After a long offseason for former Red Sox starter Lucas Giolito, he now finds a new home on the West Coast.
It was a long offseason for former Boston Red Sox starter Lucas Giolito, but that all came to an end on Wednesday afternoon when the San Diego Padres announced they signed the 31-year-old to a one-year deal.
It was an up-and-down 2025 campaign for Giolito, who finished the regular season with a 3.41 ERA across 145 innings for Boston before missing the Red Sox Wild Card series against the Yankees with elbow discomfort.
Giolito struggled in his first eight starts of the season, allowing 25 runs over 39.2 innings. But the veteran right-hander bounced back in a big way, becoming a huge piece for a Red Sox rotation that was decimated by injuries.
From June 16 through the end of the regular season, Giolito was arguably the Red Sox best starter, posting a 2.65 ERA across 105.1 innings, the ninth-lowest ERA in that span.
Giolito signed a two-year deal, with a club-option for a third worth $38.5-million with the Red Sox in 2024. He missed the entire 2024 season after undergoing Tommy John surgery. After reaching 140 innings pitched in 2025, Giolito turned the $19-million club option for 2026 into a mutual option, which he declined in order to hit the open market.
Why was Giolito still unsigned?
After a solid season, and teams always looking for rotation depth, it appeared odd that Giolito found himself still unsigned through the first month of the season. But in an analytical age, teams look to capitalize on guys they see as undervalued. Thanks to Giolito's advanced metrics and injury concerns, he found himself firmly in the regression candidate category.
Giolito ranked in the bottom 30th percentile in both chase rate and walk rate, while his strikeout rate of 19.7% landed him in the 28th percentile. Similarly, Giolito ranked towards the bottom of the league in hard-hit rate and average exit velocity. Giolito's expected ERA for the 2025 season was almost two full runs higher than his actual production at 5.06.
"The last few months have been very strange," Giolito told Rob Bradford on the Baseball Isn't Boring Podcast, "I just want to play for close to my value. Everything is based on these models now...it's like, alright, cool, give me something that's relatively close to that, and let's get it."
Giolito also told Bradford that he's kept himself in baseball shape, working a pitch count up to 75 pitches.
The strange offseason came to an end for the 31-year-old veteran as he was inked to a one-year, $3-million deal with the Padres, with an option for 2027.
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