Cody Snavely
The 2025 Major League Baseball season is less than thirty-five days away, with pitchers and catchers reporting to their respective camps in early February. However, multiple top-end free agents, including 2024 World Series Champion right-handed pitcher Jack Flaherty, are still available.
With the winter quickly coming to a close, Major League Baseball insider Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic suggested that given the situation, Flaherty and others could consider shorter-term contracts with an opt-out after the first season and retest the open market.
The 2024 season was a great bounce-back year for the former young St. Louis Cardinals ace. After a dominant 2019 season for the Red Birds, where the righty posted a 2.75 ERA in 196.1 innings pitched, which resulted in a fourth-place finish for the National League Cy Young, he would find himself regressing hard. From 2020 until 2023, Flaherty had a 23-15 record with an ERA of 4.42 and 315 strikeouts in sixty-four appearances.
With the 2023 season ending on a sour note, where the former frontline starter was shifted to the Baltimore Orioles in the final month of the season, he would look to restock his value with a one-year deal that offseason.
Flaherty would get that one-year prove-it deal with the young up-and-coming Detroit Tigers, and he would not disappoint. In eighteen starts in the first half with the Tigers, Flaherty would go 7-5 with a 2.95 ERA and 133 strikeouts, raising his value enough that the Los Angeles Dodgers, desperate for starting pitching, would strike a deal bringing the local kid home.
While Flaherty was not as consistent in the second half with the Dodgers as in the first half with Detroit, he did provide the Dodgers with some much-needed frontline depth and went 6-2 with a 3.58 ERA.
Overall, Flaherty, 29, produced a 3.17 ERA for the Dodgers and Tigers this past season but, like the last few years of his career, raised many concerns due to his postseason woes.
Flaherty was 1-2 with an ERA of 7.36 and fifteen strikeouts in five appearances in the 2024 postseason for the Dodgers, giving them some great performances in game one of the National League Division Series and Championship Series, along with some disastrous ones also.
In Rosenthal’s latest report, he suggests that teams around the league want to see back-to-back constant seasons from Flaherty before committing years and dollars to him. But if Flaherty does sign the one-year opt-out deal, that has its own issues for Jack.
A one-year opt-out would enable Flaherty to re-enter the market at 30 but also would subject him to a qualifying offer for the first time. The early opt-outs are more appealing for the remaining free agents with QOs — Alonso, Santander, right-hander Nick Pivetta and third baseman Alex Bregman. The collective bargaining agreement prohibits a player from receiving qualifying offers twice.
If Flaherty’s market does not materialize, there could be room for a potential reunion with the Dodgers, who are still looking to add one more starter to their rotation.
Currently, the Dodgers, along with several other teams, are heavily invested in 23-year-old Japanese pitcher Rōki Sasaki, but if they were to miss out, Flaherty would be a great plan B.
At the beginning of the offseason, MLB Trade Rumors, in their annual free agent predictions, pegged Flaherty to receive a 5-year, $115 million deal ($23MM AVV), but with his market, as it is right now, we could see that number dwindle to two years.
Despite his inconsistent season in Dodger Blue, the Burbank, California native enjoyed his time pitching for the team he grew up rooting for and was a vital part of their inevitable part of their World Series run.
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