After a long, quiet offseason, Zac Gallen is back where he started. In November, he turned down a qualifying offer, a one-year deal from the Diamondbacks worth $22.025 million. On Friday, Gallen and the Diamondbacks agreed to a new contract. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before – it’s for one year and $22.025 million (with deferrals that reduce the net present value to $18.75 million). Arizona’s standout is once again at the top of the rotation in the desert.
Gallen was my No. 19 free agent this winter, and I’m simply reproducing the first line of my article here: “After looking at Gallen’s resume for about an hour, I came to an obvious conclusion: I’m glad I’m not a Major League GM.” He had a severe case of pumpkinization in 2025. He missed fewer bats, drew fewer chases, walked more batters and struck out fewer, gave up louder contact, didn’t keep the ball on the ground and lost a little speed. It was the worst season of his career by a wide margin; his 4.83 ERA may have been a caricature of his performance, but all of his advanced run prevention estimators also shot to career-worst numbers.
As a platform year it left much to be desired. But I still think Gallen was right to reject his QO and survey the landscape. However, after that failed, he made the obvious choice: feed it back to the same spot and try again. Considering he put up a 3.20 ERA (3.22 FIP, 3.47 xFIP) from 2022 through 2024, which was worth a whopping 12.2 WAR (14.9 rWAR), betting on at least a little recovery before a second trip to free agency certainly felt very attractive.
I don’t have a strong sense of what Gallen’s 2026 will look like. The range of outcomes is enormous. Did you just see what I said about his last four seasons? I do think there’s a decent chance of a return to his former form, a borderline ace who you’d be ecstatic if no. 2. His approach was never easy to understand; Even at his best, he threw a boatload of pitches that our models didn’t like and made things work with command and guile. Now, after having that ability pretty much disabled for a year, I’m worried he won’t be able to turn it back on, but my base case is still that he’ll figure it out. It’s the kind of risk I’d be willing to take as a borderline playoff team.
That describes the Diamondbacks perfectly. After an exciting World Series run in 2023, they haven’t returned to October despite averaging 84.5 wins over the past two years. Now is the time to strike. Kettle Martetheir attacking pacer, is in the end of his prime. Corbin Caroll, Geraldo PerdomoAnd Gabriel Moreno are all under contract for a while, and they’re all great right now. Wasting a year of this lineup without enough pitching would be a tragedy.
To be fair, it’s not like this team hasn’t tried. The D-backs have signed Corbin Burnesthe top free agent pitcher, last year, only because he needed elbow surgery. They signed the year before Eduardo Rodriguez to a four-year deal worth $80 million, and there was the whole thing Jordan Montgomery saga. Earlier this winter they gave Merrill Kelly two years and $40 million to return to the fold.
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But even with all those signings, Arizona needed more. Before adding Gallen, the Diamondbacks were dependent on Michael Sorokawho has combined for 201 Major League innings over the past five years as an everyday member of their rotation. Ryne Nelsonanother key contributor, faded over time and has never reached 30 starts in his three years in the rotation. Brandon Pfaadt has reached that 30-start plateau in two consecutive years, but he has a 4.97 ERA in that stretch, so his belt isn’t infinite. Their farm system has a few prospects in the upper minors, but without Gallen they might have needed several of those guys to perform at the Major League level. Even after putting Gallen into the projections, we see this as a below-average rotation. It’s not so much that the D-backs don’t have five capable Major League starters. The problem is that teams need more than that, and need some upside, too, because a bunch of league-average starters usually aren’t enough to make a playoff rotation.
Us play-off chances give Arizona a 32% chance of making the playoffs, with an average projection of 81.4 wins. That’s exactly the right spot on the winning curve where adding talent will pay off the most, and this team has largely done that so far this winter. It brought back Kelly (traded at the deadline) and Gallen, who was traded for Nolan Arenadoand signed a few interesting bargain free agents for more depth. Gallen may only add a win to this projection because he’s replacing pitchers who are better than replacement level, but the Diamondbacks are in a situation where every win matters. They missed the playoffs on a tiebreaker in 2024, and by just three games in ’25. Forget a dollar-per-win calculation; they’re thinking dollars per marginal increase in playoff odds, and from that perspective, adding Gallen is a no-brainer.
I think it’s fair to wonder if Arizona missed the opportunity to add a top first baseman or DH earlier in the winter. Pete Alonso And Kyle Schwarber may have been out of the team’s price range, but one of the NPB stars – Munetaka Murakami or Kazuma Okamoto – would have been interesting games in Phoenix. Some of the top starting pitchers would have looked great there, too. But for whatever reason, the Diamondbacks haven’t landed any of them, and here we are in mid-February. It’s like that old saying about saving for retirement: the best time to sign a difference-making free agent was two months ago. The next best time to sign a difference-making free agent is now.
It takes two people to sign a contract, but in this case, Gallen’s incentives match Arizona’s. He wants to restart a free agency career without a qualifying offer attached, and preferably with a good platform year on his resume. The team would like nothing more than for that to happen; the possible future where Gallen has a resurgent year includes plenty of playoff appearances. That’s actually a good ending to the signing. You know what Gallen is capable of in Arizona, and both he and the Diamondbacks hope he shows it again in 2026.
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