Wacha, Martinez, Lugo headed to free agency

SAN DIEGO -- The Padres entered the offseason in need of pitching.

Now? They really need pitching.

San Diego recently gained clarity on its three starting pitchers with options, as Seth Lugo, Michael Wacha and Nick Martinez are all headed for free agency. The Padres declined team options on both Wacha and Martinez, before both declined their player options on Monday. Lugo, meanwhile, has declined his one-year, $7.5 million player option.

The team held two-year, $32 million options on both Wacha and Martinez -- two pitchers who brought notable value to the 2023 club. Once the Padres declined those options, Martinez held a one-year, $8 million option and Wacha held a one-year, $6.5 million option. Ahead of Monday's deadline, both made the decision to decline those options and become free agents.

Which leaves the Padres in a precarious position. Cy Young candidate Blake Snell is also a free agent. The Padres’ 3.69 rotation ERA was the lowest in the Majors last season, but Yu Darvish and Joe Musgrove are the only two proven starters set to return. Both had their 2023 seasons cut short due to injury -- Musgrove a shoulder capsule issue and Darvish a stress reaction in his right elbow.

All three newly minted free agents -- Wacha, Martinez and Lugo -- remain candidates to return, a source said. But the Padres must now bid against 29 other clubs, many of whom are also in search of starting pitching.

The Wacha decision was seemingly the trickiest. He was excellent in 2023 when healthy, posting a 3.22 ERA in 24 starts. But the 32-year-old right-hander has missed time with shoulder trouble in each of the past two seasons. The Padres evidently thought exercising his option was too great a risk.

Martinez, meanwhile, has served as a jack-of-all-trades in his two seasons with the club, and toward the end of the 2023 season, he expressed a strong desire to return. At various points, Martinez has served as a starter, closer, setup man and long man, seeming to relish each role. He posted a 3.43 ERA in 63 appearances in '23, including a 2.32 mark in nine starts.

As for Lugo, who notched a 3.57 ERA in 26 starts, his opt-out was mostly a formality. He signed with the Padres last offseason, mostly because they provided him a chance to return to a starting role. Now that he’s proven himself capable of handling that workload, he’ll likely have plenty of suitors.

The Padres will almost certainly check in with Lugo’s camp. But they’d also be well-served in finding the next Lugo -- a buy-low, high-upside arm who might thrive pitching in San Diego.

Of course, the Padres will be looking for more than one starter. They need a handful. Internally, Matt Waldron and Pedro Avila are options. But the Padres would prefer to enter the 2024 season with those two as mere depth options.

That will require at least three additions, plus a healthy Darvish and Musgrove. (The team is optimistic that both will be fully available at the start of Spring Training.) The current free-agent pitching market is relatively thin, but not barren. Still, given the Padres’ resurgent farm and the sheer number of openings in their rotation, sources have speculated that a trade at some point this winter seems highly likely. With A.J. Preller as general manager, it’d be unwise to expect anything else.