Credit: USA Today Sports
San Diego will look to build off momentum from a successful regular season this offseason. Could an ace from a division rival be within the Padres’ grasp?
San Diego’s pitching staff enters the offseason in a state of flux, set to lose Michael King and Dylan Cease in free agency.
With current ace Nick Pivetta still under contract and a returner Joe Musgrove, the Padres have a top two that has potential to match any in the league.
Randy Vasquez broke out in the second half, proving there was still potential beneath what was affectionately referred to as devil magic. Options like JP Sears, Matt Waldron, and Omar Cruz still reside on the 40-man roster, as does Yu Darvish. Despite this depth, San Diego is always on the hunt for more, as seen by the surprise of the Nick Pivetta signing this past offseason.
Arizona’s Zac Gallen could be a solid complementary addition to this pitching staff.
Padres’ fans know of him well, as he has faced the Padres 15 times over the course of his MLB career.
Originally acquired in a rare trade involving players with five-plus years of team control between Arizona and Miami at the 2019 trade deadline, Gallen has pitched to a 5-4 record, 3.49 ERA, and 24.1% strikeout rate in 85 career innings against San Diego.
Zac Gallen was a borderline Cy Young contender from 2022-2024, putting up a 3.20 ERA, 3.22 FIP, and 131 ERA+. His percentile numbers were also golden, as he struck out 26% of batters while walking just 6.8%. He led the National League in WHIP and the entire Major Leagues in Hits per 9 in 2022, and finished in third place in Cy Young voting in 2023.
2025, however, was an anomaly, an aberration, an abnormality of two halves.
From the start of the season to the trade deadline, Gallen looked out of form, pitching to a 5.60 ERA and 4.79 FIP in 22 starts. Gallen allowed 23 home runs across 127 innings before the deadline, with 51 of 125 hits against the right-hander going for extra bases. Despite trade interest in the right-hander, Mike Hazen and the Diamondbacks opted not to trade the right-hander, trading away Merrill Kelly and Jordan Montgomery’s contract instead.
Staying put seemed to do something for the right-handed Gallen, as after the trade deadline, Gallen put his best stretch of the season together. In 11 starts, Gallen went 6-3 with a 3.32 ERA in 65 innings. Over that span, Gallen struck out 54 while walking 19, allowing eight home runs. His home run rate went down in the second half from 1.6 HR/9 to 1.1 HR/9. Gallen allowed fewer hits in the eleven starts post-deadline.
So, what was to blame for the right-hander’s struggles?
Gallen has never been the prototypical power pitcher, as he has averaged 93.6 mph on his four-seamer over the past three seasons. The right-hander has been successful due to a well-rounded arsenal built around missing barrels with a side of whiffs. Gallen’s strikeout rate has hovered between the 60th to 70th percentile in MLB over the past four seasons, with his walk rate going up in that same time frame. Part of this comes down to his ability to generate chases outside the zone, as he experienced a drop-off in whiffs between 2024 & 2025.
Credit: AP Photo
His four-seamer has never been the money maker in terms of whiffs, as it has registered a whiff rate near or at 13% over the past two seasons. His knuckle curve, slider, and changeup have given him the most whiffs as he ascended into an ace, and most of that remained the case in 2025. Despite this, batters began to slug much more on his curveball, as opponents had a .438 slugging percentage against his breaker in 2025 (compared to a .230 SLG in 2024).His tertiary offerings took steps back in 2025, too.
Gallen doesn’t throw his cutter as much as he did in seasons past, but the pitch proved to be ineffective this season. After batters hit .205 against the pitch in 2024 with an average launch angle of 40°, the numbers torpedoed to a .370 batting average against, .761 slugging against, and a paltry 12.6% whiff rate. It truly is a puzzling season to analyze, as there were no major changes in how Gallen applied his stuff, but the results were different nonetheless.
The key to these numbers may be in what batters were doing with Gallen’s pitches. This past season, batters pulled the ball against Gallen 43.3% of the time, which was a career-high outside of the shortened 2020 season. Right-handed batters slugged .430 against Gallen, while left-handed hitters weren’t far behind at .422. All but two of the homers Gallen allowed were to the pull side of the field, and when he missed in the middle of the zone, his stuff wasn’t getting past batters.
So why would San Diego be interested in an arm like Gallen?
With the potential of a lockout after the 2026 season, the Padres are looking at 2026 as a year to take a step forward to make a run at the World Series.
A pitcher like Gallen has both postseason experience and regular-season pedigree, along with durability and the stuff to be an ace. With Gallen, velocity is less of a concern than it would be with other pitchers, given that his game isn’t “blow 100 mph past hitters”. Gallen fits the mold of the sort of arm the Padres have a tendency to look for, pitchers with plus stuff that can live in the strike zone.
For a pitcher who had major issues with home runs early in the season, pitching at Petco Park with the early-season marine layer could be beneficial. Additionally, San Diego’s defense behind their pitchers is poised to be stronger in 2026 with a strong trio of Ramon Laureano, Jackson Merrill, and Fernando Tatis Jr. manning the outfield. The infield defense for San Diego is also likely to improve with the sure-handed trio of Jake Cronenworth, Xander Bogaerts, and Manny Machado.
Depending on what happens with San Diego’s managerial search and coaching staff, there exists a chance that the pitch doctor himself (Ruben Niebla) could be in line to work with Gallen should he sign in San Diego. Furthermore, San Diego as a team was 21st in innings pitched from starters at 824 innings. Gallen threw 192 innings in 2025, a number that would have led the Padres; Nick Pivetta’s 181.2 innings led San Diego’s starting staff on an individual level. With Darvish and Musgrove having health concerns entering 2025, having an arm like Gallen, who can pitch deep into games with quality outings, would serve the team well through the start of the season and the dog days of summer.
While he may not have the same luster entering free agency as he may have had in seasons past, right-hander Zac Gallen still possesses upside and ace potential despite a season of mixed results. Should he look for a prove-it deal to secure the bag down the line, San Diego should pounce on signing the right-hander in their quest to secure the city’s first professional sports title.
A born and raised San Diegan, Diego Garcia is a lifetime Padres fan and self-proclaimed baseball nerd. Diego wrote about baseball on his own site between 2021-22 before joining the East Village Times team in 2024. He also posts baseball content on his YouTube channel “Stat Nerd Baseball”, creating content around trades, hypotheticals, player analyses, the San Diego Padres, and MLB as a whole.
A 2024 graduate of San Diego State, Diego aims to grow as a writer and content creator in the baseball community.
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