January 20th: The Rangers officially announced their signing of Junis today. Righty Dom Hamel has been designated for assignment as the corresponding move.
January 18th: The Rangers have signed right-hander Jakob Junis to a one-year, $4MM contract, according to The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal. Shawn McFarland of the Dallas Morning News reports that the deal contains a mutual option for the 2027 season. The signing will become official once Texas makes a corresponding move on its 40-man roster. Junis is represented by Wasserman.
Rosenthal adds in a follow-up note that Texas will indeed use Junis as a reliever, coming off Junis’ first bullpen-only season of his nine-year MLB career. Junis has started 116 of his 249 career games, and still made some spot starts and swingman-esque appearances in 2023-24 even as he took on larger relief roles. In 2025, however, Junis signed a one-year, $4.5MM deal with the Guardians and worked only as a reliever over his 57 appearances and 66 2/3 innings.
The results were more than solid, as Junis posted a 2.97 ERA and an above-average 6.6% walk rate. Junis’ strikeout, chase, and whiff rates weren’t anything special, but in a reversal of career norms, he did a very good job of limiting hard contact. After posting a 1.4 HR/9 over his first eight seasons, Junis halved that number to 0.7 HR/9 during his lone season in Cleveland. Junis increased the use of his changeup, and throwing the pitch 20% of the time (up from 8.7% of the time in 2024) helped turn both Junis’ change and his primary slider into very effective out pitches.
Junis will look to keep things rolling as he enters his age-33 season, and the veteran has been pitching long enough that he broke into the majors with the 2017 Royals as a teammate of current Rangers president of baseball operations Chris Young. Junis will become the latest new face to join Young’s total makeover of the Texas bullpen this offseason.
Chris Martin decided to forego retirement to return for another season with the Rangers, but Hoby Milner, Shawn Armstrong, Jacob Webb, and Phil Maton have all left in free agency. Texas has filled those gaps with Alexis Diaz, Tyler Alexander, Carter Baumler, Zak Kent, and now Junis, who had far and away the best 2025 season of any of this group. Junis’ ability to cover innings and take on some higher-leverage assignments should be a big help to the Rangers as they continue to figure out their ideal relief mix.
One of the most underrated pitchers to be honest.
Sneaky good for sure.
Good signing by the Rangers. They have signed two good relievers so far Chris Martin and Junis. However, the worst decision by the Rangers was letting Mike Maddux go. Maddux is an excellent pitching coach.
It was Maddux’s decision to leave. He was not fired!!! They made 2 different offers to keep him in the fold!!
He gets great vertical drop on his sinker & change
As opposed to what? Horizontal drop?
Not opposed exactly, I think it’s just a two-worded designation, like “vertical drop” & “horizontal movement”
Great Giant!
Super friendly in the clubhouse too. Congrats June bug!
Good signing for them. Did a good job as long man and spot starter for the Reds.
He really did.
Little surprised he didn’t get a raise.
With the Guardians had kept him.
People in Texas are in a frenzy over this news. Everyone is honking their car horns and lighting fireworks.
Pitched well for Guards. 2.97 ERA. Surprised they let him walk.
Only at a 6.6% rate
Nice pickup.
Zak Kent will get DFA’d yet again, I assume..
Agreed. It was a weird claim anyway.
They just claimed him in hopes they could sneak him through waivers and stash him away in the minors. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him claimed by another club though.
Well, I am pleasantly surprised for Zak!
Nice!
Now they need 1 SP
You just know Beavis and Butthead love this signing.
Who should Rangers add to SP mix? Bassit, N Martinez, Littell Verlander, Paddack, Buehler or Corbin. What would Ranger fans be willing to give up for Bubic or Singer? Finally should they add Andujar or Hays to OF mix?
Definitely not Paddack, buehler or Corbin. Littel is underrated imo and would probably be cheaper than the others
Littell fits in the Rangers tight budget. Singer/Bubic is overpaying.
Bassit?
Yeah. Chris Bassitt. He can eat innings and work with the younger guys like Rocker and Leiter. A professional.
Nothing flashy. But solid.
Would really like Bassitt as a Ranger, unfortunately I believe that he would be to expensive. My personal opinion is that they have maybe 8-10M to spend on a starter
Rangers13 – N. Martinez, I don’t think we have the prospect capital to be serious players on the trade market for starting pitching, and yes I could see either being added to the outfield mix as a 4th outfielder or platoon as they both hit LHP pretty well.
For entertainment value I would like to see Madd Max Scherzer!!!! Love watching him pitch in person!!!
Head case.
Littell, then trade for another legit RP.
Possibly sign adujar or hays. Trade Duran. Smith can fill in at SS if/when needed, Haggerty & Freeman could fill 2B.
Burger/Jung need competition
Bassit or Littell would be good. And yes to another right-handed such as those you mentioned or Grichuk.
Consider a trade for Bubic depending on the Royals asking price
Very good signing for the Rangers. Low cost and high potential rewards. Not making the Rangers better than the Mariners or Astros, but solidifies them more as the 3rd place in the AL West.
They should trade Josh Jung to the Pirates for Mlodzinski then sign Yoan Moncada for 3B.
That would cost at least twice what it would cost to simply keep Josh. If you are going trade Josh, you would want a starter not a reliever. As far as Moncada is concerned he is definitely a worse defender than Josh. The batting part of the equation is about the same.
The problem with Moncada is that he’s a switch-hitter who is considerably better against RHP. He didn’t hit lefties at all last year – he wasn’t allowed to face very many. The Rangers already are in need of at least one right-handed bat to platoon with Carter, Joc and Smith. They’ve got Helman and Freeman and Duran (who doesn’t hit either side pitching) as it stands and that’s really not gonna work.
For $4m we couldn’t bring him back…wth
Yoan is not a very good infielder. He can hit pretty good.
Anyone else like to pronunce his name like Yakob Yoo-nis?