The Padres are heading into another winter with a familiar problem: the roster is good enough to matter, but not quite complete enough to feel safe.
They finished this past season 48-48 in the first half, then caught fire at the right time with a 43-23 surge after the break. That push earned them the National League’s top Wild Card spot. They handled the Cubs quickly, then ran into a wall against the Brewers.
Now the conversation turns to 2027, and the broad goal is simple: get back to October again. A lot of the position-player group is set to return, though there will be some turnover.
The bullpen could also take a hit in free agency, but it should still be in reasonable shape. The real pressure point, as it has been for a while, is the rotation.
That is where the Padres’ offseason gets tricky. Walker Buehler, Robbie Ray and Casey Mize are all on track for free agency.
Griffin Canning and Lucas Giolito are in the same bucket in practical terms, even though their deals include mutual options. Those options are widely treated as accounting devices rather than real extensions, a way to push money down the road.
Michael King also has an opt-out he is expected to use, while the club has to make a call on Nick Pivetta’s team option.
If those pieces fall away, the starting staff looks thin in a hurry. Joe Musgrove is part of the picture on paper, but even that comes with a giant asterisk after he missed both the 2025 and 2026 seasons while recovering from Tommy John surgery.
He threw three postseason innings this year, but expecting him to immediately handle a full starter’s workload next season would be a stretch, something president of baseball operations A.J. Preller recently acknowledged.
Behind him, the depth chart is shaky. Randy Vásquez posted a decent ERA this year, but his 14.8% strikeout rate was light enough that only Tomoyuki Sugano of the Rockies was lower among pitchers with at least 140 innings.
JP Sears spent most of 2026 in Triple-A and finished there with a 7.49 ERA. Jhony Brito also logged most of his year in the minors; his 2.97 ERA was solid, but it came with just a 16.2% strikeout rate.
However this gets sorted out, San Diego needs more arms.
The bigger question is how much money the Padres will actually have to spend. Payroll has remained substantial, but the shape of it has changed since the Peter Seidler years, when spending kept climbing and peaked in 2023. After Seidler’s passing, the club pulled back some, and that has had ripple effects across the roster.
Juan Soto was dealt to the Yankees, with cost-cutting and rotation help both part of the motivation. Other trades thinned out the farm system as well.
The Padres have still kept adding through free agency, but often with creative structures. The Nick Pivetta and King contracts both came with backloaded money and opt-outs, while the deals for Germán Márquez, Canning and Giolito included mutual option buyouts that pushed some payments later.
The financial picture is already loaded. San Diego’s guaranteed commitments run deep, with Manny Machado, Fernando Tatis Jr., Xander Bogaerts and Jackson Merrill anchored to massive long-term deals, along with Michael King, Jake Cronenworth, Joe Musgrove, Yuki Matsui, Sung-Mun Song and Wandy Peralta. The 2027 commitments sit at $180.1MM, and the total future commitments add up to $1.0271 billion.
There are also arbitration cases to watch. Gavin Sheets is projected at 5.076 service time and $6.5MM.
Luis Campusano is at 4.003 and $1.7MM. Mason Miller is at 3.166 and $8.1MM.
Freddy Fermin is at 3.165 and $2.6MM. Bryan Hoeing is at 3.133 and $800K.
JP Sears sits at 3.108 and $2.8MM. Jeremiah Estrada is at 3.069 and $1.3MM.
Jhony Brito is at 2.138 and $800K. Hoeing and Sears are listed as non-tender candidates.
For all the money already tied up, the Padres still have obvious holes to fill. And once again, the rotation is the place where the whole offseason is likely to be judged.
In Other News...
Padres Prospect Justin DeCriscio Is Forcing His Way Onto The Radar
Justin DeCriscio keeps adding to his case at a time when the Padres are always looking for young players who can push their way into the conversation. After going undrafted in 2024 before landing with San Diego as a 10th-round pick in the 2025 draft, he has used the Arizona Fall League to show why his name is starting to circulate a little more loudly. The blend is obvious enough: some offensive progress, enough speed to stand out, and the kind of defensive flexibility that lets a club imagine different ways to use him.
The latest jolt came with a three-run home run, the sort of swing that gets attention beyond a prospect report. DeCriscio has also been moving around the field, which only adds to the sense that he can help himself by staying adaptable, but the bigger question remains how his bat holds up against more advanced pitching. For a player who has already taken an unusual path just to get drafted, this fall is becoming an important test of how far that late momentum can carry him. [Read more 🡒]
Padres Suddenly Have A Shot At A Power Bat Worth Debating
Hanshins decision to post Teruaki Sato has put a potential power bat on the market just as the Padres continue weighing ways to deepen their lineup. San Diego is among the teams considering a run at the slugger, whose appeal is obvious enough: he offers the kind of offensive upside that can change the shape of a batting order, but landing him would come with real financial baggage in both a contract and a posting fee.
For the Padres, the question is not simply whether Sato can hit, but whether his power translates cleanly to MLB pitching and where he would fit defensively. Manny Machado is expected to stay at third base, which means San Diego would have to map out another role for Sato if it moves forward, making this as much a roster puzzle as a talent evaluation. [Read more 🡒]
Jackson Merrill Quietly Built A Padres Breakout Fans Should Notice
Jackson Merrills 2026 season ended with the kind of across-the-board production that usually turns heads around the league, even if it took a while to fully show up. During a year in which only six players reached the 25-homer, 25-steal mark, the Padres had two of them, with Merrill joining Fernando Tatis Jr. in that club after a strong finish helped reshape how his season looked on paper.
The first half was uneven enough that Merrills overall numbers still settled closer to league average than star level, but the second half told a different story. He hit .304/.339/.569 after the break, added 16 homers and eight steals, and closed the year with 26 home runs and 27 stolen bases, a reminder that his breakout came less with a bang than with a steady climb the Padres could not ignore. [Read more 🡒]