Yu Darvish is already dealing with health issues in 2025. This is exactly what makes the Padres’ season outlook so precarious.

As the 2024-2025 offseason progressed, it became clear that the Padres would be bargain hunting more so than being big game hunting in free agency. The ownership dispute casts a cloud over the financial situation of the organization. Even as some of that issue settled, the Padres got a late start to spending on the MLB roster.

Nick Pivetta remains San Diego’s biggest signing, which occurred on February 12.

He is the only major move the Padres made. Other moves included minor league deals to fringe roster players or aging veterans. Clearly, the Padres were not going to be big players in free agent sweepstakes for the likes of Juan Soto, Pete Alonso, Alex Bregman, or Corbin Burnes.

What hurts the most is the franchise missing out on Roki Sasaki. He was clearly the easiest way to upgrade the roster on the cheap, as he is set to make less than $1 million in 2025 in base salary. Not only did the Padres whiff on him, but he went to the Dodgers.

Now, the Padres face a bit of a crisis. Yu Darvish is down with what started as “general fatigue,” which is now upgraded to “elbow inflammation.” That phrase describing an injury to pitcher raises major alarms and red flags. The fanbase certainly is on high alert. Pair that with Darvish’s recent inability to stay healthy over a full season, and the Padres might have a problem on their hands. Hopefully, Darvish is only down for a few weeks. Still, it’s a concerning development.

Yu Darvish played catch today.
However, Mike Shildt revealed today that Darvish experienced elbow inflammation after his last start.
Shildt called Darvish’s status day to day but could not rule out it could affect the start of his season.

— Kevin Acee (@sdutKevinAcee) March 18, 2025

While San Diego helped themselves by bringing in the veteran workhorse Pivetta, it’s not enough depth to feel like the Padres can shoulder an extended absence from Darvish. That forces whoever doesn’t win the fifth spot in the rotation to slide back into it. That would be either Stephen Kolek, Kyle Hart, Randy Vasquez, or Matt Waldron when healthy. None of those options, such as becoming a possible fourth starter in a rotation sans Darvish, inspire much confidence.

When totally healthy, the Padres have as good of a top-four in the rotation as almost anyone in baseball. However, their upper-level minor-league depth for starting pitching is lacking. A.J. Preller’s wheeling and dealing rendered the farm system without major firepower.

You have to wonder what this does for the Dylan Cease trade climate. Are the Padres more prone to hold onto him now that depth is already an issue? Or do they want to deal Cease more, hoping for an increase in organizational depth provided by the possible return in the deal?

The Padres’ payroll structure only amplifies the issue. By committing big money to stars like Manny Machado, Xander Bogaerts, Fernando Tatis Jr., Joe Musgrove, and Darvish, the team has limited flexibility to add much-needed pitching depth. Not to mention, they still owe $12.8 million on the Eric Hosmer deal. They’ve largely relied on unproven commodities and minimum-deal veterans to round out the staff, gambling that their core starters will stay healthy.

But as Darvish’s situation shows, that’s a risky bet. If injuries pile up, things could go sideways or belly-up in a hurry, given the lack of depth. The Padres can be very good in 2025. They will need better injury luck to pull it off with this house-of-cards, top-heavy approach. The Darvish situation is an ominous sign.

Nick Lee

Native of Escondido, CA. Lived in San Diego area for 20 years. Padres fan since childhood (mid-90s). I have been writing since 2014. I currently live near Seattle, WA and am married to a Seattle sports girl. I wore #19 on my high school baseball team for Tony Gwynn. I am a stats and sports history nerd. I attended BYU on the Idaho campus. I also love Star Wars.