Breaking down the Yusei Kikuchi deal from all sides
We finally have our first major free agent deal of the offseason.
After a slow first few weeks of free agency, news broke on Monday morning that the Angels had agreed to a three-year, $63 million contract with left-hander Yusei Kikuchi.
The 33-year-old, who jumped from Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball to the Majors in 2019, is now entering his seventh MLB season. He pitched for the Mariners from 2019-21 (making his lone All-Star team in ‘21), then signed with the Blue Jays in 2022. Toronto dealt him at the 2024 Trade Deadline to Houston, where Kikuchi authored one of the best stretches of his career to help the Astros nail down the AL West title.
Excluding right-hander Michael Wacha, who agreed to an extension with the Royals before officially becoming a free agent, Kikuchi is the first player from MLB.com senior national reporter Mark Feinsand’s top 25 free agents list to pick a team. Kikuchi ranked 20th on that list, and ninth among a stacked group of starting pitchers.
He now joins the Angels, the busiest team of this young offseason. The Halos, looking to snap a 10-season playoff drought, already acquired slugger Jorge Soler in a trade with the Braves and inked catcher Travis d’Arnaud, infielder Kevin Newman and right-hander Kyle Hendricks to modest free-agent deals. But Kikuchi is their most significant acquisition to date.
Kikuchi by the numbers
Here is a breakdown of this move from all angles, via MLB.com experts.
What this means for the Angels
Via Angels beat writer Rhett Bollinger
The Angels have been the most aggressive club in free agency this offseason and kept it up with their first big splash. The deal is the largest since Perry Minasian became general manager in 2020.
Kikuchi represents a solid upgrade to the rotation after the Angels also signed Hendricks to a one-year deal worth $2.5 million. Kikuchi immediately becomes the club's best starting pitcher and can help the Angels compete after their 99-loss campaign in ‘24.
What this means for the Astros
Via Astros beat writer Brian McTaggart
The Astros were interested in a reunion and had made an offer to Kikuchi, whom they acquired in a July trade. He excelled after coming over from the Blue Jays, going 5-1 with a 2.70 ERA with 76 strikeouts in 60 innings in 10 starts after the Astros altered his pitch usage.
The Astros’ rotation, anchored by Framber Valdez, Hunter Brown and Ronel Blanco, should still be a strength next year, but they still could use more depth. Kikuchi would have filled that void, but the Astros believed the price and years were too much for a mid-level starting pitcher like Kikuchi.
Hot Stove implications
Via senior national reporter Mark Feinsand
The Angels were among the teams in the market for a starting pitcher, so the Kikuchi signing was no surprise. His signing takes one of the second-tier starters off the market, potentially setting the price range for some of the others in that group including Jack Flaherty, Sean Manaea and Nathan Eovaldi. Kikuchi is the first starting pitching domino to fall, but there are still plenty of pitchers out there for teams looking to upgrade their rotations.
Diving deep
Via analyst Mike Petriello
Last year’s Angels rotation had the third-highest ERA in MLB, and 2025’s Angels rotation was, as of Sunday evening, projected to be the fourth-weakest in baseball. So yes, they desperately needed starting pitching – even if it’s not quite clear if this winter’s early-offseason strategy of signing lots of low-to-mid-level veterans with names you know is what’s going to get the team back from 99 losses to its first winning season since 2015.
Kikuchi likely becomes their Opening Day starter, which is both a reflection of how strong he was after being traded to the Astros last summer and how weak the incumbent Halos group was. The left-hander has always been a talented-yet-frustrating pitcher. At the time the Jays traded him south, he had a 4.72 career ERA, interspersing periods of quality with three different seasons with an ERA north of 5.00. But Kikuchi more than doubled his slider usage with Houston, mostly dumping his ineffective curveball, and saw his strikeout rate jump from 26% to 32%.
That change, pairing the slider with a fastball that usually rates very well in pitch modeling metrics, might be real. But the drop in ERA from 4.75 (Toronto) to 2.70 (Houston) is at least in part fueled by his batting average on balls in play (BABIP) dropping by 100 points, an improvement that may be difficult to retain in front of a below-average Angels defense. Turning 34 in June, it’s probably unlikely that Kikuchi has unlocked some new level of consistency that we’ve never seen before. But if he’s merely raised his floor with the changes he made with Houston, he’ll instantly be the best starter the Angels have to offer, and for a commitment not past three years. That’s not nothing.
Stat to know
Via MLB.com research staff
25.9%: That was the gap between Kikuchi’s strikeout rate (31.8%) and walk rate (5.9%) after joining the Astros, an improvement of more than 10 percentage points from his career K%-BB% at the time of the trade (15.3%). Of 69 qualifying pitchers from Aug. 1 through the end of the 2024 season, Kikuchi ranked fifth in MLB in that category, trailing only Blake Snell, Logan Gilbert, Zack Wheeler and AL Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal.