Every free agent signing is a trade. For that matter, every job everywhere is a transaction. The employer agrees to give you money and maybe even health insurance. You agree to give them your work. You’re trading something they want in exchange for something you want (or at least something you need in order to not die). But we don’t tend to think about things this way. Everybody has to work, so everybody just gets the best job they can. For ballplayers who have reached free agency, that generally means maximizing earnings. That’s what Michael Lorenzen did on Wednesday, when ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported that the muscular right-hander agreed to a one-year, $8 million deal with the Rockies (with a $9 million club option for 2027). Still, this deal is notable for the starkness of the wants on either side and the concessions they made to get them. Lorenzen wants to be a starting pitcher. That’s all he’s ever wanted. The Rockies want a starting pitcher who is willing to ply his trade under two adverse circumstances: in Colorado and for the Rockies.

In 2015, toward the end of a rookie season in which he put up a 5.45 ERA and 5.48 FIP, the Reds relegated Lorenzen to the bullpen. During six subsequent seasons in Cincinnati, Lorenzen wasn’t shy about the fact that he wanted to go back to starting and often appeared in line to get that chance, but underperformance and injuries – a UCL sprain, a teres major strain, a shoulder strain, even a bout of mono – pushed him into relief roles (and the occasional appearance as an outfielder). He started just five more games in his final six seasons with the Reds. Although he ended on a down note, he ran a 3.65 ERA and 3.92 FIP over those six seasons. He’d earned the chance to pitch where he wanted on his own terms, and he did just that. Lorenzen signed with the Angels, then the Tigers, then the Rangers, then the Royals, and now with the Rockies, all on one-year deals (usually incentive-laden ones), and all with the publicly-acknowledged understanding that he would be given the chance to start.

Making that part clear up front was important because no matter how well he pitched, it was all too easy for people to put together a table that showed his splits as a starter and a reliever. You’d rather have the second guy, right? The one whose strikeout rate is within shouting distance of the league average and who possesses some ability to keep the ball in the yard?

But Lorenzen persisted. He’s 34 now, and he made the most of his seven-pitch starter’s arsenal. Over the past four years, he made 93 starts for six different teams. And he pitched fine! He ran a combined ERA- of 99 and FIP- of 110. He was an average pitcher, a desirable enough arm that playoff-bound teams traded for him at the deadline in two of the past three seasons. In 2023, he threw a no-hitter. In 2024, thanks to good fortune in the form of a low BABIP and high strand rate, he ran a 3.31 ERA. In 2025, he wasn’t so fortunate, running a 4.64 ERA that matched his 4.59 FIP. Over the past three years, he’s been right around the top 50 in terms of games started and innings pitched. Nevertheless, when things got real, when the season wound down, when Lorenzen found himself in the playoffs, he also found himself back in the bullpen. He won’t have to worry about that in Colorado.

Lorenzen has found the toughest pitching environment in baseball, but he’s also found a situation where league-average numbers would put him in rarefied air. In 2025, Colorado’s starting pitchers ran a 6.65 ERA. That’s the worst mark ever. And when I say ever, I mean ever. It’s the highest starting pitching ERA in AL/NL history. Fourth place belongs to the 1899 Spiders. (Although the 2025 bullpen didn’t set a record, Colorado does own the highest combined bullpen ERA of any franchise at 4.81.) RosterResource pegs Lorenzen as the Rockies’ no. 2 starter, behind lefty Kyle Freeland and ahead of Chase Dollander, Tanner Gordon, and Ryan Feltner. Freeland was the only one of the four incumbents with an ERA below 6.00 or a FIP below 5.00.

But this is a new era. Lorenzen will be the first major leaguer to sign with the Rockies in the Paul DePodesta era. He will also be the team’s first investment in starting pitching of any substance at all since 2015, when they signed Kyle Kendrick for $5.5 million. Somehow, Lorenzen is only the fifth starting pitcher to sign a deal with the Rockies in the past seven years. I went through Colorado’s RosterResource free agent tracker to check. The tracker goes back to 2020, and the four starters I found put up a combined -0.1 WAR with the Rockies. They won a combined 11 games. Chad Kuhl ran the best ERA. It was 5.72.

It’s scary to think about how many homers Lorenzen could give up in the thin Denver air, but he’d have to crash spectacularly hard in order be anything less than a significant upgrade for this rotation. Everybody gets what they want here, and all it took to get it was a couple extra millions on one side and a willingness to pitch on a mountain on the other. The Rockies get to take their first step on the long road to reputability, and they get to sign their first decent starting pitcher in years. Lorenzen gets his money – almost certainly more money than he would have gotten anywhere else – and he gets what must have been his last chance to remain a starting pitcher. If he defies the odds and pitches well, maybe he can keep the streak going and sign a similar deal next year.

On Saturday, the eve of his posting window’s closure, 29-year-old Japanese third baseman Kazuma Okamoto agreed to a four-year, $60 million contract with the reigning American League champion Toronto Blue Jays. Okamoto, who made his NPB debut as a teenager, is a career .277/.361/.521 hitter with Tokyo’s Yomiuri Giants. He had a power-hitting breakout in 2018, his age-22 campaign, beginning a six-year streak in which he hit 30 or more annual home runs, including a 2023 season in which he cracked 41 of them. He ranks second in all of NPB with 214 homers since 2019, our first year of NPB data tracking here at FanGraphs. During his 2025 platform year, Okamoto posted an incredible .327/.416/.598 line and career-best 11% strikeout rate, albeit in only 77 games because he sprained his left elbow in an on-field collision that caused him to miss roughly half the season.

Dangerous from top to bottom, lineup depth was the bedrock of a Toronto team that came within inches of winning a World Series, and Okamoto’s balanced contact/power hitting style fits in with the Blue Jays’ baton-passing attack. Pre-existing defensive versatility on their roster — namely, incumbent second baseman Andrés Giménez’s ability to play shortstop — gave them the flexibility to pursue players of virtually any position as a means of replacing free agent shortstop Bo Bichette. Read the rest of this entry »

New Year’s Eve is a great time to agree to an eight-figure contract; you’ve already got champagne handy to celebrate. Congratulations, then, to Tyler Mahle and the San Francisco Giants on killing two birds with one stone.

Mahle is one of baseball’s great “I can fix him guys,” a status reflected in his contract structure: $10 million guaranteed over a single year, with an additional $3 million available in performance incentives. In 2020, the right-hander struck out 29.9% of the batters he faced over the pandemic-shortened season. The following year, he made 33 starts, threw 180 innings, and posted 3.9 WAR. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, the New York Post’s Jon Heyman reported that Japanese pitcher Tatsuya Imai has agreed to a three-year, $54 million pact with the Houston Astros (ESPN’s Jesse Rogers had the length). The deal includes opt outs after each of the first two years, essentially a “prove it” contract that gives Imai the opportunity to re-enter free agency should he quickly demonstrate that he’s better than the open market seemed to think he was during this posting period. Speaking of the posting system, note that the Astros will also pay Imai’s Japanese club, the Seibu Lions, just shy of $10 million under the current MLB/NPB posting agreement’s formula (20% of the contract’s first $25 million, 17.5% of the next $25 million, and 15% of anything over $50 million). The deal also features $9 million in escalator clauses that kick in as Imai approaches and crosses the 100-inning threshold during his first two seasons, bringing Houston’s total potential expenditure to roughly $73 million.

This deal is shorter and less lucrative than was generally expected by pundits (including yours truly) when it became known that Imai would be posted; Ben Clemens forecast a five-year, $100 million deal, while our median crowdsource estimate was for four years and $64 million before the posting fee. Imai is 27-years-old, he’s coming off of his best pro season after multiple consecutive years of improved strike-throwing, and he checks several of the visual scouting and data analytics boxes you want from a mid-rotation starter. What could be the reason(s) for the discrepancy between our collective expectations and Imai’s actual payday, and where does he fit into Houston’s rotation?

Let’s revisit the background on Imai. He was the Seibu Lions’ 2016 first round pick out of a high school in Utsunomiya City, a metro roughly the size of Tucson that’s about 80 miles north of Tokyo. He spent a year in the minors and then hopped right into the Lions rotation as a 20-year-old in 2018. Throughout his early and mid-20s, Imai was a walk-prone (but effective) starter. He dealt with multiple ailments in 2022 (including a right adductor injury), then took a step forward as a strike-thrower and an innings-eater in each of the next three seasons, becoming one of NPB’s best arms. Across the 2022-25 seasons, Imai halved his walk rate (from the 14% area to 7%), expanded his repertoire, and improved his fastball velocity even as his innings count grew to north of 160 frames. He’s had four consecutive seasons with an ERA under 2.50 (even while he was wild), and in 2025, he posted a 1.92 ERA and 2.01 FIP. Read the rest of this entry »

The Baltimore Orioles continued filling out their rotation last weekend, signing right-hander Zach Eflin to a one-year contract worth $10 million with a mutual option for the 2027 season. Traded to the Orioles from the Rays in 2024, Eflin struggled with injuries last year, throwing only 71 1/3 over 14 starts while putting up a 5.93 ERA and -0.3 WAR.

A first-round pick by the Padres out of a Florida high school in 2012, Eflin finally established himself as a solid mid-rotation starter with the Phillies at the end of the decade after being a part of trades for Matt Kemp and Jimmy Rollins. COVID and recurring patella issues in his right knee plagued him in 2021, resulting in season-ending surgery, and he missed another three months in 2022 with more problems with the same knee. Despite the setbacks, the Rays saw enough to sign him to a three-year, $40 million deal entering the 2023 season. Eflin experienced a minor back injury and tendinitis in his other knee, but that only cost him a handful of innings, and the result was his best and most durable campaign. He set career highs in starts (31), innings (177 2/3 innings), ERA (3.50), FIP (3.01), and WAR (4.9). While his numbers sagged a bit in 2024, Eflin was still a quality pitcher whose name bandied in trade rumors before the deadline. Read the rest of this entry »

One can’t help but imagine the chagrin of Pete Fairbanks’ dermatologist. The fair-haired closer has spent nearly his entire major league career with the Rays, racking up at least 23 saves in each of the past three seasons. And now, instead of leaving the Sunshine State, he’s traveling even farther south to Miami. The 32-year-old Fairbanks has signed a one-year, $13 million deal with the Marlins. He was the last closer available in free agency, and with Ronny Henriquez out for the season due to a torn UCL, Fairbanks will play a crucial role for a Miami bullpen that finished in the bottom 10 in just about any category you can think of. Will Sammon of The Athletic broke the news, while Jeff Passan of ESPN reported the terms, and Mark Feinsand of MLB.com reported that the contract included a $1 million signing bonus and another $1 million in incentives. According to AJ Eustace of MLB Trade Rumors, Fairbanks would also get a $500,000 bonus if he’s traded.

The move represents a reunion with president of baseball operations Peter Bendix, who previously served as Tampa Bay’s general manager. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Fairbanks made it clear that Bendix’s role with the Marlins was part of their appeal. “To hear all the things that he’s been doing over his tenure down in Miami, from what I’ve heard previously to what I have now, how much things are changing and how much he has been attempting to put his stamp on things. I felt like that made it a pretty easy choice, and I am excited to see the direction that he takes.” (Hat tip to Kevin Barral of Fish on First, who published this quote and the others you’ll read in this article.) Fairbanks also noted that moving just a four-hour drive away from Tampa is a boon because he and his wife are expecting their third child “basically on Opening Day.” This is the first All-Star break baby we write in 2026, but I can assure you that it won’t be the last. Read the rest of this entry »

One day after boom-or-bust Japanese slugger Munetaka Murakami was officially introduced as a new member of the White Sox on a two-year, $34 million pact, FanSided’s Robert Murray reported that the Pirates have inked fellow left-handed first baseman Ryan O’Hearn to a two-year, $29 million deal.

This framing device will eventually lose its White Sox trappings, but they’re initially connected just because the South Siders were linked to O’Hearn early in the offseason, before they pivoted from a reliable and proven big leaguer to an attention-grabbing international signing. Murakami has a deeply volatile profile with significant bust potential, but a famed home run hitter and two-time MVP of NPB picking a relative MLB backwater is intriguing not only for beleaguered White Sox ticket sales employees, but also for outlets like this one that observe the league at large. How the talents of a legendary Japanese slugger with apparently bottom-of-the-scale contact ability translate to MLB is fascinating, whereas pondering whether a 32-year-old hit-over-power first baseman like O’Hearn can keep a later-career breakout going is more the usual fare. Even for the largest position player free agent signing in Pirates franchise history, O’Hearn is newsworthy mostly in terms of how well he might fill a short-term need for a role player. Read the rest of this entry »

A new day dawned in Major League Baseball on Sunday, as the top international player in this free agent class has signed with — that’s right — someone other than the Dodgers!

The White Sox, yes, believe it or not, the White Sox, have landed Munetaka Murakami. Per Jeff Passan, the 25-year-old corner infielder, late of the Tokyo Yakult Swallows of NPB, will make $34 million over the next two seasons. We had him ranked 12th on our Top 50 Free Agents list, with an estimated contract AAV of $22 million. Ben Clemens predicted he’d get seven years, our readers six.

It’s one of the biggest discrepancies you’re likely to see, and for good reason. Murakami is, in my opinion, the no. 1 most interesting player in this class, and while I’m shocked his contract dropped this far below expectations, I’m not at all surprised by the extent to which he’s divided popular opinion. Read the rest of this entry »

Already an appealing addition based on cool name factor alone, Korean infielder Sung-mun Song put himself on the MLB radar with a late-20s breakout for the KBO’s Kiwoom Heroes. The 29-year-old was posted by Kiwoom last month on the heels of back-to-back .900+ OPS seasons that saw him crank 45 total home runs, and FanSided’s Robert Murray was the first to report that Song’s hard work has achieved the purest form of recognition our society can offer: money.

The Padres have reportedly reached an agreement with Song on a three-year deal, which The Athletic’s Dennis Lin says is for around $15 million total. Since San Diego is sort of pot-committed to this Manny Machado character as its everyday third baseman, Lin reports that Song is expected to bounce around the infield, filling in only occasionally at his primary position and appearing at second and first base more often. Read the rest of this entry »

The San Diego Padres have re-signed starting pitcher Michael King to a… let’s just call it a three-year deal worth $75 million for now, though the particulars are somewhat more complicated.

Good for the Padres, getting their Christmas shopping done on time; not all of us are so organized. I also can’t remember if I’ve already used the joke about how a reunion between King and the Friars is the opposite of Becket, the 1964 film starring Richard Burton and Peter O’Toole. These are confusing times.

Especially for the Padres, who have been one of baseball’s more chaotic teams in the 2020s, shipping massive talents in and out with little warning and little regard for the long-term future. King came to San Diego in one of the more famous examples of this behavior: the trade that sent Juan Soto to the Yankees in 2023.

That all-in attitude — even when the Padres were selling in the short term, it was to set up another major push in the medium term — was assumed to have a shelf life. Especially after the death of popular owner Peter Seidler, whose largesse enabled GM A.J. Preller to satisfy his inexhaustible thirst for making deals. Read the rest of this entry »