Detroit Tigers sign right-hander Kenta Maeda to two-year, $24 million contract

The Detroit Tigers have signed right-hander Kenta Maeda to a two-year, $24 million contract, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the agreement. The deal is pending a physical exam, which is scheduled for Monday.

Maeda, a seven-year MLB veteran, previously pitched for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Minnesota Twins. He signed with the Dodgers out of Japan in January 2016 and opens the door for the Tigers to recruit other players from Japan.

The Tigers and Maeda agreed to a contract Sunday, but the club has not confirmed the signing. The two sides were gaining momentum toward a deal before Thanksgiving.

The 35-year-old logged a 4.23 ERA with 28 walks and 117 strikeouts over 104⅓ innings in 21 games (20 starts) for the Twins last season, but he had a 3.36 ERA in his final 17 games.

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Right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto, a 25-year-old phenom and one of the best pitchers to come out of Japan, is open to playing with fellow Japanese players and doesn't have a location preference for his landing spot in the United States, said agent Joel Wolfe of Wasserman Group.

The Tigers want to establish themselves in the market for Japanese players.

Yamamoto, left-hander Shōta Imanaga and left-handed reliever Yuki Matsui are planning to transition from Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball to MLB ahead of the 2024 season.

Yamamoto, who is expected to command at least $200 million (plus a posting fee), was officially posted Monday by NPB's Orix Buffaloes. The 45-day window for teams to negotiate with Yamamoto opened at 8 a.m. Tuesday and ends at 5 p.m. Jan. 4.

Imanaga has not yet been posted, and Matsui is not subject to the posting system. Imanaga, just like Yamamoto, is open to playing with Japanese players and doesn't have a location preference, according to a source with knowledge of his interests.

As for Maeda, the Tigers are getting a veteran presence to support their young starting pitchers, namely Tarik Skubal, Reese Olson, Casey Mize and Matt Manning. He throws a splitter, slider, four-seam fastball, sinker and curveball.

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In 2023, Maeda's four-seam fastball averaged 91 mph with a 25% whiff rate, but he threw more splitters (31.9%) and sliders (30.6%) than fastballs (27.4%). His splitter had a 35% whiff rate, while his slider had a 27.6% whiff rate. He still knows how to miss bats despite the slight velocity decline over the past few seasons.

He ranked in the 78th percentile in walk rate (6.5%), 77th percentile in strikeout rate (27.3%), 76th percentile in chase rate (31.2%) and 66th percentile in whiff rate (28.2%).

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Maeda underwent Tommy John surgery in September 2021 and didn't return until April 2023. He recorded a 9.00 ERA across 16 innings in his first four starts and landed on the injured list in late April because of a right triceps strain.

He returned to the Twins in late June and thrived in his final 17 games, posing a 3.36 ERA with 25 walks (7% walk rate) and 103 strikeouts (29% strikeout rate) across 88⅓ innings. His ERA ranked 23rd, his strikeout rate ranked 11th and his walk rate ranked 41st among 74 pitches with at least 80 innings from June 23 through Oct. 1.

Coming off the injured list, Maeda tossed five scoreless innings with three hits, two walks and eight strikeouts against the Tigers on June 23 at Comerica Park. He also performed well against the Tigers in back-to-back starts Aug. 10 at Comerica Park and Aug. 16 at Target Field. In those games, he gave up four runs on 10 hits and two walks with 10 strikeouts over 10 innings.

"He's a veteran guy who's ready to compete at this level," Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said June 23 about Maeda's performance. "He can change speeds and change pitches. Really, we didn't execute against his secondary pitches. He doesn't throw a ton of fastballs, so you're going to have to be disciplined to his split-slider combo. All of our guys had a hard time handling those pitches."

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The Twins won the American League Central in 2023, clinching the division Sept. 23 at Target Field in Minneapolis. (The Tigers finished in second place in the AL Central, nine games behind the Twins.) Twins manager Rocco Baldelli described Maeda as "kind of the ringleader" during the clubhouse celebration; Twins shortstop Carlos Correa said Maeda was "getting lit" with his teammates.

Maeda appears to be a good teammate behind the scenes.

It was too early in the offseason for the Twins to aggressively pursue re-signing Maeda after the Tigers established themselves as the frontrunners in the past week, according to sources.

Before the 2023 season, Maeda finished third in 2016 National League Rookie of the Year voting with the Dodgers and second in 2020 AL Cy Young voting with the Twins.

He pitched 589 innings for the Dodgers from 2016-19, then 277⅓ innings for the Twins between 2020-21, 2023. He also pitched more than 1,500 innings in eight seasons, from 2008-15, for the Hiroshima Carp in Japan's NPB.

Maeda has a 3.92 ERA across 866⅓ innings in his 190-game MLB career, plus an impressive postseason résumé: 3.24 ERA with 18 walks and 48 strikeouts across 41⅔ innings in 27 games (four starts). He ranks fifth in wins and strikeouts, sixth in starts and seventh in innings on the all-time leaderboard for Japanese pitchers in MLB.

He pitched in the 2017 and 2018 World Series as a member of the Dodgers. He came out of the bullpen for the Twins in the 2023 AL Division Series against the Houston Astros.

Maeda has been to the playoffs in six of his seven seasons.

Contact Evan Petzold at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him @EvanPetzold.

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Tigers sign Kenta Maeda to two-year contract