Headlines

Go To Pro Hockey Rumors
Go To Hoops Rumors

Justin Bour Announces Retirement

By | at

Veteran first baseman Justin Bour announced his retirement, saying on his official Twitter feed that “there comes a time in every player’s career when they know it’s time to hang them up.  Today is that day for me.  Thank you baseball and everyone that helped me along the way.”  Bour will hang up the cleats at age 34, and after hitting .253/.337/.457 with 92 career home runs over 1950 plate appearances and 559 big league games with the Marlins, Phillies, and Angels.

Bour’s career began as a 25th-round pick for the Cubs in the 2009 draft, though the Marlins took Bour away from Chicago in the 2013 Rule 5 draft.  That selection opened the door for Bour’s MLB debut in 2014, and eventually his role as the Marlins’ new regular first baseman.  Retaining his rookie eligibility into the 2015 campaign, Bour finished fifth in NL Rookie Of The Year voting that season after a 23-homer performance.

All told, Bour hit .262/.346/.470 with 83 home runs over 1726 PA with Miami from 2014-18, until the Fish dealt him to the Phillies in August 2018.  Bour was one of several notable Marlins players traded around that period as the franchise went through yet another fire sale, though Bour’s offensive numbers also started to dip in 2018.  As a first base-only player without much success against left-handed pitching, Bour’s limitations worked against him for salary arbitration purposes, as the Phillies chose to non-tender him following the 2018 season due to his rising price tag.

The Angels signed Bour to a free agent deal but he struggled in Anaheim, playing in only 52 games with the Halos in 2019.  This marked Bour’s last stint in the majors, and apart from a 33-game stretch with the Giants’ Triple-A team in 2021, Bour spent his last three pro seasons mostly playing in foreign leagues.  The first baseman saw time in Japan (with the Hanshin Tigers), South Korea (the LG Twins), and in Mexico (Diablos Rojos del México).

Bour is “looking forward to giving back to the game that has given me so much,” and his first steps in retirement will be to spend more time with his family and to finish his degree at George Mason University.  We at MLB Trade Rumors congratulate Bour on a fine career, and we wish him all the best in his next steps.

Astros Sign Cristian Javier To Five-Year Extension

By | at

The Astros have locked up a key member of their rotation, announcing agreement with Cristian Javier on a five-year deal. The contract, which does not contain any option provisions, locks in his final three seasons of arbitration control and buys out two would-be free agent years. It’s reportedly a $64MM guarantee for the MVP Sports Group client.

Javier will receive a $2MM signing bonus and a $3MM salary for the upcoming season. That’ll be followed by successive salaries of $7MM in 2024, $10MM in 2025, and $21MM annually between 2026-27. Javier’s salaries in the final two seasons can escalate depending on his Cy Young finishes in prior years. He’d add $2MM to his salary in the final two seasons with any previous Cy Young win, $1MM with a runner-up, or $500K for a third through fifth place finish.

“Cristian is an outstanding pitcher, so we are really excited about signing him to a long-term deal,” first-year general manager Dana Brown said in the team’s press release. “We felt that he is the perfect candidate for this type of deal as a core piece of our rotation. This is in line with our vision to try to to lock players up to sustain our success both now and in the future.”

Javier, 26 next month, signed with the Astros as an 18-year-old out of the Dominican Republic during the 2015-16 signing period. Two years older than the typical international amateur acquisition, Javier received a $10K bonus as an unheralded prospect. That he even made the majors given that modest starting point is a testament to his progression and the Astros’ strong pitcher development staff. Javier has performed at an above-average level from essentially day one in MLB, breaking in with 54 1/3 innings of 3.48 ERA ball during the shortened 2020 schedule.

It was a promising rookie showing in which Javier started 10 of his first 12 outings. He started the first nine appearances of the following season but was kicked to the bullpen in late May thanks to the Astros’ starting pitching surplus. Javier thrived in relief, striking out 31.3% of opponents with a 3.93 ERA as a multi-inning weapon. That affirmed his ability to perform at a high-end level over a full season and put him in the mix for a potential return to the rotation.

That transition back to starting came last April. After three relief outings to open the year, Javier was moved back into the rotation as part of a six-man starting staff. He improved upon his strong first couple seasons, totaling 148 2/3 innings of 2.54 ERA ball. He fanned 33.2% of opposing hitters while generating swinging strikes on an excellent 13.8% of his overall offerings. Among 72 pitchers with 140+ innings, only Carlos Rodón and Shohei Ohtani racked up strikeouts more efficiently. Javier’s per-pitch whiff rate checked in 11th among that group.

Javier now carries a 3.05 ERA with a 30.9% strikeout percentage through 304 1/3 career innings of regular season action. That production was certainly eye-opening on its own, though he perhaps firmly put himself on the national radar last fall. Entrusted with a start in Game Four of the World Series with his club down 2-1, Javier outpitched Aaron Nola with six innings of no-hit ball and nine strikeouts. A trio of relievers closed out the second no-hitter in World Series history and evened a series which Houston would go on to take in six games.

Obviously, Houston’s long-term belief in Javier goes well beyond that one performance. He’s among the game’s best young pitchers at missing bats. That’s been particularly true against right-handed batters, who have struck out in 36.6% of plate appearances while hitting .143/.231/.304 against him over his MLB career. Lefties have had a little more success, working walks at an 11.1% clip with a .212/.307/.369 line, but haven’t fared particularly well themselves.

The free passes against southpaws hint at fine but unexceptional control. Javier has walked 10.1% of opponents in his career and handed out free passes at a slightly higher than average 8.9% clip last season. He’s not a pinpoint control artist but has thrown more than enough strikes considering his ability to miss bats. He’s also one of the sport’s more extreme fly-ball pitchers. That led to some home runs issues early in his career but wasn’t a problem in 2022, when he allowed just over one longball per nine innings. That was on the strength of a minuscule 9.1% HR/FB rate he’s not likely to sustain, and homer issues could be at least a modest concern moving forward.

Even if Javier doesn’t replicate a 2.54 ERA annually, his first couple seasons demonstrate he’s capable of keeping runs off the board with a few round-trippers mixed in. The Astros now have Javier and Lance McCullers Jr. signed for the extended future (McCullers through 2026, Javier through ’27). Framber Valdez is arbitration-eligible through 2025, as is José Urquidy. Luis Garcia has yet to reach arbitration and won’t hit free agency until following the 2026 campaign. Top prospect Hunter Brown, meanwhile, just reached the majors late last year and is controllable until at least the 2028-29 offseason.

That controllable rotation should position the Astros to stretch their run of success well into the decade. It’s possible more deals are coming, as the new GM has already gone on record about a desire to lock up multiple key players on long-term extensions. That has been an organizational emphasis for the Braves, in whose front office Brown worked before landing the Houston GM job two weeks ago. It hasn’t taken long for him to bring that philosophy to Houston, and while Brown candidly implied yesterday that a Javier deal was likely to be the first one coming, it’s hard to imagine it’ll be the last one that gets done.

Former GM James Click had already extended Yordan Alvarez through 2028 last summer. Star outfielder Kyle Tucker (arb-eligible through 2025) and infielders Alex Bregman and Jose Altuve (both under contract for two more seasons) are among the other players whom Brown has expressed a desire to keep around.

The Javier deal won’t have a huge impact on the club’s 2023 payroll. He and the team had been slated to go to an arbitration hearing that would’ve seen him earn either $3MM or $3.5MM for this season. Factoring in the signing bonus adds $1.5MM – $2MM to the club’s ledger this year. Houston’s payroll now sits around $193MM, as calculated by Roster Resource. That’s above last year’s estimated $174MM season0opening mark but not a dramatic spike for a franchise coming off a World Series win.

The extension has a more notable impact on the club’s luxury tax calculation. A deal’s average annual value counts against a team’s CBT ledger. Javier’s now at $12.8MM from a CBT perspective, bringing Houston’s projected tax number around $218MM. That leaves them about $15MM shy of the $233MM base threshold.

The following $7MM and $10MM salaries reflect reasonable enough assumptions about how Javier’s payments might have escalated over his final two arbitration seasons. Houston’s $21MM annual payments for his two would-be free agent years, however, mark a step up in this service bracket. Marlins ace Sandy Alcantara signed a five-year extension that guaranteed $56MM last winter, the largest deal ever for a pitcher with between three and fours year of service. That was before Alcantara exploded for a Cy Young-winning 2022 season but he was coming off a 3.19 ERA showing over 205 2/3 innings and had twice topped 30 starts in a season.

That Javier broke the record for his service group is impressive enough, though his camp’s stronger victory on the deal was in the absence of any club options at contract’s end. Alcantara’s extension came with a $21MM team option for a sixth season. Carlos Martínez, who had the second-largest guarantee among starters in the service class at $51MM, surrendered two team options. Nola agreed to one option in his $45MM deal over the 2018-19 offseason.

Javier didn’t need to do so. He secures his first life-changing guarantee and set the record for pitchers in the service bracket while still remaining in strong position for a strong free agent deal down the line. Javier is scheduled to hit free agency after his age-30 campaign, when a six-plus year contract would be on the table if he continues to perform as a borderline top-of-the-rotation starter.

The Astros don’t secure the extent of the long-term upside that’s typically present on extensions of this nature. They do tack on two more years of Javier’s services and the $21MM annual salary would be below his free agent market value if he stays healthy and performs at the level he has to this point in his career. Houston has arguably the sport’s best roster already and has taken another step towards extending that window with core players. Given the aggressiveness with which their new GM hammered out his first significant deal, it wouldn’t be a surprise if there were more on the horizon.

Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle first reported Javier was guaranteed $64MM, including a $2MM signing bonus, and that the deal didn’t contain any option years. Jeff Passan of ESPN reported the yearly salary breakdown. Robert Murray of FanSided reported the presence of awards bonuses and escalators, with the Associated Press providing specifics on the bonus structure.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Mets Outright Khalil Lee

By | at

Mets outfielder Khalil Lee has gone unclaimed on waivers and been sent outright to Triple-A Syracuse, according to his transactions log at MLB.com. He was designated for assignment earlier in the week after the Mets claimed reliever Sam Coonrod off waivers from the Phillies.

A report emerged last week that Lee was the subject of a civil action filed by his ex-girlfriend, who accused him of assaulting her last May. A misdemeanor arrest warrant charging Lee for criminal obstruction of breath was reportedly issued last August. The status of those criminal proceedings is unknown. Major League Baseball has reportedly opened an investigation under the joint domestic violence policy between the league and Players Association. The commissioner’s office is permitted to level disciplinary action under that policy even in the absence of a criminal conviction.

The 24-year-old outfielder has played in 13 games for the Mets over the past two seasons. He spent the bulk of last season with Syracuse, hitting .211/.326/.366 with 10 home runs and 14 stolen bases. He walked at a strong 11.2% clip but struck out in a third of his plate appearances.

Lee has never previously been outrighted and doesn’t have the requisite service time to refuse the assignment. He remains in the Mets’ organization but no longer occupies a 40-man roster spot.

Angels Sign Fernando Romero To Minor League Deal

By | at

The Angels announced a host of non-roster invitations to Spring Training this evening. Among the group was right-hander Fernando Romero, who returns to the affiliated ranks after two seasons in Japan.

Romero, a native of the Dominican Republic, was a highly-regarded prospect early in his professional career. Baseball America slotted him among the ten most promising talents in the Twins’ minor league system in 2017-18. He reached the majors in the latter of those two seasons, starting 11 games and posting a 4.69 ERA as a rookie. He worked exclusively out of the bullpen during his sophomore campaign but was tagged for 12 runs in 14 innings.

The Twins granted Romero his release at the start of the 2020-21 offseason. That facilitated a deal with the Yokohama DeNA BayStars of Nippon Professional Baseball. He logged parts of two seasons there, tallying 173 innings at Japan’s top level. Romero posted a 4.01 ERA with a meager 12.7% strikeout rate and average 8.5% walk percentage. That included 92 frames of 4.87 ERA ball last year, though Romero fared better with the BayStars’ minor league affiliate.

While he worked out of the bullpen for his final season in the Minnesota organization, the 28-year-old has plenty of professional experience as a starting pitcher. He can serve as a depth option for either the rotation or multi-inning relief. Romero joins players like Chris Devenski, Jonathan Holder, Gerardo Reyes, César Valdez, Nash Walters, Austin Warren and Jacob Webb as right-handed non-roster options in Halos’ camp.

Cardinals Outright James Naile

By | at

The Cardinals have sent reliever James Naile outright to Triple-A Memphis after he went unclaimed on waivers, the club informed reporters (including Jeff Jones of the Belleville News-Democrat). Having never previously been outrighted and yet to reach three years of MLB service time, Naile doesn’t have the right to reject the assignment. He’ll stick in the organization without holding a 40-man spot and be in big league camp as a non-roster invitee.

Naile debuted in the majors last summer a little shy of his 30th birthday. He made it into seven big league games, throwing nine innings of five-run ball. The righty struck out five, issued a pair of walks and averaged 91.7 MPH on his sinker. The 2022 campaign was his first in the St. Louis organization after parts of seven seasons in the Oakland system. The former 20th-round pick spent the majority of the season with Memphis.

He had a nice showing there, working 73 1/3 innings through 44 appearances. Naile posted a 3.31 ERA while inducing grounders on a very strong 53.4% of batted balls he allowed. He had a fairly modest 20.2% strikeout percentage but only issued walks at a 6.6% clip. That earned him his first big league work, but he lost his spot on the 40-man roster when the club acquired Anthony Misiewicz from the Royals a few days ago.

A UAB product, Naile figures to open the upcoming season back in Memphis. The Cardinals’ front office has given plenty of opportunity to various ground-ball specialists given the strength of their infield defense, so it wouldn’t be a surprise if he works his way back to the bigs at some point.

Blue Jays Sign Bo Bichette To Three-Year Deal To Avoid Arbitration

By | at

FEBRUARY 10: The Associated Press reports the specific financial breakdown. Bichette receives a $3.25MM signing bonus and a $2.85MM salary for the upcoming season, bringing his 2023 payout to $6.1MM. He’ll make $11MM in 2024 and $16.5MM in ’25. If Bichette wins an MVP in either of the first two seasons, his salary would escalate by $2.25MM for any future seasons. Future salaries would escalate by $1.25MM for a second or third place finish and by $250K for a fourth or fifth place tally.

FEBRUARY 9: The Blue Jays announced Thursday evening that star shortstop Bo Bichette has signed a three-year contract to buy out his remaining seasons of arbitration eligibility. The deal will not affect the team’s window of club control by delaying his path to free agency. Bichette, a Vayner Sports client, will reportedly be guaranteed $33.6MM over the three seasons with escalators that could eventually bring the total to $40.65MM.

Bichette debuted in the second half of the 2019 campaign and has spent the past three years as Toronto’s everyday shortstop. He has produced against big league pitching from day one, breaking into the majors with a .311/.358/.571 showing through 46 games as a rookie. Bichette hasn’t quite maintained that kind of pace over a full season but has posted well above-average offensive marks in every year of his career.

He reached arbitration for the first time this winter after surpassing the three-year service threshold during the summer. Bichette was slated to carry a career .297/.340/.491 line with 69 home runs, 239 runs batted in and 46 stolen bases through 393 MLB games into that process. The 2022 campaign was right in line with his career marks, as he hit .290/.333/.469 with 24 longballs, 93 RBI and 13 steals (albeit in 21 attempts). He has led the American League in hits in each of the past two seasons and finished in the top 15 in AL MVP balloting in both years.

Financial terms of the contract remain unreported. Bichette’s camp had filed for a $7.5MM salary last month, with the Jays countering at $5MM. The $2.5MM gap tied that between the Astros and outfielder Kyle Tucker — who are themselves discussing a potential multi-year deal — for the largest discrepancy between a team and player this offseason. That’s a moot point now, as the three-year pact overrides that and ensures the Jays and Bichette won’t go to an arbitration hearing at any time.

Bichette turns 25 next month and is still slated to hit free agency after the 2025 season — when he’ll be entering his age-28 campaign. It’s unclear whether the sides plan to engage in discussions on a more significant long-term pact that would alter the Jays’ window of club control this spring. Toronto brass has predictably spoken of a desire to explore such arrangements with their top young players (generally assumed to be Bichette, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Alek Manoah) but isn’t facing pressing urgency to do so. Guerrero is also arbitration-eligible through 2025, while Manoah won’t reach arbitration until next offseason as a likely Super Two qualifier and isn’t going to hit free agency until after the 2027 campaign.

The Jays have now completed their arbitration work for the offseason. Bichette was the only of their 12 eligible players who didn’t agree to a deal prior to last month’s deadline for exchanging figures.

Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet first reported the Jays and Bichette had agreed to a multi-year deal to avoid arbitration and that a three-year pact had been under consideration. Joel Sherman of the New York Post confirmed the sides were in agreement on a three-year deal. Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic reported the guarantee and potential maximum value.

Brewers Re-Sign Jon Singleton To Minor League Deal

By | at

The Brewers have re-signed first baseman Jon Singleton to a minor league contract, the club informed reporters (including Todd Rosiak of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel). He’s back with the organization after being released last month and receives a non-roster invitation to Spring Training.

Singleton hasn’t played in the majors since 2015, his second season as a member of the Astros. A one-time top prospect and recipient of a $10MM extension before reaching the majors, Singleton struggled to a .171/.290/.331 line through 114 big league games. He connected on 14 home runs with a massive 14.3% walk percentage but struck out at an untenable 36% clip.

After spending a couple seasons in the minors, Singleton was released by Houston. That came on the heels of a suspension after failing a drug test, with the left-handed hitter later admitting he has battled marijuana addiction. Singleton was out of the sport entirely for a few seasons but embarked on a comeback in Mexico two years ago. A monster 46-game run there earned him a minor league opportunity with Milwaukee heading into 2022.

Singleton spent the year with the Brew Crew’s top affiliate in Nashville. He struck out at a near-28% clip and only hit .219, but he more than compensated with his typical blend of patience and power. Singleton walked at a 20.1% clip to reach base at a strong .375 rate and popped 24 home runs in 581 plate appearances. It didn’t get him a big league call but impressed Milwaukee’s front office enough they re-signed him to a minor league deal at the start of the offseason and quickly added him to the 40-man roster to prevent another team from taking him in the Rule 5 draft.

He didn’t retain that roster spot into the season, as he was designated for assignment once the Brew Crew signed Brian Anderson. After clearing waivers and spending a few weeks on the open market, he circled back to the Milwaukee organization. He’ll have to earn his way back onto the 40-man roster, where he’d hope to join Rowdy Tellez and Jesse Winker as lefty bats in the first base/designated hitter rotation.

Rays, Daniel Robertson Finalizing Minor League Deal

By | at

The Rays are bringing utilityman Daniel Robertson back to the organization on a minor league contract with an invite to spring training, tweets Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. The two parties are in the process of finalizing the contract.

Robertson, 29 next month, hasn’t appeared in the Majors since a 50-game stint with the 2021 Brewers, but he spent the 2017-19 seasons as an oft-used bench piece for the Rays, batting .231/.340/.352 with 16 home runs, an 11.6% walk rate and a 25.2% walk rate in 831 plate appearances along the way. He’s most frequently appeared at second base in his big league career (816 innings) but does have ample experience at third base (601 innings) and shortstop (569 innings) in addition to brief looks in the corner outfield (38 innings) and at first base (eight innings).

Tampa Bay traded Robertson to the Giants for cash back in 2020, and he appeared in 63 games between San Francisco and Milwaukee from 2020-21. He didn’t hit much in a tiny sample of 114 plate appearances, however, and those struggles continued in Triple-A last year, when he hit a combined .219/.319/.395 between the top affiliates for the Twins and the Phillies.

Still, Robertson can play all over the diamond and has had some modest success both in Triple-A and in the Majors over the course of a decade-long professional career. He’s the second veteran utilityman signed by Tampa Bay in as many days, as the Rays also inked Charlie Culberson to a similar pact yesterday. The Rays will see a dozen of their players depart for the World Baseball Classic in early March, including infielders Jonathan Aranda, Wander Franco and Isaac Paredes, so having some extra veterans in camp will come with an additional benefit.

Rangers Still Open To Outfield Addition

By | at

It’s been a busy offseason for the Rangers in terms of pitching acquisitions, with Jacob deGrom, Nathan Eovaldi and Andrew Heaney joining the rotation alongside holdovers Jon Gray and Martin Perez (who accepted the team’s one-year, qualifying offer at the outset of free agency). Texas has also acquired veteran Jake Odorizzi in a deal with the Braves and brought in a slew of veteran players — pitchers and hitters alike — on non-roster deals with invites to spring training.

One glaring hole from the 2022 club that’s yet to be addressed, however, is the outfield. Adolis Garcia has one spot locked down (likely right field), and Texas seems content to turn center field over to fleet-footed, slick-fielding Leody Taveras. Left field remains a question mark, however, and although the team has been connected to names like Bryan Reynolds and old friend Jurickson Profar even since the calendar flipped from 2022 to 2023, the Rangers haven’t brought an outfielder into the mix on a guaranteed deal.

General manager Chris Young didn’t exactly strike an aggressive tone in discussing the void, but he did tell Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News that his front office will “continue to monitor leading up to spring training and through spring training” to “see what the options are both internally and externally.”

It’s a fairly generic statement, admittedly, but Young’s comments come on the heels of several other front office leaders around the league all but proclaiming that their teams are done making additions to the roster (e.g. Giants, Mariners, Reds). Given that context, it’s at least somewhat notable that Young is still speaking about the possibility of bringing in talent from outside the organization.

Of course, the free-agent market for outfielders has largely been picked over, and the asking price for the aforementioned Reynolds — which Texas and other clubs have clearly deemed too high — isn’t likely to come down anytime soon. That said, Profar is still looking for an employer for the 2023 season, and the market has a handful of solid platoon bats who could be paired with what’s currently a hodgepodge of unproven youngsters and veteran rebound hopefuls. David Peralta, Robbie Grossman and Tyler Naquin are among the yet-unsigned possibilities.

As it stands, the Rangers have Josh Smith, Bubba Thompson, Mark Mathias, Brad Miller and Ezequiel Duran on the 40-man roster. Thompson is the only pure outfielder by trade — the others are infielders with some outfield experience — but he also needed a .389 BABIP to offset his 30.9% strikeout rate and get to a .265/.302/.312 slash in last year’s MLB debut. That clocked in 23% below-average, by measure of wRC+. As for the team’s non-roster invitees, they’ll give looks to Travis Jankowski, Clint Frazier, Joe McCarthy and Elier Hernandez.

The Rangers are already in line to shatter their previous franchise-record payroll, soaring past that old $165MM mark with what Roster Resource projects as a $196MM Opening Day outlay. Any addition at this point isn’t likely to be all that expensive, barring an unlikely scenario where the Rangers take on a contract of some note in a trade. It’s fair to wonder just how high ownership is willing to push payroll, but after spending nearly $825MM in free agency over the past two offseasons alone, it’s likely that they’d provide Young with the green light to make another modestly price addition (e.g. Profar, Peralta) if the front office determines that to be a prudent course of action.

Rangers left fielders ranked dead-last in the Majors last season in batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage, combining to post an almost unfathomably feeble .186/.253/.255 batting line. That translated to a 47 wRC+, or roughly 53% worse than league-average production after weighting for home park and the league run-scoring environment. Rangers left fielders also struck out at a 29.6% clip (28th in MLB), hit 11 home runs (27th), and managed only five doubles (last in the Majors) and no triples.

Padres Sign Yu Darvish To Extension

By | at

Feb. 10: Darvish will be paid a $6MM signing bonus and receive a $24MM salary in 2023, tweets Jon Heyman of the New York Post. He’ll then be paid $15MM in 2024, $20MM in 2025, $15MM in 2026 and $14MM apiece in 2027-28. The contract also contains a full no-trade clause, and any Cy Young win in the contract’s first five seasons would boost his 2028 salary by $1MM.

Feb. 9: The Padres have locked up a second key member of the rotation for the long haul. San Diego announced a new six-year contract with right-hander Yu Darvish that’ll keep him in the fold through the 2028 season. The deal reportedly guarantees the Wasserman client $108MM overall. Since Darvish had already been under contract for $18MM for 2023, it’s five years and $90MM in new money.

It’s a remarkable contract when considering Darvish’s age, although at an average annual value of $18MM, Darvish hardly needs to perform like an ace in order to continue to justify the price tag. That’s the same AAV the Phillies committed to Taijuan Walker this offseason, for instance, and over the life of the new contract, the AAV for high-end pitching only figures to continue to increase. That said, any long-term deal running through a pitcher’s age-41 season — Darvish will turn 42 about six weeks before the contract ends — is obviously teeming with risk.

As things currently stand, however, Darvish remains among the game’s best starters. The right-hander’s age-35 campaign saw him pile up 194 2/3 innings of 3.10 ERA ball with strikeout and walk rates (25.6% and 4.8%) that were far better than league average (particularly the walk rate). Darvish’s 95 mph average fastball was actually the second-best mark of his career, and those 194 2/3 fames were the second-highest single-season total he’s logged since signing with the Rangers back in 2012.

Darvish had Tommy John surgery back in March 2015, missing the entirety of that season and a substantial chunk of the 2016 campaign while recovering. His 2018 season with the Cubs, who originally signed him to the six-year $126MM deal on which he’d previously been playing, was limited to just 40 innings thanks to a triceps injury. Since that time, however, Darvish has been quite durable. He made all 12 of his starts during the shortened 2020 season, and in each of his past three 162-game seasons, he’s taken the hill at least 30 times.

The Padres had been set to lose both Darvish and Blake Snell to free agency following the 2023 season, with both heading into the final seasons of their respective contracts. Darvish, however, now looks likely to not only remain in San Diego but finish out his career as a member of the Padres under president of baseball operations A.J. Preller, who played a major role in signing Darvish when he was in the Rangers’ front office. Darvish joins San Diego native Joe Musgrove, who inked a five-year extension last summer, as the bedrock of the Padres’ rotation for the foreseeable future.

Keeping Darvish under contract is of particular benefit with the final two spots on the starting staff already going to relievers who’ll be making the shift to full-time starters in 2023: Nick Martinez and Seth Lugo. Both players have player options on their contracts for 2024, meaning if things go smoothly they’ll likely opt out of the contracts and test free agency on the heels of improved platform seasons. If the shift to starting roles don’t work out, then the Padres will obviously be seeking alternative options, be they in-house or external acquisitions. Either way, prior to the Darvish extension it was possible — if not downright likely — that San Diego would’ve entered the 2023-24 offseason in search of as many as four starting pitchers. That’s no longer the case.

Darvish carries extra importance from a long-term vantage point when considering the Padres’ dealings in recent years. Preller is among  the sport’s most aggressive executives on the trade market, and with the Friars in an all-out, win-at-all-costs blitz, they’ve shown little concern with dismantling their once-vaunted farm system as a means of bringing in Major League talent. Trades of names like MacKenzie Gore, Chris Paddack, Cal Quantrill and Luis Patino have depleted the organization’s pitching pipeline, while the general attrition (injuries and/or poor performances) from the remaining prospects like Ryan Weathers, Adrian Morejon and Pedro Avila leave the system without much immediate help on the horizon.

Beyond the sheer need for long-term help in the rotation, there’s surely an element of financial creativity at play here. Darvish’s preexisting six-year, $126MM contract came with a $21MM luxury hit (based on the contract’s AAV). Since this new deal is being tacked onto the end of that old contract, it effectively becomes an 11-year, $216MM deal. That comes with a reduced luxury hit of $19.64MM. It’s not a major savings, but the Padres were right up against the third tier of luxury penalization, so any newly created breathing room is quite welcome. Once crossing into that third luxury tier, a team is penalized not only in the form of steeper tax rates but also by having their top pick in the next year’s draft dropped by 10 places.

The Darvish extension puts some distance between the team and that particularly undesirable slap on the wrist. It also makes things slightly easier for Preller and his staff if they hope to remain under that tax level but still want to create some wiggle room for in-season acquisitions on the trade market.

The deal is also heavily front-loaded, with Darvish’s 2023 salary jumping from $18MM to $30MM. That leaves $78MM to be distributed over the final five years. That’s of particular note given changes in the recent collective bargaining agreement, which stipulate that upon being traded, only the remainder of a player’s contract counts toward the new team’s luxury tax. Previously, the tax hit would remain the same. In other words, a potential trade of Darvish down the road will come with a considerably lighter luxury hit for an acquiring team by virtue of the contract’s front-loaded nature. Of course, with the full no-trade protection he’s been granted, that could very well end up a moot point.

If the $273MM tax barrier remains a hard stopping point for the Padres once the season’s underway, that’ll likely require the Padres to convince a trade partner to include some money or take on a contract in return. Nonetheless, this extra bit of space could prove useful in accommodating more complementary additions like bullpen help or added bench depth. Alternatively, it could provide necessary space to eventually select the contract of a non-roster veteran with a salary of modest note — someone like reliever Craig Stammen or catcher Pedro Severino, for instance.

As we saw with the Padres’ 11-year signing of Xander Bogaerts — and their reported overtures toward Aaron Judge and Trea Turner — the team is clearly comfortable paying a player into his early 40s if it means lowering the overall luxury bill. All of those offers, Bogaerts and Darvish included, featured annual rates comfortably shy of where the players might have otherwise landed on a more conventional structure. Darvish’s newly added $90MM in guarantees, for instance, could perhaps have been obtained over a three- or certainly a four-year deal had he opted to play out the final season of his contract and return to free agency. Instead, he’ll effectively take three- or four-year money and spread it out over a five-year extension of his contract in order to remain with a contending team and a setting where he’s clearly comfortable.

Those benefits, in the end, are generally secondary. The Padres clearly had a desire to extend Darvish, and likely agreed upon the requisite dollars before determining the length of the contract and, thereby, the extent to which they could tamp down their tax bill. The end result is that Darvish and Musgrove will continue to form a formidable one-two punch in the years to come. And while paying Darvish in his age-40 and age-41 seasons might prove an untenable outcome, it also perhaps creates some present-day savings in terms of luxury taxes that will make those final years a bit easier to stomach.

AJ Cassavell and Mark Feinsand of MLB.com first reported Darvish and the Padres had agreed to a six-year, $108MM contract. Feinsand reported it was a front-loaded deal that contained a $30MM salary for 2023.

MLB Trade Rumors is not affiliated with Major League Baseball, MLB or MLB.com

Do not Sell or Share My Personal Information

hide arrows scroll to top