Kyle Hart Returns, Signaling Depth May be the Name of the Game in San Diego

Amidst fears that a collapsing rotation would spell the team's doom in 2026, San Diego Padres president of baseball operations A.J. Preller made a quiet, but reassuring, move designed to give the team some further offseason flexibility.

Kyle Hart is by no means a leverage arm, but he's a versatile swingman who can fulfill a multitude of roles on Ruben Niebla's pitching staff. He appeared in 20 games in 2025, making six starts and accruing a 5.86 ERA and 5.18 FIP in 43.0 innings. He doesn't possess any one elite skill, though he runs a deep, six-pitch arsenal designed to keep hitters off balance with varying movement profiles.

Though he doesn't strike many guys out and lacks overpowering stuff, Hart did emerge as a bona fide star in the KBO in 2024, pitching exclusively as a starter while authoring a 2.69 ERA (3.28 FIP) and 46.0% ground-ball rate in 157.0 frames. The Padres signed him last offseason to a $1.5 million deal with a $5 million club option, which they declined at the start of the offseason. Now, they're bringing him back on an eminently affordable deal.

As you might expect from a veteran southpaw, Hart is at his best when facing fellow left-handers—he held such hitters to a .189/.246/.283 (.237 wOBA) batting line in 2025. Righties had a much easier time against him (.359 wOBA), and they hit eight home runs off him in just 122 plate appearances (lefties managed just one in 57 plate appearances). That could push him into a pure relief role where manager Craig Stammen -- a former MLB reliever -- uses him as a throwback LOOGY. Then again, his versatility to pitch in both the bullpen and rotation is part of what makes him valuable, so his role may remain in flux through 2026.

Hopes for improvement from the soon-to-be 33-year-old should be tempered, but there is an interesting profile under the hood. Hart used each of his six offerings at least four percent of the time this past season, and save for his seldom-used splitter, he flashed five pitches (sweeper, sinker, four-seam fastball, changeup, slider) with a ten-percent usage rate or higher.

That pitch mix and his three-quarters arm slot leads to an odd movement profile, where every pitch exists along the same general vertical plane. Likewise, no pitch skews more than ten miles per hour in either direction, so Hart relies primarily on a vast array of horizontal movement to keep hitters off balance.

There's an argument for him to add some verticality (or further velocity variance) to his repertoire, but pitching exclusively with rise hasn't stopped certain offerings from dominating. His sweeper (.183 wOBA allowed) and sinker (.279 wOBA allowed) are, naturally, his best pitches. His other three primary offerings were all crushed to varying degrees; his slider, in particular, was hammered to the tune of a .833 slugging percentage and .495 wOBA.

Perhaps with more time in Niebla's pitching lab, Hart can shed some of his less effective pitches in favor of riding his favorites a little harder—such a task would be far easier to pull off if he sticks exclusively to relief duties. Either way, he presents another warm body for Stammen to use next year. Given the impending departures of Dylan Cease and Michael King (plus Yu Darvish's season-ending surgery), expect Hart to be the first of many Padres moves made in that vein this offseason.