The San Diego Padres have a lot of work to do to rebuild their starting rotation after right-handed starters Dylan Cease and Michael King declined their qualifying offers to elect free agency.
Veteran righty Yu Darvish will also be missing from the rotation as he underwent ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction surgery. Darvish will miss the entirety of the 2026 season.
Right-hander Joe Musgrove will return to the rotation pending setbacks in his rehab from his own Tommy John surgery, but the expectation is he will be back. Nick Pivetta is the one starter in the rotation that wasn’t hurt or didn’t leave. Pivetta had a great season but the Padres should look for a frontline starter to better support Pivetta.
Former Arizona Diamondbacks All-Star starter Zac Gallen is a free agent and is a good candidate to bounce back from a disappointing season. Based on his season a year ago, he might not be the best “frontline starter,” but he has anchored Arizona’s rotation for several years now and is one of Major League Baseball’s better pitchers.
“With Gallen declining a qualifying offer from Arizona to test free agency, the longtime Diamondbacks starter is an ideal candidate for reclamation status in 2026,” ESPN’s Neil Paine wrote Wednesday. “Between 2020 and 2023, he averaged 4.3 pitching WAR per season after we prorated the pandemic-shortened campaign to 162 games, good for the 11th-best mark in baseball -- then he dipped to 3.0 WAR while dealing with right hamstring troubles in 2024, and had the worst full season of his career in 2025 with a 4.83 ERA and 4.50 FIP to go with 1.2 WAR. But Gallen should benefit from a luckier HR/FB% rate in 2026, considering the overall quality of his pitching was largely unchanged, according to Statcast data.
“Gallen doesn't map perfectly onto any of the top reclamation projects of 2025 because his down year was not due to injury -- he still made 33 starts in 2025 -- which makes him uncommon among pitchers on this type of list. His comparative durability (he hasn't started fewer than 23 games in a season since the pandemic) should be seen as a strength, not a weakness.”
Gallen’s ability to stay on the field should be a great selling point for him and his camp this offseason. He was a runner-up for the National League Cy Young award in 2023, the same year as his All-Star campaign. He will take a lifetime ERA of 3.58 into a market that is desperate for quality pitching.