{"id":442047,"date":"2026-01-30T02:01:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T02:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/442047\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T02:01:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T02:01:13","slug":"rotation-ready-arms-mysteriously-still-on-mlbs-free-agent-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/442047\/","title":{"rendered":"Rotation-ready arms mysteriously still on MLB&#8217;s free-agent market"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s less than two weeks before pitchers and catchers report, and enough viable or better big league starters to fill four rotations still don\u2019t know where they\u2019re going.<\/p>\n<p>Starting pitching is baseball\u2019s most valuable commodity. Yet inexplicably, 20-plus real rotation pieces remain unemployed.<\/p>\n<p>Longtime Astros ace Framber Valdez, fairly comped to Max Fried, Corbin Burnes and Dylan Cease, is <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/01\/29\/sports\/framber-valdez-the-latest-mlb-star-to-await-free-agency-answer\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the big name still out there<\/a>. He\u2019s joined in unemployment by enough accomplished starters to form a pennant-contending rotation \u2014 plus many more serviceable starters, enough to fill out several lacking rotations.<\/p>\n<p>Zac Gallen, who like Valdez is good enough to have the draft-pick attachment via a qualifying offer, plus capable veterans Lucas Giolito, Chris Bassitt and Nick Martinez, 40-something legends Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer and many more should be readying for camps.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s less than two weeks before pitchers and catchers report, and enough viable or better big league starters&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":442048,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,7204,462,40120,127451,82,2091,2089,10622],"class_list":["post-442047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-chris-bassitt","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-free-agency","tag-mlb-hot-stove","tag-sports","tag-sports-columnists","tag-sports-plus","tag-zac-gallen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=442047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/442048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=442047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=442047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=442047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}