The San Diego Padres opened the 2026 offseason with a familiar problem: a talented, expensive roster that ran out of pitching in October. Published on October 21,
The club finished the regular season with a second-half surge of 43-23 after a flat 48-48 start, a run that earned them the top National League Wild Card spot. San Diego swept past the Cubs in the Wild Card round before the Brewers ended their season in the next round, a five-game exit that exposed how thin the rotation had become.
A rotation held together by accounting tricks
The gap between what the Padres have and what they need is stark. Their on-paper rotation for 2027 currently consists of Joe Musgrove, Randy Vásquez, JP Sears and Jhony Brito, and even that list comes with caveats. Musgrove missed all of 2025 and 2026 recovering from Tommy John surgery and only logged three postseason innings this October. President of baseball operations A.J. Preller recently admitted, per MLB Trade Rumors, that expecting a full starter's workload from Musgrove next year is probably unrealistic.
The other names hardly inspire confidence. Vásquez posted a decent earned run average but struck out only 14.8 percent of batters faced, a rate lower than every qualified starter except Colorado's Tomoyuki Sugano. Sears spent most of 2026 in Triple-A, where he recorded a 7.49 ERA. Brito, also mostly in the minors, put up a 2.97 ERA but with a similarly weak 16.2 percent strikeout rate. The conclusion is unavoidable: San Diego needs to add multiple starting pitchers this winter.
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Free agency could gut the staff
The list of pitchers headed out the door is long. Walker Buehler, Robbie Ray and Casey Mize are free agents. Griffin Canning and Lucas Giolito are effectively free agents too, since their deals contain mutual options and no mutual option has been exercised by both sides in over a decade. Those clauses, as MLB Trade Rumors notes, function as deferred payments rather than real decisions.
Michael King, signed through 2028 at $66 million, holds a $28 million player option for 2027 that he is expected to decline in search of a larger deal. Nick Pivetta's fate rests on a $14 million club option the Padres must decide on. The bullpen could also lose Jason Adam and Adrián Morejón to free agency, though the relief corps should remain a relative strength.
More than a billion dollars on the books
What makes this offseason so precarious is the money already committed. The Padres owe more than $1.0271 billion in future contracts, with $180.1 million locked in for 2027 alone. Manny Machado is owed $280 million through 2033, Fernando Tatis Jr. $266 million through 2034, Xander Bogaerts $175 million through 2033, and Jackson Merrill $135 million through 2034.
The front office's creativity has increasingly substituted for spending power. The Nick Pivetta and King signings featured backloaded salaries and opt-outs. The deals for Germán Márquez, Canning and Giolito used mutual option buyouts to push payments down the line. It is the kind of financial engineering that works until the bill arrives, and for a rotation that has needed patching for several winters running, the bill is coming due.
The retrenchment traces back to ownership. Payroll climbed steadily under Peter Seidler and peaked in 2023. After his death, the club scaled back, a shift that produced the Juan Soto trade to the Yankees and a string of deals that stripped the farm system of depth.
What the lineup and payroll picture looks like
The position player core should stay largely intact, with Tatis, Machado, Bogaerts, Merrill and Jake Cronenworth all returning. Gavin Sheets, Mason Miller and Luis Campusano headline the arbitration class, with Sheets projected at $6.5 million and Miller, the hard-throwing reliever, at $8.1 million. Bryan Hoeing and JP Sears stand out as non-tender candidates.
How much money Preller has to spend on pitching is the offseason's central unknown, and it will determine whether 2027 looks like another Wild Card cameo or something more. The Padres have proven they can build a contender on paper; what they have not proven, since Seidler's passing, is that they can sustain one when the pitching market comes calling.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much money do the Padres owe in future contracts?
The Padres have roughly $1.0271 billion in total future commitments, including $180.1 million counted toward the 2027 season, according to MLB Trade Rumors.
Which Padres pitchers are free agents after 2026?
Walker Buehler, Robbie Ray and Casey Mize are outright free agents, while Griffin Canning and Lucas Giolito are expected to reach free agency despite holding mutual options.
Will Michael King stay with the Padres?
King has a $28 million player option for 2027, and MLB Trade Rumors expects him to decline it and test the open market.
Who is left in the Padres' starting rotation?
Joe Musgrove, Randy Vásquez, JP Sears and Jhony Brito are the only on-paper starters under control, and the club is expected to add multiple arms before Opening Day.