The Marlins and reliever Pete Fairbanks are in agreement on a contract, according to Will Sammon of the Athletic. It is a one-year, $13MM contract for the Republik Sports client, according to Jeff Passan of ESPN. Per Mark Feinsand of MLB.com, the deal includes a $1MM signing bonus and another $1MM in incentives based on appearances. Fairbanks will also receive a bonus of $500,000 if he is traded. The deal is pending a physical.
Fairbanks, who turned 32 last week, is coming off a 2.83 ERA in 60 1/3 innings for the Rays in 2025. Tampa held an $11MM club option on his services for 2026, but they instead paid him a $1MM buyout. He now heads to the Marlins for $2MM more in salary and figures to be the team’s closer next year.
The right-hander debuted in 2019 and has pitched 265 1/3 innings with a 3.19 ERA in his seven seasons with the Rays. In that time, Fairbanks has struck out 30.0% of hitters against a 9.3% walk rate thanks to an upper-90s fastball and a mid-80s slider which he uses 44.1% of the time. He also gets groundballs at an above-average 45.1% rate and generally keeps the ball in the park, allowing 0.81 HR/9 in his career.
He has also frequently dealt with injuries, making seven trips to the injured list from 2021-24. He had better health luck this year, avoiding the injured list and setting a career high with 60 1/3 innings pitched. In any case, Fairbanks is a dominant back-end reliever when he’s healthy. In 151 innings as the Rays’ closer from 2023-25, he had a 2.98 ERA while posting a 18.9% K-BB rate and earning 75 saves, which ranks 12th-highest in the league in that span.
That largely continued in 2025, albeit with a drop in Fairbanks’ advanced metrics. After striking out 37.0% of hitters as recently as 2023, that has fallen to 23.8% in 2024 and 24.2% in 2025. That is still plenty effective, especially as he has lowered his walk rate from 10.9% in 2023 to 7.4% this year. However, it has also come with an uptick in average exit velocity. Hitters averaged 85.7 mph off the bat against Fairbanks in 2023, but that rose to 90.2 mph in 2025. Meanwhile, his four-seamer now sits at 97.3 mph after averaging 98.9 mph in 2023.
Nonetheless, the fact that the current version of Fairbanks has better-than-average strikeout and walk rates with 90th-percentile fastball velocity means that he is still an effective reliever. If anything, the move by the Rays to decline his option was financially motivated. Tampa Bay’s payroll usually ranks near the bottom of the league (29th out of 30 in 2025). They previously signed Fairbanks to a three-year, $12MM extension in January 2023. While $4MM was a comfortable price range for the team, $11MM may have simply been too high a price to commit to one reliever, even one as effective as Fairbanks.
More to come.
damnit
Pen market is nearly dry.
Low pressure environment, he should do well there.
Ballpark helps too Fever, especially after Steinbrenner Field. I was thinking $12m per but I also thought a two year deal or with a player’s option.
He’ll be moved at the deadline anyway.
Peter Bendix strikes again.
when did he strike previously?
The big Christopher Morel signing 🙂
stunned by the amount, since Rays were unable to trade him when he was at 11m the marlins paying 13m seems rather surprising
Had him pegged for at least a couple years. Odd.
@a’s. Im sure they had to add a couple million to get it done.
11m + prospect cost likely drove teams away.
@A’s fan
Exactly, I immediately thought the amount couldn’t be right! They could have saved a couple million dollars by giving the Rays a PTBNL or anything really. My guess is they were going to try and land one of the bigger fish in the relief FA market, and when that fell through they pivoted to Fairbanks. I’m guessing he wasn’t their main target when they had the option to trade something for him.
A’s Fan
No. The Marlins were probably not interested back then. Their projected closer Rony just had surgery for a recent injury. So, this seemingly reflects a new need.
Go, Sacramento A’s!
Ronny Henriquez underwent internal brace surgery and will miss the 2026 season.
Henriquez looked like a legitimate closing candidate during a breakthrough 2025.
Hence the sudden new need for a closer.
Happy holidays to all.
Didn’t have to give a player so just going FA for +$2 mil makes some sense. Plus Fairbanks nearly being the last pen man standing probably boosted his value.
Cheap
Silly signing at that amount. He should been a 2×18-20 candidate
He probably got offers in that realm, but Miami’s offer was more enticing to him.
And, if he already has a home in FL, it’s a win for him and half his annual taxes.
Something’s got to be wrong with this guy if the Rays couldn’t trade him and the Marlins signed him for this little.
Underlying numbers ain’t good
Steinbrenner Field didn’t help. Amount is not little. One year is surprising but it could be his call.
Someone on here said he has a condition that makes his hand go numb in colder weather. If true that would explain some things.
Yup – It’s called myfuckinhandsarecolditis!!
He lost his high fastball and began going slider heavy. Still hitting 99 but locating badly.
Someone wants to stay in FL. He must be a fan of all the strange happenings and bizarre crimes that seem to only happen in that state. Or, he could like alligators, oppressive humidity, and afternoon thunderstorms.
Maybe he likes warm winters, low taxes, and common sense government…
Yea I think you’re onto something
bwha ha ha ha ha ha
Two out of three isn’t bad.
Florida doesn’t have an income tax
You misspelled “corrupt government.”
He will get traded at the deadline
Boy that’s a lot for Fairbanks, especially since the Marlins are one of those teams that seems to be able to manufacture pitchers out of thin air. What about the hitting side?
Vamooooooooos! C’mooooooonnnnn!!!
This is half homework done. Now get at least another impactful bat.
I’m so happy
Impatient marlins fans, how we feelin?
Good get but need one more bullpen arm.
Who closes for the Rays? Jax or Uceta?
yes
Only one year is as surprising as it being Miami.
Seems like an overpay but even with this deal Miami will only have a luxury tax payroll around $80 million. Revenue sharing alone should cover most of that. So I guess the Marlins can afford to pay a little above market for Fairbanks.
Cashman!!! What’s going on? Start earning your paycheck
@mlb
Yanks acquired two guys that collectively closed 80 games last year. Maybe Fairbanks wanted to go somewhere that offered him a chance to close? The Marlins’ Faucher doesn’t exactly have a stranglehold on the closer role so maybe Fairbanks was offered a chance to lock that down? You have to look at FA as a 2 way street buddy. But everyone is hellbent on being a Yankee. Also, one can argue that outspending the comp and offering $13 mi + 110% luxury tax penalty isn’t the best investment for to fill a 6th inning role.
For all the rumors of the White Sox being in on him, seems like they got a steal on Newcomb comparatively.
Bendix was a member of the Rays front office so he probably has seen something he likes. Still a good chance he gets flipped at the deadline of the Marlins fall off a cliff.
The rays F that one up
How could the Rays not find anyone to trade him to?
Teams were likely either concerned about the downward trend in stats, cost, or didn’t want to hand over prospects AND pay 11m for the season.
Raynaud’s syndrome. It only affects him out of town… out of dome
Trust me, they tried. No one bit
It’s known that Fairbanks’s body responds better to warmer weather. I can’t recall completely, but like a nerve issue in his fingers, correct? Also, the Bendix connection. So I’m not shocked by this signing and I’m pretty sure I said as much recently, but still another guy on my wishlist gone. No biggie, but yeah…
Drives me nuts. You mean to tell me Stearns/Cohen couldn’t scrounge up a measly 13M for quality pitcher like Fairbanks?
@Joel
Real talk, did you ever consider this is a binary decision and that a teams want doesn’t override what the player wants? Being a closer pays more than being a middle innings arm. With Devin Williams and Luke Weaver in fold, the Mets have committed $73 million dollars. Unless both ate an adjunct failure there’s no way Fairbanks will become the closer and make it more difficult to gain leverage to secure a longer- term, more lucrative deal next year when he re-enters FA a year older. Make it makes sense. And keep in mind the luxury tax they would have to pay on a $13+ mil 1 year deal.
Should have signed and traded him
They tried trading him during the season, no one bit.
Every day is a new opportunity
Good get for the Fish.
Dbacks don’t need any stinking’ closers — AGAIN!!
It’ll be interesting if he’s still going heavy slider. He lost his high fastball last year and began getting hurt by his slider, which is good but hitters began sitting on it.
“Fairbanks will also receive a bonus of $500,000 if he is traded.”
When. When he is traded.
Good for you! Go Fish…
😛
LOL, Marlins.
Here is a team with a payroll of $70M, maybe $75M, this year. They require at least 10 additional wins to get a whiff of the playoffs. (They played more like a 76-win team last season. Lots of good fortune to win 79 games.) So what do they do? They spend approximately 20% of their payroll on ONE player who will contribute ONE extra win, at best! More likely, it will be a wash as they use Fairbanks in a role where another pitcher might have contributed 1/2 of a WAR. Net difference from 2025 – approximately none.
Why didn’t Tampa pick up the option and trade him? Couldn’t bother calling the only other in state team?
Mets were “this close” or something
Holy cr@p! Jed can’t even. Outbid the Marlins
Giants should’ve offered a two-year deal. So should a lot of teams TBQH.
Last hope gone for the Cubs, unless Palencia proves he is more than a one-year wonder–and he will more probably regress or get hurt.
This Brett Taylor-ish nonsense about the Cubs being so, so good at pulling together an effective bullpen out of spare parts–it’s mostly selective memory and wishful thinking. The Cubs have sometimes been somewhat good at that–but it really isn’t a good plan.
Reportedly, the Cubs made offers to Helsley and Williams, and maybe others, but the offers were not good enough. Hoyer seems only intermittently aware that relief pitching is important, and then the thought quickly passes. Hoyer just isn’t a serious baseball man, never has been.
When I came to baseball in about 1960, relief pitchers were mostly former starters who weren’t good enough to be starters anymore. The idea of the relief specialist or closer was just beginning to take hold, among more progressive franchises, of which the Wrigley-era Cubs were not one. Hoyer’s mentality is not exactly like that, but close: to him, relievers by definition are supposed to be marginal, and paid as such.
Why is his market so dry that he landed with Miami? I would have loved Baltimore to sign him and am surprised he didn’t go to a better team in general.
Fairbanks 1/13
Devin the disaster 3/51
Lol