David Morgan Belongs In the San Diego Padres' Bullpen

Coming into the 2026 season, there was reason to believe that David Morgan was going to be a key part of an upper-tier San Diego Padres bullpen. He was fresh off a 2025 campaign in which he posted a 2.66 ERA and a strikeout rate that rested a shade over 25 percent. His start to the year had such a trajectory looking very much in play, too (however short-lived it might have been). 

Through April 12, Morgan made seven appearances for the Padres that included 10.1 innings of work. In that sample, he didn't allow an earned run, got the ball on the ground an obscene 68.2 percent of the time, and had the bullpen's lowest hard-hit rate against at 16.7 percent. There were some warning signs, though, in the form of a strikeout rate that sat over 16 percent and a strand rate that read over 92 percent. By April 17, those problems had caught up with him. 

Between April 17-28, Morgan made four appearances. He allowed a pair of earned runs in each of the first two, four in the third, and another in the fourth. From there, it was off to El Paso for a month before he came back up for seven appearances in June, at which point knee inflammation landed him on the shelf. Upon his activation last week, the team sent him back to El Paso. How long he could reside in Texas, however, is certainly a matter worth considering. 

The following is Morgan's percentile distribution from his 15.2 innings in Triple-A this season: 

To no one's surprise, Morgan has been quite good throughout his time at Triple-A. While he's had to work around some quality contact allowed, the right-hander otherwise turned in very strong work, with a distribution that looks quite similar to what he's posted in roughly 22 big-league innings in 2026: 

Morgan may not have enough innings to qualify for the actual percentiles, but the visual here is clear enough to indicate that he did just about everything well between his two stints at the top level this season. The groundball rate is a particularly enticing element of his game, alongside the ability to generate a fair bit of swing-and-miss. Even the walk rate could be dismissed rather easily given that 10 of his 13 total walks came in his first nine of 18 appearances thus far, and he had only walked two total over his seven appearances before heading to the injured list. These two images make it clear that his ERA at each level—5.74 in Triple-A & 4.50 with the Padres—are a byproduct of bad luck (a .411 BABIP between the two levels) rather than any fundamental flaw.

The issue, then, is that there isn't necessarily room for Morgan. Which leads to a somewhat natural question of: should they make room for Morgan? 

It's not so much that the team needs David Morgan in their high-leverage mix. They've got Mason Miller at the end of games and Adrian Morejon directly in front of him. Each of Bradgley Rodríguez, Wandy Peralta, and Jeremiah Estrada have handled the late innings well, too. Yuki Matsui remains in the relief mix, with Jason Adam's return also on the horizon. That's a lot of mouths to feed for innings. What's important to consider though is the early strain that the team's deficiency in the rotation put on the bullpen. 

Miller is less than 14 innings shy of his career-high for relief innings at the top level and 11 games behind his personal record for total appearances. Morejon is roughly just eight frames shy despite 19 fewer games than the season in which he set his innings mark. Rodríguez has already blown away his total across his 55 innings of work. Estrada & Adam have had injury issues, while the general preference is to keep the likes of Matsui & Peralta away from leverage. The re-addition of Morgan to the mix could introduce an arm with upside that helps to take some of the strain off of the relief corps (alongside a rotation that has begun to stabilize since the trade deadline). 

Of course, then you get into the question of how one makes Morgan fit into the group considering the current roster construction. While the Padres have finally rounded out a starting five without the need for a "chaos" plan, Walker Buehler & Randy Vásquez are still likely only giving you five or six innings in a given start (at most). Does that type of situation make someone like Griffin Canning or Kyle Hart more of a necessity than they might otherwise be considered? And then you get into the imminent return of Joe Musgrove, which was already set to complicate the roster picture by pushing (likely) one of Buehler or Vásquez into at least part-time relief. 

It's possible that such a situation makes the (re)addition of Morgan a bit more difficult. He's not necessarily an arm that helps you in the volume department, which has been a key role for the Padres this year. Perhaps Musgrove's arrival could actually help that case, with one of the current starters headed to relief as a much more stable presence than either of Canning or Hart, leading to both finding their way out upon the former's return. It's also possible that the team waits until September and the expansion of rosters. 

Regardless of the logistics required or how the team ultimately decides to go about it, it's clear that there is a benefit to David Morgan being a part of this group in as expedient a fashion as possible. Despite the early blip of bad luck that sunk his numbers a bit and the injury that put him out of the picture entirely, he can work in the middle innings or in leverage with that combination of decent swing-and-miss stuff and upper-tier penchant for groundballs. Given all that, we know we'll see Morgan soon. It's just a question of how and when.