The Rangers are bringing back old friend Jordan Montgomery, according to a report from Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News. Montgomery will make $1.25MM on a one-year, MLB deal. The deal also includes performance bonuses.
More to come.
Tigers Sign Justin Verlander
It’s homecoming season in Detroit. After years of Tigers fans hoping for a reunion with future Hall of Famer Justin Verlander, the team announced Tuesday that Verlander has been signed to a one-year contract for the 2026 season. The ISE client is guaranteed $13MM, per USA Today’s Bob Nightengale, though $11MM of that sum will be deferred and paid out beginning in 2030.
Though he’ll turn 43 later this month, Verlander has voiced no desire to call it quits. Rather, he’s previously said he hopes to pitch well into his mid 40s. He’s coming off a solid season at age 42 — one that started slowly but by the end saw Verlander again pitching like a high-quality big league starter. The right-hander pitched 152 innings for the Giants last season, logging a 3.85 ERA, a 20.7% strikeout rate, a 7.9% walk rate and a 34.5% ground-ball rate.
Those are solid overall numbers but mask the strength of Verlander’s finish. Over his final 13 trips to the mound, he totaled 72 2/3 innings with a terrific 2.60 ERA, a 22.8% strikeout rate and a 7.8% walk rate. Verlander limited hard contact better than the average pitcher, checked in with a 93.9 mph average on his four-seamer and turned in an 11% swinging-strike rate that was an exact match for the league average. He only picked up four wins during his time as a Giant, hindering his quest to chase down the 300-victory milestone, but that was due more to poor run support and shaky bullpen work behind him than anything Verlander specifically did.
Verlander returns to what now looks like a stacked Detroit rotation. He’ll reunite with former Astros teammate Framber Valdez, who agreed to a three-year, $115MM contract with Detroit just last week. That pair will join ace Tarik Skubal as he looks to join Verlander as a three-time Cy Young winner. The rotation will be rounded out by right-handers Jack Flaherty and Casey Mize, A healthy Reese Olson would have been among Detroit’s top five starters, even with Verlander in tow, but the team revealed this afternoon that he suffered a setback from last season’s shoulder injury and underwent season-ending surgery.
In all likelihood, there’ll be plenty of starts to go around for other rotation candidates, including promising righty Troy Melton. Injuries are inevitable, so there probably won’t be too many stretches of the season where all six of Skubal, Valdez, Verlander, Mize, Flaherty and Drew Anderson are all at full strength. Top prospect Jackson Jobe could factor into the mix late in the season as well, but he’ll miss the majority of the year after undergoing Tommy John surgery last summer. Even still, simply having someone of Verlander’s stature around to watch and learn from during spring training is an opportunity that Jobe (and other young arms in Tigers camp) will undoubtedly relish.
Whether coincidence or otherwise, Verlander’s $13MM guarantee matches the $13MM gap the Tigers faced in last week’s arbitration hearing with Skubal. The reigning AL Cy Young winner won that hearing. Perhaps the Tigers wouldn’t have gone quite so deferral-heavy on the contract had the arbitration panel ruled in favor of the team, but that’s a moot point. Either way, Verlander is back with the team that originally drafted him with No. 2 overall pick out of Old Dominion back in 2004, and he’ll continue his longshot quest to become MLB’s 25th 300-game winner.
Verlander currently sits at 266 wins in his illustrious career, tied with Hall of Famers Bob Feller and Eppa Rixey for 37th-most in the game’s history. He’ll probably need three more seasons to have a chance at reaching the 300 mark, but he’s previously said he hopes to pitch until he is at least 45. Based on last year’s strong finish and his overall rate stats, he still has something left in the tank as he works toward that lofty goal.
The late additions of Valdez and Verlander will thrust the Tigers into luxury tax territory for the first time. RosterResource’s estimates currently have Detroit about $12MM over the $244MM threshold. That means they’ll pay a 20% tax on the net-present value of Verlander’s deal. It’s more than the Tigers have ever spent. Those late moves have positioned the Tigers as a clear front-runner in an AL Central that’s been characterized primarily by inertia this offseason. They took their time, but the Tigers have made it emphatically clear that their sights are set on winning the Central and pushing for a World Series win in Skubal’s final season before free agency.
Rockies To Sign Jose Quintana
The Rockies have followed up their Michael Lorenzen and Tomoyuki Sugano signings with another free agent deal for a veteran starter. Colorado is reportedly in agreement with left-hander Jose Quintana on a one-year deal, pending a physical. The ACES client is guaranteed $6MM. The Rox will need to open a spot on the 40-man roster once the signing is finalized. Jeff Criswell, who underwent Tommy John surgery last March, is a 60-day injured list candidate.
Quintana signs on the eve of Spring Training after waiting until early March to put pen to paper last winter. He settled for a deferred $4.25MM guarantee with the Brewers that was probably below his expectations coming off a 3.75 ERA in 31 starts for the Mets. Quintana managed decent results in Milwaukee as well, allowing 3.96 earned runs per nine over 131 2/3 innings.
There weren’t a whole lot of encouraging underlying numbers. Quintana’s results have outstripped his peripherals for essentially four consecutive seasons. He has never been a power pitcher, but his already pedestrian velocity and swing-and-miss rates have dropped into his mid-30s. Last year’s 16% strikeout rate was his lowest since the 14% mark he posted in his 2012 rookie season. His sinker and four-seam fastball each land in the 90-91 mph range on average. None of the southpaw’s pitches miss many bats, and last season’s 6.9% swinging strike rate was the second lowest mark for a pitcher who reached 100 innings.
Although the 37-year-old doesn’t have a huge ceiling at this stage of his career, he should raise the floor at the back of Warren Schaeffer’s rotation. The pitch-to-contact approach keeps his walks in check. Quintana doesn’t have notable platoon splits and mixes five pitches (sinker, changeup, curveball, four-seam fastball, and slurve). The deeper arsenal seems to be of particular interest to the Rox’s front office and coaching staff. Lorenzen throws seven distinct pitches, while Sugano has a six-pitch mix.
“We’ve spoken about this internally a lot,” first-year pitching coach Alon Leichman told Patrick Saunders of The Denver Post last week. “We want big arsenals. We think big arsenals will be harder to game plan against. You know, if a guy has six, seven pitches, that’s harder to game plan for than if a guy has two or three, right? So we think that’s an advantage. The more weapons you have, the more random you can be.”
The Rockies have committed just over $19MM to add the trio of veteran starters. They’ll join Kyle Freeland as rotation locks. Ryan Feltner and Chase Dollander would probably compete for the fifth starter role as things stand. There’s a decent chance an injury during Spring Training clarifies things. Feltner missed the majority of last season with back issues. Quintana himself had a pair of IL stints for a shoulder impingement and calf strain, respectively.
While it remains arguably the worst rotation in the majors, the Rockies don’t want a repeat of last year’s historically awful performance. Colorado’s 2025 starting staff had a 6.65 ERA that was the highest in any full MLB season in history. This season’s group should at least be markedly better than that.
None of Lorenzen, Sugano or Quintana are likely to fetch much at the trade deadline even if they’re managing decent results away from Coors Field. They’re all sixth starters/swing types on contenders. There’s nevertheless value in having experienced arms around to take a few innings and work with Dollander and prospects Gabriel Hughes and Sean Sullivan, each of whom could be up at some point in 2026. They’re less likely to need to rely on McCade Brown and Tanner Gordon for early-season starts.
This will push Colorado’s projected payroll to $120MM, as calculated by RosterResource. They opened last season at $122MM and seem set for a nearly identical spending pattern in Paul DePodesta’s first season as president of baseball operations.
Jesse Rogers of ESPN first reported the Rockies and Quintana had an agreement. Robert Murray of FanSided reported the $6MM guarantee. Image courtesy of Mark Hoffman, Imagn Images.
Rays Trade Brett Wisely Back To Braves
The Braves announced they’ve reacquired infielder Brett Wisely from the Rays for cash. Atlanta placed reliever Joe Jiménez on the 60-day injured list with what they termed a “left articular cartilage injury” to open a spot on the 40-man roster. Atlanta had traded Wisely to Tampa Bay a month ago.
Wisely finished the ’25 season in Atlanta. The Braves had claimed him off waivers from the Giants with a couple weeks remaining in the season. He appeared in four games, starting three of them at second base, and went 0-6 with three walks. The rest of Wisely’s MLB work came in San Francisco, where he hit .217/.263/.324 across 457 plate appearances spanning three seasons.
The lefty-hitting infielder has a better minor league track record. He’s a .275/.372/.433 hitter in more than 800 Triple-A plate appearances. Wisely has shown decent contact skills and a reasonable plate approach but doesn’t have much power in a 5’9″ frame. His exit velocities are at the lower end of the league and he has seven home runs in 168 career games.
Wisely is stretched defensively at shortstop but has logged nearly 300 career innings there. He has experience throughout the infield and in both left and center field. Second base is his most natural position, and both Defensive Runs Saved and Outs Above Average have graded him well in a little more than 700 innings.
The 26-year-old is out of minor league options, meaning the Braves need to keep him on the big league club or send him back into DFA limbo. They designated him for assignment a month ago and flipped him to the Rays, the team that initially drafted him back in 2019. Tampa Bay squeezed him off the roster when they traded for outfielder Victor Mesa Jr. last week.
The intervening acquisition of utility player Ben Williamson in the Brendan Donovan trade made it unlikely Wisely would break camp. There’s a better opportunity in Atlanta with Ha-Seong Kim beginning the season on the injured list. That pushed Mauricio Dubón into the starting shortstop spot. Jorge Mateo is their top utility option, but Wisely could push Nacho Alvarez Jr. for the final bench spot.
The corresponding move confirms that Jiménez is in for another extended absence. The big righty missed the entire 2025 season after undergoing surgery to repair cartilage damage in his left knee the previous November. President of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos announced early this offseason that Jiménez required another procedure. Anthopoulos called that a “cleanup” but didn’t provide any kind of return timeline.
Jiménez evidently isn’t going to be available before the end of May at the earliest. He’s making $9MM in the final season of a three-year free agent contract that started promisingly but has been beset by the injuries. The Braves also placed starter Spencer Schwellenbach on the 60-day IL this morning after revealing that he experienced elbow inflammation during his preparation for Spring Training. AJ Smith-Shawver, Danny Young and Kim are 60-day IL candidates themselves, so the Braves will probably be busy on the waiver wire and potential DFA trades over the next few weeks.
Shane Bieber To Begin Season On Injured List; Bowden Francis To Undergo Tommy John Surgery
The defending American League champions provided a handful of discouraging injury updates at the first day of Spring Training. In addition to revealing that Anthony Santander will miss the majority of the season rehabbing shoulder surgery, they announced a couple bits of news on the pitching side.
Shane Bieber will begin the season on the 15-day injured list, manager John Schneider told reporters (links via Mitch Bannon of The Athletic and Keegan Matheson of MLB.com). The Jays are slow-playing his buildup after he dealt with forearm fatigue in the playoffs and over the offseason. There’s worse news for depth starter Bowden Francis, as Schneider said he’s headed for Tommy John surgery.
Schneider framed the Bieber situation mostly as an abundance of caution. It was reported around the Winter Meetings that the righty had dealt with late-season forearm fatigue. That explained what had seemed a very curious decision to exercise a $16MM player option rather than pursuing a multi-year contract.
Bieber missed most of the 2023-24 seasons rehabbing from Tommy John surgery. He felt a bit of elbow soreness last summer but was otherwise healthy enough to pitch the stretch run and throughout the playoffs. Bieber combined for 59 innings between the regular season and postseason. The Jays declined to provide any kind of timetable for his season debut, though both Schneider and GM Ross Atkins suggested they expect him to get plenty of work this season. Bieber has been throwing off flat ground up to 90 feet.
That answers any questions about whether the Jays had “too much” starting pitching to begin the season. José Berríos was reportedly displeased with being pushed out of the projected playoff rotation last year. He might have been sixth on the depth chart at full strength, but he’s now locked into the Opening Day rotation (assuming he gets through camp healthy himself). The Jays have a projected starting five of Dylan Cease, Trey Yesavage, Kevin Gausman, Cody Ponce and Berríos.
Losing Francis subtracts one of their depth arms. The 29-year-old righty took the ball 14 times last year, though he struggled to a 6.05 ERA before going down with a shoulder impingement in the middle of June. He spent the second half of the season on the 60-day injured list. He’ll land back on the IL whenever the Jays need to open a 40-man roster spot and spend the rest of the year there. Francis will be paid around the MLB minimum rate but seems likely to lose his roster spot at the end of the season when teams need to reinstate players from the IL.
Toronto is also without righty Jake Bloss, who is working back from his own elbow procedure (performed last May). Lefty Eric Lauer projects for a long relief role if everyone’s healthy but would be the obvious choice to step into the rotation if anyone else goes down before Opening Day. The other pitchers on the 40-man roster are light on big league experience, meaning one more injury could leave them looking quite thin.
There are a handful of mid-rotation caliber starters still unsigned — old friends Chris Bassitt and Max Scherzer among the group. The Jays have pushed their luxury tax payroll estimate north of $310MM, easily a franchise record. They kicked the tires on Framber Valdez as he lingered on the open market into February, so it seems there’s still a chance of another move if they want to add some stability to the back end.
Reid Detmers Loses Arbitration Hearing To Angels
The Angels have defeated left-hander Reid Detmers in arbitration, reports Mark Feinsand of MLB.com. He’ll be paid at the team’s desired $2.625MM rate rather than his camp’s $2.925MM filing figure.
Detmers is coming off a strong season in which he worked as a full-time reliever. The former 10th overall pick tossed 63 2/3 innings of 3.96 ERA ball while striking out more than 30% of batters faced. He picked up his first three career saves but worked mostly in a leverage role in front of Kenley Jansen, collecting 13 holds in the process.
The season ended on a bit of a sour note, as Detmers was placed on the injured list in the middle of September with elbow inflammation. It’s not expected to impact him going into camp. He’ll build back up as a starter, the role he held for the first four seasons of his MLB career. Detmers has shown flashes out of the rotation but has been up and down, ultimately tallying a near-5.00 ERA over 75 career starts. He projects as the #3 arm in Kurt Suzuki’s rotation behind Yusei Kikuchi and José Soriano. The Angels are counting on a handful of reclamation types — arguably including Detmers considering he posted a 6.70 ERA in his most recent rotation work — to fill out the back of the staff. Grayson Rodriguez and Alek Manoah are the favorites for the final two spots.
Detmers was the only Angel player to go to a hearing this year. His loss is just the second for the players out of nine cases that have been announced so far.
Dylan Lee Wins Arbitration Hearing Over Braves
Lefty reliever Dylan Lee has won his arbitration hearing over the Braves, reports Mark Feinsand of MLB.com. He’ll earn the $2.2MM salary sought by his representatives at PSI Sports Management as opposed to the team’s $2MM filing figure.
Lee is quietly one of the better lefty setup arms in MLB. He owns a 2.82 ERA in just shy of 200 career appearances. That includes a 3.29 mark across a career-high 68 1/3 innings a season ago. Lee fanned almost 29% of batters faced against a tidy 5.3% walk percentage. He paced Atlanta pitchers with 19 holds and collected a pair of stray saves, although Raisel Iglesias held the closer role all year.
The Braves will enter the season with Lee and Aaron Bummer as their top two left-handers in front of what they hope to a lethal back-end duo of Iglesias and Robert Suarez. Lee has just under four years of service time and will be eligible for arbitration twice more. He made $1.025MM last season after qualifying for early arbitration as a Super Two player.
This was Atlanta’s only arbitration case that went to a hearing. Players have had a strong year in aggregate in the process, winning seven of the first nine outcomes that have been announced.
Rays Sign Nick Martinez
The Rays announced the signing of righty Nick Martinez to a one-year deal with a mutual option. It’s reportedly a $13MM guarantee for the Boras Corporation client that takes the form of a $9MM base salary and a $4MM buyout on the option, which is valued at $20MM. Reliever Manuel Rodríguez was placed on the 60-day injured list in a corresponding move. He’s working back from elbow surgery that was performed last July.
Martinez is the second free agent swingman whom the Rays have added this offseason. They signed lefty Steven Matz to a two-year, $15MM deal at the Winter Meetings. Matz was already expected to win a job at the back of the rotation. Tampa Bay subsequently traded Shane Baz to the Orioles, leaving another rotation spot available.
The 35-year-old Martinez enters camp as the favorite to work as Kevin Cash’s fifth starter. He lands behind Drew Rasmussen, Ryan Pepiot, Shane McClanahan and Matz on the depth chart. That could push Ian Seymour and Joe Boyle back to Triple-A Durham while keeping the out-of-options Yoendrys Gómez in a long relief role for which he’s better suited. They’ll need way more than five starters to navigate the season given the injury histories for Rasmussen and McClanahan — the latter of whom hasn’t thrown an MLB pitch since August 2023 and will be on some kind of innings count.
Matz and Martinez each have ample experience working out of the bullpen. Either could transition to relief if Seymour or top prospect Brody Hopkins force their way into the rotation. The versatility has been a huge selling point for Martinez, in particular. He can start, work multiple innings out of the bullpen, or pitch short relief in high-leverage situations as needed.
Martinez has found a strong second act in his 30s after spending four seasons in Japan. This will be his fifth season since he returned to MLB on a deal with the Padres over the 2021-22 offseason. He posted a sub-4.00 earned run average in each of the first three years, working mostly out of the bullpen. Martinez spent the first two seasons in San Diego before signing a two-year free agent contract with Cincinnati. He had the best year of his career in 2024, firing 142 1/3 innings of 3.10 ERA ball while starting 16 of 42 appearances.
The righty triggered an opt-out but returned to Cincinnati after the Reds surprisingly extended a $21.05MM qualifying offer. That’s probably a move the Reds wished they had back. Martinez did pick up a career-high 165 2/3 innings while starting 26 of 40 games, but his production was that of a back-end starter. He allowed 4.45 earned runs per nine while striking out just 17% of opposing hitters, his lowest strikeout rate since he returned from Japan.
Although Martinez has never had huge swing-and-miss stuff, his strikeout rates between 2022-24 hovered around league average. He had a more difficult time getting hitters to chase pitches off the plate last year. His stuff wasn’t that much different than it had been, however, and Martinez’s biggest strength has been his ability to command a legitimate six-pitch mix. He uses each of his cutter, four-seam, sinker, changeup, curveball and slider at least 10% of the time. He’s able to attack the strike zone with any of those offerings, but the changeup is the only plus pitch in his arsenal.
The diverse repertoire has allowed Martinez to avoid any kind of platoon splits. He hasn’t been great at turning lineups over a third time but should be a capable five-inning starter. Martinez gets a decent number of weak fly-balls, an approach that might play more favorably at Tropicana Field than at Cincinnati’s Great American Ball Park. He did a solid job avoiding the longball overall, but his two worst months last season (June and August) were driven largely by home run spikes.
RosterResource estimated the Rays payroll around $79MM before the signing. It’s not yet clear how much will be paid in salary versus the option buyout, but the $13MM guarantee will very likely make Martinez their highest-paid player in 2026. It’ll push their payroll estimate into the low-$90MM range after they opened the ’25 season just north of $79MM.
Jon Heyman and Joel Sherman of The New York Post first reported Martinez and the Rays had an agreement. Marc Topkin of The Tampa Bay Times reported that it was for one year with a mutual option and had the salary breakdown. Mark Feinsand of MLB.com had the $13MM guarantee. Image courtesy of Charles LeClaire, Imagn Images.
Reese Olson To Miss 2026 Season Following Shoulder Surgery
Tigers right-hander Reese Olson is done for the year after undergoing a right shoulder labral repair, the team announced. Olson has been placed on the 60-day IL, along with fellow right-hander Jackson Jobe. The moves will open up 40-man roster spots for recent free agent additions Framber Valdez and Justin Verlander.
Olson’s 2025 season ended in late July due to a right shoulder strain. There had been rumblings that he might not be ready for Opening Day, but there hadn’t been any indication that he’d be sidelined for an extended time. His surgery went down on Feb. 2, per the team announcement. Jobe’s move to the 60-day IL was anticipated. He had Tommy John surgery in June and is set to miss most, if not all, of the upcoming season.
The Valdez and Verlander signings make more sense following the Olson revelation. Detroit will now have Valdez and Tarik Skubal at the top of the rotation, followed in some order by Verlander, Jack Flaherty, and Casey Mize. Troy Melton will serve as a depth option. Jobe could join the mix later in the season.
The 26-year-old Olson has been a reliable member of the Detroit rotation since his debut in 2023. He’s compiled a 3.60 ERA with decent strikeout and walk numbers across 56 big-league appearances. Injuries have been the main limiting factor. Olson missed the majority of the second half in 2024 with a shoulder strain. He missed time in the middle of last season with finger inflammation. Olson made it back for just four games after the finger issue before going down with the most recent shoulder strain.
Detroit acquired Olson from the Brewers straight up for Daniel Norris at the 2021 trade deadline. He finished that season at Double-A in the Tigers’ system. Olson spiked a 33.1% strikeout rate in a repeat of the level in 2022. He earned a promotion to Triple-A in 2023, where he continued to miss bats at a well-above-average clip. Olson’s 6.38 ERA with Toledo didn’t suggest a callup was imminent, though his FIP was more than a run lower. He made 18 starts with Detroit that season, including a dominant September where he allowed five earned runs across five appearances.
Olson hasn’t been able to replicate the strikeout upside he showed in the minor leagues, despite a pair of plus swing-and-miss pitches. The righty’s changeup and slider both had whiff rates above 42% in 2024 and 2025. Olson has posted an identical 12.7% swinging-strike rate in each of the past two seasons. The arsenal just hasn’t translated to punchouts. Olson has been right around league average in strikeout rate at the MLB level. He hasn’t reached a strikeout per inning in any season with the Tigers.
Photo courtesy of Junfu Han, Imagn Images
Tigers Sign Framber Valdez To Three-Year Deal
Feb. 10: Detroit has officially announced the Valdez signing. He’ll earn a base salary of $17.5MM in 2026, $37.5MM 2027, and $35MM in 2028. Valdez can opt out after 2027. The deal also includes a $40MM mutual option for 2029 with a $5MM buyout. Valdez’ $20MM signing bonus is entirely deferred, with payments not starting until 2030.
Feb. 4: The Tigers land the offseason’s top remaining free agent, reportedly agreeing to a three-year deal with Framber Valdez that guarantees $115MM. The deal, which is pending a physical, allows the star left-hander to opt out after the second season. It contains a $20MM signing bonus and an unspecified amount of deferred money. Valdez is represented by Octagon.
Valdez reunites with A.J. Hinch and gives the Tigers a lethal 1-2 pairing at the top of the rotation. He’ll slot behind Tarik Skubal atop a starting staff that suddenly looks like one of the best in the American League. They’ll be followed by Reese Olson, Jack Flaherty and Casey Mize if everyone gets through camp healthy. That’d push KBO signee Drew Anderson into a swing role, while second-year righty Troy Melton can either pitch out of the bullpen or wait in Triple-A for a rotation spot to open.
The Skubal-Valdez pairing may only be together for one season, as the two-time defending Cy Young winner is a year away from what should be a record-setting free agent contract. Skubal and the club went to a hearing this morning that’ll determine whether he makes $19MM or $32MM for his final year under club control. The arbitrators will not reveal their decision until tomorrow, and Chris McCosky of The Detroit News confirms that neither the Tigers nor Skubal’s camp are aware yet of which way they’ll rule. The Valdez pickup is an independent decision.
It’s the kind of win-now strike for which much of the Detroit fanbase has waited all offseason. The Tigers had a fairly conservative trade deadline, and their biggest moves before tonight had been retaining Flaherty on a $20MM player option and Gleyber Torres via the $22.025MM qualifying offer. They also brought back setup man Kyle Finnegan on a two-year deal and added Anderson and closer Kenley Jansen on one-year contracts. They’d done a decent job building depth but without pushing the chips in for an impact player in what could be Skubal’s final season in the Motor City.
Valdez brings the ceiling that Detroit’s other acquisitions had lacked. He’s a two-time All-Star who has finished top 10 in Cy Young balloting in three of the past four seasons. Valdez worked his way from an unheralded amateur signee to the big leagues in 2018. He spent his first two seasons working in a swing role for an Astros club managed by Hinch. Valdez moved into the rotation permanently during the shortened 2020 campaign and has been one of the best pitchers in MLB over the last six years.
The southpaw has posted a sub-4.00 earned run average in each season since he became a full-time starter. He has been exceptionally durable as well, only twice landing on the injured list in his MLB career. He fractured his left ring finger when he was hit by a comebacker in Spring Training 2021. He was back from that injury by the end of May. His only other IL stint was a two-week absence for elbow inflammation early in ’24. He returned without issue and wound up making 29 starts between the regular season and playoffs.
Valdez is tied for 14th in starts and ranks fifth with 973 innings dating back to 2020. He has a cumulative 3.23 ERA in that time. That includes sub-3.00 showings in 2022 and ’24. Valdez was among the most consistent top-of-the-rotation starters in MLB — at least until the second half of his walk year. He posted an earned run average between 2.82 and 3.45 in each season between 2021-24. He topped 175 innings in each of the latter three years.
For the first half of last season, Valdez was on a similar pace. He took a 2.75 ERA over 121 frames into the All-Star Break. Valdez came out of the Break with two more quality starts and was sitting on a 2.62 ERA (a top 10 mark among qualifiers) as August arrived. He picked a tough time for arguably the worst couple months of his career. Valdez was blitzed for a 6.05 ERA with a dramatically reduced 17.7% strikeout rate over his final 10 starts. His sinker velocity dipped slightly, and opponents teed off on it in August and September. There’s no indication that he was tipping pitches, and it seems like the issue was mostly poor execution.
Valdez also found himself at the center of controversy during a start against the Yankees on September 2. Two pitches after giving up a grand slam to Trent Grisham, he hit catcher César Salazar in the chest with a 93 MPH sinker on a cross-up. Salazar was clearly expecting a breaking ball and didn’t have time to react to the fastball. Valdez didn’t check on the catcher in the moment. Salazar was not hurt and finished the game without issue.
The pitcher denied that the cross-up was intentional. Salazar did his best to publicly downplay the incident, saying he pressed the wrong button on his PitchCom. Even if that’s the case, the pitcher’s seeming lack of concern on the mound made for poor optics. Valdez said postgame that he had apologized to his battery mate.
Did that have any impact on his market value? It’s impossible to know from the outside, though one imagines some teams asked Valdez about the incident during the free agent process. It’s worth noting that a Detroit team managed by his former skipper is the one that eventually signed him, so it seems they don’t have any concerns about his makeup or clubhouse presence.
The late-season dip in production and Valdez’s age were probably bigger factors in his extended free agent stay. He finished the year with a 3.66 ERA across 192 innings. His 23.3% strikeout rate and 8.5% walk percentage were in line with his career marks. It’s a solid strikeout and walk profile, but his game has always been built more around ground-balls. He has a career 62% grounder rate and kept the ball on the ground at a 58.6% clip last season, the third-highest mark among pitchers with 100+ innings.
It’s not the whiff-heavy approach that someone like Dylan Cease brought to the table this offseason, though Valdez’s statistical profile isn’t that dissimilar from that of Max Fried. They’re both ground-ball specialists who sit in the mid-90s with a sinker that leads the profile. Fried commanded an eight-year, $218MM contract last winter. The biggest difference is that came in advance of his age-31 season, while Valdez turned 32 in November.
Although a one-year age gap might not seem like much, teams have been reluctant to make long-term commitments to free agent pitchers at 32. Zack Greinke, Jacob deGrom and Blake Snell are the only pitchers that age or older to command five-plus years since 2011. They’d all had at least one Cy Young on their résumés by that point. Valdez’s inconsistent finish essentially took a six-year contract off the table. MLBTR predicted a five-year, $150MM deal at the beginning of the offseason. That he remained unsigned into February made it increasingly apparent that a five-year contract wasn’t going to be out there.
On the surface, Valdez seems to have done fairly well despite signing a week before the beginning of Spring Training. The deal’s true value can’t really be known until the extent of the deferrals are reported, however. The sticker price comes with a massive $38.33MM average annual value that’d rank 10th all time. The net present value will be reduced to at least some extent by the deferred money.
Regardless of the contract breakdown, this easily goes down as Scott Harris’ boldest free agent move in his four years running baseball operations. It’s Detroit’s first nine-figure investment since the ill-fated Javier Baez deal, which was signed under former GM Al Avila. The Harris front office hadn’t gone beyond $35MM on a free agent. That was their two-year contract to re-sign Flaherty almost exactly a year ago. There are some parallels with Valdez in terms of waiting out the market to get a high-end starter for short term, but this is obviously a much more significant investment.
The Tigers ran a $188MM competitive balance tax payroll last season. They’re going to top that this year, though the extent isn’t clear. RosterResource currently estimates their CBT number around $237MM while penciling in the midpoint of the arbitration filing figures as a placeholder for Skubal. The arbitrators don’t have that luxury, meaning that CBT estimate will change by $6.5MM in one direction or another. It’s also using the base $38.33MM annual value for Valdez, which overshoots the actual number to an unknown extent until the deferral breakdown comes out.
Detroit also forfeits draft capital because Valdez rejected a qualifying offer from the Astros. They’re a revenue sharing recipient so it’s the lowest penalty, their third-highest pick in the 2026 draft. That’s currently slated to be their Competitive Balance Round B selection, which is 69th overall. The Tigers could look to trade that pick — Competitive Balance selections are the only ones that can be traded — rather than losing it as the compensatory pick. They’d then forfeit their third-round selection (#98 overall), but another team might be more willing to give up something of value for the higher draft choice and accompanying slot value that makes it worthwhile for Detroit to lose the third-rounder.
Houston never had any interest in meeting Valdez’s asking price. As luxury tax payors, they receive a compensation pick after the fourth round. That’ll land around 133rd overall. Houston traded for Mike Burrows and signed Tatsuya Imai and Ryan Weiss to backfill the rotation depth, even if they’re unlikely to replace the ceiling that Valdez brought.
The Blue Jays, Orioles and Pirates were recently linked to Valdez. ESPN’s Jesse Rogers reports that the Twins surprisingly jumped in the mix as well. He was probably a unique target for a Toronto club that already runs six deep in the rotation. Baltimore could pivot to a mid-tier starter like Zac Gallen (the last unsigned player who declined a QO), Chris Bassitt or Lucas Giolito. A mid-rotation arm is also possible for Pittsburgh. At the very least, the Bucs figure to add a fifth starter for a few million dollars. Minnesota has a solid rotation but reportedly kicked the tires on a Freddy Peralta trade as well, seemingly staying on the periphery of the market for a potential impact arm.
Jeff Passan of ESPN reported the three-year, $115MM agreement with the opt-out after year two. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic was first on the presence of deferrals. Jon Heyman of The New York Post had the $20MM bonus.
Image courtesy of Dale Zanine, Imagn Images.
