Padres’ rotation plan is heading for an awkward workload dilemma

Spring training is where teams pretend their plans are neat and linear. The Padres’ pitching plan already isn’t — and Ruben Niebla basically laid out why.

For starters, the top of the rotation is treated like it’s spoken for: Nick Pivetta, Michael King, and Joe Musgrove are the trio everyone in camp is building around.  That’s the comforting part. The uncomfortable part is everything behind it — because the Padres have “so many arms, so few spots,” and a lot of them come with baggage.

Padres’ Ruben Niebla is juggling a tricky rotation workload plan with real roster fallout

Niebla ran through the back-end candidates — Triston McKenzie, Walker Buehler, Marco Gonzales, Germán Márquez, JP Sears, and Matt Waldron — and also noted Randy Vásquez is competing too, with what reads like an inside track for the No. 4 job. 

You could see the whole vibe in action on Feb. 28. Sears gave them three innings of one-run ball against Seattle, while Buehler worked a back-field “B” game vs. the NC Dinos, got dinged by some early batted-ball luck, then settled in — and even admitted the velocity was a tick better than expected. That’s the Padres’ 2026 pitching story in a nutshell: a lot of “there’s something here… we just need it to hold.”

And then comes the workload dilemma.

Niebla said the staff is currently lined up on a five-day routine, letting the competition play out before deciding anything bigger-picture. But the five-man vs. six-man question is sitting right on the table because King and Musgrove are returning from injuries — and April has enough off-days that starters can struggle to find rhythm. 

The real kicker is the trade-off Niebla said out loud: go six starters and “you’d take one bullpen arm less.” That’s brutal, because the bullpen is also being juggled around the World Baseball Classic — Mason Miller is dealing (one hit allowed in four scoreless spring innings), Wandy Peralta is heading out soon, and Adrián Morejón is being slow-played after 75 appearances last year. 

The Padres need enough trustworthy starters that they’re not forced into sacrificing bullpen depth just to keep the rotation upright.