The San Diego Padres continue to wait around looking for a potential buyer of the franchise, and because of that, general manager A.J. Preller isn’t doing much spending in free agency.
The club lost out on retaining strikeout-specialist right-hander Dylan Cease, who signed a seven-year, $210 million deal with the Toronto Blue Jays at the beginning of free agency, and won’t have the services of right-handed veteran Yu Darvish, who underwent ulnar collateral ligament surgery and will sideline him for the entirety of 2026.
They did bring back right-hander Michael King, who has been excellent as a starter for the Padres when he’s healthy and on the mound. However, there are concerns regarding his injury history.
If San Diego had depth within the starting rotation, those concerns wouldn’t be as large, but the team lacks rotational depth. Right-hander Joe Musgrove is expected to return to the staff after undergoing Tommy John surgery in the playoffs two seasons ago, which kept him off the field for all of 2025. Righty Nick Pivetta will be an anchor for this unit again and be relied upon to have the season he had last year, though that is extremely unlikely given his track record.
With the offseason winding down, things could get dicey here for Preller and the Padres. According to ESPN’s Alden Gonzalez, industry sources believe that Preller will have to get creative if he wants to make his team better without subtracting and spending a lot of money.
Addressing not only the rotation, but first base as well are huge priorities for this franchise and there aren’t a lot of resources to do so. San Diego could bring first baseman Luis Arraez back on a cheap deal, but if they wanted to do that, they would have already. Early reports at the end of the season suggested that a reunion between the two was of interest, but it hasn’t happened yet.
With each passing day, it seems like the Padres will look internally for their next Opening Day first baseman in 2026. Infielder Jake Cronenworth has plenty of experience manning the position and was only moved to second base because of Arraez’s lack of range.
Gonzalez believes the Padres’ offseason should be judged based on where it goes from here, a ‘3’ on ESPN’s Urgency Rating. So far, it has been disappointing considering how active Preller typically is in free agency and within the trade market.