Biggest Unknown: What will the back half of the “other” rotations look like?
While the Los Angeles Dodgers have all of Blake Snell, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow, Shohei Ohtani, Emmet Sheehan, Roki Sasaki, Gavin Stone, River Ryan and more as viable options for the starting rotation, the rest of this division is pretty well drowning in question marks at Nos. 3-5.
The San Francisco Giants will still have one heck of a one-two punch in Logan Webb and Robbie Ray. But if they don’t sign an arm this winter, they’ll be choosing from Landen Roupp, Trevor McDonald, Hayden Birdsong, Kai-Wei Teng and Carson Whisenhunt to round out the starting five.
Similar predicament for the San Diego Padres, who have Nick Pivetta and a hopefully healthy Joe Musgrove after he missed all of 2025. With Dylan Cease and Michael King hitting free agency and opponents hitting Yu Darvish hard over the past three years, though, there’s not much beyond that top two. Randy Vásquez is a fine option, but there could be quite a bit of both JP Sears and Matt Waldron, for better or worse.
Arizona is in the most dire straits of the trio, with Corbin Burnes likely out for all of 2026 and Zac Gallen potentially leaving in free agency. At this point, Eduardo Rodriguez probably starts on Opening Day solely because of seniority, with Ryne Nelson and Brandon Pfaadt behind him. What the rest of that rotation looks like is anyone’s guess, and we’ll see what kind of spending they can afford to do with Burnes’ presently dead-weight contract restricting them.
Whichever team figures it out the best becomes the top candidate for a wild card spot.
Projected 2026 NL West Standings
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