Padres possible Joe Musgrove replacement plan would be a massive mistake

In early October, right in the middle of a march through the postseason, the San Diego Padres lost Joe Musgrove to an injury that will keep him out of action for the entirety of the 2025 campaign.

Now that he's been removed from the starting rotation picture for next year, the group suddenly looks ... a lot less intimidating. Dylan Cease, Michael King and Yu Darvish will once again form a strong trio atop the starting-five, but there's not a clear answer to who will take the No. 4 and No. 5 spots to break camp next spring.

Randy Vasquez, Jhony Brito and Matt Waldron stand out as the top candidates for the remaining spots. However, an interesting piece published by The Athletics' Eno Sarris suggests one of the spots could go to Adrian Morejon?

The Padres have a radical rotation option that nobody is talking about

To be clear before we continue: Sarris is not saying that Morejon should take the spot Musgrove vacated, but rather that he could. The piece as a whole centers around Jeff Hoffman and his reported openness to a return to the starting rotation. This led Sarris to ponder which other relief pitchers could take a stab at starting next season.

In Morejon's case, it'd be making a return to a starting role. The 25-year-old came up through the Padres' system as a highly-touted prospect who was, alongside MacKenzie Gore, supposed to anchor their future rotation. Gore, of course, was sent to the Washington Nationals in the Juan Soto trade, but Morejon has remained with the Padres.

Morejon got a look as a starting pitcher in the big leagues in 2019, 2020 and 2021 before a mixture of underperformance and injuries led the Padres to trying him out as a reliever. Of Morejon's last 96 appearances, 95 have come as a reliever, and he seemed to really find his groove in that role during this past season.

In a career-high 60 appearances in 2024, Morejon posted a sparkling 2.83 ERA and an equally impressive 2.79 FIP. His 146 ERA+ also put him 46% above league-average on the mound. His strikeout numbers were elevated and he used his pitch repertoire to his advantage as an oft-used bullpen weapon.

While both of his fastballs saw batters hit over .300 off of them this past season, Morejon boasted some filthy breaking pitches that kept hitters off balance all year. His slider induced whiffs nearly 40% of the time while allowing just a .169 average off of it.

Then there's his brand new splitter, which induced a whiff rate of nearly 53% alongside a .105 average. He could very easily lean on these two pitches in short-spurt relief outings moving forward, so the Padres' best course of action would be to keep him where he's clearly comfortable.

With the Padres always functioning as a free-spending club, the most obvious solution here is to keep Morejon where he excelled this past year and address the hole(s) in the rotation on the open market. Max Fried, Corbin Burnes, Shane Bieber, Walker Buehler and Blake Snell represent a handful of the potential options.

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