Padres’ rotation plan gets interesting if Nick Pivetta is traded this winter

Rumor has it the San Diego Padres are shopping ace starter Nick Pivetta at the winter meetings. It’s a baffling idea to trade the best starter from a rotation that has already lost Dylan Cease and Michael King to free agency, and lost Yu Darvish for the season due to injury. 

With such thin rotation depth already, trading Pivetta seems baffling. If the Padres did have the depth, it might make more sense, because Pivetta’s stats scream “one-year-wonder.” However, even if Pivetta can’t replicate his 2025 season, it feels like the Padres will need him next year. 

A Nick Pivetta trade would force the Padres into a new rotation plan

What happens if the team does deal Pivetta? What could the backup plan be? Let’s take a look at what a projected San Diego rotation could look like without Pivetta. 

If Pivetta is out, the Opening Day nod likely goes to Joe Musgrove, who will be returning to the field after missing the entire 2025 season in recovery from Tommy John surgery. Musgrove will factor into the rotation in some way, and the club desperately needs the veteran to have a bounce-back campaign. 

Also on the roster is Randy Vasquez, who made 26 starts for the Padres as their No. 4 starter in 2025. He’d likely become the second-best starter on the roster if Pivetta is dealt. J.P. Sears is also in San Diego and could step back into a rotation role. He never missed a start for the Athletics in 2023 and 2024, starting 64 games over the two-year span, then starting 22 in 2025. He only made five starts for the Padres after being traded to San Diego, and performed poorly. But if Pivetta is gone, Sears almost certainly factors into the rotation. 

That still leaves two open spots, and it feels like a certainty that if Pivetta is dealt, the Padres will have to fill one of those open spots with a free-agent signing. Whether that’s a return for Michael King, a star like Framber Valdez or Ranger Suarez, or a back-end option like Tyler Anderson or Martin Perez, the Padres would need to add somebody. 

Even still, there is one more empty spot in the rotation, and that spot could go to Mason Miller, the prize acquisition of the 2025 trade deadline. The Padres liked him enough to trade their top prospect, and it would make sense for them to at least try him out in the rotation. 

A rotation of Musgrove, Vasquez, Sears, and Miller would be one of the most questionable in the league. It’s hard to know what the team will get out of Musgrove off of injury. Sears struggled last year and has never been an ace. Vasquez has never been an ace or a workhorse, and Miller hasn’t started a game in over two years. 

Obviously, a big-name free agent signing like King or Suarez would soften the blow, but it still feels like the Padres' rotation would suffer from a Nick Pivetta trade.