3 Padres At Risk of Losing Roster Spot After Lucas Giolito News

The San Diego Padres bolstered the starting rotation Wednesday by signing Lucas Giolito to a one-year, $3 million deal with incentives.

President of baseball operations A.J. Preller isn't one to sit idly by when his team has a pressing need, and in this case, the Padres rotation became increasingly thin when Nick Pivetta landed on the injured list.

And so, Giolito joined the team as a welcome sight for the Friars.

However, the arrival of the former Boston Red Sox right-hander means three starters are now at risk of losing their roster spot: Matt Waldron, Walker Buehler and Germán Márquez.

Waldron replaced Pivetta in the rotation and struggled in his 2026 debut. The right-hander allowed six earned runs in 3.2 innings against the Los Angeles Angels. It was far from the performance Waldron orchestrated during his rehab starts in the minors, when he pitched 12 scoreless innings.

Buehler signed a minor league deal with the Padres in the offseason. The former All-Star has struggled to find consistency on the mound as he's sporting a 5.75 ERA across five starts.

The right-hander's latest start against the Colorado Rockies on Wednesday was quite the disaster as he allowed four earned runs while lasting just 2.2 innings.

Márquez is also at risk of losing his spot in the starting rotation. The right-hander has posted a 3.86 ERA with 15 strikeouts across 18.2 innings of work.

Of the three starters, Márquez has performed the best — and is guaranteed the most money, albeit by a small margin — so he is perhaps the safest for now.

There is still time for each starter to prove he belongs in the rotation as Giolito is set to begin an assignment at Single-A Lake Elsinore, where he'll begin to ramp up before making his Padres debut.

Giolito is expected to debut by mid-May — but Griffin Canning could return even sooner, ultimately pushing two of these three starters out of the rotation.

Giolito was the best pitcher available on the free agent market, coming off a 2025 season where he went 10-4 with a 3.41 ERA with 121 strikeouts across 145 innings.

“It's awesome that we signed Lucas,” Padres manager Craig Stammen said ahead of Wednesday's matchup with the Rockies. “Looking forward to getting him here with the big league team, but he's got to be built up a little bit. He brings a track record of a lot of success in the big leagues, and he's still only 31 years old, so we've got a young starting pitcher that we've added into the fold, and hopefully in his prime.”

Giolito brings experience and proven talent to the starting rotation in San Diego, but that also means the Padres will have to decide who to remove from the unit. The Padres could also go with a six-man rotation, but if that were to happen, Canning would also be included in the fold.

None of Buehler, Márquez or Waldron can be optioned to Triple-A, meaning all three would be subject to waivers if the Padres removed them from the active roster.

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