The San Diego Padres are heading into the offseason with a lot of questions on the mound, and one early look at 2027 sees them taking a pretty hard step backward.
On Thursday, The Athletic’s Stephen J. Nesbitt, Chad Jennings and Tim Britton released their “2027 Way-Too-Early MLB Power Rankings,” and San Diego landed at No. 18 overall. That’s a steep drop from the No. 8 spot the Padres held at the end of the regular season, and it puts them 10th among the National League’s 15 teams.
The ranking comes after a 91-71 season that finished with the Padres in second place in the NL West. That record got them into the postseason for the third straight year, the first such run in franchise history, and pushed their current “golden age” to five playoff appearances in seven seasons since 2020.
Even so, The Athletic’s outlook was bleak enough to place San Diego behind all but one 2026 playoff team, the No. 24 Houston Astros. Houston made history by becoming the first team with a non-winning record, 81-81, to reach the postseason.
The division picture in the rankings only sharpened the contrast. The Los Angeles Dodgers checked in at No. 2 overall, behind World Series champion Milwaukee Brewers, while the Arizona Diamondbacks were slotted 12th and projected for the National League’s final wild-card spot. The San Francisco Giants at No. 26 and Colorado Rockies at No. 29 were again pegged near the bottom.
There’s plenty of time for these rankings to age badly, and publishing them less than 12 hours after the World Series ended is a risky exercise by definition. Still, The Athletic’s reasoning for sliding the Padres starts with the rotation.
Of the 11 pitchers who made at least five starts for San Diego in 2026, four are free agents: Michael King, who opted out of his deal on Thursday, Walker Buehler, Casey Mize and Robbie Ray. King is 32, Buehler is 32, Mize made 10 starts and Ray made nine.
There are also a handful of key decisions still hanging over Griffin Canning, German Marquez, Nick Pivetta, Wandy Peralta and Lucas Giolito, all of whom are in line for option or buyout calls. Canning made 11 starts, Marquez 10, Pivetta eight, and Peralta and Giolito five apiece.
That leaves Randy Vasquez, 23, and J.P. Sears, who made six starts and is arbitration-eligible, as the only pitchers on the roster right now with meaningful starting experience.
The Athletic called King’s opt-out “a huge hit to an already thin Padres' rotation set to [also] lose trade-deadline acquisitions Mize and Ray,” and added that president of baseball operations A.J. Preller will “also need to reinforce the team's typically dominant bullpen.”
In Other News...
Padres Suddenly Have A Jake Cronenworth Question They Can't Ignore
The Padres are already getting an early look at one of the quieter complications of the offseason market, with Jim Bowden projecting Brandon Lowe for a three-year, $45 million deal and naming San Diego among the best fits. On paper, Lowe makes sense for a club looking to add offense and flexibility, but any discussion of him in a Padres uniform quickly turns into a bigger infield conversation. His arrival would not just add another proven bat, it would also force the team to map out where Jake Cronenworth fits in a group that is already crowded with moving parts.
Cronenworth has long been valuable to San Diego because of his ability to handle different spots, but a Lowe addition would sharpen the question rather than soften it. The Padres would have to weigh lineup fit, defensive alignment and payroll, along with the possibility that a move this significant could ripple into trade discussions elsewhere on the roster. For a front office that has tried to balance competitiveness with financial flexibility, this is the kind of decision that can shape more than one position at once. [Read more 🡒]
Padres Suddenly Have A Rotation Problem They Can't Ignore
Michael Kings decision to decline his player option leaves the Padres facing a rotation opening they did not want to deal with this winter. After serving as a key starter for San Diego, King turned down the remaining two years and $58 million on his deal and will instead collect a $5 million buyout, putting him on the free-agent market and removing one of the most reliable arms from the staff.
For a team that has spent plenty of time trying to piece together stability on the mound, losing King is a real problem, not just a roster note. His exit creates a significant vacancy in the rotation and forces San Diego to confront a question it cant put off for long: where does that innings load now go, and how quickly can the Padres fill it? [Read more 🡒]
Padres Face A Costly Decision On Ty Frances Return
The Padres already spent the offseason watching a long list of familiar names head for free agency, and Ty France is among the most notable. A left-handed bat with a track record in San Diego, France is now projected to land a multi-year deal that would mark a clear step up from his previous earnings, which makes any reunion a more complicated conversation than a simple homecoming.
Still, there appears to be genuine interest on both sides in exploring it. France has said he would like to stay with the Padres, and the organization has shown it would consider bringing him back, but there has been no official agreement yet. For a club that has already lost Adrian Morejon and several others, the question is whether sentiment and fit are enough to justify the kind of commitment France now figures to command. [Read more 🡒]