Padres keep Kyle Hart on $1M deal as staff rebuild continues

San Diego, California – The Padres didn’t waste long addressing the biggest item on their offseason checklist. San Diego needs pitching — a lot of it — and while the search for starters will define the winter, the front office made a move Monday to bring back a familiar arm who could fit in multiple ways.

Left-hander Kyle Hart is returning on a one-year, $1 million deal that includes a $2.5 million club option for 2027. For the Padres, the signing is low-cost, low-risk, and perfectly timed for a staff that needs depth everywhere.

Hart arrived last offseason as one of the more intriguing bets on the market. After a dominant run in the Korean Baseball Organization — highlighted by winning the league’s version of the Cy Young — the Padres viewed him as a legitimate rotation candidate. That plan didn’t quite stick. Hart struggled as a starter in Cactus League play and early in the season, spending most of the year at Triple-A El Paso working to regain his footing.

But baseball has a funny way of flipping a script.

Late in the season, the Padres gave Hart a look out of the bullpen, and the results were eye-opening. His velocity ticked up. His sweeper — already his best pitch — sharpened. And the overall profile suddenly looked less like a back-end starter and more like a potentially valuable bullpen weapon.

The organization’s internal debate now is straightforward: try again with Hart in the rotation, or lean into what worked and keep him in relief?

There’s a case for both. If the Padres believe they can stretch out the bullpen version of Hart and carry that velocity and pitch mix into longer outings, he could fight for an open rotation spot in a spring that will offer plenty of opportunity. But if they see him more as a multi-inning or high-leverage lefty, that could free up Adrian Morejon or Mason Miller to shift back toward starting roles — moves that would give San Diego more flexibility as it rebuilds its pitching depth chart.

What’s clear is that Hart alone won’t be enough. The Padres will need at least two — and probably three — legitimate starting pitchers before pitchers and catchers report. With Michael King and Dylan Cease now free agents and Yu Darvish out for 2026 recovering from elbow surgery, the rotation currently consists of Nick Pivetta, Joe Musgrove, and Randy Vásquez. That’s a partial blueprint, not a complete staff.

There’s still time, and the Padres have shown they’re willing to get creative in reshaping a roster. But the margin for error is thin. San Diego doesn’t just need bodies — it needs stability, innings, and a couple of genuine impact arms to navigate a division that only seems to get tougher every year.

Hart’s return won’t dominate the offseason headlines. But it’s the kind of move that sharpens the edges of a pitching staff still under construction. For a team with as many questions as the Padres have right now, that’s a start.