{"id":575950,"date":"2026-02-16T18:25:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T18:25:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/575950\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T18:25:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T18:25:19","slug":"diamondbacks-40-million-starter-reveals-nl-west-team-who-offered-a-three-year-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/575950\/","title":{"rendered":"Diamondbacks’ $40 million starter reveals NL West team who offered a three-year contract"},"content":{"rendered":"

Diamondbacks’ $40 million starter reveals NL West team who offered a three-year contract <\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Before signing a two-year, $40 million contract to return to the Arizona Diamondbacks<\/a>, starting pitcher Merrill Kelly had the option to go elsewhere.<\/p>\n

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According to Nick Piecoro of The Arizona Republic<\/a>, Kelly turned down a three-year contract offer from the San Diego Padres<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“He said his family dynamics played a big part in his decision,” Piecoro wrote on X. Kelly, 37, has made 162 of his 172 career starts in a Diamondbacks uniform.<\/p>\n

Arizona received three pitching prospects for Kelly in a trade<\/a> with the Texas Rangers<\/a> at last year’s deadline. The right-hander went 3-3 with a 4.23 ERA in 10 starts with Texas.<\/p>\n

If Kelly had accepted the Padres’ offer<\/p>\n

With the return of Kelly and Zac Gallen, the D-Backs have their top two starters back in the rotation. Gallen agreed to a one-year pact<\/a> worth $22.5 million-an identical price to the qualifying offer the seven-year veteran turned down earlier in the offseason.<\/p>\n

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Kelly’s role with the Padres may have been towards the backend of their five-man group. They already have Michael King, Nick Pivetta, and Joe Musgrove as their top three starters.<\/p>\n

Kelly could contemplate retirement when his new contract is complete. He will turn 39 next October.<\/p>\n

More MLB news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Diamondbacks’ $40 million starter reveals NL West team who offered a three-year contract originally appeared on The Sporting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":575951,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2404],"tags":[146,22,4314,5,38,1531,660,87,4,42589,45,18,69,75516,86],"class_list":{"0":"post-575950","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arizona-diamondbacks","8":"tag-arizona","9":"tag-arizona-diamondbacks","10":"tag-arizonadiamondbacks","11":"tag-baseball","12":"tag-diamondbacks","13":"tag-joe-musgrove","14":"tag-merrill-kelly","15":"tag-michael-king","16":"tag-mlb","17":"tag-nick-piecoro","18":"tag-nick-pivetta","19":"tag-san-diego-padres","20":"tag-texas-rangers","21":"tag-x-kelly","22":"tag-zac-gallen"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116081716501102974","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=575950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575950\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/575951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}