Padres Have to Replace Insane Amount of Innings From Starters Leaving in Free Agency

San Diego is hoping for the best from their starting rotation this season.

The San Diego Padres approach to this offseason has been very different from that of years past. It saw the front office put more of an emphasis on shedding salary rather than their usual aggressive approach.

In this, the Padres let multiple productive members from the 2023 team walk in free agency. The area that they have been hit the hardest is within their starting rotation.

Seth Lugo and Michael Wacha both bolted for the Kansas City Royals, Nick Martinez headed to the Cincinnati Reds, and Blake Snell is currently still a free agent, but he isn't expected to return. Losing these starters hurts the overall quality of the Padres team, so they will need to figure out a way to replace the innings each worked.

It's over 500 innings of work that has departed from San Diego this offseason, and the Padres will need to somehow fill the void.

"Owing to a need to trim payroll, the Padres deemed those three (and Nick Martinez) unaffordable this offseason. That left the team looking to replace a total of 503⅓ innings from their starting pitchers."

Per Kevin Acee of The San Diego Union-Tribune

After Yu Darvish and Joe Musgrove, their starting rotation is fairly inexperienced. The team did receive a few arms in their trade of Juan Soto to the New York Yankees, but it's all a risk for this team.

For the Padres to have any success this year, the young arms in the rotation will need to step up. They will also need healthy seasons from their two veteran starters, or things could get ugly very quickly.

San Diego believes that they can still be competitive this season, but it will be a challenge. The entire team has their work cut out for them this year, and they need to start the season off on a high note.