*Photo from Twinkie Town*
Cross another free agent pitcher off the board. RHP Kenta Maeda and the Detroit Tigers have agreed to a two year, $24 million contract, according to Jon Heyman of MLB Network. The Tigers have confirmed the signing.
Maeda will make $14 million in 2024 and $10 million in 2025, slightly frontloading his contract. The Tigers believe that the flashes Maeda showed at times coming off Tommy John Surgery can stick for a bit longer.
Detroit president of baseball operations Scott Harris said that "We wanted to add a veteran presence in our rotation that could both help us win games and influence our young starters. Kenta does a lot of things very well. He’s a plus-strike-thrower. He has multiple swing-and-miss secondary options. He’s an excellent competitor. He’s a great teammate. He does a lot of things that we really like. He does a lot of things that we hope rub off on our young starters."
Last season, Maeda returned after missing all of 2022 due to the surgery. He posted a 4.23 ERA, 4.02 FIP, and 1.169 WHIP, throwing 104 1/3 innings over 20 starts and one relief outing. He allowed 3 runs on 6 hits and 3 walks in 4 innings in the playoffs.
In 2023, Maeda walked 28 hitters and struck out 117 over those 104 1/3 innings. That gave him an average of 2.4 walks per 9 innings and 10.1 strikeouts per 9, which ranked in the top 25 percent of MLB pitchers and are better than Maeda's career averages in those categories.
Harris said of Maeda's end to 2023 that "We’ve been impressed with his entire body of work in his career, but the last 17 games after he came back from the injured list in June really stood out to us. In addition to that, his velocity crept back up to pre-injury norms in August. We felt like that was a really good sign for him coming off of surgery, and we hope that momentum will carry into 2024 and 2025. So as soon as we noticed those things, in addition to all the other things that we’ve always liked about Kenta, we realized he’d be a good fit."
Maeda's splitter proved to be his best pitch last season, with opponents hitting just .182 against it with a 35 percent strikeout rate. He used the splitter 31.9 percent of the time while also using his slider and 4 seam fastball over 25 percent of the time.
The Tigers rotation is very young, with Maeda joining a group that includes recent top prospects Casey Mize, Tarik Skubal, and Matt Manning. Joey Wentz, Reese Olson, Sawyer Gipson-Long, and Alex Faedo are all candidates for the final spot, barring any more external additions.
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