As Shawn McFarland of the Dallas Morning News writes, manager Bruce Bochy and GM Chris Young have left open the possibility for Rocker to break camp. That might require an injury elsewhere in the rotation, however, as it seems Rocker enters Spring Training sixth on the depth chart. Texas has a veteran top four: Jacob deGrom, Nathan Eovaldi, Tyler Mahle and Jon Gray. The fifth spot could come down to a battle between Rocker and left-hander Cody Bradford — with the latter potentially having the leg up.

“We’re going to see where we come out of camp, where we are from a medical standpoint, who’s healthy, how guys have thrown the ball, but (Rocker is) certainly one that is in our plans,” Young said. “We just can’t tell you exactly how at this point.” The third overall pick in the 2022 draft, Rocker earned a brief debut last September. He started three games, allowing six runs (five earned) through 11 2/3 innings. The 6’5″ righty recorded 14 strikeouts with an excellent 13.3% swinging strike rate. It’s an exceedingly small sample, but he looks capable of missing bats at the highest level.

Rocker averaged 96 MPH on his heater, while opponents had few answers for his slider. The latter pitch may already be one of the game’s top breaking balls. Baseball America graded the slider as a plus-plus offering (70 on the 20-80 scale) while ranking Rocker among their top 20 prospects. The 25-year-old will certainly be a factor at some point this season, though it remains to be seen how the Rangers want to handle his workload. Rocker underwent Tommy John surgery in 2023 and has all of 19 professional appearances under his belt. He has tallied fewer than 30 innings between Double-A and Triple-A. Rocker carved up minor league hitters upon returning from the surgery, working to a 1.96 ERA with 55 strikeouts in 36 2/3 frames over 10 appearances.

The 27-year-old Bradford has almost the polar opposite approach. He’s a soft-tossing lefty who relies on a plus changeup and elite command. Despite lacking huge stuff, Bradford turned in a 3.54 ERA with a solid 22.7% strikeout rate over 76 1/3 innings last season. A back injury cost him three months, but he was a quietly productive starter when healthy. Both Rocker and Bradford have minor league options remaining. While Dane Dunning remains on hand as well, he’s likelier to pitch in long relief after a rough ’24 season.

There’s no doubt about Eovaldi’s role. He’ll be back in the top half of the rotation after re-signing on a three-year, $75MM free agent deal. The 13-year MLB veteran has been incredibly consistent, turning in a sub-4.00 ERA in five straight seasons. That hasn’t stopped him from using exhibition play to tinker with his arsenal.

Eovaldi told reporters last week that he has been working on a two-seam fastball throughout the offseason (link via Kennedi Landry of MLB.com). The righty confirmed that he used it a few times in his Spring Training debut on Friday against Kansas City. Brooks Baseball tracked five of his pitches as sinkers (which is the two-seam fastball) over two innings. Eovaldi has had a five-pitch mix for most of his career: four-seam, splitter, cutter, curveball and a slider that he only throws against right-handed hitters. He told Landry and other reporters that he’ll continue to work on the two-seam, which he wants to run up and in against righty batters to keep them off the splitter lower in the zone.

One player who has yet to get his exhibition season underway: second-year left fielder Wyatt Langford. Jeff Wilson of DLLS Sports was among those to report last week that Langford was being held back from baseball activities for a few days after being diagnosed with a mild oblique strain. Bochy maintained that the Rangers consider this a minor setback and anticipate that Langford will be ready for Opening Day. He’ll look to build off a solid rookie season in which he hit .253/.325/.415 with 16 homers across 557 plate appearances.

This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Tim Dierkes, Steve Adams and Anthony Franco of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss…

• The Mets signing Juan Soto (2:35)
• The Yankees to sign Max Fried (26:05)
• The Red Sox acquiring Garrett Crochet from the White Sox (36:10)
• The Giants signing Willy Adames (46:40)
• The Athletics signing Luis Severino (51:55)
• The Blue Jays acquiring Andrés Giménez from the Guardians who flip Spencer Horwitz to the Pirates for Luis Ortiz (1:01:25)
• The Orioles signing Tyler O’Neill and Gary Sánchez (1:14:00)
• The Tigers signing Alex Cobb (1:21:35)
• The Rangers re-signing Nathan Eovaldi and acquiring Jake Burger from the Marlins (1:25:20)

Check out our past episodes!

• Blake Snell, Dodger Fatigue, And The Simmering Hot Stove – listen here
• Yusei Kikuchi, The Aggressive Angels, And The Brady Singer/Jonathan India Trade – listen here
• The Rays’ Stadium Plans, Diamond Sports, And Some Offseason Rumors – listen here

The podcast intro and outro song “So Long” is provided courtesy of the band Showoff.  Check out their Facebook page here!

The deal includes a $12MM signing bonus that’ll be paid in $6MM in installments after the 2026 and ’27 seasons. Eovaldi’s salaries for the next three years will be $18MM, $25MM and $20MM, respectively. The backloaded contract affords Texas some short-term payroll flexibility. Eovaldi also gets a full no-trade clause.

It’s a somewhat shocking contract for the right-hander in a hot pitching market that has exceeded expectations across the board. Eovaldi is the latest pitcher to beat early offseason projections, and his guarantee significant outpaces the two-year, $44MM pact that MLBTR predicted for the righty as part of our annual Top 50 MLB Free Agents list. The fact that the Rangers went to a third year in order to land Eovaldi is particularly noteworthy, as it’s just the third time since 2010 that a pitcher entering his age-35 season or later has landed a guarantee longer than two years according to MLBTR’s Contract Tracker. Rich Hill’s three-year pact with the Dodgers is nearly a decade old at this point, and good a pitcher as Eovaldi is, he’s not a Hall of Fame-caliber talent like Max Scherzer and Jacob deGrom before him.

On the other hand, it’s worth pointing out that deGrom’s aforementioned contract was signed just two winters ago by the same Rangers club that has now brought Eovaldi back into the fold. That could suggest that Chris Young’s front office is simply more willing to roll the dice on aging pitchers they believe in compared to other organizations. If that’s the case, it’s certainly understandable that they’d choose Eovaldi to place that bet on. In his first two years with the club, the veteran right-hander provided much-needed stability to the club’s rotation with a 3.72 ERA (110 ERA+) and 3.86 FIP in 54 starts.

While those numbers may not immediately jump of the page, Eovaldi’s underlying metrics suggest he’s still among the better front-of-the-rotation options available this winter even as he starts to age. His 95.6mph average fastball velocity is still strong, and he’s still limiting walks (7.0% with the Rangers) and generating grounders (49.5% groundball rate) at a high clip. Those strong peripherals come in addition to his phenomenal resume in key moments. Eovaldi offered the Rangers a dominant six-start performance in the postseason as he helped lead the Rangers to the first World Series championship in franchise history back in 2023, when he pitched to a 2.95 ERA and struck out 26.8% of opponents in 36 2/3 innings of work to add to an impressive postseason resume from his years with the Red Sox.

It’s that stability the Rangers hope Eovaldi will continue to bring to the front of their rotation going forward. The club has a number of interesting options, ranging from the elite but oft-injured deGrom to exciting but unproven youngsters like Kumar Rocker and Jack Leiter. With Eovaldi and Andrew Heaney both ticketed for free agency this winter, however, the Rangers were left with zero pitchers who made even 20 starts for the club in 2024. That made adding a stable source of innings a priority for the club, and they’ve now done so by bringing Eovaldi back into the fold where he’ll head a rotation that also figures to feature some combination of deGrom, Rocker, Leiter, Jon Gray, Tyler Mahle, Cody Bradford, and Dane Dunning. It’s possible they’ll continue to add to that rotation mix, as Bob Nightengale of USA Today reported in the aftermath of Eovaldi’s decision that the Rangers hope to add another starter in addition to bullpen help this winter.

Those pursuits could come amid a bit of a budget crunch for the club. Reporting early this offseason suggested that the club could look to duck under the luxury tax threshold this winter. With Eovaldi back in the fold, RosterResource projects the club for a payroll just north of $219MM for tax purposes in 2025. That leaves the club with around $21MM in breathing room before they go over the first threshold, which is set at $241MM. Adding multiple relievers and another starter in free agency could be a tall order with that limited budget room unless the club is willing to deal salary elsewhere, though the trade market could also represent a way to add pitching talent at a lower financial cost.

Turning to the pitching market as a whole, the majority of top free agent starters are off the market at this point. Right-handers Corbin Burnes and Jack Flaherty are still available in terms of potential front-of-the-rotation arms, while mid-rotation pieces Sean Manaea and Nick Pivetta also remain available. Of that quartet, only Flaherty isn’t encumbered by a Qualifying Offer that would force acquiring clubs to forfeit draft capital and international bonus pool money in order to sign him. For clubs looking to avoid signing another club’s qualified free agent such as the Orioles, whiffing on Flaherty (and, in the case of Baltimore specifically, Burnes) would leave them forced to resort to back-end veterans such as Heaney and Jose Quintana or reclamation projects such as Walker Buehler in order to add starting pitching talent.

Robert Murray of FanSided first reported the Rangers were re-signing Eovaldi. Jeff Passan of ESPN was first with the three-year, $75MM terms. Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News reported that it was a backloaded arrangement with an $18MM salary in year one. Jon Heyman of the New York Post had the specific salary breakdown and the no-trade clause.

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.

Nathan Eovaldi, Nick Pivetta, and Jack Flaherty are three of the names the Mets have shown interest in this winter, according to The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal and Will Sammon.  Re-signing Manaea is also still a possibility, as Rosenthal/Sammon note that the Mets remain open to a reunion with the left-hander.

Montas signed a two-year, $34MM contract, while the Mets gave Holmes $38MM over a three-year deal.  Given that Eovaldi has a lengthy injury history and is entering his age-35 season, his next contract isn’t likely to surpass three years in length, which fits David Stearns’ preferred method of giving shorter-term contracts to pitchers.  MLBTR projected Eovaldi to land a two-year, $44MM contract, though it is easy to imagine Eovaldi landing more from the Mets or another team considering how many pitchers have already landed higher-than-expected paydays this offseason.

Despite his age, Eovaldi has remained a very solid pitcher, and it was just in 2023 that he posted an All-Star season while helping the Rangers win the World Series.  The 2024 campaign saw Eovaldi deliver a 3.80 ERA and above-average strikeout and walk rates, and his 170 2/3 IP marks the third-highest innings total of his 13 big league seasons.  The right-hander is no stranger to high-pressure championship games in big markets, and seems like a strong fit on a Mets team that has designs on contending for a World Series in 2025.

Flaherty won a ring himself with the Dodgers just this season, capping off a strong bounce-back season that saw him post a 3.17 ERA over 162 combined innings with Los Angeles and Detroit.  The righty is now looking to translate that platform year into a big contract, and since he just turned 29, Flaherty is also younger than Eovaldi, Manaea (33 in February), and Pivetta (32 in February).  However, that also means Flaherty is seeking a longer-term deal, with Rosenthal and Sammon figuring a contract of between four and six years.

MLBTR’s projection split that difference with a five-year, $115MM prediction for Flaherty’s next contract.  It remains to be seen if the Mets would be willing to meet that price, or if Stearns is wary about giving such a deal to a pitcher who battled injuries and ineffectiveness from 2020-23.  This isn’t to say that the Mets president of baseball operations is entirely adverse to longer-term contracts, though Stearns’ chief tactic has been to seek out “the next Flaherty” in the sense of looking for promising arms with bounce-back potential.

Re-signing Manaea is perhaps the most comfortable option given the Mets’ pre-existing familiarity with the veteran left-hander.  There was plenty to like about Manaea’s first season in Queens, and he chose to capitalize on his strong season by opting out of the final year of his contract (worth $13.5MM) with the Mets to pursue a bigger deal in free agency.  Interestingly, Rosenthal and Sammon write that at least one other team interested in Manaea has discussed the possibility of a four-year contract, which would be a bold commitment to a pitcher of Manaea’s age and somewhat inconsistent track record.

The qualifying offer is also a factor in the Mets’ pursuits.  Eovaldi and Flaherty weren’t eligible for the QO and thus no compensation is attached to their services.  Manaea and Pivetta both turned down qualifying offers from the Mets and Red Sox, so their next teams will have to surrender some form of draft or international bonus pool capital in order to sign either pitcher.  This wouldn’t be an obstacle for the Mets in re-signing Manaea since teams don’t have to give up any compensation to re-sign their own player, but signing Pivetta would cost the Mets $1MM in int’l bonus money plus their second- and fifth-highest selections in the 2025 draft.

Boston’s decision to issue Pivetta was seen as a bit of a surprise, and it could be that being attached to a compensation package might dull Pivetta’s market to some extent.  Pivetta is a durable pitcher with quality secondary metrics, yet he was more solid than outstanding over his four-plus seasons with the Red Sox, posting a 4.29 ERA over 633 innings.  This might not be enough of a resume to move the Mets to give up two picks and $1MM from their bonus pool, especially since New York might already be giving away such a bounty if they sign Soto (another qualified free agent).  Signing two QO-rejecting players would cost the Mets $2MM in pool money, as well as their second, third, fifth, and sixth-highest picks in the 2025 draft class, so it doesn’t seem like the Mets would add onto Soto with another qualified free agent.

While the club has previously been connected to top-of-the-market hurlers including former Braves southpaw Max Fried, a report this afternoon from Ken Rosenthal and Will Sammon of The Athletic shed some light on the club’s strategy for this winter’s pitching market by noting that the club is “reluctant” to pursue qualified free agent pitchers from other clubs. That stance would seemingly exclude them from not only the Fried sweepstakes but also the market for Sean Manaea and Nick Pivetta, the latter of whom they were previously connected to this winter.

There’s still a number of interesting free agent starters available this winter who don’t fit that description, led by a reunion with Burnes. Re-signing Burnes wouldn’t cause the Orioles to lose a draft pick beyond the opportunity cost of not receiving the pick after the first round they’d be in line to receive should he land elsewhere, but Rosenthal and Sammon suggested the chances of Burnes returning to Baltimore seem “remote” at this point given the possibility that the winter’s #2 free agent becomes the center of attention for Juan Soto bidders who fail to land the superstar slugger. For the Orioles’ part, GM Mike Elias made clear during an appearance on MLB Network Radio last month that the club would “love” to bring Burnes back into the fold for 2025 and beyond.

Should they find themselves outbid for Burnes, however, he’s far from the only viable option to improve the club’s rotation without forfeiting a draft pick. Rosenthal and Sammon describe both veteran right-hander Nathan Eovaldi and righty Jack Flaherty as more appealing to the Orioles than a pursuit of Fried, Manaea, or Pivetta. Of the two, they report that the Orioles appear to prefer Eovaldi after Flaherty’s disastrous run with Baltimore following the trade deadline back in 2023, where he surrendered a 6.75 ERA in 34 2/3 innings of work before turning things around with the Tigers and Dodgers this past year with a 3.17 ERA and 3.47 FIP in 28 starts.

Eovaldi also figures to be much cheaper than Flaherty this winter; on our annual Top 50 MLB Free Agents list, MLBTR predicted a two-year, $41MM contract for the veteran while predicting Flaherty would land $115MM over five years. Rosenthal and Sammon also suggest that Flaherty figures to land a contract in the four- to six-year range this winter, and while they don’t comment on Eovaldi’s expected contract it’s worth noting that deals of that length for a pitcher entering their age-35 season as Eovaldi is are all but unheard of in today’s game, with Jacob deGrom standing out as the notable exception to that rule. Eovaldi’s platform season saw him pitch to a 3.80 ERA and 3.83 FIP in 29 starts that don’t quite match up to Flaherty’s performance, though the veteran does offer a lengthy track record of mid-rotation success that compares favorably to Flaherty’s up-and-down career in terms of on-field results over the past half decade.

It also seems at least plausible that the Orioles could look to get creative as they search for rotation upgrades. Rosenthal and Sammon report that Baltimore was among the clubs that had interest in right-hander Clay Holmes before he signed with the Mets yesterday. While Holmes has been a reliever for the majority of his MLB career, the Mets signed him to pitch in their rotation and Rosenthal and Sammon indicated that Baltimore would’ve done the same had they landed him, though some of his other suitors planned to keep him in the relief role in which he turned in a dominant three-and-a-half year stretch with the Yankees. While it’s currently unclear if the club would consider any other free agent relief arms for a move to the rotation, both Michael Soroka and Jeff Hoffman have received buzz as potential starting pitching options this winter after successful runs in relief in 2024.

Eovaldi, 35 in February, is a plausible fit for many clubs in the league. Given his age and injury history, he won’t be able to secure a long-term commitment. But since he’s been a consistently strong performer in recent years, he should still be in demand. MLBTR predicted him for a $44MM guarantee on a two-year deal as part of the annual Top 50 Free Agents post. Perhaps he could get a third year, but he’s not really out of any club’s price range.

Whoever signs Eovaldi will be getting a player with a checkered health history, as he’s undergone two Tommy John surgeries in his career. Many players with that distinction have struggled to continue performing at a high level but Eovaldi has been quite steady of late.

He missed the 2017 season while recovering from that second surgery, was good in 2018 but wobbled a bit in 2019. But he’s made 115 starts over the past five years with a 3.75 earned run average. He didn’t finish any of those seasons with an ERA higher than 3.87. His strikeout rate finished between 22.4% and 26.1% in those campaigns, his walk rate between 3.5% and 8.1%, and his grounder rate between 42% and 51%. Overall, it’s been 654 2/3 innings with a 24% strikeout rate, 5.6% walk rate and 46.9% ground ball rate.

That kind of performance would upgrade just about any rotation in baseball, so they each should have some level of interest, especially given the cap on Eovaldi’s earning power. The Rangers have interest in bringing him back but he’s also been connected to Atlanta, the Red Sox and now the Orioles. It seems fair to assume that several other clubs are also interested, even in the absence of explicit public reporting.

Baltimore is certainly a logical fit, given their rotation situation. Their 2024 ace Corbin Burnes is now a free agent. Kyle Bradish and Tyler Wells are each going to miss at least part of the 2025 season as they recover from UCL surgeries. Trade deadline acquisition Trevor Rogers struggled after being acquired and was quickly demoted to the minor leagues.

The current rotation nucleus consists of Zach Eflin, Grayson Rodriguez and Dean Kremer. Rogers could jump in there if he gets back on track next year. Albert Suárez just wrapped up a solid year in a swing role, but since he’s a 35-year-old journeyman, the O’s would probably prefer to add some arms and bump him back into that sixth or seventh starter slot. Chayce McDermott and Cade Povich made their major league debuts in 2024 but without fully cementing themselves as viable big leaguers.

In short, the club could certainly do with an upgrade or two. The big question for the O’s is what kind of approach they will take this winter. It’s been almost seven years since the Orioles have given out a multi-year deal to a free agent, as shown on MLBTR’s Contract Tracker. The last time they did so was a four-year deal for Alex Cobb back in March of 2018. After that, the club went into a lengthy rebuilding process and then was up for sale. David Rubenstein bought the club from the Angelos family, though that sale wasn’t complete until the spring of 2024.

That makes the O’s hard to predict this winter, as it will be the first offseason of the Rubenstein era. There are some signs that greater spending will be possible. The club took on some notable money at the deadline by acquiring Eflin and Seranthony Domínguez. Eflin is making $18MM in 2025 while Dominguez had an $8MM club option that the O’s eventually picked up. A couple of weeks ago, general manager Mike Elias said that “the whole spectrum” of pitching upgrades were being considered. He went on to thank ownership for making all possibilities viable but also cautioned that the O’s wouldn’t be spending money just for the sake of it.

Reading the tea leaves, it seems fair to expect something more aggressive than they’ve done in recent years, though that could come in many forms. Burnes is still available and is lined up to secure a deal well into nine-figure territory. He and Blake Snell were the top two names available but Snell has reportedly agreed to a five-year deal with the Dodgers, a guarantee of $182MM but with deferreals dropping the net present value into the $160-165MM range. Max Fried is also likely to end up with nine digits and Jack Flaherty has a chance to do so as well. The middle market has seen Yusei Kikuchi and Nick Martinez come off the board but it still features Eovaldi, Nick Pivetta, Sean Manaea, Luis Severino and others.

RosterResource projects the Orioles for a modest $99MM payroll, with literally nothing on the books for 2026 and beyond. That payroll is already a bit higher than last year’s $93MM Opening Day figure from Cot’s Baseball Contracts, but as mentioned, it’s possible that the new ownership group is willing to push things further. It also wouldn’t be unprecedented for the franchise, as Cot’s had them as high as $164MM in 2017, before their fortunes fell and they spiralled into their aforementioned fallow period.

It’s the latest signal of a measured offseason approach, even at a time when the Cubs’ division appears ripe for the taking. The Cardinals are scaling back payroll and focusing more on player development in 2025 than on putting a playoff-caliber roster on the field. The Brewers, one year after trading Burnes, now seem likely to lose Willy Adames in free agency — and they could also trade closer Devin Williams. The Pirates and Reds have yet to break out as perennial contenders in the Central. Logically speaking, the deep-pocketed Cubs could take an aggressive stance and position themselves well in a wide-open division field.

For now, it seems they’ll shop primarily in the second and third tiers of the rotation market. Sharma points out that the Cubs have typically shied away from starters who’ve been attached to qualifying offers, though it’s worth noting that the Cubs were willing to part with draft picks and international funds in order to sign Dansby Swanson after he rejected a qualifying offer. They technically signed Cody Bellinger after he rejected a QO … though that offer came from the Cubs themselves, so they were really only “forfeiting” the theoretical comp pick they’d have received if he signed elsewhere.

Assuming the Burnes/Snell/Fried trio isn’t being considered by president of baseball ops Jed Hoyer and his staff, the Cubs will be looking at the next tier, with Jack Flaherty, Sean Manaea, Yusei Kikuchi, Nathan Eovaldi, Nick Pivetta and Luis Severino among the options. Of that group, Manaea, Pivetta and Severino rejected QOs and would cost the Cubs their second-highest pick and $500K of international space in their 2025 draft pool.

There are certainly names in that bunch who’d represent upgrades over incumbent starters at Wrigley Field. Justin Steele and Shota Imanaga form a nice one-two punch atop the in-house rotation, and the Cubs will follow them with veteran Jameson Taillon and young Javier Assad. Candidates for the fifth spot include Ben Brown, Jordan Wicks, Hayden Wesneski and top prospect Cade Horton. It’s a nice bunch of arms, but there’s some uncertainty in at least the fifth spot, if not the fourth. Assad posted a solid 3.79 ERA in 29 starts but did so with worse-than-average strikeout, walk and home-run rates. Metrics like FIP (4.64) and SIERA (4.72) are far less bullish than his earned run average.

Looking at the team’s payroll, the Cubs should have some spending room. RosterResource projects a $180MM payroll at the moment — $34MM shy of last year’s Opening Day mark. That includes a full arbitration class that could include some non-tender candidates (e.g. Nick Madrigal, Julian Merryweather).

The Cubs could also explore other ways to drop their payroll further. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic wrote yesterday that the team could be looking to move Bellinger, though there are plenty of roadblocks to doing so. Bellinger is owed a $27.5MM salary in 2025 and a $5MM buyout on a 2026 player option. If he plays well for a season, the acquiring team would effectively be getting Bellinger at $32.5MM. That’s a hefty price tag in general and particularly for the 2024 version of Bellinger. While he played at an extremely high level in 2023, Bellinger was more of an above-average regular in 2024. A lack of impact left-handed bats and viable center fielders could still lead a team to consider the possibility, it’s hard to imagine a team giving a meaningful return and taking on the remainder/majority of Bellinger’s salary.

Still, moving Bellinger is also one of the only ways for the Cubs to plausibly pursue upgrades to the everyday lineup in 2025. As we noted when listing Bellinger near the back of our list of offseason trade candidates, the Cubs’ roster is already filled with expensive veterans who have no-trade clauses (Ian Happ, Dansby Swanson, Seiya Suzuki) or generally productive and affordable younger players like Michael Busch, Isaac Paredes and Pete Crow-Armstrong. Nico Hoerner might’ve been a trade candidate and could still be — but he also underwent flexor tendon surgery one month ago. Obviously, that cuts down on his appeal. The Cubs have a clear opening for an upgrade at catcher, but the free agent market offers little in the way of meaningful help there.

All of those challenges to upgrading the lineup make a notable splash on the pitching side of things feel more logical, but it seems the Cubs don’t feel similarly — at least not with regard to free agent starters. There are upgrades to be had on the bullpen market, of course, but the Cubs haven’t given out a multi-year deal to a reliever since Craig Kimbrel in 2019. Last winter’s $9MM guarantee to Hector Neris was the largest bullpen expenditure the Cubs have made since signing Kimbrel.

It’s possible the Cubs could just look to the trade market for much of their offseason dealing. The Cubs have a deep farm system with multiple top prospects whose path to a regular role at Wrigley is blocked. There aren’t, however, many impact arms or high-profile arms expected to be available. Crosstown ace Garrett Crochet headlines the offseason class of trade candidates, but demand for him will be fierce and trades of significance between the two Chicago clubs, while not unprecedented (Jose Quintana, Craig Kimbrel), also aren’t common.

There probably are still additional trades on the horizon for the Cubs. Sharma writes that this week’s acquisitions of reliever Eli Morgan from the Guardians and backup catcher Matt Thaiss from the Angels do not mean the Cubs are content in those areas. They’ll continue to explore both free agency and trades for help in those portions of the roster. But if pitching help remains their focus and they’re unwilling to shop in the high-rent district for starters, the Cubs will need to either break tradition with their free agent bullpen targets, get creative on the trade market, be content to address the middle ranks of the starting staff — or a combination of all the above.

Eovaldi spent five seasons with the Sox, totaling 461 2/3 innings of 4.05 ERA ball. He had a fantastic postseason in 2018 to help Boston win the World Series. Eovaldi returned on a $68MM free agent deal on the heels of the championship. He generally lived up to the contract, most notably finishing fourth in AL Cy Young balloting in 2021. Eovaldi departed after the ’22 season, declining a qualifying offer before accepting a two-year, $34MM guarantee with the Rangers.

That positioned the righty to win a second ring. Eovaldi made 25 starts with a 3.63 ERA as Texas won the World Series in 2023. The Rangers disappointed this year, though that wasn’t any fault of his. Eovaldi fired 170 2/3 innings across 29 starts, working to a 3.80 earned run average with solid peripherals. He punched out nearly 24% of batters faced while issuing free passes at just a 6% rate. His fastball still checked in around 95-96 MPH on average, while he picked up swinging strikes on an excellent 13% of his pitches.

There aren’t many better free agent starting pitchers in the short term. Eovaldi turns 35 in February. He’ll be limited to two or at most three years, but he’s well positioned to cash in on annual basis. The previous qualifying offer made him ineligible for one this time around. There’s no draft compensation weighing down his market. Eovaldi should land behind Sean Manaea and Yusei Kikuchi, both of whom are two years younger, among high-AAV starters available for relatively short terms.

Boston probably has some level of interest in all the top starters. Chief baseball officer Craig Breslow spoke at the GM Meetings about the need to “raise the ceiling” in the rotation. Boston has solid depth with Tanner Houck, Brayan Bello, Kutter Crawford, a returning Lucas Giolito, and the likes of Richard Fitts and Cooper Criswell. They’re awaiting word from Nick Pivetta on the $21.05MM qualifying offer, though he’s seemingly leaning against the QO as he looks for multiple years.

The Sox are among the most obvious fits for the Corbin Burnes, Blake Snell and Max Fried tier in free agency. Bradford suggests that the true top-of-the-market arms remain the Sox’s biggest focus, but Eovaldi represents one of the biggest available upgrades among the middle tier of free agents.

Eovaldi, 35 in February, just declined his player option with the Rangers. He could have stayed in Texas for 2025 and made a $20MM salary but decided to head to the open market and assess his options. MLBTR recently predicted the veteran could land a guarantee of $44MM on a two-year deal as part of our annual Top 50 Free Agents list.

The righty is arguably the poster child for career success after a second Tommy John surgery. After returning from that operation, he struggled a bit in 2019 but has been quite consistent over the past five years. He has a 3.75 earned run average over those campaigns, striking out 24% of batters faced, limiting walks to a 5.6% rate and getting grounders at a 46.9% clip. His ERA finished between 3.63 and 3.87 in all five of those seasons with his other rate stats holding quite steady as well.

For Atlanta, starting pitching is a sensible target area. They just lost both Max Fried and Charlie Morton to free agency, opening two holes in the starting pitching mix. That leaves them with a core of Chris Sale, Reynaldo López and Spencer Schwellenbach but with question marks behind that threesome.

Spencer Strider will eventually be in the mix but will likely miss at least part of the season after undergoing internal brace surgery in April of last year. Griffin Canning was just acquired in the Jorge Soler deal but he is coming off a rough season in which he posted a 5.19 earned run average and his strikeout rate fell to 17.6% after being at 25.9% the year prior.

Ian Anderson is on the roster but hasn’t pitched in the majors since 2022 due to poor performance and Tommy John surgery. The club also has guys like Huascar Ynoa, AJ Smith-Shawver, Hurston Waldrep, Bryce Elder and a few others, though no one in that group did much to impress in 2024.

Given that rotation picture, pursuing external additions makes plenty of sense, though the budget with naturally be a consideration. RosterResource projects the club for a $215MM payroll next year, just $20MM shy of 2024’s spending.

General manager Alex Anthopoulos has said the payroll will rise but it’s unclear by how much and there have been some recent signs that money could be tight. The aforementioned Soler deal did bring back Canning but was seen mostly as a salary dump. A few days ago, the club reworked the contracts of both López and lefty Aaron Bummer, in both cases shifting a few million bucks from the 2025 ledger to 2026. The club turned down a club option on Travis d’Arnaud even though Anthopoulos had previously suggested they would be picking that up to bring the catcher back for 2025.

The long-term books have plenty on them as well, thanks to the club’s penchant for signing incumbent players to extensions. Each of Strider, López, Austin Riley, Matt Olson, Ronald Acuña Jr., Sean Murphy, Michael Harris II and Ozzie Albies are likely to be on the books through 2027, either due to guaranteed contracts or club options.

In addition to the club’s finances, there is also the track record to consider. Though they have been connected to some prominent free agents over the years, that hasn’t been their modus operandi. Per MLBTR’s Contract Tracker, the largest guarantee they’ve even given a free agent is the $75.3MM they gave to Melvin Upton Jr. way back in 2012. Ozuna’s $65MM deal is their top free agent deal from more recent seasons. Their largest deal for a free agent starting pitcher was $60MM for Derek Lowe back in 2009 while $18MM for Cole Hamels is the biggest of the past five years.

Taking all that into consideration, Eovaldi is a logical target for the club. He’s been quite effective on the mound but his age and injury history will put a natural cap on his earning power. While pitchers like Fried, Corbin Burnes, Blake Snell and Jack Flaherty could require nine-figure commitments, Eovaldi will be in a different tier of free agency. Though Atlanta seems to have targeted Eovaldi, free agent starters who could command similar contracts include Yusei Kikuchi, Sean Manaea, Luis Severino, Nick Martinez, Nick Pivetta, Matthew Boyd, Andrew Heaney, Frankie Montas and others.

Eovaldi, 34, just wrapped up his second season in Texas. The veteran right-hander was solid but unspectacular for the Rangers this year as he pitched to a 3.80 ERA (104 ERA+) with a 3.83 FIP in 170 2/3 innings of work. Given that rather uninspiring platform season, Eovaldi’s decision to opt out may register as something of a surprise at first glance. A closer look to the right-hander’s season and overall body of work makes it clear why he would opt out ahead of his age-35 season in hopes of seeking what could be the last multi-year pact of his career, however.

An All-Star for the Rangers just last year, Eovaldi has pitched to a 3.72 ERA (110 ERA+) and a 3.86 FIP during his time with the Rangers. Those results are largely consistent with the numbers he posted during his final three years with the Red Sox, for whom he posted a 3.79 ERA (120 ERA+) with a 3.43 FIP from 2020 to 2022, including a dominant 2021 season where he was named an All-Star and finished fourth in AL Cy Young award voting. Those numbers cast Eovaldi as a solid mid-rotation arm, and his underlying numbers suggest he could continue to be a quality, playoff caliber arm even as he ages.

His fastball velocity (which averaged 95.6 in 2024) remains strong even as he enters his mid-30s, and he maintains that high-octane stuff despite boasting a 5.6% walk rate that stands as the fifth-best in baseball over the past half decade among pitchers with at least 600 innings of work. During his time with the Rangers, he’s tended to be a victim of high home run rates, thanks in part to Globe Life Field being among the most homer-friendly parks in the sport. That reality in conjunction with his solid 7.7% barrel rate with the Rangers helps to explain why advanced metrics like SIERA think so highly of Eovaldi, whose 3.88 figure over the past two seasons mirrors that of top free agent starter Corbin Burnes.

Of course, Eovaldi surely won’t come especially close to matching Burnes or the other top pitchers on the market this winter in terms of guarantee. That’s both because Eovaldi’s overall results (115 ERA+ from 2020-24) have fallen well short of that upper echelon of pitching talent in recent years, and also because he’ll already be 35 years old when pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training in February. While it seems reasonable to expect Eovaldi to earn a healthy average annual value, it would be surprising to see him land more than two or three years in free agency. That makes him a particularly interesting free agent as a potentially impactful rotation piece who may be more attractive to teams that tend to hesitate on lengthy contracts, like the Angels, Cubs, and Orioles, in addition to the Rangers’ aforementioned interest in a reunion. Sean Manaea, Nick Pivetta, and Luis Severino are among the other players who figure to occupy the middle tier of the free agent rotation market this winter.

The sheer magnitude of those expenditures added up, however, resulting in the Rangers paying the luxury tax both in 2023 and 2024. Texas has spent aggressively at times in the past, but not to this extent. As they face the potential of a third straight season as a luxury tax payor, Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News writes that one of owner Ray Davis’ top priorities this winter — perhaps even his No. 1 priority — is to duck under the $241MM luxury threshold in order to reset the team’s penalty level.

For those unfamiliar or simply in need of a refresher, the luxury tax is calculated based on the combined average annual salaries of the players on a team’s roster (plus player benefits and a mandatory payment into the league’s pre-arbitration bonus pool). The tax threshold climbs every season — at predetermined levels stipulated in the collective bargaining agreement — and carries escalating penalties for teams that cross the tax barrier in consecutive seasons.

First-time offenders pay a 20% tax on the first $20MM by which they exceed the threshold. They’re then taxed at a 32% rate for the next $20MM. If they cross into the third tier of penalty, that results in a 62.5% tax on the next $20MM and sees the team’s top pick in the following year’s draft dropped by 10 spots. Exceeding the tax threshold by more than $60MM results in being taxed at 80% or any dollars spent thereafter.

That’s just for first-time offenders, however. Each of those penalty levels increases by at least 10% for a team that crosses the tax line in a second season. For a club crossing the tax threshold in a third straight year, the penalties become more burdensome: 50% for the first $20MM, 62% for the next $20MM, 95% for the next $20MM (plus the same draft pick penalty) and 110% for any dollars thereafter. That’s the set of potential penalties the Rangers would be facing if they cross the tax line again in 2025.

To this point, the Rangers’ penalties they’ve paid have been light, relatively speaking. They paid just $1.8MM for their first year of penalty in 2023. This year’s total has not yet been determined, but RosterResource estimates they were a bit more than $13MM north of 2024’s first-tier threshold of $237MM. At a 30% tax hit as a second-time payor, they’d be looking at roughly $4MM in penalties based on that number.

In theory, the 50% tax isn’t all that daunting, so long as the club only modestly exceeds the threshold once again. But the Rangers have quite a bit of work to do this winter, with as many as 10 players reaching free agency — pending option decisions on Nathan Eovaldi ($20MM player option), David Robertson ($7MM mutual option) and Andrew Chafin ($6.5MM club option). Eovaldi is all but certain to decline his option, as he can command something close to (perhaps even above) that same salary on a multi-year deal. Robertson will turn down his end of that mutual option after a strong season. Chafin’s is a borderline call, but if Texas wants to be conscious about its spending levels, that will probably be bought out for $500K.

At present, RosterResource projects nearly $189MM of luxury commitments already in place for the 2025 season — $52MM shy of next year’s $241MM threshold. That ostensibly leaves a fair bit of wiggle room — at least until considering the fact that the Rangers are losing three starters (Eovaldi, Scherzer, Heaney), their three top relievers (Robertson, Kirby Yates, Jose Leclerc) and several role players. They’ll not only need to remake a significant portion of the pitching staff but also look for ways to augment an offense that was among the game’s best in ’23 before growing stagnant in ’24.

Young has already called re-signing Eovaldi and/or Heaney “a priority” this offseason. Eovaldi, in particular, would eat up a significant portion of the funds available to the club this offseason. In a separate mailbag column, Grant suggests that if another team were interested in taking on the remaining year and $13MM of Jon Gray’s contract, the Rangers would pursue such an opportunity and could conceivably reallocate some of those funds to a reunion with Eovaldi.

Gray has performed reasonably well since signing in Texas but has been injured each season and watched his strikeout rate drop in consecutive years. The 32-year-old righty (33 next month) made only 19 starts this season and pitched to a serviceable 4.47 ERA with a 19.6% strikeout rate, 6.4% walk rate and 40.1% ground-ball rate. In three seasons with Texas, the hard-throwing former No. 3 overall pick carries a 4.16 ERA in 387 1/3 innings. His contract is hardly an albatross, but there also isn’t much (if any) surplus value on the deal.

Speculatively speaking, the Rangers could look to free up money in other ways if they feel crunched. Righty Dane Dunning’s projected $4.4MM salary (via MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz) makes him a potential non-tender or trade candidate after a rough season. Leody Taveras ($4.3MM projection) also had a tough year and could be moved with younger outfielders Wyatt Langford and Evan Carter both in the majors now (and hopefully healthier in 2025). Nathaniel Lowe’s $10.7MM projection isn’t unreasonable, but Texas could hypothetically move him and turn first base over to a prospect like Justin Foscue or Dustin Harris (or a cheaper first base option in free agency, such as Carlos Santana). It’d be hard to sell low on Adolis Garcia coming off a down season, and Grant suggests such a scenario isn’t likely.

Any of those trades would only open further holes, though the Rangers have the type of MLB-ready young players (Langford, Carter, Foscue, Harris) to try to address them internally. They also have some young arms on which they could lean in the rotation — Kumar Rocker, Jack Leiter — but Leiter struggled in 2024 and Rocker will be on an innings limit in 2025 as he continues working back from Tommy John surgery. The need in the bullpen is arguably more acute, and the in-house options aren’t exactly plentiful.

It’ll be a challenging offseason for president of baseball operations Chris Young. The Rangers should have some money to spend, but the number of holes are as daunting as they are surprising for a team that’s just 12 months removed from hoisting a World Series trophy.

Be that as it may, president of baseball operations Chris Young’s end-of-season press conference struck an optimistic tone regarding the in-house hitters the Rangers currently possess. “The biggest remedy, in my opinion, is improving the guys we currently have,” Young said (via Grant). The recently extended Rangers baseball ops leader called internal improvements to the lineup a “heavy priority” heading into next season.

With regard to outside additions, those will come more on the pitching side of the roster. MLB.com’s Kennedi Landri writes that Young specifically mentioned that he’d like to retain impending free agents Nathan Eovaldi and Andrew Heaney. Eovaldi triggered a $20MM player option this season when he reached a combined 300 innings between 2023-24, but he’s widely expected to decline that in favor of a return to the market (barring a hypothetical extension from his current club). Heaney exercised a player option following the 2023 season and returned to make 31 solid starts in this year’s rotation.

“As far as Evo and Andrew go, those are priorities for us,” said Young. “We love those guys. They helped us win a World Series. We would love to bring those guys back, and we’re going to explore every way we can to make that happen.”

Entering the 2025 season, Texas won’t be short on rotation options. Jacob deGrom should be the Opening Day starter now that he’s recovered from Tommy John surgery, though counting on him for a full slate of 30-plus starts doesn’t feel realistic when he hasn’t reached that total since 2019. He’ll be joined by Jon Gray, Tyler Mahle (also in his first full season post-Tommy John) and some combination of Dane Dunning, Cody Bradford, Kumar Rocker and Jack Leiter. With deGrom and Mahle both facing workload concerns and the bulk of the team’s other options yet to pitch a full season in a big league rotation, it’s understandable that the Rangers feel it not just prudent but pivotal to fortify the starting staff.

Reunions with Eovaldi and/or Heaney won’t come cheaply, however. Eovaldi’s two-year, $34MM deal proved to be a bargain, even as incentives ballooned his guarantee to a total of $38.5MM over his two years. He signed that deal coming off an injury-shortened year with the Red Sox, who’d issued him a qualifying offer and thus tied him to draft pick compensation. Now healthy and unencumbered by the weight of a QO, he should be able to top that $34MM guarantee even though he’s two years older than during his last trip to the open market.

Heaney, similarly, was coming off a season of just 72 2/3 innings with the Dodgers. He hasn’t looked as dominant in Texas as he did during that abbreviated run with L.A., but he just gave the Rangers a combined 307 1/3 innings of 4.22 ERA ball with more promising strikeout and walk rates of 23.2% and 7.6%, respectively. He could find another two-year deal in the market, and it’s possible that would come with a larger guarantee than the $25MM term on his last pact.

The extent to which Texas will be able to spend in free agency is not yet clear. RosterResource pegs them with about $148MM worth of 2025 commitments, and that’s not including arbitration raises for Dunning, Heim, Sborz, Nathaniel Lowe and Leody Taveras — a group that MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projects for a combined $25.5MM. Add in a slate of league-minimum players, and Texas is looking at around $185MM in total projected salary for next year’s 26-man roster. That’s $40MM shy of where they opened the 2024 season, so there’s clearly some room to spend, but that $40MM could dry up quickly if the Rangers are intent not only on adding at least one starter, but also on replacing effectively their entire late-inning relief corps.

To say Texas is likely to be active in the bullpen market would be putting things mildly. Kirby Yates, David Robertson, Jose Leclerc and Jose Urena — their top four relievers by innings pitched — are all free agents. Deadline acquisition Andrew Chafin has a $6.5MM club option ($500K buyout) that is not a lock to be exercised. Robertson has a $7MM mutual option ($1.5MM buyout) and will very likely decline his end of it. Yates, Robertson, Leclerc, Chafin and Josh Sborz — who missed most of the season due to shoulder problems — were the team’s go-to options in high-leverage spots.

Young didn’t comment on what level of increase will or won’t be possible. He plans to meet with majority owner Ray Davis in the near future to outline a spending plan. While Young avoided any firm declarations on payroll, he spoke about uncertainty regarding the team’s endeavors to create a proprietary regional sports network and pledged to build a “very good roster with whatever resources we have.”

On the surface, that’s a far cry from his Aug. 2021 comments wherein he pledged to be “very active” in free agency — and then followed through with blockbuster signings of Seager and Marcus Semien. More context on the Rangers’ potential spending figures to come to light as the onset of free agency draws nearer, but given the team’s current financial obligations and needs up and down the pitching staff, it’s hardly a shock that Young is prioritizing arms and hoping to see a talented core of hitters rebound at the plate next season.

Eovaldi signed with the Rangers over the 2022-23 offseason on a two-year, $34MM guarantee. He collected a $2MM signing bonus and respective $16MM salaries during the first two years. To unlock the option, Eovaldi needed to throw a combined 300 innings over the two seasons. He has now done just that, reaching 156 frames this season after throwing 144 innings during his first campaign in Texas.

As MLBTR’s Steve Adams explored yesterday, there’s a good chance the righty gets to free agency in either case. Eovaldi has had a strong two-year run in Arlington. He worked to a 3.63 ERA last season. He carried a 3.67 mark into today’s start, although the Jays tagged him for seven runs tonight. Eovaldi has fanned more than 24% of opposing hitters while keeping the ball on the ground at a near-49% clip. A consistently excellent strike-thrower, he’s walking fewer than 6% of batters faced.

Eovaldi still looks like a quality #3 arm, one whom teams could comfortably tab for a playoff start. He pitched very well during the Rangers’ World Series run, working to a 2.95 ERA at more than six innings per start over six appearances. Eovaldi’s fastball checks in at nearly 96 MPH on average. He remains one of the harder-throwing starters in the majors even as he approaches his 35th birthday.

The primary knock against Eovaldi throughout his career has been his injury history. While he has ten seasons with 100+ innings pitched, he has had a few significant arm issues. Eovaldi has undergone Tommy John surgery twice. He missed time with back and shoulder problems in 2022 with the Red Sox — perhaps the biggest reason he was limited to two guaranteed years as a free agent.

Eovaldi has gone on the injured list in both seasons with the Rangers. He missed over a month with a forearm strain last year and lost a couple weeks to a groin strain this past May. The forearm injury could be a concern for some teams because of the previous Tommy John surgeries, but he has looked no worse for wear in the year-plus since that IL placement.

Eovaldi has received a qualifying offer in his career. That makes him ineligible for another QO, so Texas could not tie him to draft compensation if he decides to test the market. He would probably at least secure another two-year deal that pays him something close to $20MM on an annual basis. That’d presumably be preferable to the one-year player option, although Eovaldi is a Houston native who might prefer to stay in his home state. The option also provides insurance in case he suffers an injury in either of his final two starts of the season.

The rotation looks like an offseason priority for newly-extended baseball operations president Chris Young. Jacob deGrom is back at the top of the staff. They’ll hope for a healthy season from Tyler Mahle. Kumar Rocker debuted last week and could battle for a rotation spot. That’s also true of Rocker’s college teammate Jack Leiter, though he’s been hit hard in his first seven MLB appearances. Jon Gray should return from a season-ending foot injury in the fourth year of his free agent deal. Cody Bradford has pitched well in a swing role.

That’s a high-variance group. deGrom, Mahle and Rocker recently returned from Tommy John recoveries. Leiter, Rocker and Bradford (to a lesser extent) are light on big league experience. Max Scherzer, Andrew Heaney and José Ureña are headed to free agency. Eovaldi still seems likely to join them. Texas could try to bring Eovaldi back on another multi-year deal and should look for at least one outside acquisition even if they retain him.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

There’s a strong likelihood that Eovaldi will unlock that option tomorrow versus Toronto. It should be emphasized that he’s not locking himself into that $20MM salary for the 2025 season, however, but rather gaining the choice to exercise that $20MM option or turn it down in favor of a return to the open market. There’s perhaps some extra incentive for Eovaldi to consider the player option, as a Texas native — he was born and raised in the Houston area — but he should also be able to top that $20MM guarantee in free agency.

Eovaldi, 35 in September, has been a clearly above-average starter in each of his two seasons in Texas. He’s started a combined 51 games and pitched to a 3.65 ERA across his 296 frames with the Rangers, fanning 23.7% of his opponents against a 7% walk rate. Both marks are better than the league average. He’s also upped his ground-ball rate considerably thanks to an uptick in his splitter usage. A hearty 49.8% of the batted balls against Eovaldi have been grounders; he posted a 43.9% grounder rate in his final two seasons with the Red Sox from 2021-22.

Barring a late injury that throws his 2025 outlook into question, there’s a good case to decline that $20MM player option. Recent examples of multi-year free-agent deals for pitchers beginning in their age-35 season aren’t exactly plentiful, as can be seen in MLBTR’s Contract Tracker, but there are a few such cases that underscore the earning power he’ll have.

Back in the 2018-19 offseason, for instance, both J.A. Happ ($34MM) and Charlie Morton ($30MM) inked two-year deal in free agency. Happ had nearly identical numbers in his two prior seasons to those of Eovaldi at present, and he was a year older at the time (to say nothing of the fact that the price of pitching has increased since 2018). Eovaldi also has a steadier track record than he had at the time. Morton, meanwhile, had only just broken out as a high-end starter in his prior two-year run with the Astros — doing so with numbers that resemble Eovaldi’s current Rangers run. Kenta Maeda signed for two years and $24MM with the Tigers just last offseason and did as a 36-year-old coming off a lesser platform showing. Eovaldi clearly has greater earning power than Maeda had.

Generally speaking, few pitchers remain this effective into their mid-30s and return to the market at this time. Many top-tier starters ink contracts of five, six or seven years in length when they reach free agency around age 30 or 31. “Second-tier” free agent starters, as Eovaldi arguably was in his past couple trips to the market, often suffer injuries or begin to lose effectiveness as Father Time chases them down. However, Eovaldi remains a clear playoff-caliber starter, averaging 95.5 mph on his heater and logging better-than-average strikeout, walk and grounder rates while averaging nearly six innings per start.

We’ve certainly seen pitchers in their age-35 seasons or older command contracts worth $20MM or more in terms of annual value, but they’re typically on one-year deals or the type of anomalous contracts reserved for the sport’s elite arms. Justin Verlander has signed extensions and free-agent deals north of this rate in the latter stages of his career, but he’s a future Hall of Famer and three-time Cy Young winner. Max Scherzer’s record-setting three-year, $130MM deal spanned his age-37 through age-39 seasons, but like Verlander he’s a Cooperstown-bound, multi-time Cy Young winner. Eovaldi’s teammate Jacob deGrom signed the most eye-opening of these deals when he landed five years and $185MM from the Rangers, but a healthy deGrom is arguably the best pitcher on the planet.

Eovaldi isn’t going to command that type of premium annual value, but he has a clear case for another multi-year deal and could take aim at a contract paying him an annual salary in the $20MM vicinity (give or take a couple million). He’s an unusual case when it comes to getting a third bite at the free-agent apple in his mid-30s at a time when he hasn’t lost much, if any, of his effectiveness. Recent mid-rotation starters who could return to the market in their own mid-30s (e.g. Jameson Taillon, Michael Wacha, Marcus Stroman, Jon Gray) will surely be watching closely to see how the market treats Eovaldi this offseason.