Official Terms of Kenta Maeda’s Contract With the Detroit Tigers Have Been Revealed
The Detroit Tigers officially announced the signing of right-handed pitcher Kenta Maeda to a multi-year contract Tuesday afternoon.
Reports of Maeda joining the Tigers first surfaced Sunday night, several days after the team was identified as one of the leaders in the hunt for the 35-year-old Japanese veteran. Maeda was due for a physical on Monday, which he evidently passed.
The contract, as was previously reported, will be for two years and $24 million. However, Detroit revealed Tuesday that Maeda would make $14 million in 2024 and $10 million in 2025, rather than an even split between the two seasons.
As part of the deal, Maeda will also donate $70,000 to the Tigers Foundation in 2024 and an additional $50,000 in 2025.
Maeda first joined MLB in 2016 following eight years in Nippon Professional Baseball. He went on to spend four seasons with the the Los Angeles Dodgers, then these last four with the Minnesota Twins.
For his career, Maeda is 65-49 with a 3.92 ERA, 1.140 WHIP, 9.9 strikeouts per nine innings and an 8.6 WAR. He finished third in NL Rookie of the Year voting in 2016, and he was the runner-up for AL Cy Young in his first season with Minnesota in 2020.
Tommy John surgery knocked Maeda out for the entire 2022 season, but he bounced back with a solid campaign this summer.
Maeda went 6-8 across 20 starts in 2023, finishing the season with a 4.23 ERA, 1.169 WHIP, 10.1 strikeouts per nine innings and a 1.1 WAR. The righty spent nearly two months on the injured list in May and June, then posted a 3.36 ERA and 1.087 WHIP upon his return.
Now that he is officially a member of the Tigers' organization, Maeda slots in as a top-of-the-rotation starter. Maeda will likely be joined in the rotation by some combination of Tarik Skubal, Reese Olson, Matt Manning, Sawyer Gipson-Long and Casey Mize, the latter of whom is coming off Tommy John surgery of his own.
Detroit had one of the strongest starting rotations in baseball after the MLB Trade Deadline, and the potential departure of free agent ace Eduardo Rodriguez could be immediately eased by Maeda's arrival.
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