{"id":394768,"date":"2026-01-08T08:07:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T08:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/394768\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T08:07:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T08:07:09","slug":"rockies-sign-michael-lorenzen-mlb-trade-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/394768\/","title":{"rendered":"Rockies Sign Michael Lorenzen – MLB Trade Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Rockies are in agreement with Michael Lorenzen<\/a> on a one-year, $8MM contract, reports Jeff Passan of ESPN<\/a>. The deal includes a $9MM club option for the 2027 season. Colorado has an available 40-man roster spot and will finalize the deal once Lorenzen passes a physical. He\u2019s represented by CAA Sports.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the first MLB signing of the winter for Colorado, meaning it is also Paul DePodesta\u2019s first notable pickup as their head of baseball operations. (The Red Sox are now the only team that hasn\u2019t signed a big league free agent this offseason.) It\u2019s likely to be the first of a few pitching adds for the rebuilding club. General manager Josh Byrnes said this week that they were hoping to bring in two experienced starters<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Rockies very rarely add to their rotation via free agency. This is the first time they\u2019ve added a free agent starter on a $5MM+ guarantee since the Kyle Kendrick<\/a> signing in 2015. Coors Field obviously isn\u2019t a preferred destination for most pitchers. A seven-year streak of finishing fourth or fifth in the NL West doesn\u2019t help matters.<\/p>\n

One thing they can certainly offer is opportunity. Lorenzen would be a sixth starter or swing arm for a lot of teams. He\u2019ll get a guaranteed rotation spot in Colorado, where he lands behind\u00a0Kyle Freeland<\/a> as their most established arms. The 34-year-old righty has spent the past season and a half with the Royals. He worked at the back of Kansas City\u2019s rotation for most of that time, including 26 starts last year. Lorenzen pitched to a 4.64 earned run average over 141 2\/3 innings.<\/p>\n

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A multi-inning reliever early in his career with the Reds, Lorenzen prioritized a rotation opportunity upon getting to free agency after the 2021 season. He has bounced around on a handful of one-year deals that have generally given him a back-end starting job. This is the fifth consecutive offseason in which he commanded exactly one year on an MLB contract. The deals have all guaranteed between $4.5MM and $8.5MM and have come with five different teams: the Angels, Tigers, Rangers, and Royals. He has also been traded twice and is now on his seventh team overall.<\/p>\n

Lorenzen has surpassed 130 innings in each of the past three seasons. He has required an injured list stint in four consecutive years, but a 2022 shoulder strain led to his only lengthy absence. His recent IL stints have been for minor issues: groin, hamstring, neck and oblique strains \u2014 none of which cost him more than a month.<\/p>\n

The 6\u20193\u2033 righty works with one of the deepest arsenals of any pitcher in MLB. Statcast\u2019s tracking metrics identity seven distinct pitches, none of which he uses more than a quarter of the time. His four-seam fastball checks in around 94 MPH. He also throws a sinker, changeup, and four breaking pitches (slider, curveball, cutter, sweeper). Nothing stands out as plus in isolation, but he carves out decent results by mixing and matching. Lorenzen has a 4.10 ERA with a modest 19.3% strikeout rate against an average 8.7% walk percentage over the past four seasons.<\/p>\n

Anything close to that production would make him one of Colorado\u2019s best pitchers. Freeland was their only pitcher who made more than six starts and allowed fewer than 6.33 earned runs per nine innings. The rotation\u2019s 6.65 ERA was historically terrible.\u00a0Germ\u00e1n M\u00e1rquez<\/a> isn\u2019t expected back in free agency. Antonio Senzatela<\/a> was demoted to the bullpen late in the season and is expected to remain in long relief.<\/p>\n

Freeland and Lorenzen are locked into the top two rotation spots. Ryan Feltner<\/a>,\u00a0Chase Dollander<\/a>, Gabriel Hughes<\/a>, Bradley Blalock<\/a>,\u00a0Tanner Gordon<\/a>,\u00a0McCade Brown<\/a>\u00a0and waiver claim\u00a0Keegan Thompson<\/a> are the other options on the 40-man roster. Feltner is the only one of the bunch who has had any kind of MLB success, and he\u2019s coming off an injury-plagued season. Dollander is a former top 10 pick who held his own on the road but was terrible at Coors Field as a rookie. They\u2019re penciled into the rotation for now, while the fifth starter job would be wide open if they don\u2019t succeed in bringing in anyone else this offseason.<\/p>\n

Lorenzen will eat some innings and raise the floor when he takes the ball. He\u2019s not the caliber of pitcher who\u2019s going to net a huge trade return, but the Rox will hope for a solid first half that allows them to flip him for a lottery ticket prospect at the deadline.<\/p>\n

Image courtesy of Jay Biggerstaff, Imagn Images.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Rockies are in agreement with Michael Lorenzen on a one-year, $8MM contract, reports Jeff Passan of ESPN.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":394769,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[23555,363,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-394768","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-michael-lorenzen","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}