San Diego Buttresses Rickety Rotation With Lucas Giolito

“It seems that the long arc of time has finally bent to my whims,” said the man, sundering the veil of silence in which he had cloistered himself. The luxurious, sovereign growth around his mouth stirred and parted once more as its owner granted himself a fleeting moment of almost rapturous satisfaction. “Those worthy of my ambitions have finally revealed themselves, and now I am compelled to do naught but grind the ambitions of my enemies into pale dust,” he intoned to the unadorned darkness, steepling his fingers in sacerdotal triumph.

At least, that’s what happened in the disordered mind of Dan Szymborski, curious for months where Lucas Giolito would end up in 2026. Since the end of the offseason, with Giolito unsigned, he’s been a source of speculation as the grand Plan B whenever a pitcher has been lost to injury, almost as if he were lying in wait. The rumors finally materialized into fact on Wednesday, as the San Diego Padres signed him to a one-year deal with a mutual option for the 2027 season.

If Giolito had been waiting for a perfect fit, the team with which he’d make the biggest impact, he was correct to join the Padres. In fact, given the rumors that had popped up, I had already started writing a slightly different piece before reality quite rudely interfered; in it, I used ZiPS to estimate his effect on the playoff probabilities for each team in baseball. And the Padres just happened to rank number one in ZiPS-projected Giolito impact, with their playoff probability shifting from 55% to 65% upon his acquisition, ahead of the Cubs (+8.1%), Athletics (+7.9%), Astros (+6.9%), and Braves (+6.4%), in terms of the size of the bump.

San Diego’s rotation has been quite solid in 2026, with a 3.53 ERA in the early going, and 2.4 WAR, placing it eighth in baseball. But there were dangers that the front office could not ignore. While there’s a lot more reason to be optimistic about Randy Vásquez now that his changeup and curveball appear to have evolved into whiff machines, Nick Pivetta’s injury was still extremely unwelcome news given the team’s rather thin depth. At the moment, it looks like Pivetta’s flexor strain will not require season-ending surgery, but he isn’t going to be back anytime soon.

Pivetta’s injury left the Padres to fight with the Dodgers for the NL West title with an almost non-existent margin for error in their rotation. Before his injury, they were already banking on Walker Buehler, a big enough risk that he signed with them on a minor league deal, and Germán Márquez, who hasn’t been both healthy and good since 2021. Griffin Canning is coming back from a significant Achilles injury and hasn’t pitched since June, and there’s no firm timetable yet for Joe Musgrove’s return from the Tommy John surgery he had 18 months ago. Yu Darvish is certainly not going to be back in 2026, or possibly ever. Keeping up with the Dodgers isn’t an easy task, so there are only so many wins you can concede while you wait and hope for some good injury news on one of these fronts.

The simple truth about Giolito is that he’s clearly no longer the pitcher he was when he got Cy Young votes each year from 2019 through 2021. If he were, he probably would have signed a contract north of $150 million during the offseason, instead of waiting to be a reinforcement for a contender in need. Even so, last year represented a successful comeback season for him, as he missed 2024 with internal brace surgery to repair his UCL. Giolito previously had full Tommy John surgery immediately after being drafted in the first round by the Nationals in 2012, those elbow questions being responsible for his falling to the 16th pick.

It’s true that last season was a successful return for Giolito, but there are some important caveats to that statement. His 3.41 ERA in 26 starts was certainly solid, but dark things lurked in his peripheral numbers. His FIP was a more middling 4.17, and his 7.5 K/9 represented a 20% drop-off from his 2022-2023 numbers and a third off his peak. Statcast’s xERA was especially negative, giving him a 5.01 for 2025, and though the ZiPS version was kinder, the zERA of 4.55 was hardly top-free-agent material. The goal here isn’t to add an ace — though I can’t imagine San Diego would object if he channeled his best years — but to get an arm capable of throwing some dependably league-average innings. And I think the Padres have a good chance of getting that.

The mutual option has real value to the Padres. If Giolito performs well, he would be a natural fit for their rotation next season should Michael King exercise his an opt-out. (The exact values of Giolito’s option are not yet public.) It’s hard to gauge this kind of thing in a projection, but it’s at least nice that signing Giolito also removes him as an option should the Dodgers or another contender, such as the Cubs, find themselves in dire straits, rotation-wise.

Does signing Giolito drastically change the story of the 2026 San Diego Padres? Probably not, but he’s a supporting character, and if the Padres are able to topple the Big Blue Empire on their seventh try and take the NL West crown, he will likely play a role in writing that happy ending.