Padres To Keep Mason Miller In Bullpen

Padres manager Craig Stammen says that the club is planning to keep Mason Miller, Adrián Morejón and David Morgan in the bullpen, per Alden González of ESPN. “It’s a risky proposition health-wise and performance-wise,” Stammen said, of the proposing of stretching them out.

Turning relievers into starters has been all the rage around baseball in recent years. The appeal is often financial, as starters generally cost more in terms of dollars spent on free agents or prospects traded for controllable pitchers. Some of the more successful conversions have been in San Diego, as both Seth Lugo and Michael King fully established themselves as starters with the Padres.

Going into 2025, there was some sense for the Padres to consider trying again with the aforementioned names. Their rotation depth has been a problem for a few years now. They then traded Ryan Bergert and Stephen Kolek at the deadline to get catcher Freddy Fermin. They lost both King and Dylan Cease to free agency at season’s end. Yu Darvish is going to miss 2026 while recovering from UCL surgery.

That leaves them with Nick Pivetta and a bunch of question marks. Joe Musgrove should be back next year but he just missed the 2025 campaign due to his own elbow surgery. Guys like Randy Vásquez, JP Sears, Kyle Hart and Matt Waldron are in the mix but they all had middling results in 2025. Vásquez was the only one with an earned run average below 5.00 but his 13.7% strikeout rate doesn’t provide a lot of confidence in him repeating that kind of run prevention.

The San Diego bullpen, on the other hand, was one of the best in 2025. Padres relievers had a collective 3.06 ERA this year, the best mark in the majors. They have lost Robert Suarez to free agency but it’s still a talented group.

Moving a reliever or two into a starting role could have perhaps helped the Padres bolster their rotation without costing any money, a key element for a club which has clearly been operating under financial constraints in recent years. This would hurt the bullpen but would arguably be a worthwhile trade-off.

President of baseball operations commented on the possibility of this plan back in October and November, with Miller, Morejón and Morgan mentioned as possible candidates. Preller didn’t completely close the door on the possibility but raised the concern of ending up in a situation where neither the rotation nor the bullpen are strengths.

The possibility was most enticing with Miller. He was a starter as a prospect and began his major league career out of the rotation with the Athletics. But some injuries, including a UCL sprain in 2023, led the A’s to put him in the bullpen. He became one of the best closers in baseball, throwing triple-digit heat and striking out over 40% of batters faced. Had he moved into a starting role, he likely would have needed to take his foot off the gas a bit, but the idea of him dominating as a starter was an exciting one.

That path would also carry some risk. The Padres gave up a big package of prospects, headlined by Leo De Vries, in order to get Miller and Sears from the A’s. They were willing to pay that price in large part because Miller was cheaply controlled for four-plus seasons. A notable injury, such as a surgery with a recovery timeline of over year, would take a huge bite out of that control window. It seems the Friars have decided to not take the risk and will keep Miller in a role where he has seemed comfortable.

Morejón isn’t the household name that Miller is, but he was once a notable starting pitching prospect himself. Frequent injuries limited him early in his big league career, which pushed him to the bullpen. The past two seasons have been great, as he has stayed healthy enough to log at least 63 frames with an ERA under 3.00 in both campaigns. Morgan has been primarily a reliever throughout his professional career but just had a strong major league debut while featuring a five-pitch mix and minimal platoon split.

Despite the attraction of filling a rotation vacancy from within, it seems the Padres will keep all three of these guys in the bullpen. That means the club should have a really strong relief corps again in 2026 but their rotation remains a massive question as of today. Answering that question is going to be a challenge with their ongoing payroll problems. The financial picture is such a challenge that they are reportedly considering trade offers on Pivetta, which would only further thin the rotation.

Photo courtesy of Chadd Cady, Imagn Images