The San Diego Padres have searched left and right for starting pitching. The answer to their woes may be just north of the border.

The San Diego Padres had a rather tumultuous first half, with highs followed by unexpected lows.

Their roster has been in constant flux due to a glut of injuries, and their rotation is one such area. Joe Musgrove is out until at least August, Yu Darvish is out indefinitely on the restricted list, and some of the internal reinforcements the Padres have turned to are struggling.

Adam Mazur was unable to find a groove at the major league level in seven starts, and the organization’s higher-tier pitching prospects have yet to reach Triple-A. While Randy Vasquez has found his stride and Matt Waldron emerged as a solid middle-of-the-rotation presence, the Padres still enter the second half in search of pitching reinforcements.

The Padres’ rotation ranks 14th in ERA in July and 11th in FIP, but their starters’ bottom ten ranking in innings isn’t the most promising sign when paired with the bullpen’s 5.92 ERA in July. If the Padres want to prevent a bullpen implosion akin to that in 2021, another starting pitcher entering the major league roster would undoubtedly be on A.J. Preller’s shopping list come July 30.

Enter Yusei Kikuchi.

The Blue Jays appear intent on selling at the trade deadline this month, and multiple prominent reporters (including Buster Olney and Ken Rosenthal) have confirmed that the team intends to retool at the deadline. The team has a solid batch of upcoming free agents, and the most prominent of these is the 33-year-old Kikuchi.

The Japanese left-hander has had a very up-and-down Major League career, entering the league with the 2019 Mariners and posting a 4.97 ERA and 4.93 FIP in three seasons in the Emerald City.

Entering the free agent market, the Blue Jays were intrigued by his 2021 first-half (3.18 ERA, 25.4% K rate) to give him a three-year, $36 million contract. The contract hasn’t been the greatest for Toronto, but it hasn’t been an albatross either, as the left-hander has posted his best FIP (3.68), BB/9 (2.2), and HR/9 (1.4) in his tenure north of the border this season in 20 starts.

Kikuchi will be due the prorated amount of $12 million for the remainder of the season (roughly $4 million), and bringing an arm like him into the fold presents the Friars with something they haven’t had all season: a left-handed starting pitcher. All 99 starts the Padres have received this season have come from a right-hander, with the last start by a left-hander for the Padres coming last September 27 from Blake Snell. Kikuchi had a strong start to the season but has been plagued by the home run ball over his last six starts, posting a 7.53 ERA and 2.83 HR/9 in that span.

When it comes to the intangibles of his game, Kikuchi’s four-pitch arsenal leans heavily on a fastball that averages 95.6 mph with an average of 13 inches of drop, while his main secondary has been his curveball, a change from 2023, where he leaned heavily on the slider. This change has affected the efficacy of his slider, which graded out at +8 run value last season but is down to +1.

Kikuchi seems like a prime candidate for the Padres’ pitching lab, a player who can rediscover his best stuff under pitching coach Ruben Niebla. Furthermore, a left-handed starting pitcher could be helpful to the Padres as they chase down a Wild Card spot, potentially neutralizing the left-handed-leaning lineups of teams like Arizona, the Dodgers, and St. Louis.

Any return for Kikuchi will require a young pitcher going back to Toronto, and with the Padres still possessing several high-end pitching prospects, the two teams line up well as trade partners. With the likes of Austin Krob, Victor Lizarraga, and Ryan Bergert in the Padres’ top 10 prospects, a #PadJays connection at the deadline is certainly a realistic possibility.

The Padres know they need another starting pitcher.

If you were the Padres’ front office, what do you say about this possibility?

Diego Garcia

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.