Rob Nelson. All accepted one-year deals. Terms were not disclosed. Padre executives reiterated Thursday that they planned to renew the contracts of unsigned players on Friday if no settlement is reached by then.