Padres sign a late spring training rotation arm with a track record that cuts both ways

The Padres didn’t add Germán Márquez because they suddenly found a missing ace. They added him because the way this winter has unfolded kept pointing to the same reality: San Diego needed more rotation insulation than it had, and it needed it at a price point that doesn’t leave much room for comfort.

Per Alden González of ESPN, the Padres and Márquez have agreed to a one-year deal. Ken Rosenthal reported there’s also a mutual option for 2027. The exact guarantee hasn’t been reported yet, but one detail matters immediately: the Padres’ 40-man roster is full, so a corresponding move is coming.

Padres sign Germán Márquez in a risky rebound swing that feels very Preller

This signing also fits cleanly into the plan A.J. Preller has been telegraphing. Just a few days ago, Preller acknowledged the Padres were looking for low-cost rotation pieces and a complementary bat. They found the bat in Nick Castellanos on a one-year deal after he was released by the Phillies. Now they’ve taken another swing at the pitching side, with Márquez joining Griffin Canning as the latest back-end depth add. Canning is rehabbing an Achilles and projects as a back-end starter once he’s fully ready. Márquez, similarly, lands as rotation depth with upside if the right version shows up.

That “right version” is why Márquez is intriguing. For five seasons, he was a Rockies starter who survived Coors Field. From 2017 through 2021, he was one of Colorado’s most reliable arms. Logging 793 2/3 innings over 135 starts during that span, posted a 4.25 ERA, struck out 24 percent of hitters, and walked only 6.9 percent.

But the other half of his track record is what keeps this from being a clean, confidence-building move. Márquez isn’t coming off a run of steady durability and predictable performance. He’s coming off a stretch where the results haven’t matched the earlier résumé, and the question isn’t whether he can be good, it’s whether he can be good enough to hold a spot for a team that expects to matter. 

This is late spring training roster construction — not in calendar terms, but in roster logic. It’s the type of move you make when you want to walk into camp with more doors than you started with. 

The broader takeaway is simple: the Padres are building the back of the roster like a series of controlled risks. Castellanos is a minimum-salary bat with volatility. Canning is health-dependent depth. Márquez is the same concept. None of it guarantees anything. All of it increases the number of ways the Padres can survive the inevitable moments when a staff gets stretched.