PEORIA, Ariz. — Jason Adam will be ready for opening day.
According to Jason Adam.
“In my mind, where I’m starting,” Adam said Tuesday, “I’m ready opening day.”
He also acknowledged he is not in charge. And no one else in the organization is willing to put a timeline on Adam’s readiness for the start of 2026 after a ruptured quad tendon ended his 2025 season a month early.
“We’re going to take his progression the way the trainers prescribed it, the way the physical therapists have prescribed it,” manager Craig Stammen said. “He has been throwing off the mound. We’ll see how that continues to progress. We’ll see how it continues to progress with him running and being active on his feet. … We’re not putting a timeline on when he’ll be ready. Every player wants to beat the timeline. That’s the competitive nature that they have inside them, and he’s no different. So he’s been working his tail off to beat that timeline.
“We’ll see where he ends up at the end of camp. We’re going to decide what’s best for him. And hopefully we’re on the same page together. We may have a different opinion at times, but we’ve got the best interest in him, not only for this season but for the rest of his career.”
Fact is, Adam being on the roster for the March 26 opener would put him in the middle of the recovery time of six to nine months projected at the time of his injury. And what seemingly lends more legitimacy to the idea he will be ready than can typically be ascribed to an athlete’s optimism about injuries is that he does appear to be on a good track.
Adam has been throwing off a mound since early December and, with Padres pitchers and catchers set for their first official workout of spring on Wednesday morning, is now throwing full-go bullpen sessions.
“The next hurdle we’ll have to get running and (fielding practice) stuff,” he said. “But as far as throwing bullpens, it all feels pretty normal.”
Adam, who spent much of spring in 2025 tinkering with his delivery, actually said this on Tuesday: “I feel better pitching at this point than I did at this point last year. … I felt all out of sorts last year. This year, it’s simple. We’re just trying to pitch, and I feel a lot cleaner. And hopefully that’ll translate.”
Adam was an All-Star for the first time in 2025 and at the time of his injury ranked 10th among MLB’s qualifying relievers in ERA (1.93), was tied for sixth in appearances (65) and was second in holds (29).
Considering his importance to a bullpen that is almost inarguably the strength of the team and with the reality Robert Suarez departed in free agency, Adam being full-go for a full season is potentially monumental.
His being healthy and pitching well for as much of the season as possible is also a reason the Padres are taking a wait-and-see approach to the final stages of his rehabilitation.
The Padres’ prospects for last October changed drastically on two days in September.
One was Sept. 24 when left fielder Ramón Laureano’s season ended when he suffered a fractured right index finger swinging at a pitch. The other was the first day of that month when Adam delivered a pitch and almost immediately toppled to the dirt.
Adam told Padres president of baseball operations A.J. Preller in the clubhouse that night, “I’m really glad you went out and got Mason (Miller).”
And that was certainly fortunate. A bullpen that finished the season with MLB’s best ERA still had Suarez, Miller, Adrian Morejón and Jeremiah Estrada to cover high-leverage situations.
“It’s hard, because you always want to see, like, what could and should have been,” Adam said. “But man, those guys held it down. Like I’ve said, I could not have picked a better bullpen to get hurt in, because they were nails from start to finish. Yeah. So proud of those guys, love watching them do their work. Obviously, I would have loved to play, but they did just fine without me.”
Indeed, the Padres bullpen’s 2.81 ERA over the 24 games at the end without Adam was .30 better than the season’s first 138 games. Same with its batting average allowed (.176 versus .211).
But the effective flow of the group was interrupted when Adam went down, and great became good.
The Padres went from having four relievers to cover three or four innings to having three, giving manager Mike Shildt fewer options to deploy each game and over a series of games. That cost other relievers rest and almost certainly cost the Padres some wins, as they had to rely more on a tiring Estrada and rookie David Morgan.
If Adam had been available, giving Shildt another top arm with which to cover the requisite innings, there is a good chance Yu Darvish would not been left in long enough to allow a pair of second-inning runs in what ended up a 3-1 season-ending loss in Game 3 of the National League wild-card series.
Much as will almost certainly be the case with starting pitcher Joe Musgrove, who is coming back from Tommy John surgery, Adam can be considered full-go and still not be allowed to fully go in spring training.
One concession to his comeback is that Adam will likely make a number of appearances in a controlled environment on back fields before appearing in a Cactus League game
“I think he’s exceeding our expectations at the moment,” Stammen said. “… As a coaching staff and as a team, we’ve got to be smart enough to work with the player and keep him in a progression that we think is safe and that will allow him to have the most success for the rest of his career — not just this season but also, you know, set him up for success when we’re really going to need him, and that’s hopefully when we’re fighting for the division and making a playoff run.”