The D-backs on Friday agreed to a one-year deal with a mutual option with right-hander Michael Soroka. Terms of the deal were not announced, but the contract is for $7.5 million, a source told MLB.com, and with performance bonuses, Soroka can earn a maximum value of $9.5 million.
To make room on the 40-man roster, right-hander Bryce Jarvis was designated for assignment.
With Merrill Kelly traded at the Deadline and Zac Gallen declining the team’s qualifying offer, Arizona has two huge holes to fill at the top of its rotation. While the Diamondbacks do have talented young pitchers in their farm system, they are planning to compete for the postseason in 2026, so they want to acquire pitchers who have already had some success at the big league level.
“We've been in the market for starting pitching, likely multiple starting pitchers this offseason, and we felt like Mike had the combination of stuff, bounce-back potential and the upside to make it a make it a good fit for us,” Arizona GM Mike Hazen said. “We spent some time, we met with him. I know there's been some things in the past, from an injury standpoint, that we felt like very comfortable with in terms of the work that he had put in. He's worked hard at sort of building out his arsenal.”
Soroka joins a rotation that includes holdovers Eduardo Rodriguez, Brandon Pfaadt and Ryne Nelson. Arizona will continue to look to add starting pitching even after the Soroka deal.
The Diamondbacks had a team-record Opening Day payroll of around $195 million in 2025, and that is expected to go down in 2026. GM Mike Hazen has said he will still have enough resources to field a team that can contend for a postseason berth, and Arizona is open to trading its top prospects or perhaps second baseman Ketel Marte in order to fill holes in the rotation and bullpen.
“We’re in both [trade and free agent] markets now,” Hazen said. “So it could come in either one of those.”
Soroka made 17 starts and pitched 89 2/3 innings in 2025, his largest workload since his stellar rookie season with the Braves in 2019. That year, at age 21, he had a 2.68 ERA in 29 starts, making the National League All-Star team and finishing sixth in NL Cy Young Award voting and second in NL Rookie of the Year Award balloting.
Between the Nationals and Cubs in 2025, the right-hander -- in his age-27 season -- showed some flashes of the promise he displayed before tearing (then re-tearing) his right Achilles tendon and missing all of 2021 and ‘22. Soroka finished the ‘25 season with a 4.52 ERA, but several Statcast metrics (such as his 3.43 expected ERA and .210 expected batting average) pointed to a bit of bad luck.
Dealt to the Cubs for two Minor League players at the Trade Deadline, Soroka left his first start with Chicago after two innings due to a shoulder strain and spent more than a month on the injured list. He returned as a reliever and was quite effective, making five more regular-season appearances without allowing an earned run.
As a starter with the Nationals, Soroka didn’t typically go too deep into games, completing six innings just four times in his 16 starts for Washington. The best offering in his four-pitch arsenal was his slurve, on which Soroka had a 38.3% whiff rate while holding opposing batters to a .118 batting average and a .245 slugging percentage. According to the data on Baseball Savant, Soroka threw the slurve far more in 2025 than he had in the past. A four-seam fastball, changeup (to left-handed hitters) and sinker (to righties) rounded out Soroka’s repertoire.
2025 marked Soroka’s third season and second full campaign since returning from his lengthy injury absence. He posted a 6.40 ERA with the Braves in 2023 and was traded to the White Sox during the ensuing offseason, going 0-10 with a 4.74 ERA for Chicago in 25 games (nine starts) in 2024. He signed a one-year, $9 million deal with the Nats for 2025 before being shipped to the Cubs.