Nick Pivetta and the San Diego Padres in agreement on a four year contract
Following an NLDS exit at the hands of their in-division rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Padres seemed poised to have a big offseason to keep pace in a loaded NL West. That seemed to be the case until it wasn’t. San Diego struck out on prized international prospect, Roki Sasaki, and then lost utility-man Ha-Seong Kim, 2024 all-star Jurickson Profar, and perennial reliever of the year candidate Tanner Scott to free agency. On top of that, their ace Dylan Cease and leadoff hitter Luis Arraez have been floated in plenty of trade rumors. It was looking like a disastrous offseason, but they managed to stop the bleeding Wednesday night by adding some much needed depth to the starting rotation.
This deal will take Pivetta, who turns 32 in a few days, through his age 35 season if he turns down his opt-outs. The opt-outs follow both the 2026 and 2027 seasons. The structure of the contract is kind of funky as Pivetta will receive only $4M in 2025 - a $3M signing bonus and $1M for the season. After that, he is set to receive $19M in 2026, $14M in 2027, and $18M in 2028. The contract on an annual average is $13.75M.
Pivetta’s former team, the Boston Red Sox, extended a qualifying offer worth $21.05M following the 2024 season, which Pivetta declined. While he won’t be making nearly that much in 2024 with the Padres, he still managed to get a multi-year deal that he may not have gotten if he had returned to the Red Sox and had a down year. Because Pivetta declined the qualifying offer, the Red Sox will receive a second round competitive balance draft pick and the Padres will forfeit their second highest draft pick in the 2025 draft and $500,000 of international bonus pool money.
How will Pivetta fit in with the Padres?
Over the course of his eight year MLB career, Nick Pivetta has been the epitome of average. He has a lifetime 4.76 ERA over 1,029 innings, and averages roughly 1.5 fWAR per year. At face value, a $55M commitment seems kind of steep for a pitcher of Pivetta’s caliber, however, Pivetta has quietly been one of the better pitchers in baseball over the last two seasons. His 30.0 K% ranks fifth among starters with at least 250 innings since the start of 2023, while his 22.8 K-BB% also ranks fifth. His 1.12 WHIP and 3.52 xFIP both rank within the top 20 out of 79 total pitchers.
Pivetta’s weakness for the majority of his career has been the long ball. Since the beginning of 2021, only four other pitchers have given up more home runs. The good news for Pivetta is he’s leaving the second most hitter friendly ballpark in baseball by Statcast’s park factors, and is going to the second most pitcher friendly ballpark in baseball. In 2024, Pivetta had a 48.3 flyball% which was 10% higher than the league average. Fly balls at Fenway Park in 2024 yielded a .967 SLG and a .521 wOBA. At Petco Park in San Diego, the SLG drops to .798 and the wOBA to .426. With that being said, Pivetta might naturally regress positively.
As for his place in San Diego’s rotation, Pivetta is currently projected to slot into the fourth spot behind Dylan Cease, Michael King, and Yu Darvish. Prior to adding Pivetta, the fourth and fifth spot would have belonged to Randy Vasquez and Matt Waldron. Both are still viable options at the big league level, so this deal has led some to believe this is paving the road to a Dylan Cease trade. If the Padres can hold on to Cease, you’re talking about a rotation with the upside to be top five in the league. If they part ways with Cease, I’m not sure the addition of Pivetta is enough to help San Diego’s rotation perform at the same level they did in 2024. The Padres rotation was a top ten rotation in 2024 by FIP (3.89), WHIP (1.22), K-BB% (16.0), and fWAR (13.8). Cease was a big part of that which makes me want to believe Pivetta is a depth piece rather than Cease’s replacement if the goal for the Padres is to make another postseason run.
Nick Pivetta’s three year projections by ZiPS (Fangraphs)
