Veteran right-handed starter Jack Flaherty has agreed to a free-agent contract with the Detroit Tigers, he announced on social media. It’s a two-year deal worth $35 million, reports The Athletic. The contract includes an opt out after 2025 and will pay Flaherty $25 million this coming season and $10 million in 2026. The 2026 salary can increase to $20 million with 15 starts in 2025. The team has not yet confirmed the signing.
Flaherty, 29, signed a one-year contract worth $14 million with the Tigers last offseason. He started strong with Detroit, strong enough that the eventual World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers traded for him at the deadline. In 162 combined innings for the two teams, Flaherty pitched to a 3.17 ERA/127 ERA+ with an FIP of 3.48 and almost 200 strikeouts. For Flaherty, it was his strongest campaign since 2019, when he finished fourth in the National League Cy Young vote as a member of the Cardinals.
Flaherty was exceptional in the first half and positioned himself as perhaps the most prized starter leading up to the trade deadline. The Dodgers pounced, and Flaherty was a key stabilizer for them down the stretch and during their championship run in the postseason.
Earlier offseason, CBS Sports ranked Flaherty as the No. 8 available free agent. Here’s part of our write-up:
This time a year ago, Flaherty was coming off a putrid stint with the Orioles that saw him relegated to the bullpen for Baltimore’s brief postseason run. His topline results were disappointing, and his underlying measures didn’t offer much hope. The one-year pact he signed with the Tigers seemed like a proverbial fork in the road: either he was going to redeem himself, or he was going to spend the next few years hopping around the league on similar deals until interest completely dried up. Flaherty did the former, fixing his fastball axis and (perhaps relatedly) mothballing his cutter in favor of a three-pitch mix. He didn’t perform quite as well after a midseason trade to the Dodgers, but he’s on the right side of 30 and there’s more than enough here to envision him serving as a middle-of-the-rotation starter for a few years more.
For his career, Flaherty has an ERA+ of 112 and a WAR of 12.8 across parts of eight MLB seasons.
Flaherty will rejoin reigning AL Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal in Detroit’s rotation. Alex Cobb and Reese Olson are set to fill two other rotation spots. The fifth spot could go to Matt Manning, Casey Mize, or Keider Montero.
Despite trading Flaherty at the deadline, the Tigers surged late in the season and returned to the postseason for the first time since 2014. They swept the Houston Astros in the Wild Card Series, then were eliminated by the Cleveland Guardians in the ALDS. The Tigers will look to unseat Cleveland as the AL Central champs in 2025.
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