Eovaldi declines Rangers option, becomes free agent

Right-handed pitcher Nathan Eovaldi declined his 2025 player option with the Rangers on Monday and is now a free agent.

Rangers president of baseball operations Chris Young said the club still has a lot of interest in bringing back Eovaldi, a Texas native who joined the team on a two-year deal in free agency after the 2022 campaign. He’s been the ace of a rotation that only had Jacob deGrom for 41 total innings over the last two seasons.

“We expected [Eovaldi to decline the option], and we're still going to work towards hopefully getting him back in a Rangers uniform,” Young said.

Eovaldi’s contract included a vesting player option for the 2025 season that was dependent on whether he threw 300 innings between the '23 and '24 seasons; he threw 314 2/3 innings and went 24-13 with a 3.72 ERA in 54 games.

Eovaldi also rose to the occasion in the 2023 playoffs, helping the Rangers win their first World Series title while going 5-0 with a 2.95 ERA over six starts. He is a two-time World Series champion who owns a lifetime 3.05 ERA over 79 2/3 innings in the postseason.

Eovaldi has recorded a 4.07 ERA in the regular season during his career, appearing in parts of 13 seasons with the Dodgers, Marlins, Yankees, Rays, Red Sox and Rangers. That includes a 3.75 ERA in 115 starts since the beginning of 2020.

With Eovaldi joining Max Scherzer, Andrew Heaney, Kirby Yates, José Leclerc and David Robertson on the free-agent market, the Rangers have a number of vacancies to address on their pitching staff this offseason.

Between Eovaldi and Heaney, the Rangers are losing more than 300 innings from the 2024 rotation this offseason. Texas is currently positioned to enter 2025 with a rotation headed by a healthy deGrom, with Tyler Mahle, Jon Gray, Cody Bradford and a pair of rookies in Kumar Rocker and Jack Leiter falling in behind.

But Young always wants more pitching depth. That’ll start with trying to get one or both of Eovaldi and Heaney back in Arlington.

“We can't have enough pitching,” Young said at the end-of-season presser. “That's the theme. As far as Evo and Andrew go, those are priorities for us. We love those guys. They helped us win a World Series. We would love to bring those guys back, and we're going to explore every way we can to make that happen.”