Padres quietly rode Nick Pivetta into the heart of the 2025 Cy Young race

Nine months ago, several Padres fans shrugged at AJ Preller's latest signing. He inked 32-year-old right-handed pitcher Nick Pivetta to an agreeable four-year, $55 million contract to slot somewhere in the middle of the Padres' rotation behind Yu Darvish, Michael, King, and Dylan Cease.

But then Darvish missed the first half of the season with an injury. Then King hit the injured list multiple times. Then Cease wasn't having his typical All-Star-level season. Things could have gotten bad for San Diego's rotation, but Pivetta held it down, and exceeded all expectations.

Nick Pivetta’s torch-carrying 2025 season earned him Top 6 Cy Young finish

Pivetta would go on to have one of the best single-season pitching performances from a Padre this century behind a 0.985 WHIP, 2.87 ERA, and 149 ERA+. He was dominant. So dominant, that it was obvious he would receive National League Cy Young votes for the first time in his nine-year MLB career.

On Wednesday night, Pivetta received seven fifth-place Cy Young votes and ultimately finished in sixth place behind Paul Skenes (Pirates), Cristopher Sánchez (Phillies), Yoshinobu Yamamoto (Dodgers), Logan Webb (Giants), and Freddy Peralta (Brewers).

Skenes was the clear-cut winner in his sensational sophomore campaign after leading the National League in ERA (1.97), ERA+ (217), and strikeout rate (29.5%), among other metrics. Pivetta was not the leader in any specific stat among these six pitchers, but he tied Sanchez for the fewest losses (5) and had the fourth-highest bWAR (5.3).

Of these pitchers, Pivetta's season was definitely the most surprising. The other five are household names when it comes to higher-end All-Star talent. But Padres fans learned this year that Nick Pivetta has the ability to lead a staff, and one that is hopeful of winning a World Series very soon. Will we see another Top 6 Cy Young finish from Pivetta ever again?

It's a tough question to answer, but if he only slightly regresses in 2026, fans should be happy with that output if the rest of the rotation can pick up the slack that needed a ton of help this year.