The Rangers continue to pursue a reunion with free agent starter Nathan Eovaldi, GM Chris Young confirmed today at the Winter Meetings. Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News reports that Texas has a meeting scheduled with the right-hander’s representatives on Monday evening.
Eovaldi is one of the better unsigned pitchers in a quick-moving rotation market. Unlike Corbin Burnes and Max Fried, he’ll be limited to a relatively short-term deal. Eovaldi turns 35 in February. That’s an age at which very few free agent pitchers get three years. Using MLBTR’s Contract Tracker, we see that there are only three free agent starters 35 or older who signed for at least three years within the past decade: Jacob deGrom, Max Scherzer and Rich Hill.
MLBTR thus predicted two years at a hefty $22MM average annual value for Eovaldi. The rotation market has been quite strong early on, however, so it’s not out of the question that he gets to three years on a deal that pushes past $60MM total. Even if he’s limited to two years, it’ll very likely cost north of $20MM annually.
It’s not clear whether the Rangers would find that price palatable. They’ve scaled back spending in consecutive winters as they navigate an uncertain future with their in-market television deal. Grant reported in October that Texas was hoping to keep their luxury tax number below next year’s $241MM base threshold. RosterResource calculates the Rangers’ CBT number around $195MM. They’ve got a decent amount of flexibility, but something like $22MM annually for Eovaldi would account for nearly half the gap. Texas needs to acquire multiple relievers as well, and teams generally prefer to leave some payroll space for deadline acquisitions. A club’s luxury tax number isn’t calculated until the end of the season, so salary taken on midseason counts towards it on a prorated basis.
Eovaldi unsurprisingly has broad appeal on the market. He has gotten reported interest from the Orioles, Mets, Braves and Red Sox. He still has above-average velocity and is coming off a 3.80 ERA showing with good strikeout and walk numbers. Eovaldi also has a strong reputation for his performance in the postseason, including a 2.95 ERA over six starts during the Rangers’ 2023 World Series run.
Would be a huge buy low for my Rangers if they could pick this fella up!
Lone Star state Nasty Nate
Let’s git er done Rangers
He’s a Brave. He just doesn’t know it yet.
I actually wouldn’t mind it, as long as it’s to replace Morton though, we need someone better to replace fried.
actually you guys have enough pitching: Ian Anderson, Smith-Shawver, Waldrep, etc. You guys are stacked.
Yeah but who knows who Ian is at this point after missing time due to injury and his pretty bad play before that. I’m high on Smith shawver and Waldrep too, and they will and should get playing time this year, but injuries and bad performance do happen so we need the kids, plus another 2 starters in my opinion. Then again we have grant Holmes who may very well be our own nick Martinez, starting and relieving with pretty decent numbers. One can hope.
Eovaldi is forever a Rangers legend.
Trade for Sonny Gray
His market is now 3-75 or 3-80
Rangers need at least 2 Nates to be competitive.
Nate Schierholtz invite to spring training
Might be easier to get Nate Pearson from the Cubs.
If Ray Davis doesn’t have the working capital to field a competitive starting pitching staff each year and expects to successfully rebuild his relief pitching staff completely from scratch every year, he needs to rethink his value to the fans, his paying customers. Baseball is a game, not an occupation.