Joe Musgrove Cannot Be Treated as the Answer to Padres' Rotation Depth Woes

[Brandon Glick]

Now more than one year removed from the last time he was seen on a mound in a professional baseball game, Joe Musgrove is set to be thrust right back into a high-leverage role in the San Diego Padres' rotation in 2026.

The upcoming rotation problems the Padres are set to face has been well covered, and it's hard to overstate the impact the absences of Dylan Cease and Michael King would have on this team. Nick Pivetta was a godsend in 2025, but relying on a guy with a career 4.76 ERA prior to this season to be the staff ace moving forward feels like an iffy proposition at best. Yu Darvish is getting older and simply isn't the same pitcher who annually received Cy Young Award votes. JP Sears and Randy Vazquez should, in theory, be fine to cover the back of the rotation, but on a deeper team, they'd be depth options in the bullpen or minor leagues.

It's true that the team could always swing another trade to fill that No. 1 or 2 spot atop the starting pitching staff, but after decimating the farm system for Mason Miller and others at the trade deadline, it's dubious to expect even A.J. Preller to be able to pull off another league-shifting blockbuster. Maybe Miller or Adrian Morejon moves into the rotation, or maybe the team finds the money to keep one (or both) of Cease or King. There's roads out of this predicament, however unlikely they may be.

One frustratingly sticky part of any solution to this problem, though, is the presence of Musgrove. It just feels like he has to be back to his old self for the Padres' operation to function as it should in 2026, and that's a terrifying though for anyone paying attention.

That's not to say Musgrove can't return from Tommy John surgery and regain his effectiveness circa 2021-23. In those three years, the right-hander emerged as one of the most underrated pitchers in baseball, authoring a 3.05 ERA, 3.62 FIP, 25.6% strikeout rate, and 6.2% walk rate in more than 150 innings. As he got older, he started to balance a slider with waning effectiveness with a rapidly-improving fastball, and he managed to stay on top of his changing arsenal. His chase rate improved every year in our sample, from 30.9% in 2021 to 32.0% in 2022 to 35.5% in 2023. That latter figure was in the 99th percentile league-wide.

The issue is that, after back-to-back years of throwing 181+ innings, Musgrove only mustered 97 1/3 in 2023. A lot of that was due to an injury to this throwing shoulder in August of that season. Then, the following year, Musgrove dealt with a never-ending elbow injury which landed him on the injured list multiple times in the regular season and eventually led to him needing TJ surgery. He pitched 99 2/3 innings in 2024, failing to crack the 100-inning barrier for the second campaign in a row.

That's the reality Musgrove, who will be 33 years old on Opening Day 2026, is facing. He's never been an overpowering guy, but he was an entirely different pitcher when we last saw him in 2024 than he was during his prime. His chase rate fell all the way to 27.0% (29th percentile), and hitters were barreling him up more than ten percent of the time. His results weren't awful (3.88 ERA, 3.96 FIP), but a 4.31 expected ERA (xERA) gives the impression that he was merely average as he tried to work through his elbow troubles.

Hopefully, now that his injury is cleaned up, he can resemble something closer to the version of himself that earned a five-year, $100 million extension (there's still two years remaining on that contract, by the way). For what it's worth, the veteran starter is trying to make an appearance in a winter ball league as he continues to ramp up his rehab process, but he's been noncommittal about a specific return date. Barring a huge setback, he should be ready for spring training regardless of what form the next few months take, but we won't know how effective Musgrove still is until he returns to the mound for the Padres when the games actually count.

There's reason to believe Musgrove can still be a good starting pitcher in the league. He's just a few years removed from his All-Star nod in 2022, and he was a driving force in their NLCS push in the same season. But the Padres simply can't rely on a guy who hasn't thrown more than 100 innings in three years -- and didn't pitch at all last year -- to replace Cease and/or King, at least not right away. Anything Musgrove can give this franchise next year needs to be treated as gravy, not the full meal.

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