Alex Verdugo Released by Padres, Has Shoulder Surgery Before Playing a Single Game in 2026
Alex Verdugo’s 2026 season is over before it even started. The San Diego Padres released him from his minor league contract, and the veteran outfielder is heading into shoulder surgery that will cost him the entire year.
Verdugo played in two spring training games. That’s it. Two games was all his 2026 campaign amounted to before the injury caught up with him and made any return impossible. He never appeared in a regular season game with San Diego.
At 29 years old, Verdugo is entering the most uncertain stretch of his career. He had a rough 2025 with the Yankees, hitting below his career averages and drawing criticism for his play. The Padres signed him to a minor league deal this offseason hoping he could bounce back and contribute at the big league level. Instead, he’s now looking at a recovery timeline that wipes out what might have been a bounce-back season.
For the Padres, this is a non-issue roster-wise. A minor league signing that didn’t pan out is barely a footnote in a season’s worth of transactions. The real question is what this means for Verdugo’s career arc.
He’s a former first-round pick who had legitimate All-Star-caliber seasons with the Dodgers and Red Sox. He’s not done. But time matters, and a completely lost year at 29 is the kind of thing that can alter a career trajectory in ways that are hard to predict.
The door isn’t closed for Verdugo to return in 2027 and remind people what he’s capable of. But right now, in May 2026, his baseball future looks murkier than anyone would have imagined two years ago when he was a starter on a playoff team.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
