During the 2024-2025 offseason, a number of pitchers will sign lucrative new contracts. Pitchers, like Max Fried, Blake Snell, and Luis Severino, are earning more in free agency this winter than many pundits projected. However, former St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Jack Flaherty has stayed on the sidelines as his colleagues are picked one by one, and no team has expressed real interest in his services as we approach the end of January.
The league’s ambivalence toward Flaherty is especially perplexing given that he is one of the youngest free agent pitchers on the market, at 29. His weak medical history could be a contributing factor to his lack of concern. With the Cardinals, Flaherty had repeated shoulder issues and, except from his amazing second half of 2019, fell short of the lofty expectations that many had for him.
According to an article in The Athletic (subscription needed), organizations want to see Flaherty have another strong season before signing him to a long-term contract. Flaherty has a 3.17 ERA and 194 strikeouts in 162 innings between the Detroit Tigers and Los Angeles Dodgers in 2024. However, he was only one year removed from a disastrous tenure with the Baltimore Orioles, where he had an ERA of 6.75 and was finally demoted from the rotation.
Michael Rosen’s FanGraphs post suggested another probable explanation for Flaherty’s cool market. Rosen believes that organizations are concerned about Flaherty’s fastball, which has marginally decreased in velocity over the past season and lacks the movement and deception of Fried, Snell, and Corbin Burnes.
Michael Rosen’s FanGraphs post suggested another probable explanation for Flaherty’s cool market. Rosen believes that organizations are concerned about Flaherty’s fastball, which has marginally decreased in velocity over the past season and lacks the movement and deception of Fried, Snell, and Corbin Burnes.
