With Opening Day less than two weeks off, Michael Lorenzen stands as arguably the #3 starting pitcher on the free agent market. The White Sox and Yankees have reportedly shown recent interest in the 32-year-old righty, but he evidently has yet to find a deal to his liking.
Jon Heyman of the New York Post reports that Lorenzen has declined contract offers in the $5-7MM range. It’s not clear which teams made those proposals or how recently Lorenzen’s camp passed. The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reported last week that the 6’3″ hurler had been holding out for a two-year pact.
It’s therefore not surprising that Lorenzen turned down what were presumably one-year offers at fairly modest salaries. He’s coming off his first All-Star nod and tallied a career-high 153 innings between the Tigers and Phillies last season. He looked on his way to a strong multi-year pact by the middle of August. After no-hitting the Nationals on August 9, he carried a 3.23 ERA in 20 starts. Lorenzen was never likely to maintain that kind of run prevention unless he improved upon a modest 19.4% strikeout rate, but few would have anticipated how badly his final six weeks would go.
Lorenzen allowed 30 runs (27 earned) in his final 30 1/3 frames. His already modest strikeout percentage dropped another seven points, while his previously strong walk rate jumped to 10.3%. The Phillies moved him to relief at the end of the regular season and didn’t lean heavily on him during the playoffs. That poor finish has seemingly led to a disconnect between how teams project Lorenzen and the kind of contract he expected to command heading into the winter.
Despite the rough conclusion, Lorenzen’s season ERA sat at a respectable 4.18 in 29 outings. His camp presumably viewed recent two-year guarantees inked by the likes of Ross Stripling ($25MM), Drew Smyly ($19MM), Jordan Lyles ($17MM) and KBO returnee Erick Fedde ($15MM) as comparison points. Innings eaters Kyle Gibson ($13MM) and Lance Lynn ($11MM) signed one-year pacts early this offseason that pushed past eight figures.
The offers which Lorenzen declined value him below those other pitchers. As shown on MLBTR’s Contract Tracker, five starting pitchers have signed one-year guarantees between $3MM and $9MM this offseason. Each of Wade Miley, Alex Wood, Martín Pérez, James Paxton and Jakob Junis landed in the $7MM – $8.5MM range.
Lorenzen himself has fallen in that category in each of his previous two free agent trips. He signed for $6.75MM with the Angels over the 2021-22 offseason. Last year, he inked an $8.5MM deal with the Tigers. Lorenzen has sought to move past that tier on the heels of a stronger platform season than the ones that preceded his last two free agent stints. It’s not known if that might’ve been achievable earlier in the offseason, but it seems he’s facing a tight market as many teams are at or near the payroll with which they’re willing to open the season.
Eh I guess you can’t blame Lorenzen. 1 year 8.5 mil is my guess of what he ends up with.
The no hitter killed his arm and teams are not willing to take a chance on him. Kind of sad.
Exactly. Stop going for those things.
Managers, do better. Lasso them if you must. Competitors don’t want to pass up that chance. You must do it for them.
Yeah, golly. He threw 124 pitches. He should have gone to the union and sued MLB. Pitchers are spoiled too much.
Tim Lincecums 144 pitch no hitter on the other hand….. probably was too much
He ends up with the Yanks on a two year 16MM deal. Good for both parties!
I like 2 for 16mil with a club option for 10mil and a 2mil buyout.
Foolish to even hint at a 3 yr deal. Waste of 2 mil cuz that 3rd season is not happening.
I’d be surprised if he signs with the White Sox. It would be a major league deal and Getz was brought along to reduce payroll. He has been quite creative in that regard but Lorenzen would basically replace the money that Cease would’ve received.
“Id be surprised if he signs”…The essentially rebuilding Whitesox would be a terrible team to play for in a platform year. Lorenzen will not sign there unless he’s completely out of other options.
He’s a 2 WAR player. Sox starters need innings badly. Clevinger or Lorenzen(maybe both) would be a fine fit.
Seems like a perfect fit. Rebuilding team to flip him at trade deadline. Give him a 2nd year that is a player option.
Exactly same with Clevinger.
Their CBT payroll went from $200 million to $121 million now so you may have something there. Does that mean Getz is not done trading away players to lower payroll more?
You either rebuild all in or you don’t. Reloading almost never works. Look at the teams that try.
Not sure but he said he’s open to almost any player. Robert is the best player they have but it seems they wanna keep him. I’d personally hate to see him go. He’s young, affordable and one of the best hitters in the league. Outside of that, their largest salaried players don’t hold much trade value.
Not much besides Roberts who are honestly major leaguers. The problem is when they get out of the rebuild his 8 years will be up. If he stacks a few years like 2023 then so will his price.
Then again when you have the stretch he had at the end of the season. It might be arm problems. He is looking to get paid to rehab for 2 years.
These projections aren’t considering the current situation – $8m would be expected as a standard offer; with the RSN issues, few teams interested even with injuries piling up, I’m guessing $6m is closer to reality. If he can get a team to offer $12m over 2 years with a mutual option on the second, that’d be best case scenario IMO.
With Cole in doubt the Yanks should pass on Lorenzen and not add another question mark. Bite the bullet and sign one of the 2 Aces available. If Cole does not respond to non-surgical treatment he may be lost for the season anyway. Balky elbows in workhorse pitchers never seem to work out non=surgically.
Not at 110% tax rate. It’s Cashman’s own fault for taking on the ridiculous contract of Stanton’s years ago when a guy…about the same size, with the same power, played the same position, was also RH, and had better defensive metrics than “Mike”…named Judge had just arrived on the scene in NY! Never understood the deal then, and I’ve been proven right since. Besides, Montgomery is not an “ace”.
When did a 4.18 era become respectable?
In about 1995.
3 runs over 6 and 1/3 innings is a quality start and a 4.26 era. If he could do that over 32 starts you pay the man and well in todays game.
And if you didn’t completely implode to end the year you would probably have got that 2 years you want.
He’s not signed because no team has valued him the way he and his agent value him. Perhaps it’s time for some self-reflection. It’s possible the Cole injury puts the Yankees in play, but the way he finished last year isn’t encouraging for a team that needs some mid-tier quality innings.
Very little news on Clevinger, who is the better starter. He is also better than washed up Lynn, PED Montas and some others that got 8 figures.
Wouldn’t 1yr/12mil guaranteed, with a mutual option for 13mil in ’25 be reasonable for many clubs and him?
Maybe the demand side is not there right now.
Sox will probably sign Clevinger or Lorenzen. Maybe both(would be nice though). Even then they won’t be ready for OD.
This is the market for a 32yr old pitcher with spotty success. 7 scoreless one day, can’t get out of the 1st another.
“All-Star nod”…lol
Every team has to be represented
He was the least, audience displeasing, option, from the tigers as inviting Lang, TOrk,Carp, would have displaced crowd favorites.
This is called the least option of a bad choice, not skill-incarnate…
Looks like he will either settle for scraps or sit out for a while. The market has spoken and what he wants to get paid isn’t what the market values him at. Pretty simple.
I like 2 years 16 million with White Sox.
Basically the same deal as Fedde.
Whatever he gets, it’ll have a lot of incentive bonuses against a tier 3 base.