Latest On Padres’ Pitching Staff
The Padres have weathered their shaky early-season rotation to conclude April with a strong 19-11 record. Their starting pitching group should improve within the next couple weeks, which could lead to some decisions for the front office.
Griffin Canning seems assured of a rotation spot once he’s back from last summer’s ACL tear. Canning has taken five rehab starts with Triple-A El Paso. He got to five innings and 68 pitches on Tuesday. Pitchers can spend up to 30 days on a minor league rehab assignment. Canning began his rehab work on April 4. He could make one more Triple-A start but should be activated by the beginning of next week.
Lucas Giolito isn’t too far behind. The righty consented to an optional assignment to build up after signing a one-year deal on April 22. That came with the stipulation that he be recalled within 25 days. He’ll be on the MLB roster by the middle of May at the latest. Giolito made his second start with Low-A Lake Elsinore tonight, building to 70 pitches over 4 1/3 frames. He may not need the full 25-day window.
None of San Diego’s current five starters can be optioned. Michael King isn’t going anywhere, and Randy Vásquez has nailed down his spot with an excellent April. Walker Buehler, Germán Márquez, and Matt Waldron are the three pitchers trying to hold rotation spots.
Márquez will take the ball tomorrow to open a weekend series against the White Sox. King and Vásquez round out that set. The Friars have not yet listed probable starters for next week’s road series in San Francisco — which would be Buehler’s and Waldron’s turns if they stay on their current schedule.
Buehler has a 5.40 earned run average through six starts. He’s getting ground-balls but has a modest 7.8% swinging strike rate and has only once gone beyond five innings. Márquez will make his sixth start of the year on Friday. He has two scoreless outings but has allowed four runs in each of his three other appearances while struggling with the home run ball.
The knuckleballer Waldron was blown up by the Angels and Rockies in his first two starts of the season. He had a more competitive though unspectacular outing against the Cubs yesterday, giving up three runs over five innings. The out-of-options righty has only fanned eight of 69 opponents (11.6%) since returning from a brief injured list stint.
Jeff Sanders of The San Diego Union-Tribune floats the possibility of the Friars going to a six-man rotation or using openers/tandem starts on days when King doesn’t pitch. They were off today but play on 10 straight days beginning tomorrow. After an off day on May 11, they’ll play nine consecutive games.
Of course, the drawback with a six-man rotation or tandem starts would be the need to drop to a seven-man bullpen. San Diego optioned David Morgan this evening, per the MLB.com transaction tracker. They didn’t announce a corresponding move and seem likely to activate Yuki Matsui from his season-opening groin strain tomorrow. Jeremiah Estrada began a rehab stint this week as well.
The Padres can option Kyle Hart to clear one active roster spot. Their only other optionable reliever (aside from Mason Miller) is hard-throwing rookie Bradgley Rodriguez, who has a trio of holds and has allowed only three runs across 14 1/3 innings. He’d be tough to send down. They’ve held the out-of-options Ron Marinaccio all season. He has allowed 10 runs over 16 2/3 frames in a low-leverage role.
There’s still no defined timeline on Joe Musgrove or Nick Pivetta. The former has yet to resume throwing off a mound after a setback in his recovery from elbow surgery. Pivetta went down with a flexor strain a couple weeks ago and might be months off.
MLBTR Podcast: The Alex Cora Situation, Lucas Giolito Signs, And The Phillies Fire Rob Thomson
The latest episode of the MLB Trade Rumors Podcast is now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts! Make sure you subscribe as well! You can also use the player at this link to listen, if you don’t use Spotify or Apple for podcasts.
This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Steve Adams of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss…
- The Red Sox firing manager Alex Cora and several coaches (0:30)
- The Padres signing Lucas Giolito (27:30)
- The Phillies firing manager Rob Thomson and releasing Taijuan Walker (39:00)
- The Guardians promoting prospect Travis Bazzana (59:45)
Check out our past episodes!
- Kevin McGonigle, The Padres’ Franchise Valuation, And Edwin Díaz To Miss Time – listen here
- Lenyn Sosa Traded, And Injury Concerns For The Astros, Cubs And Orioles – listen here
- Previewing The 2026-27 Free-Agent Class – listen here
The podcast intro and outro song “So Long” is provided courtesy of the band Showoff. Check out their Facebook page here!
Photo courtesy of Troy Taormina, Imagn Images
Padres Sign Lucas Giolito
Lucas Giolito‘s protracted 2025-2026 free agency stint has finally ended. The Padres announced that they have signed him to a one-year deal with a mutual option. He’ll receive a $3MM guarantee, with half of that total via buyout on a 2027 mutual option worth $8MM. Giolito can increase the buyout by $3MM based on starts in 2026. There is an additional $2MM in unlockable bonuses tied to awards voting. To make room on the 40-man, the Padres announced that righty Bryan Hoeing has been transferred to the 60-day IL as he recovers from flexor surgery. Giolito will start with Single-A Lake Elsinore and must be on the major league roster within the next 25 days. Giolito is represented by CAA Sports.
For Giolito, his second foray into free agency was not nearly as successful as his first. His 2019 to 2021 run with the White Sox had him positioned as a top-of-the-rotation arm. Among 46 starters who threw at least 350 innings in that time frame, Giolito was sixth with a 30.7% strikeout rate on the back of a fantastic fastball-changeup pairing. His propensity for fly balls (41.7 FB%) and homers (13.7 HR/FB%) possibly prevented “ace” designation, yet Giolito was easily one of baseball’s best pitchers in this time frame.
However, more middling results followed in 2022 and 2023, with the homers especially ticking up in 2023. His 41 big flies were second only to Lance Lynn. Despite a poor platform year by his standards, Giolito and his representatives were able to parlay the showing into a $38.5MM guarantee with the Red Sox over the ’24-’25 seasons, with some additional incentives and player option structure.
Unfortunately, a torn UCL brought his 2024 season to an abrupt halt. An internal brace procedure (which carries a shorter rehab timeline than a traditional Tommy John ligament graft) had him back on the mound at the end of the following April, where he threw 145 innings. ERA evaluators/predictors like xFIP (4.59) and SIERA (4.65) were more bearish on his work than his actual results (3.41). Notably, Giolito’s strikeouts were down from his heyday with the White Sox. He profiled more as a back-of-the-rotation starter than the tremendous upside he flashed from 2019-2021 with Chicago.
Despite a solid return to the rotation, Giolito suffered from flexor irritation and a bone issue at the conclusion of the 2025 season. Although he was set to return to the club after resting, the Red Sox’s early postseason exit meant Giolito had no chance to pitch again before free agency. Under the hood, Giolito looked like a muted version of his best days, but he was a perfectly adequate starter in 2025.
His fastball velocity checked in about a one mile per hour (93.3) lower than his best seasons with the White Sox (94.2), but this was a continuation of a trend started in 2022. Among 82 pitchers who tossed at least 140 innings last season, Giolito was 69th in K-BB%, indicating both below-average ability to miss bats and control the zone. However, he was able to limit homers more effectively than ever before: his 9.3 HR/FB% was below league average, and the first time he recorded a single-percentage mark in a season of 25 or more starts.
Giolito declined his end of a $19MM mutual option (essentially a formality) with the Red Sox for 2026, and it perhaps came as no surprise that the Red Sox passed on extending Giolito a qualifying offer after the 2025 season due to some lingering injury trepidation. He is the last of the MLBTR 2025-2026 Top 50 MLB Free Agents to sign, and comes in far below expectations in years and total guarantee. Even without draft pick compensation attached, Giolito sat on the free agent market well into April, despite some notable playoff aspirants like the Braves, Cubs, and Padres losing multiple starters during Spring Training and the early season.
Speaking of the Padres, the news couldn’t come at a better time. Injuries and slowed recoveries have decimated the top of the rotation over the past few months. Yu Darvish had his second UCL surgery after the playoffs concluded in early November. Darvish is currently rehabbing on the restricted list away from the team and has reportedly considered retirement. Joe Musgrove, recovering from his own Tommy John surgery back in October 2024 and expected to open the season in the rotation, has had his rehab interrupted and was placed on the IL to open the season. 2025 workhorse Nick Pivetta hit the IL after four starts with a flexor strain. Surgery is not currently on the table, but given the recurrence of the strain (Pivetta also hit the IL for a short period in 2024 with the same issue), the Padres will give Pivetta ample time to rest his ailing arm in the hopes of having him available for a postseason run.
These injuries have thinned the depth of the rotation considerably in San Diego. Juan Soto trade returns Michael King and Randy Vasquez are providing quality innings, but the back of the rotation has shown mixed results to this point. Walker Buehler, though a far cry from his Dodgers’ peak, is looking like he still might have something left in the tank. Former Rockies All-Star German Marquez has a 3.86 ERA but less exciting numbers under the hood. Knuckleballer Matt Waldron was hit hard in his 2026 debut.
All three back-end starters have struggled to give the Padres consistent innings at the back of the rotation. Seven of the Padres’ first 23 games have had a starter fail to record an out in the fifth inning. Though Griffin Canning is on the horizon while working through a Triple-A El Paso rehab, the Padres decided that it was worth fortifying the rotation depth for the summer ahead.
Giolito’s contract stipulation for a Major League recall within the next 25 days would put him in line for a mid-May debut. This should give him four turns through the rotation to build up his arm after missing all of Spring Training. Should the rotation remain healthy after Canning joins, the Padres will have some decisions to make. As MLB veterans with ample service time, Buehler and Marquez can’t be optioned without their consent. Someone may end up in the bullpen or pushed off the roster entirely, depending on future health.
For now, San Diego will be happy to kick the roster-crunch can down the road. It’s an affordable, low-risk signing of an MLB-quality arm that could help the team weather the injury storm. The deal is much in the vein of recent similar signings by PBO/GM A.J. Preller. Operating under some payroll constraints after the death of former owner Peter Seidler and the imminent sale of the club, Preller has prioritized creative, low-dollar guarantees to Pivetta, Marquez, Buehler, and now Giolito to minimize the CBT hit (the Padres are currently in the first luxury payor tier). For his part, Giolito gets the opportunity to pitch for a potential contender with a recent record of rehabilitating starting pitchers’ value as he looks to surpass his 2025 platform year for a better offer next offseason.
Jon Heyman of the New York Post was the first to report the $3MM guarantee and the $2MM in awards bonuses. Ari Alexander of 7News Boston WHDH had the $1.5MM salary and buyout on the $8MM mutual option plus the $3MM in escalators. Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune had the details on the initial minor league assignment and recall stipulation.
Cubs, Padres Interested In Lucas Giolito
Right-hander Lucas Giolito remains a free agent a few weeks into the 2026 season. A report from Patrick Mooney, Ken Rosenthal, Dennis Lin and Sahadev Sharma of The Athletic today says the Cubs and Padres are showing interest in the the righty.
Giolito, 31, has been the most notable unsigned free agent for a while now. Max Scherzer and Zack Littell signed in mid-March, leaving Giolito as the last standing member of the MLBTR’s list of the Top 50 Free Agents from the beginning of the offseason.
He recently spoke about his experience with Rob Bradford of the Baseball Isn’t Boring podcast. He said he had some talks with a few teams but ultimately didn’t make much progress, seemingly due to disagreements about his salary. “I just want to play for close to what my value is,” Giolito told Bradford. “Everything is based on these models now. Everyone uses projection and models. My agency (CAA) does the same thing. When you look at models and projections (for value), it’s like ‘alright cool, give me something that’s relatively close to that.’ Let’s go and get it. I’m ready to go.”
Giolito is coming off a good season in terms of surface-level numbers. He tossed 145 innings for the Red Sox with a 3.41 earned run average. If teams have skepticism about that, it could be because his .273 batting average on balls in play and 76.7% strand rate were both to the lucky side. His 19.7% strikeout rate and 9.1% walk rate were actually subpar. ERA estimators like his 4.17 FIP and 4.65 SIERA felt his ERA was lucky by about a full run.
That continued a bit of a downward trend for him. He was a borderline ace from 2019 to 2021 but saw diminished results after that. His ERA was just under 5.00 in 2022 and 2023. He then missed 2024 while recovering from surgery on the ulnar collateral ligament in his throwing elbow. It’s not known what type of salary Giolito would consider fair but it seems he hasn’t received an offer he would consider to be appropriate. He signed a two-year, $38.5MM deal with the Red Sox ahead of 2024, prior to that surgery.
In his recent comments, the righty added that he has been throwing about 75 pitches on his own in order to stay close to game ready. That’s a similar situation to Patrick Corbin. The Jays signed Corbin in response to some injuries. Corbin had been getting himself stretched out and only needed one minor league start before joining the big league club, even though he missed spring training.
For the Cubs and Padres, it’s understandable that they would look to what’s available, given their recent injuries. The Chicago rotation suffered one big blow recently, as Cade Horton‘s season has been ended by UCL surgery. They also placed Matthew Boyd on the injured list with a much more minor issue, a strained biceps. They are still waiting for Justin Steele, who is recovering from last year’s UCL surgery.
They currently have a rotation group consisting of Edward Cabrera, Shota Imanaga, Jameson Taillon, Javier Assad and Colin Rea. Assad has options and started the season in the minors while Rea started in the bullpen. Both got moved up the depth chart when Horton and Boyd got hurt. If Giolito were added into the mix, Assad could again be optioned and/or Rea could get nudged back to a relief role. Boyd getting healthy fairly quickly could also impact the decision making.
On the financial side of things, both RosterResource and Cot’s Baseball Contracts have the Cubs narrowly above the competitive balance tax. The report from The Athletic says the Cubs are planning to pay the tax this year, so they shouldn’t have to worry about nudging their number up a bit.
For the Padres, their rotation depth has been an ongoing issue for years and 2026 is no exception. Over the weekend, Nick Pivetta exited a start due to elbow tightness. Joe Musgrove is still not back from his 2024 Tommy John surgery. Griffin Canning is still working his way back from last year’s Achilles injury. Matt Waldron required a minor procedure during spring training and began the season on the injured list.
Unless Pivetta’s issue proves to be minor, the Friars have a rotation mix of Michael King, Randy Vásquez, Walker Buehler and Germán Márquez. Both Waldron and Canning have begun rehab assignments and could be activated soon but that won’t necessarily solve everything since Buehler and Márquez have each posted lackluster results so far. JP Sears is on the 40-man roster but it would be nice to keep him in Triple-A as depth. Marco Gonzales and Triston McKenzie are in the system on minor league deals but Gonzales has a 7.90 ERA through three Triple-A starts while McKenzie has a 13.50 ERA at that level so far this year.
Adding Giolito could make sense from a baseball perspective but the report from The Athletic notes that the ongoing sale process might be a snag. The Seidler family is actively trying to sell the franchise. Even if they get an agreement fairly soon, it would still have to be approved by the league. The current owners may be hesitant to add more money to the books while that process is ongoing.
It’s also possible that other clubs could jump into the mix. The Astros have lost three rotation members to the IL in recent days and could feel compelled to add another arm. The Orioles just lost Zach Eflin to UCL surgery. The Reds have Hunter Greene and Nick Lodolo on the IL at the moment. Other injuries are sure to pop up as well.
Photo courtesy of David Butler II, Imagn Images
Lucas Giolito Throwing Roughly 75 Pitches In Side Sessions
Lucas Giolito is the most notable unsigned player in MLB. The veteran right-hander went unsigned throughout the offseason. There hasn’t been much in the way of public rumors, as reported ties to the Braves and Padres were rather quickly downplayed.
Giolito finished last season with the Red Sox on the injured list due to flexor irritation. That has led some fans to speculate about health as a potential explanation for his remaining unsigned. The free agent starter has maintained he’s fully healthy going back to November, however. He reiterated as much in an appearance on The Baseball Isn’t Boring podcast with WEEI’s Rob Bradford this week, saying he simply hasn’t found what he considers a worthwhile contract offer.
“I just want to play for close to what my value is,” Giolito told Bradford. “Everything is based on these models now. Everyone uses projection and models. My agency (CAA) does the same thing. When you look at models and projections (for value), it’s like ‘alright cool, give me something that’s relatively close to that.’ Let’s go and get it. I’m ready to go.”
The righty said he never felt particularly close to signing over the winter. “The last few months have been very strange. Talks seem like they’re heating up, then it’s like ‘ok never mind,'” he added. The full conversation is worth a listen, as Giolito discusses his free agent process and current training regimen.
He’s working at Cressey Sports Performance in Florida, as he has throughout the winter. He’s throwing around 75 pitches in each of his bullpen sessions. He implied he’s essentially in game shape and wouldn’t need much more of a buildup once he signs. “When I get the opportunity, do you want me to throw a game in Triple-A to get ready or put me right in (the majors) for five innings,” he asked rhetorically. “I’ll do whatever. I’m happy to do whatever once I get the opportunity to help a team.”
That has some parallels to the Blue Jays’ recent signing of Patrick Corbin. The southpaw was reportedly working around 80 pitches in his individual side sessions before Toronto picked him up last Friday. Corbin consented to an optional assignment and made one tuneup start in Low-A. The Jays recalled him today for his team debut. He started and went four innings and 85 pitches in his first MLB appearance.
Giolito could seemingly follow a similar path. It appears to be a financial hangup. Corbin signed a $1MM guarantee, barely north of the league minimum. If Giolito were willing to do that, he’d have been signed months ago. He’s surely not interested in signing for that little after posting a 3.41 ERA across 145 innings for Boston last season.
The former All-Star said he believes that early-season injuries and struggles around the league could increase interest, though he predictably declined to go into detail about which teams might be involved. The Astros, A’s, Angels, Padres and Tigers are among the teams that have had wobbly performances and/or health concerns in the early going.
Speculatively, Houston probably makes the most sense on paper. They’ve started 6-7 despite scoring the most runs in MLB. They’re down their top two starters, Hunter Brown and Cristian Javier, for multiple weeks due to shoulder strains. Tatsuya Imai hasn’t thrown strikes in his first three MLB starts. They’re moving to a six-man rotation despite having Mike Burrows and Lance McCullers Jr. as their two most reliable healthy starters. The Astros are around $12MM below the competitive balance tax threshold.
Padres Place Yu Darvish On Restricted List
The Padres finally announced their Opening Day roster on Wednesday evening. It more or less finalized a number of already known moves, though the biggest development is that starter Yu Darvish has been placed on the restricted list. Alden González of ESPN first reported that was the plan.
Darvish underwent elbow surgery last November. He won’t pitch at all in 2026. The expectation had been that he’d spend the season on the 60-day injured list. The Padres instead place him on the restricted list, which is for players who are under contract but are unavailable to play for various reasons. The restricted list is best known for its use when a player is suspended, though it’s more commonly briefly used when a player is away from the team for personal matters.
Players on the restricted list do not count against their clubs’ 40-man rosters, though that’s also true for those on the 60-day injured list. The more notable distinction is that teams are not required to pay players while they’re on the restricted list. It isn’t publicly known whether the team will continue paying Darvish any or all of his $15MM salary.
Of course, a team cannot place a player on the restricted list and avoid paying his contract merely because he suffered an injury. There’s surely more to this situation going on behind the scenes. There have been reports dating back to the end of last season about the sides negotiating some way to void the remaining three years on his deal. Darvish provided a statement in January, saying that he has not decided on retirement but confirming that the team, his camp, and the MLB Players Association have had conversations about terminating his contract. There hadn’t been any further updates on his situation until today.
His deal runs through 2028 and contains $43MM in remaining guarantees for his age 39-41 campaigns. The Padres would no doubt love to negotiate some kind of buyout or deferral plan that frees up short-term payroll space and lowers their luxury tax number. González points out that the still unsigned Lucas Giolito would be a sensible target for a team with questions in the back half of the rotation.
In 2024, Darvish agreed to a restricted list placement to attend to a family matter. He had previously been on the injured list at the time. The Padres offered to allow him to remain on the IL but Darvish opted to spend more than a month on the restricted list instead, voluntarily bypassing nearly $4MM in salary (link via Dennis Lin of The Athletic). The pitcher’s agent, Joel Wolfe, praised the team’s handling of the situation while noting that Darvish “just didn’t feel it was right to collect the money if he wasn’t fully committed to the rehab and coming back.”
There’ll presumably be an update from the team and/or Darvish’s representatives before long. The most immediate effect is that he’s off the 40-man roster. That’s a formality but was needed to officially select the contracts of Walker Buehler and Ty France, both of whom made the team last week.
San Diego placed seven more players on the injured list. Infielders Sung-Mun Song and Will Wagner went on the 10-day injured list, as both players are dealing with right oblique strains. Pitchers Jason Adam (recovery from left quad surgery), Griffin Canning (recovery from left Achilles surgery), Bryan Hoeing (flexor surgery), Joe Musgrove (elbow inflammation), Matt Waldron (which the team announced only as “surgery” after being a little more specific in February), and Yuki Matsui (left groin strain) all land on the 15-day injured list.
Adam was the only one of those players who held out hope of making the Opening Day roster. Kevin Acee of The San Diego Union-Tribune reported on Monday that he’d open on the injured list. It’s mostly to buy time for Adam to continue building up, as he made just two appearances at the end of Spring Training. He should be back sometime in April. In the meantime, this allows the Padres to carry both hard-throwing rookie Bradgley Rodríguez and the out-of-options Ron Marinaccio on the Opening Day roster.
Which Clubs Could Provide A Landing Spot For The Top Remaining Starters?
Every offseason, at least a handful of free agents linger on the market well into spring training. At times, that's been true even of the top names on the market. Bryce Harper and Manny Machado both signed their free agent contracts in February. Blake Snell, Matt Chapman and Jordan Montgomery all signed contracts in March during the 2023-24 offseason.
Things are a bit different this winter. The very top names among this year's crop of free agents have all come off the board. Framber Valdez and, to a lesser extent, Zac Gallen were the remaining big-ticket items on the market before signing in Detroit and Arizona, respectively.
Though there's no marquee superstar left unsigned, there are still some good starters on the board. Lucas Giolito, Zack Littell and Max Scherzer top the remaining group. In Scherzer's case, it's not entirely clear whether he'll sign prior to Opening Day. Scherzer is healthy and ready to sign at any time, but he told The Athletic's Ken Rosenthal late last month that he's being selective with his next home and would be content to wait to sign midseason if an opportunity on one of his preferred teams does not present itself. It stands to reason that Scherzer prefers a clear win-now club with realistic postseason aspirations. Any preferences beyond that -- be they geographic, monetary or otherwise -- are personal preferences that he has not divulged.
Giolito and Littell, however, are ready-made mid-rotation starters who, unlike their quadragenarian free agent counterpart, seemingly aren't lingering as a means of personal preference. Each has his flaws, certainly, but there's little doubt that either is a big league-caliber starter and that there are teams around the game who'd benefit from adding them to the rotation.
Let's take a look at each pitcher and which teams might have the remaining budget space and/or rotation need to make a play.
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Latest On Braves’ Rotation
The Braves’ rotation has been a talking point in the early days of spring training, with a few injuries already popping up, leading to speculation about the club looking for an external addition. Atlanta has been connected to pitchers like Lucas Giolito and Chris Bassitt this offseason but Gabriel Burns of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that the club’s interest in those two pitchers was overstated. Burns says they did not seriously pursue Bassitt before he signed with the Orioles and have not been involved with Giolito, who remains a free agent.
It’s a curious spot for the club to be in. Injuries to the starting rotation played a huge role in tanking the 2025 season. They went into the campaign as contenders but ended up at 76-86. Just about every starter got hurt, so that the only guy to surpass 126 innings was Bryce Elder, who posted a 5.30 earned run average.
Going into the winter, general manager Alex Anthopoulos said that bolstering the rotation would be a “point of emphasis” but he hasn’t made any significant changes there. He clearly had some money to spend but has invested it elsewhere, having signed outfielder Mike Yastrzemski, infielder Ha-Seong Kim, as well as relievers Robert Suarez and Raisel Iglesias to eight-figure deals.
That left the rotation looking vulnerable coming into camp and the picture has only gotten worse since then. Spencer Schwellenbach was placed on the 60-day injured list last week due to elbow inflammation. Hurston Waldrep is now getting checked out due to his own elbow soreness.
The rotation still has some upside, in theory, but with question marks everywhere. Chris Sale is the ace but he’s about to turn 37 years old and has been very injury prone in recent years. Spencer Strider missed most of 2024 due to elbow surgery and had lackluster results when he was back on the mound last year. Reynaldo López only made one start last year due to shoulder surgery. Grant Holmes was diagnosed with a partial tear of his ulnar collateral ligament last year and is currently trying to return while avoiding surgery.
That group could be a strong front four if everyone is healthy and pitching well but that’s a massive if. The depth beyond that group is also questionable. Martín Pérez and Carlos Carrasco are in the organization on minor league deals but neither inspires a ton of confidence. Didier Fuentes is a notable prospect but he’s only 20 years old and got shelled when called up in emergency fashion last year. Jhancarlos Lara and José Suarez are on the roster but seem to be depth/swing types. JR Ritchie is another of the club’s top prospects but he has only 11 Triple-A starts under his belt.
There’s an argument for adding a reliable veteran to strengthen the back of the rotation, even if it doesn’t raise the ceiling much, but Anthopoulos recently said the club is looking for a playoff-caliber starter. Up until fairly recently, the starting pitching market still had a lot of attractive names on it but Atlanta has not pounced on that opportunity. Guys like Bassitt, Zac Gallen, Nick Martinez, Justin Verlander, Jose Quintana, Chris Paddack, José Urquidy, Tomoyuki Sugano, Aaron Civale, Miles Mikolas, Erick Fedde, Griffin Canning and Germán Márquez have agreed to modest one-year deals in the past week or so.
Perhaps the club will still pivot to add some reliable innings. If they don’t like Giolito, the market still features Zack Littell, Max Scherzer, Patrick Corbin, Tyler Anderson, Marcus Stroman and others.
It’s also possible the club is out of dry powder. RosterResource projects them for a $264MM payroll and $260MM competitive balance tax number. That payroll is about $50MM above where they finished last year and the CBT number puts them within $4MM of the second tier of the tax, which they may not want to cross.
If it’s the case that there’s no spending capacity left, it looks like a strange offseason for the club. They invested in several areas of the roster but didn’t target the area that was supposed to be a primary focus. Perhaps Anthopoulos can line up a trade of a young pitcher who is cheap and controllable, but the price on such pitchers will be high. Maybe they’ll get lucky and their guys will stay healthier than last year but the injury bug is already biting before spring games have even begun.
Photo courtesy of James A. Pittman, Imagn Images
Orioles Interested In Lucas Giolito
The Orioles are known to be looking for more starting pitching. They’ve been connected to Framber Valdez, Justin Verlander and Zac Gallen in recent weeks. Jon Heyman of The New York Post reports that Lucas Giolito is also someone they are seriously considering. Giolito has also received reported interest from Detroit and Atlanta in the past month.
The O’s have made a few moves to address their rotation already this offseason. They acquired Shane Baz from the Rays and re-signed veteran Zach Eflin. They also subtracted Grayson Rodriguez, trading him to the Angels for Taylor Ward.
As of now, they should have Trevor Rogers, Kyle Bradish, Baz and Eflin in four spots. The fifth spot would most likely go to Dean Kremer, who has pretty consistently posted an earned run average in the low 4.00s for a few years now.
All teams need more than five starters to get through a season in the modern game, so depth is important. Tyler Wells missed most of the past two seasons due to ulnar collateral ligament surgery but was a viable back-end starter before that. Chayce McDermott, Cade Povich and Brandon Young have roster spots but haven’t clicked in the majors yet. They all have options and can be kept in Triple-A as optionable depth. Albert Suárez is in the mix on a minor league deal for some veteran non-roster depth. Trey Gibson doesn’t have a roster spot yet but he is one of the top pitching prospects in the league and has already reached the Triple-A level, so he should be pushing for a debut in 2026.
It’s a decent group on the whole. Arguably, they need upside more than they need additional depth. They don’t really have anyone you would call an ace. Rogers ended up having a great 2025, finishing with a 1.81 ERA. However, he started the season on the injured list, recovering from a right knee subluxation. Even once he was healthy, he was kept in the minors for a while. He didn’t get recalled for good until June. Bradish missed most of the past two seasons while recovering from Tommy John surgery. Baz has intriguing upside but just posted a 4.87 ERA last year.
Last winter, Baltimore went with older veterans with theoretically stable floors but less upside, signing Charlie Morton, Tomoyuki Sugano and Kyle Gibson. Those moves mostly did not work out well and the rotation was a major flaw in 2025.
Whether Giolito can provide upside over the guys currently on the roster is debatable. He did once seem like a borderline ace but it’s been a few years since he showed that form. He made 72 starts for the White Sox over the 2019 to 2021 seasons with a 3.47 ERA, 30.7% strikeout rate and 8% walk rate, getting at least one Cy Young vote in each of those campaigns. But his numbers dipped over the next two years, as his ERAs were closer to 5.00 with strikeout rates in the 25% range. He then missed 2024 due to UCL surgery.
In 2025, he bounced back, to a degree. He made 26 starts for the Red Sox with a 3.41 ERA. He was even better after a cold start, with a 2.51 ERA over his final 19 appearances. But he only struck out 19.7% of batters faced on the year. Even in that strong push over his final 19 starts, he only punched out 20.3% of batters faced. He wasn’t able to pitch in the playoffs due to flexor irritation and a bone issue in his throwing arm. He has said that the issue subsided shortly after the season ended.
Given Baltimore’s current rotation picture, they could surely use the 2019-2021 version of Giolito. His more recent output wouldn’t be as exciting as someone like Valdez but he would surely be cheaper. At the beginning of the offseason, MLBTR predicted Valdez to get $150MM over five years and Giolito $32MM over two years. With February just over the horizon, it becomes more likely that Valdez pivots to some kind of short-term deal with opt-outs, but he should still be more expensive that Giolito on an annual basis.
They should have a bit of powder dry. RosterResource projects the Orioles for a $148MM payroll next year. They started 2025 at $165MM, according to Cot’s Baseball Contracts. If they want to run a similar number this year, they should have $15-20MM to spend. If they could line up a Ryan Mountcastle trade, since he’s more or less blocked by Pete Alonso, that would free up almost $7MM more.
Photo courtesy of James A. Pittman, Imagn Images
Braves Interested In Lucas Giolito, Chris Bassitt
The Braves have made offseason additions in the bullpen, the infield and the outfield thus far, bringing in veterans Raisel Iglesias, Robert Suarez, Ha-Seong Kim, Mauricio Dubon, Jorge Mateo and Mike Yastrzemski via free agency or trade. (Kim suffered a hand injury after signing and will miss several months of the season.) The rotation, however, remains untouched as January nears its conclusion.
Jon Heyman of the New York Post reports on MLB Network (video link) that Atlanta is in the market for some form of rotation upgrade, however, specifically listing right-handers Lucas Giolito and Chris Bassitt as free agents of interest. Neither pitcher received a qualifying offer, so neither would require any draft forfeitures. The Braves are over the luxury tax threshold, per RosterResource’s estimates, but they weren’t tax payors in 2025 so the penalty for signing either veteran would be minimal.
Giolito, 31, started 26 games for the Red Sox in 2025 after missing the 2024 season due to a UCL procedure. He pitched well enough to convert his 2026 club option into a mutual option, which he declined in order to return to the open market. Giolito started the season in rocky fashion (6.42 ERA through seven starts) before rebounding to the tune of a 2.51 ERA in his final 19 starts and 111 1/3 innings. His 20.3% strikeout rate and 9.7% walk rate over that dominant run of 19 starts don’t support such a strong earned run average, and metrics like SIERA (4.67) and FIP (3.97) were much more bearish. Still, Giolito performed like a capable midrotation arm at the very least.
Were it not for a late elbow injury, Giolito’s market might have been more aggressive. (Although, had he been fully healthy, Boston may also have given more consideration to extending a qualifying offer.) Giolito’s surgically repaired ulnar collateral ligament received a clean bill of health at the time, but September testing on the right-hander revealed some irritation in his flexor tendon and a bone issue in his elbow that required some downtime. He missed the Red Sox’ postseason run as a result, but by November he was viewed as “fully healthy” and ready for a normal offseason.
A former first-round pick and top prospect, Giolito has had a roller-coaster tenure in the big leagues. He struggled greatly in his first 45 MLB appearances from 2016-18 (5.48 ERA) before settling in as a durable No. 2 starter with huge strikeout numbers for the White Sox. From 2019-21, he pitched 427 2/3 innings with a 3.47 ERA, 30.7% strikeout rate and 8% walk rate. Giolito stayed healthy and kept missing bats from 2022-23, but home run troubles inflated his ERA to 4.88 over 63 starts between those two seasons. He signed a two-year deal with the Red Sox covering the 2024-25 seasons and affording him the opportunity to opt out after ’24. A spring UCL injury that year wiped out his 2024 campaign and naturally led him to pick up his ’25 player option rather than test the market last winter.
Despite the up-and-down nature of his results, Giolito carries a respectable 4.30 ERA in his career — and that number dips to a flat 4.00 if you set aside the struggles he experienced from ages 21 to 23 back in ’16-’18. Last year’s career-low strikeout rate is a concern, but Giolito’s 93.3 mph average four-seamer is an exact match for his career levels, so it’s not as though he came back from surgery working with dramatically reduced stuff. Clubs aren’t going to view him as the clear playoff-caliber starter he was during his three-year peak with the ChiSox, but it’s not out of the question that he can get back to pitching at that level. Even last year’s level of output would make him a third or fourth starter in a good rotation.
As for Bassitt, he’s considerably older but has been more durable and more consistent. The 36-year-old righty (37 next month) ranks seventh in the majors in games started and eighth in innings pitched over the past six seasons. During that time, he’s pitched to a combined 3.57 earned run average with a 22.7% strikeout rate, 7.2% walk rate and a 44% ground-ball rate. All of those are right at the league average, if not slightly better.
Bassitt has made at least 30 starts and pitched at least 170 innings in four straight seasons. His 2025 campaign featured 170 1/3 frames with a 3.96 ERA and rate stats right in line with his overall marks from the past six seasons. Bassitt also shined with the Blue Jays in the postseason, shifting to a relief role without missing a beat. He fired 8 2/3 innings of one-run ball and allowed only three hits and two walks while punching out 10 in that time.
If there are any red flags with Bassitt, they’re not as much with his recent performance as they are simply with the aging process of any pitcher. He’ll pitch all of the upcoming season at 37. Last year’s results were strong, but it’s worth noting that his 91.5 mph average fastball was the lowest of his career by a decent margin. His prior career-low was 2023’s 92.4 mph. He bounced back slightly with a 92.6 mph average in 2024 but lost about a mile per hour off that heater in ’25. That said, it didn’t have an impact on his ability to miss bats; Bassitt’s strikeout rate and swinging-strike rate were both better in 2025 than in 2024.
Though the Braves currently have a talented rotation, there are plenty of question marks regarding both health and workload among the bunch. Chris Sale, Spencer Strider, Spencer Schwellenbach, Reynaldo Lopez and Hurston Waldrep rank among the best quintets in the sport from a pure talent level. However, Sale was limited to 20 starts due to fractures in his ribcage. Strider made 23 starts but posted a 4.45 ERA with diminished rate stats in his first season back from UCL surgery. Schwellenbach started only 17 games due to a fracture in his elbow. Lopez made only one start due to shoulder surgery. Waldrep, a former first-rounder and top prospect, looked very good in nine major league starts but had shakier numbers in Triple-A and has just 63 1/3 big league innings under his belt.
Atlanta has some depth options in the form of Bryce Elder, Joey Wentz, Grant Holmes and Didier Fuentes, the latter of whom has garnered some top-100 prospect love this offseason. Still, given the plethora of injury troubles Atlanta faced, Sale’s age/injury track record and Strider’s downturn in results, augmenting the current group would be wise. MLBTR’s Anthony Franco recently argued as much at greater length in a recent piece for Trade Rumors Front Office subscribers.
The Braves’ current cash payroll of $262MM would already be a franchise record, while their $258MM of luxury tax obligations are the second-highest in franchise history. Bringing in either Bassitt or Giolito would surely bump Atlanta into the second tier of luxury penalization but would leave them shy of the third tier — the point at which a team’s top draft pick is dropped by ten spots. The Braves will owe a 20% tax on the next $6MM or so spent ($1.2MM) and a 32% tax on the next $20MM. If we presume Bassitt is targeting something similar to the two-year, $40MM deal signed by fellow 37-year-old starter Merrill Kelly, he’d come with about $5.7MM of taxes for the Braves, on top of his actual salary.