Padres Interested In Doug Fister

The Padres have interest in starting pitchers Doug Fister, Jake Peavy and Jered Weaver, with Weaver the least likely of the three, FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal tweets. The team’s interest in Peavy and Weaver had already been reported, but their reported interest in Fister is new.

Fister fits with the other two pitchers into the broad category of aging righty starters who have recently been down on their luck. He posted a 4.64 ERA, 5.7 K/9 and 3.1 BB/9 in 180 1/3 innings after signing a one-year deal with Houston for 2016. He made 32 starts, and there’s much to be said for that kind of durability, perhaps particularly for a Padres team that lacks established starting pitching behind Jhoulys Chacin. The 32-year-old Fister looks like a candidate for another short-term deal, however — his velocity rebounded somewhat last season but remains low for a righty, with an average fastball of 88.4 MPH, and his peripheral numbers offer few indications that the Fister who posted a 3.11 ERA in 750 2/3 innings from 2011 through 2014 is likely to return.

There haven’t been many whispers about Fister this offseason. He has briefly been connected to the Marlins, Pirates, and Mariners, although all those teams have since made starting pitcher acquisitions.