Merrill Kelly is returning to the Arizona Diamondbacks.
After a 10-start hiatus pitching with the Texas Rangers, Kelly’s major league career will continue with the club he’s logged more than 1,000 innings for over the past seven years.
Kelly, 37, and the Diamondbacks agreed to a two-year deal worth $40 million, The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal first reported on Sunday morning.
The Diamondbacks dealt Kelly to Texas for pitching prospects Kohl Drake, Mitch Bratt and David Hagaman at the trade deadline last summer as the club pivoted to selling off expiring contracts for young talent. The writing was on the wall that a reunion was not only possible but perhaps likely, though.
Kelly maintained the sentiment that he’d appreciate riding out his career in Arizona, where he attended high school at Scottsdale Desert Mountain and college at Yavapai College and Arizona State. He told reporters during his first road visit to Arizona in September that coming back was “attractive” due to the family aspect, but that he’d have to make hard business decisions, as well.
“I’m gonna keep going as long as somebody will give me a big league jersey. I’ve said it multiple times, I would love for that to be here in Arizona,” Kelly told Arizona Sports’ Burns & Gambo back in May.
Arizona Sports’ John Gambadoro had reported there was mutual interest between Kelly and the Diamondbacks to renew their partnership.
This is a huge value win for the Diamondbacks, who added three of their five best pitching prospects via online rankings for a two-month separation. He’ll even be able to help guide some of the young pitchers Arizona acquired for him.
The Diamondbacks addressed their top offseason need by bringing back Kelly, but still needs to work to round out a rotation. He joins Ryne Nelson, Eduardo Rodriguez, Brandon Pfaadt and the recently-signed Michael Soroka with Corbin Burnes out while rehabbing from Tommy John surgery. Burnes hopes for a July return.
Merrill Kelly returns after solid 2025 season
(Felisa Cárdenas/Arizona Sports)
Kelly threw 184 innings last season between Arizona and Texas, working a 3.52 ERA and 1.11 WHIP. He went into the trade deadline with a 3.22 ERA in 22 games for the D-backs, as the Rangers looked to boost their rotation for a run at the American League West crown.
Kelly was really good for Texas through eight starts (3.19 ERA, 5-3 team record), but he had a couple clunkers to end the season (7.1 IP, 9 ER).
The Rangers were actually eliminated from playoff contention before the Diamondbacks, who played better baseball over the final two months after throwing up the white flag.
Arizona first gave Kelly a shot ahead of the 2019 season. The right-hander was pitching in Korea after he never made the leap to MLB with Tampa Bay, the team that drafted him out of ASU.
Kelly developed into one of the most consistent pitchers in the game during his 30s. From 2019-23, Kelly was sixth in the National League in innings pitched, doing so with a 3.80 ERA. He crossed the 200-inning threshold for the first time in 2022.
He stepped up in 2023, not only with another effective regular season but his first cracks in the playoffs.
Kelly started four postseason games, and the Diamondbacks won three of them. He tossed 6.1 scoreless innings in Game 1 of the NLDS against the Dodgers, but his crown jewel was seven innings of one-run ball against Texas in Game 2 of the World Series. He would have pitched Game 6 had the Diamondbacks held on, but they were eliminated in five.
The veteran missed most of the 2024 campaign with a teres major strain but bounced back in 2025.
His calling card is the ability to spin the baseball in all sorts of ways, leaning on a healthy dose of changeups, four-seamers, cutters, sinkers and curveballs. Opponents hit .203 off his changeup in 2025, which is one of the most effective pitches of its kind in baseball.
He consistently works a low walk rate with an average strikeout rate, getting deep into games. Last year, he worked at least five innings in 28 of 32 starts and at least six innings 19 times.
Kelly’s return will be like he never left in certain ways, as he will continue to work with pitching coaches Brian Kaplan and Owen Dew and catchers Gabriel Moreno and James McCann. Perhaps Chase Field renovations to the HVAC system will help him avoid late-summer cramping that has impacted him over the past three seasons.
