ESPN baseball reporter. Covered the L.A. Rams for ESPN from 2016 to 2018 and the L.A. Angels for MLB.com from 2012 to 2016.
DALLAS — The enormity of Juan Soto‘s contract — stretching 15 years and guaranteeing $765 million, not a penny of which is deferred — brought an initial jolt to Major League Baseball’s winter meetings on Sunday night. It was monumental and far-reaching, but it was also an outlier, given the uniqueness of landing one of history’s greatest hitters in his mid-20s. As the days passed, subsequent transactions took place and the offseason began to round into form, a more revealing trend emerged at the sprawling Hilton hotel that hosted baseball’s annual gathering earlier this week.
A prominent agent expressed it succinctly on Tuesday night, in the middle of an emptying lobby after a dizzying round of transactions.
“Man,” he said, “starting pitchers are getting paid.”
Hours earlier, Max Fried signed an eight-year, $218 million deal with the New York Yankees, blowing away the most reputable projections. Later, Nathan Eovaldi secured a three-year, $75 million contract to return to the Texas Rangers, more than doubling the guarantee of his prior deal in his mid-30s. And just a day prior, Alex Cobb, a 37-year-old who made three starts while dealing with a litany of injuries last season, cost the Detroit Tigers $15 million on a one-year deal — a sign that it wasn’t just the top starters getting paid, but the innings-eaters and the reclamation projects, too, age be damned.
Fried, Eovaldi and Cobb followed a path that had already been laid out by the likes of Blake Snell (five years, $182 million with the Los Angeles Dodgers), Luis Severino (three years, $67 million with the Athletics) and Matthew Boyd (two years, $29 million with the Chicago Cubs). All of them did better than expected. All of them triggered a fundamental question:
Why, at a time when starting pitchers have never been counted on less, are they more expensive than ever?
Executives, agents and coaches surveyed in the 72 hours that encompassed baseball’s winter meetings brought up an assortment of theories.
One general manager noted that starting pitchers who can consistently tackle five to six innings and 160 or so over the course of a six-month season aren’t any less important, even in an era of heavy bullpen usage — they’re simply more rare, triggering the type of demand that can escalate prices. Another pointed to the impact of big-market teams chasing top-tier free agents and how that has affected those below them. Another pointed specifically to the New York Mets, who handed Soto a record-breaking contract but might have set a tone in a different way — by signing Frankie Montas earlier this month to a two-year, $34 million deal that was viewed in some circles as an overpay.
But most of the conversations came back to the rapid rate of arm injuries that have plagued the industry and made teams hyper-paranoid about their starting pitching depth.
These days, even more so than before, enough is never enough.
“Teams used to feel good if they could go into a season with, I’d say, seven or eight guys they can count on to start games at the major league level, at least in some capacity,” said one front office executive. “Now that number is like 11.”
The approach taken by two of the sport’s most successful franchises illustrates that.
The Yankees already boasted a solid fivesome of Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodón, Luis Gil, Marcus Stroman and Clarke Schmidt — but Fried was their obvious pivot after missing out on Soto, enough to cross a $200 million threshold few foresaw for the soon-to-be-31-year-old left-hander. The Dodgers, who beat the Yankees in the World Series, were set to return a rotation composed of Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow, Shohei Ohtani, Tony Gonsolin and Dustin May, while backed by a pitching pipeline that has become the envy of the sport — and yet they zeroed in on Snell at the onset of the offseason.
“I know that as a team, we’ve felt it more acutely,” said Dodgers GM Brandon Gomes, whose club suffered through an array of pitching injuries in 2024. “You feel like you have depth coming in, and sometimes it maintains and sometimes it doesn’t. It’s a little scary of an unknown.”
The increase in pitcher injuries has been raising alarm bells for the better part of a decade, but a presentation at this week’s winter meetings placed that in a new light. The sport’s 30 managers gathered in a conference room on Wednesday morning as MLB officials guided them through key findings from a yearlong study of pitcher injuries that involved input from more than 200 experts in a variety of roles. One of the slides showed that surgeries to repair damaged ulnar collateral ligaments at the minor league level had basically doubled over the past 10 years. Not only are current major league pitchers breaking down, so is the foundation behind them.
Said one manager in attendance: “It was stunning.”
The trade market hadn’t reached full tilt by the time most of the industry’s agents and executives boarded their flights back home on Wednesday afternoon. But the expectation was that it would soon pick up, particularly as it relates to starting pitchers. Teams seeking alternatives to the higher free agent prices have expressed interest in Dylan Cease, Pablo López, Framber Valdez, Jesús Luzardo and Luis Castillo, names that should gain more traction after Chicago White Sox ace Garrett Crochet was dealt to the Boston Red Sox for an impressive haul of prospects.
Two of the Red Sox’s division rivals, the Baltimore Orioles and the Toronto Blue Jays, are still searching for frontline starting pitching. So are the Mets and the San Francisco Giants, two of the offseason’s busiest teams. So are many others.
A dozen starting pitchers have signed for a combined $788.5 million through the first five weeks of this offseason, already about 63% of the spending in that department from last year — with Corbin Burnes still expected to exceed $200 million and Jack Flaherty, Sean Manaea, Nick Pivetta, Walker Buehler, Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander among the roughly 75 other starters available. And though the player pool is widely considered to be better than it was a year ago, and many executives will caution that early deals tend to be inflated, setting up the possibility that those who remain don’t do so well, one thing is clear:
Starting pitching, famously out of vogue in the modern game, is still at a premium.
ARLINGTON, Texas — Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said Thursday that quarterback Quinn Ewers, with the emergence of name, image and likeness and the transfer portal, has become the face of this “new era of college football.”
Ewers initially committed to Texas, but he then opted to skip his senior year of high school and reclassify to the 2021 recruiting class before enrolling a year early and joining Ohio State during preseason practice.
Still the nation’s No. 1 ranked overall prospect, Ewers landed one of the first marquee NIL deals worth $1.4 million.
Ewers, who lasted one season with the Buckeyes before transferring to Texas, will square off against Ohio State on Friday night in the Goodyear Cotton Bowl with a trip to the College Football Playoff national championship on the line.
“It’s not been an easy journey for him,” Sarkisian said Thursday. “There’s been ups, there’s been downs, there’s been injuries, there’s been great moments, there’s been tough moments. … But at the end of the day, he’s always stayed true to who he is. The guy’s been a steady sea for us.”
Ewers has been making college football headlines since Ohio State offered him a scholarship when he was just in middle school. This week, Buckeyes coach Ryan Day recalled meeting Ewers for the first time when he was an eighth-grader visiting a Buckeyes football camp.
“He was a boy at the time really, who just had a tremendous release,” Day recalled. “And I remember grabbing him and grabbing his dad and said, ‘Man, you got a bright future ahead of you. I don’t know if this is good or bad, but we’re going to offer you a scholarship to Ohio State.'”
C.J. Stroud, who has since led the Houston Texans to the NFL playoffs, emerged as a star quarterback for the Buckeyes then, prompting Ewers to transfer to Texas.
“Boy, it was strange how it all shook out,” Day said. “He decided he really wanted to play. And it was disappointing for us, but we certainly understood. From afar I’ve watched him. He’s a really good player. He comes from a great family, and he’s had a great career at Texas and a lot of people here still have good relationships with him and think the world of him.”
At Texas, Ewers has started in 27 wins and led the Longhorns to back-to-back playoff appearances. This season, he has thrown for 3,189 yards and 29 touchdowns with 11 interceptions.
Ewers noted that the “coolest part” of the NIL era is being able to provide for his parents. He has even hired his mom, making her CFO of his finances while giving her a salary.
“Which is nice just because all the effort and work they put into me growing up,” he said. “I mean, when we were living in South Texas, they both quit their jobs and moved up to Southlake [to support Ewers’ budding athletic career].”
Whatever happens in the playoff — whether it be a loss Friday or a national championship victory against the winner of Notre Dame–Penn State on Jan. 20 — Ewers’ career at Texas figures to be coming to a close.
Though Ewers still has one season of eligibility remaining, blue-chip quarterback prospect Arch Manning appears primed to finally take over in Austin next season.
Manning, the nephew of NFL quarterback greats Peyton and Eli Manning, who could become the No. 1 overall prospect for the 2026 NFL draft, has backed up Ewers for two seasons waiting for his opportunity. Sarkisian even momentarily benched Ewers in favor of Manning during Texas’ 30-15 loss to Georgia on Oct. 19.
Still, Ewers figures to have options.
ESPN football analyst Mel Kiper Jr. ranks him as the No. 6 quarterback prospect eligible for the upcoming draft. Rumors have also emerged recently that Ewers could put off the NFL for another year and transfer to a third school for millions more in NIL money.
Amid those distractions, Ewers has thrived in the playoff bouncing back from oblique and ankle injuries from earlier in the year to complete 69% of his passes with four touchdowns in Texas’ two victories.
In the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl quarterfinal, Ewers tossed 29- and 25-yard touchdown passes in the overtimes, lifting Texas to the 39-31 win over Arizona State.
“I’ve just been proud of him,” Sarkisian said, “because he’s found a source for him that has been a motivating factor, where he can play free and play loose and play confident.”
Ewers added that, whatever the future holds, even contemplating it now would be “selfish,” with a national title still in reach for him and the Longhorns.
“I owe my teammates the best version of me right now,” he said. “I can’t be looking forward or I’ll trip on the rock that’s sitting right in front of me. I’ve got to be locked in on what’s right here.”
Jake Trotter covers college football for ESPN. He joined ESPN in 2011. Before that, he worked at The Oklahoman, Austin American-Statesman and Middletown (Ohio) Journal newspapers. You can follow him @Jake_Trotter.
Jan 9, 2025, 02:44 PM ET
ARLINGTON, Texas — Texas starting right tackle Cameron Williams will return for the College Football Playoff semifinal against Ohio State on Friday, Longhorns coach Steve Sarkisian said Thursday.
Williams suffered a right knee sprain in the playoff opener against Clemson. The injury forced him to miss Texas’ quarterfinal overtime victory over Arizona State.
A junior, Williams has played in 37 games in his career with 16 starts for the Longhorns. Williams is rated as the No. 28 overall prospect and fifth offensive tackle in ESPN’s NFL draft rankings.
Sources told ESPN that Miami looms as the favorite for Beck and the timeline for his decision is expected to play out within a week.
While Miami is the favorite for Beck, a source said Beck’s camp intends to listen to all potential suitors for the best situation: “It’s a strategic thing, not an emotional thing,” the source said.
Beck, a two-year starter at Georgia, is currently recovering from surgery to repair the ulnar collateral ligament in his throwing elbow after suffering the injury during the Bulldogs’ SEC championship victory over Texas.
Beck will not be able to throw until March, sources told ESPN, which would have complicated his NFL draft process and will likely force him to miss spring practice at his next school. Sources said the variety of feedback he got from the draft process led to this decision, as he changed his mind in the past 24 hours. He received advice that if he could return and wanted to, he should probably return and play another season in college.
A source said Beck received feedback that he could end up anywhere between the first and third round, with much of that uncertainty due to the fact that he would not be able to throw for a team in predraft workouts.
Despite that injury setback, Beck will immediately become the most coveted quarterback available as a late entry to the transfer market. While Miami looms as the favorite, there are other big brand teams that could jump out as suitors including Texas Tech and Notre Dame.
The 6-foot-4, 220-pound senior went 24-3 as the Bulldogs’ starter and was viewed as a potential No. 1 draft pick entering the 2024 season. He threw for 3,485 yards with 28 touchdowns and 12 interceptions this season and led Georgia back to the SEC title game.
Beck injured his elbow on the final play of the first half against Texas on Dec. 7. Renowned orthopedic surgeon Dr. Neal ElAttrache performed Beck’s surgery on Dec. 23 in Los Angeles.
“He wants to win,” said the source close to Beck. “He didn’t come back to get knocked out at halftime of a conference championship.”
Entering his fifth college season, Beck was viewed as a potential top-10 draft pick. ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr. currently considers Beck the No. 5 quarterback in his draft rankings.
Miami has not added a transfer quarterback this offseason to succeed Cam Ward, the potential No. 1 pick. They’ve quietly been canvassing the transfer market in recent weeks, per sources, as they have been set on bringing in a front-line starter who can produce immediately, much like Ward did.
Ward made a similar decision last January, initially declaring for the NFL draft but changing his mind and transferring to join the Hurricanes after he was unsatisfied with his draft feedback. Ward finished fourth in Heisman Trophy voting in his lone season in the program after producing 4,313 passing yards and 43 total touchdowns.
On3 first reported Beck’s intentions to enter the portal.