Nathan Eovaldi is headed again to Texas. The Rangers finalized the right-hander’s three-year free agent deal on Thursday night. It’s reportedly a $75MM assure for the ACES consumer.
The deal features a $12MM signing bonus that’ll be paid in $6MM in installments after the 2026 and ’27 seasons. Eovaldi’s salaries for the following three years can be $18MM, $25MM and $20MM, respectively. The backloaded contract affords Texas some short-term payroll flexibility. Eovaldi additionally will get a full no-trade clause.
It’s a considerably surprising contract for the right-hander in a scorching pitching market that has exceeded expectations throughout the board. Eovaldi is the newest pitcher to beat early offseason projections, and his assure vital outpaces the two-year, $44MM pact that MLBTR predicted for the righty as a part of our annual Prime 50 MLB Free Brokers record. The truth that the Rangers went to a 3rd yr so as to land Eovaldi is especially noteworthy, because it’s simply the third time since 2010 {that a} pitcher getting into his age-35 season or later has landed a assure longer than two years in response to MLBTR’s Contract Tracker. Wealthy Hill’s three-year pact with the Dodgers is almost a decade outdated at this level, and good a pitcher as Eovaldi is, he’s not a Corridor of Fame-caliber expertise like Max Scherzer and Jacob deGrom earlier than him.
Alternatively, it’s price mentioning that deGrom’s aforementioned contract was signed simply two winters in the past by the identical Rangers membership that has now introduced Eovaldi again into the fold. That might recommend that Chris Younger’s entrance workplace is just extra keen to roll the cube on getting older pitchers they consider in in comparison with different organizations. If that’s the case, it’s definitely comprehensible that they’d select Eovaldi to put that guess on. In his first two years with the membership, the veteran right-hander offered much-needed stability to the membership’s rotation with a 3.72 ERA (110 ERA+) and three.86 FIP in 54 begins.
Whereas these numbers might not instantly soar of the web page, Eovaldi’s underlying metrics recommend he’s nonetheless among the many higher front-of-the-rotation choices obtainable this winter whilst he begins to age. His 95.6mph common fastball velocity remains to be robust, and he’s nonetheless limiting walks (7.0% with the Rangers) and producing grounders (49.5% groundball fee) at a excessive clip. These robust peripherals come along with his phenomenal resume in key moments. Eovaldi supplied the Rangers a dominant six-start efficiency within the postseason as he helped lead the Rangers to the primary World Sequence championship in franchise historical past again in 2023, when he pitched to a 2.95 ERA and struck out 26.8% of opponents in 36 2/3 innings of labor so as to add to a powerful postseason resume from his years with the Crimson Sox.
It’s that stability the Rangers hope Eovaldi will proceed to convey to the entrance of their rotation going ahead. The membership has numerous attention-grabbing choices, starting from the elite however oft-injured deGrom to thrilling however unproven kids like Kumar Rocker and Jack Leiter. With Eovaldi and Andrew Heaney each ticketed without spending a dime company this winter, nonetheless, the Rangers have been left with zero pitchers who made even 20 begins for the membership in 2024. That made including a secure supply of innings a precedence for the membership, and so they’ve now achieved so by bringing Eovaldi again into the fold the place he’ll head a rotation that additionally figures to characteristic some mixture of deGrom, Rocker, Leiter, Jon Grey, Tyler Mahle, Cody Bradford, and Dane Dunning. It’s doable they’ll proceed so as to add to that rotation combine, as Bob Nightengale of USA Immediately reported within the aftermath of Eovaldi’s choice that the Rangers hope so as to add one other starter along with bullpen assist this winter.
These pursuits might come amid a little bit of a price range crunch for the membership. Reporting early this offseason recommended that the membership might look to duck beneath the posh tax threshold this winter. With Eovaldi again within the fold, RosterResource initiatives the membership for a payroll simply north of $219MM for tax functions in 2025. That leaves the membership with round $21MM in respiration room earlier than they go over the primary threshold, which is about at $241MM. Including a number of relievers and one other starter in free company could possibly be a tall order with that restricted price range room except the membership is keen to deal wage elsewhere, although the commerce market might additionally symbolize a approach so as to add pitching expertise at a decrease monetary value.
Turning to the pitching market as an entire, nearly all of high free agent starters are off the market at this level. Proper-handers Corbin Burnes and Jack Flaherty are nonetheless obtainable when it comes to potential front-of-the-rotation arms, whereas mid-rotation items Sean Manaea and Nick Pivetta additionally stay obtainable. Of that quartet, solely Flaherty isn’t encumbered by a Qualifying Provide that will drive buying golf equipment to forfeit draft capital and worldwide bonus pool cash so as to signal him. For golf equipment trying to keep away from signing one other membership’s certified free agent such because the Orioles, whiffing on Flaherty (and, within the case of Baltimore particularly, Burnes) would go away them compelled to resort to back-end veterans corresponding to Heaney and Jose Quintana or reclamation initiatives corresponding to Walker Buehler so as to add beginning pitching expertise.
Robert Murray of FanSided first reported the Rangers have been re-signing Eovaldi. Jeff Passan of ESPN was first with the three-year, $75MM phrases. Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning Information reported that it was a backloaded association with an $18MM wage in yr one. Jon Heyman of the New York Publish had the precise wage breakdown and the no-trade clause.
