The Padres have been pretty aggressive on all fronts in recent years, from signing free agents to star trading to expanding their own players. This has rocketed her budget to record highs, with Roster Resource currently estimating her payroll at $250 million. Up until a couple of years ago, they had just barely surpassed the $100 million mark, rising to $174 million in 2021 and $211 million last year, according to Cot’s baseball contracts.
Despite all this aggression, they come into the season with uncertainty in their rotation, both in the short and long term. They should have a strong front three this year Joe Musgrove, Yu Darwish and Blake Snell. That leaves two question marks on the back, since Mike Clevinger and Sean Manaea reached free agency and signed elsewhere. Darvish and Snell are both expected to reach free agency after this year and will open up more gaps in the future. MacKenzie Gore‘s inclusion in the Juan Soto Trade also weakened future prospects. So who do they have on hand to take on these jobs? Let’s take a look at the candidates.
Nick Martinez
Martinez, 32, spent four seasons in Japan, turning that into a four-year deal with the Padres through 2022, a deal that allowed him to drop out after each season. Last year was a mixed bag for Martinez as he logged 106 1/3 innings with a 3.47 ERA. That’s solid production overall, but it came in the form of a 4.30 ERA over 52 1/3 innings as a starter and a 2.67 mark in 54 innings as a reliever.
Martinez dropped out and signed another deal with the club, this time on a three-year deal. The details are unusually complex as there are many incentives as well as a dual club/player option structure. Whether he can achieve better results as a starter this time remains to be seen. It’s certainly a risk for the brothers, but at least he seems to be coming up with the word to help the bullpen.
Should Martinez really establish himself as a starter, the club can keep him. Martinez will receive a $10 million base salary this year, and the team must then decide whether or not to trigger two $16 million club options in 2024 and 2025, essentially a two-year $32 million extension U.S. dollar. That gives them a little more control over his future than his previous opt-out deal. However, if Martinez doesn’t have a successful campaign and they decline that option, he can choose whether or not to trigger two player options worth $8 million each, essentially a two-year $16 million extension. That gives the brothers in the Pact upside and downside potential. These dollar numbers are also reportedly subject to change due to stimulus, although the exact details are unknown.
Set Lugo
Lugo, 33, is in a somewhat similar situation to Martinez as he could potentially end up in the rotation or the bullpen. He made 23 starts in 2017-18 but only seven since then, mostly as a helper. This move was at least partially motivated by a “slight” tear discovered in his right ulnar collateral ligament in 2017.
Regardless, Lugo has since served as an effective helper, posting a 3.56 ERA over the past two years, and there’s hope his five-tone mix can help him get back into a rotation. It’s another risky move the Padres were willing to give Lugo two years and $15 million to make, with Lugo able to opt out after the first step. He hasn’t surpassed 80 innings in a season since 2018, and it’s hard to tell how smooth this transition will be.
If things go well, there will be no long-term benefit for the club as Lugo will be paid a salary of $7.5m but will be without the same figure for 2024. If the experiment works, he’ll likely return to free agency and find a bigger guarantee. If it fails, the Padres will be on the hook for another season.
Adrian Morejon
Morejón, who turned 24 in February, has long been one of the most exciting pitchers in the league. Baseball America has placed him on the top 100 list for five consecutive years as of 2017. Various injuries have slowed his rise to the majors, and he hasn’t even batted 70 official innings in a season of his career, majors or minors or combined.
Tommy John’s surgery in April 2021 wiped out most of this season. He returned healthy in 2022 but was relieved. The club still reportedly see him as a starter but he is likely to have workload concerns this year. Between the majors and the minors last year he logged 47 1/3 frames. He should be able to push that up now that he’s further from surgery but it would be asking a lot to match the workload of a full starter. He now has just over three years of MLB service, giving him an opportunity to support the club’s rotation long-term if he stays healthy and completes his prospective pedigree in 2023.
Jay groom
Groome, 24, was a 12th overall pick for the Red Sox in 2016. He was once a highly acclaimed prospect but has hit various speed bumps. Tommy John’s surgery wiped out his 2018 and most of his 2019, after which the minors were canceled by the 2020 pandemic. He’s been back to health since then and has had decent results, but some of the prospect glory has faded.
In 2022, which included a deal with the Padres Eric Hosmer Deal, he pitched 144 innings between double-A and triple-A. The 3.44 ERA is nice, but his 22.8% strike rate is about average and his 10.4% walk rate was on the worrying side. He is yet to reach the majors and arguably has the best chance of bringing future value to the club with his six seasons and one year option left.
Brent Honeywell Jr.
Honeywell, 28 on March, is also a former top prospect. As a Rays draftee, he was in BA’s top 100 for five consecutive seasons from 2016 to 2020. Much like Morejón and Groome, injuries have prevented him from fulfilling his potential so far. Tommy John’s surgery in 2018 put him on the shelf and he’s weathered various setbacks since then. He was healthy enough to pitch 86 innings between Tampa Bay and Triple-A Durham in 2021, and the club then passed him on to Oakland. However, further injury setbacks resulted in just 20 1/3 innings in the minor league for the A’s last year.
Honeywell appears to be on the mend at the moment, having pitched 28 innings in the Dominican Winter League. His 0.96 ERA during that time seems to have been enough to impress the Padres when they added him to their 40-man roster last week. It would make a great bounceback story if he finally put it all together, but he’s hard to count on after barely throwing for the last five years. He’s still under a year of service, which will give the Padres plenty of lift if everything clicks, but Honeywell is also running out of options and needs to start producing in the big leagues immediately to keep his roster spot.
Tear Knehr/Pedro Avila/Ryan weather
These three are all on the 40-man list and deserve a mention, although they’ll likely only be called out in an emergency. All three have spent some time in the big leagues in recent seasons, getting fairly brief shows in swing roles. Weathers probably has the biggest advantage of the trio, being only 23 years old while the others go into their respective seasons at the age of 26. Weathers was considered one of the top 100 prospects for 2021, but he has a 5.49 ERA in the major leagues so far and last year posted a 6.73 ERA in 123 triple-A innings and was finished in the Knocked into the bullpen during the season.
Wilmer font
Font, May 33, is a real joker. He was a journeyman with the majors for many years but left for Korea in 2021 to play in the KBO. For the last two years he has pitched for SSG Landers at ace level. He made 25 starts in 2021 with a 3.46 ERA and then 28 starts last year with a 2.69 mark. This past season, he hit strikeouts at a rate of 23.3%, walked only 4.7% of batters, and got ground balls on 51.6% of balls in the game.
Success overseas doesn’t always mean success in the majors, but Font wouldn’t be the first pitcher to be underchallenged in North America but then come back with after a breakout elsewhere Miles Nicholas and Merrill Kelly some recent examples. Font is currently not on the 40-man and needs to earn his way back into the mix, but will be interesting to watch.
Julio Tehran/Aaron Brooks
These two veterans were also brought on board for minor league deals. Tehran spent 2022 in Indy-ball and the Mexican league, posting some decent numbers in 13 starts between different clubs. He then went to Winterball in the Dominican Republic, where he has a 3.49 ERA in eight starts. He had a solid run with the Braves early in his career but was lit in 2020 with a 10.05 ERA and then was injured for most of 2021.
Brooks was great in the KBO in 2020 and 2021, averaging a 2.79 ERA over 36 starts during that time. However, his attempted return to the majors did not go well. He made five relief appearances for the Cardinals with a 7.71 ERA and went straight to the minors. In 15 Triple-A appearances, 13 starts, his ERA was 5.56.
All in all, the Padres have many options here, but all have question marks. There’s a handful of faded prospects who still have injury worries in their rear-view mirrors, and another handful of veteran swingers who might still end up being better suited to the bullpen than the rotation. Musgrove-Darvish-Snell gives them a strong front three, meaning the Padres really only need a few of these guys to step up. On the other hand, they’re just one injury away from someone in that group suddenly being ranked 3rd.
The Padres could increase their staff at any time leading up to opening day, but recent reports suggest they don’t have much more room on the payroll to work with. If they want to go the trade route there are certainly options such as the Marlins having plenty of weapons at their disposal and the Brewers maybe in a similar boat.