{"id":477060,"date":"2026-02-13T09:48:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T09:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/477060\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T09:48:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T09:48:09","slug":"padres-notes-rotation-campusano-preller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/477060\/","title":{"rendered":"Padres Notes: Rotation, Campusano, Preller"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Padres have made no secret of their desire to add another starter and one more complementary bat before Opening Day. President of baseball operations A.J. Preller reiterated those goals from Spring Training (link via AJ Cassavell of MLB.com<\/a>).<\/p>\n

There are still a handful of free agent starters who could make an impact (e.g. Zac Gallen<\/a>,\u00a0Lucas Giolito<\/a>,\u00a0Zack Littell<\/a>,\u00a0Griffin Canning<\/a>). San Diego seems to be working with tight payroll restrictions, however. That could point to a reclamation candidate like\u00a0Walker Buehler<\/a> or\u00a0Germ\u00e1n M\u00e1rquez<\/a> if they address that via free agency.<\/p>\n

Dennis Lin of The Athletic<\/a> suggests the Padres could be more inclined to add a starter via trade. That\u2019s easier said than done at this stage of the calendar. All but a handful of teams are entering the season with some hope of contending. Pitching injuries will pile up as exhibition games get underway and there\u2019ll be fewer opportunities for those clubs to backfill the rotation if they trade a starter.<\/p>\n

Speculatively, there could be a match with the rebuilding Nationals for a cheap sixth starter like Mitchell Parker<\/a> or\u00a0Jake Irvin<\/a> \u2014 each of whom has been durable but pitched better in 2024 than they did a year ago.\u00a0Andre Pallante<\/a> falls into a similar category with the Cardinals. They\u2019re not especially exciting but have minor league options and a track record of taking a lot of innings.<\/p>\n

The Royals have gotten hits on some of their depth starters as they looked for outfield help. The Padres would be hard pressed to replace Ram\u00f3n Laureano<\/a> and obviously aren\u2019t trading Fernando Tatis Jr.<\/a> or Jackson Merrill<\/a>. Unless the Royals want to take a flier on Tirso Ornelas<\/a>, that\u2019s a difficult match. The Mets entertained moving David Peterson<\/a> and Kodai Senga<\/a> at times this winter, but their salaries could be an issue for the Padres.<\/p>\n

Teams are loath to trade affordable pitchers who have the upside to be more than fifth or sixth starters. The Padres have a lot of star talent but don\u2019t have an especially deep major league roster, which makes it difficult to trade for an average starter without dealing too big a hit to a different area. The exception could be in the bullpen, where any of Jeremiah Estrada<\/a>,\u00a0David Morgan<\/a> or\u00a0Bradgley Rodriguez<\/a> would be compelling trade chips if the Padres felt they could weather a subtraction.<\/p>\n

As it stands, San Diego will open the season with a top three of\u00a0Nick Pivetta<\/a>,\u00a0Michael King<\/a> and\u00a0Joe Musgrove<\/a>. Right-hander\u00a0Randy V\u00e1squez<\/a> had a decent 3.84 ERA last year despite posting one of the league\u2019s lowest strikeout rates (13.7%). V\u00e1squez had a more impressive September, striking out 21% of opponents against a 3.4% walk rate in his last five appearances. First-year skipper Craig Stammen pointed to the strong finish in noting that the 27-year-old righty had \u201cthe inside track\u201d to a season-opening rotation spot this week (separate MLB.com link via Cassavell<\/a>).<\/p>\n

If the Padres add another starter, that\u2019d position V\u00e1squez as the favorite to round out the group ahead of\u00a0JP Sears<\/a>,\u00a0Kyle Hart<\/a> and non-roster invitees Marco Gonzales<\/a> and\u00a0Triston McKenzie<\/a>. V\u00e1squez is out of options, so he\u2019ll be on the MLB roster in some capacity. Sears and Hart can freely be sent back to Triple-A for another year. Knuckleballer Matt Waldron<\/a> is out of options but coming off a 6.48 ERA over 21 starts in Triple-A. He\u2019ll have an uphill battle to holding a roster spot even with a strong performance this spring.<\/p>\n

Though the Padres are also looking to round out their bench with another bat, it appears they\u2019re unlikely to make a move at catcher. Preller said that while the front office explored the catching market over the offseason, they didn\u2019t find any opportunities they considered to be an upgrade over the in-house pairing of Freddy Fermin<\/a> and\u00a0Luis Campusano<\/a>. \u201cUltimately, I think we looked at the value of the players we have as behind the plate and catching, making that as good a group as we can have,\u201d Preller told reporters. \u201cGo find some other value throughout other position player additions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fermin doesn\u2019t have much offensive upside but is a highly-regarded defender. He\u2019ll be the primary catcher. Campusano has defensive questions but raked last year in Triple-A. The Padres didn\u2019t seem to trust him defensively, keeping him in the minors while running out\u00a0Elias D\u00edaz<\/a> and\u00a0Mart\u00edn Maldonado<\/a> until they acquired Fermin at the deadline. They opted not to trade Campusano this offseason, though, and they\u2019re evidently content to carry him as a bat-first backup now that he can no longer be optioned. They don\u2019t have any other catchers on the 40-man roster, nor has any minor league catcher in the organization played a single MLB game.<\/p>\n

Preller also addressed his own contract status on Thursday. He\u2019s entering the final year of his deal and hasn\u2019t come to terms on an extension. That\u2019ll continue to be a question until an agreement is reached, though the longtime executive downplayed any concern.<\/p>\n

\u201cEither way, I\u2019m under contract,\u201d he told Kevin Acee of The San Diego Union-Tribune<\/a> and other members of the beat. \u201cSo it\u2019s all about putting a team on the field that\u2019s going to win. We still (have) a lot of work to do in terms of continuing to round out the roster. That continues to be the focus.\u201d Acee writes that it\u2019s still generally expected that a deal will get done \u2014 perhaps as early as Monday\u2019s report date for the team\u2019s position players.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Padres have made no secret of their desire to add another starter and one more complementary bat…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":477061,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[132080,64,63,242836,591,242837,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-477060","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-a-j-preller","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-luis-campusano","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-randy-vasquez","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/477061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}