8:23pm: It’s a $22.025MM guarantee, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. That matches the price of the qualifying offer. However, roughly $14MM of the salary is deferred, Rosenthal adds.
8:10pm: It’ll be a one-year contract, reports Nick Piecoro of The Arizona Republic. The signing is still pending a physical.
8:08pm: The D-Backs are closing in on a deal to re-sign Zac Gallen, reports Steve Gilbert of MLB.com. The veteran righty has had an extended stay on the open market after declining a qualifying offer at the beginning of the offseason.
Gallen is coming off a down year that clearly sapped a lot of his appeal on the open market. He entered the season as a strong candidate to command upwards of $100MM once he hit free agency. Gallen stayed healthy and took all 33 turns through the rotation, but he had the worst rate stats of his career. He turned in a personal-high 4.83 earned run average with a career-worst 21.5% strikeout rate.
The season started especially poorly, as Gallen allowed at least five earned runs per nine innings in each of the first four months. He took a 5.40 ERA into the All-Star Break and had a 5.60 mark across 127 innings at the trade deadline. The D-Backs were aggressive sellers, moving Josh Naylor, Eugenio Suárez, Merrill Kelly and Shelby Miller. They didn’t find an offer they liked on Gallen more than the draft pick they’d collect if he signed elsewhere after rejecting the qualifying offer.
Arizona reportedly was concerned about overworking young pitchers down the stretch, so they also got some benefit out of holding Gallen for the innings alone. He performed better after the deadline, tossing quality starts in eight of his last 11 outings. The 30-year-old turned in a 3.32 ERA over his final 65 innings. The Diamondbacks went 7-4 in those games, part of the reason they were able to hang in the Wild Card picture until the final weekend despite the July selloff.
While it was an encouraging last couple months, it wasn’t exactly a return to peak form. Gallen only struck out 20% of opponents during that stretch. He was helped a lot by a .232 average on balls in play. Gallen had struck out between 25-29% of opponents in each of his first five-plus MLB seasons. The swing-and-miss drop wasn’t quite so extreme on a per-pitch basis, but last year’s 9.5% swinging strike rate was the second-lowest mark of his career.
There weren’t any dramatic changes to Gallen’s raw stuff. His fastball averaged 93.5 mph, right in line with his career mark. That’s essentially league average for a right-handed starting pitcher. Opponents have had increasing success against Gallen’s heater over the past couple seasons. He managed decent results on his knuckle-curve and changeup, his top two secondary offerings. He sporadically mixed a cutter, slider and sinker — all of which were hit hard.
More to come.