{"id":347753,"date":"2025-12-14T16:05:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-14T16:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/347753\/"},"modified":"2025-12-14T16:05:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-14T16:05:07","slug":"sources-merrill-kelly-diamondbacks-agree-to-2-year-40m-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/347753\/","title":{"rendered":"Sources: Merrill Kelly, Diamondbacks agree to 2-year, $40M deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Free agent right-hander <a data-player-guid=\"015860e5-bef1-87ae-e3c9-9ca7806418c2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/mlb\/player\/_\/id\/32968\/merrill-kelly\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Merrill Kelly<\/a>, after being dealt by the <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"43e14a76-ff66-49ed-24fc-2835932f99dd\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com.au\/mlb\/team\/_\/name\/ari\/arizona-diamondbacks\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Diamondbacks<\/a> to the <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"4fa2cf46-09fc-255f-74a1-2a8857b0e671\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com.au\/mlb\/team\/_\/name\/tex\/texas-rangers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Texas Rangers<\/a> at the trade deadline last season, is returning to Arizona on a two-year, $40 million deal, sources confirmed to ESPN amid multiple media reports.<\/p>\n<p>Kelly, 37, went a combined 12-9 with a 3.42 ERA and 167 strikeouts in 32 starts last season.<\/p>\n<p>Kelly is viewed as a grind-it-out innings eater but doesn&#8217;t boast big raw stuff. His changeup is his best pitch by a wide margin, and he gets by with location and off-speed stuff.<\/p>\n<p>Editor&#8217;s Picks<a name=\"&amp;lpos=story:editorspicks:inline:1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com.au\/mlb\/story\/_\/id\/46994593\/2025-26-mlb-offseason-grades-free-agency-trade-analysis\" class=\"img-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1765728306_959_r1559786_1296x1296_1-1.jpg&#038;w=130&#038;h=130&#038;scale=crop&#038;location=center.jpeg\" width=\"65\" height=\"65\"\/><\/a><a name=\"&amp;lpos=story:editorspicks:inline:2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com.au\/mlb\/story\/_\/id\/46845936\/mlb-2025-26-free-agency-tracker-offseason-trades-moves\" class=\"img-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1765728307_353_r1516237_1296x1296_1-1.jpg&#038;w=130&#038;h=130&#038;scale=crop&#038;location=center.jpeg\" width=\"65\" height=\"65\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>1 Related<\/p>\n<p>Prior to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com.au\/mlb\/story\/_\/id\/45872351\/sources-rangers-acquire-merrill-kelly-diamondbacks\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">trade to the Rangers<\/a>, Kelly had spent six-plus seasons with Arizona and was a stalwart in the Diamondbacks&#8217; run to the 2023 World Series, striking out 28 and posting a 2.25 ERA over 24 innings.<\/p>\n<p>Overall, he is 65-53 with a 3.77 ERA and 911 strikeouts in 1,008\u2153 innings over seven MLB seasons.<\/p>\n<p>ESPN&#8217;s Alden Gonzalez contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Free agent right-hander Merrill Kelly, after being dealt by the Diamondbacks to the Texas Rangers at the trade&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347754,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-347753","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}