Padres’ frustrating Peralta miss sets up a desperate kind of creativity on the mound

The San Diego Padres' rotation remains a major pain point on the roster, even after re-signing Michael King. The team is putting a lot of eggs in Nick Pivetta's basket after his better-late-than-never breakout in 2025, on top of thrusting a lot of responsibility onto Joe Musgrove immediately upon his return from Tommy John surgery.

Unfortunately, A.J. Preller missed perhaps his best chance to improve that unit when Freddy Peralta — an ace with an $8 million salary — was sent to the New York Mets. The Padres couldn't beat the package of prospects the Brewers received, and instead must now turn to the bargain bin for further rotation upgrades.

By itself, that isn't the worst situation in the world. Pivetta himself was one of those late-offseason finds that had to settle for a team friendly contract, and we all know how that worked out.

According to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, however, the Friars may really be scraping the bottom of the barrel right now.

Justin Verlander would bring a lot of experience to the mound in San Diego at the very least

After noting that the Padres passed on Nolan Arenado because they wanted to divert their financial resources toward another starting pitcher, Rosenthal name-dropped an... interesting list of potential targets: "Nick Martinez, Lucas Giolito and Justin Verlander are among the free agents who could fall into San Diego’s preferred range at an $8 million to $12 million average annual value."

Giolito had a strong comeback season with the Red Sox last year, but his advanced metrics were ghastly. Nick Martinez, meanwhile, has been a valuable swingman for the Reds in recent campaigns, but it may be asking too much of him to shoulder the burden of a No. 4 starter at this point.

Verlander is the real interesting name among that crop, and not just because he pitched for the rival San Francisco Giants last year. The three-time Cy Young winner is the oldest active player in baseball at 42 years old (43 in February), and yet he's still going strong.

In his lone season with the Giants, Verlander authored a matching 3.85 ERA and FIP, producing 2.2 fWAR while covering more than 150 innings. He's known to want to join a contender with a clear opening in their rotation in what may be his final season — hence all the Baltimore Orioles rumors floating around — which fits the Padres like a glove.

He's a far cry from the thunderbolt-hurling champion who dominated the 2010s, but he's still a Hall of Famer who won a Cy Young award just three years ago with the Houston Astros. It'd be one heck of a bet on him to stay healthy and effective this deep into his forties, but the Padres are already an old team with championship aspirations. Why not sign the oldest, winningest (active) pitcher in the sport?