Nobody likes ready for the cellphone to ring. World Collection Champions aren’t any exception.
Jack Flaherty — 29-years-old and coming off a season by which he pitched to a 13-7 report and a 3.17 ERA — can’t purchase a contract. Not on this financial system.
“We’re waiting,” Flaherty stated of his camp throughout an look on the “Foul Territory” baseball present Thursday. “I just want to play ball.”
Why precisely the beginning pitcher can’t get a name is unclear. Flaherty, for his half, thinks it’s as a result of entrance workplaces lack the championship mindset.
“You have a certain number of teams that want to win, they look at their rosters and they’re happy [enough] with it,” he stated. “I think teams just want to get into the playoffs — [it’s] not World Series or bust, but ‘[Let’s] hope we get into the playoffs and see what happens.’”
Regardless of his monitor report of success in eight massive league seasons — together with a profession report of 55-41 and lifelong 3.63 ERA — there’s in all probability no room left for Flaherty in Los Angeles, the place he spent the back-half of the 2024 season. The Dodgers had acquired the righty on the deadline from the Detroit Tigers to shore up a rotation decimated by harm.
“I’m not going back to L.A. most likely — I can do the numbers, do the math,” Flaherty stated Thursday. “It doesn’t bother me. I’m trying to go elsewhere and win and see if we can’t beat those guys.”
Los Angeles brass appears to have made it their mission to spend all the lump sum saved within the Juan Soto sweepstakes in the midst of one offseason, coming to phrases with an All-Star roster’s value of expertise — together with Japanese phenom pitcher Rōki Sasaki and two-time Cy Younger winner Blake Snell.
Flaherty’s outcomes throughout his tenure with the Dodgers have been combined. He pitched effectively sufficient in ten common season begins, incomes a 6-2 report and a 3.58 ERA, however then only one win in 5 postseason begins.
In Recreation 5 of the World Collection in opposition to the Yankees, he surrendered 4 earned runs by way of 1 1/3 innings.
Previous to being traded to Los Angeles, Flaherty pitched for the Detroit Tigers in 2024 and, earlier than that, spent the higher a part of seven seasons on the prime of the St. Louis Cardinals’ rotation.
On Thursday, he spoke about the potential for returning to the Tigers.
“I wanted to stay in Detroit,” he stated. “We had had conversations. I loved it there. I thought the combo of me and [reigning American League Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal] was incredible.”
Given the Tigers’ signing of one other right-handed free agent, Alex Cobb, a reunion would possibly now be far-fetched.
