While the Major League Baseball free agency market has begun moving over the last couple of weeks, that has not yet been the case for starting pitchers.
To this point, the largest contract signed by a starting pitcher in free agency this offseason has been Mike Minor’s two-year, $18 million deal with the Kansas City Royals.
Most of the best starting pitchers on the market remain available, including Trevor Bauer, who has reportedly been in discussions with the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets, among other teams.
One of the other top starters was Masahiro Tanaka, formerly of the New York Yankees. After spending seven years in MLB, Tanaka made a personal decision to return to his native country of Japan, signing with his former team, the Rakuten Eagles.
David Price, who faced Tanaka a lot playing for three different American League East teams in the Tampa Bay Rays, Toronto Blue Jays and Boston Red Sox, took to Twitter to wish him luck moving forward and express his admiration:
It was a pleasure watching and competing against you @t_masahiro18 ! Best of luck for the rest of your career!
— David Price (@DAVIDprice24) January 28, 2021
Expectations were high for Tanaka after he signed a seven-year, $155 million contract with the Yankees in 2014 following an outstanding start to his career in Japan.
He largely was able to live up to those, going 78-46 with a 3.74 ERA, 3.91 FIP and 1.13 WHIP in 174 career games with the Yankees, also performing well in the postseason.
At just 32 years of age, he should have some quality years left in him to finish his career back in Japan with the team he spent the first seven years of his professional career with.
Bauer reportedly ‘holding out’ for Dodgers
With the start of MLB Spring Training just around the corner, the expectation is that the starting pitching market will pick up soon.
Where Bauer signs should have a big impact on that, and recent reports indicate thathe may be waiting to receive the offer he is looking for from the Dodgers, who are his hometown team.
Whether that offer will come or not remains to be seen considering the Dodgers can already field a quality rotation without him, with the return of Price contributing to that.
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