The Marlins and reliever Pete Fairbanks are in settlement on a contract, in keeping with Will Sammon of the Athletic. It’s a one-year, $13MM contract for the Republik Sports activities shopper, in keeping with Jeff Passan of ESPN. Per Mark Feinsand of MLB.com, the deal features a $1MM signing bonus and one other $1MM in incentives based mostly on appearances. Fairbanks will even obtain a bonus of $500,000 if he’s traded. The deal is pending a bodily. The Marlins have a full 40-man roster and might want to make a corresponding transfer to make this official.
Fairbanks, who turned 32 final week, is coming off a 2.83 ERA in 60 1/3 innings for the Rays in 2025. Tampa held an $11MM membership choice on his providers for 2026, however they as a substitute paid him a $1MM buyout. We at MLBTR ranked him No. 44 on our Prime 50 Free Brokers checklist and projected a two-year, $18MM contract. He now heads to the Marlins on a shorter cope with the next annual wage and figures to be the group’s nearer subsequent 12 months.
The best-hander debuted in 2019 and has pitched 265 1/3 innings with a 3.19 ERA in his seven seasons with the Rays. In that point, Fairbanks has struck out 30.0% of hitters towards a 9.3% stroll fee because of an upper-90s fastball and a mid-80s slider which he makes use of 44.1% of the time. He additionally will get groundballs at an above-average 45.1% fee and customarily retains the ball within the park, permitting simply 0.81 HR/9.
He has additionally continuously handled accidents, making seven journeys to the injured checklist from 2021-24. He had higher well being luck this 12 months, as he averted the injured checklist and set a profession excessive with 60 1/3 innings pitched. When he’s wholesome, Fairbanks is a dominant back-end reliever. In 151 innings because the Rays’ nearer from 2023-25, he had a 2.98 ERA whereas posting a 18.9% Okay-BB fee and incomes 75 saves, which was Twelfth-highest within the league in that span.
That largely continued in 2025, albeit with a drop in Fairbanks’ superior metrics. After placing out 37.0% of hitters as just lately as 2023, that has fallen to 23.8% in 2024 and 24.2% in 2025. That’s nonetheless loads efficient, particularly as he has lowered his stroll fee from 10.9% in 2023 to 7.4% this 12 months. Nonetheless, it has additionally include an uptick in common exit velocity. Hitters averaged 85.7 mph off the bat towards Fairbanks in 2023, however that rose to 90.2 mph in 2025. In the meantime, his four-seamer now sits at 97.3 mph after averaging 98.9 mph in 2023.
Nonetheless, the truth that the present model of Fairbanks has better-than-average strikeout and stroll charges with Ninetieth-percentile fastball velocity means that he’s nonetheless an efficient reliever. If something, the transfer by the Rays to say no his choice was financially motivated. Tampa Bay’s payroll normally ranks close to the underside of the league (twenty ninth out of 30 in 2025). They beforehand signed Fairbanks to a three-year, $12MM extension in January 2023. Whereas $4MM was a cushty worth vary for the group, $11MM might have merely been too excessive a worth to commit to 1 reliever, even one as efficient as Fairbanks.
Certainly, the membership tried to commerce Fairbanks after the season ended, however they couldn’t discover any takers. That ended up being a moot level, as he garnered loads of curiosity from groups across the league. The Marlins, Diamondbacks, White Sox, and Tigers had been publicly identified to have an interest within the right-hander. Miami at all times appeared like a logical match, given the connection between Fairbanks and president of baseball operations Peter Bendix from their time with the Rays.
With the addition of Fairbanks, the Marlins have fortified a bullpen which ranked twenty third within the league with a 4.27 ERA and seventeenth with a 14.1% Okay-BB fee in 2025. The perfect performer of the bunch was right-hander Ronny Henriquez. The 25-year-old pitched 73 innings over 69 appearances this 12 months with a 2.22 ERA and a 32.3% strikeout fee. His 1.3 fWAR was a group excessive for relievers, whereas his peripheral stats had been barely larger than his ERA however nonetheless wonderful. He additionally earned seven saves all through the season. It was the very best final result for the Marlins, who acquired Henriquez as a waiver pickup final offseason. Sadly, information broke two days in the past that the righty underwent an inner brace process on his throwing elbow. Because of this, he’ll miss the complete 2026 season.
Together with Henriquez, the group received a very good quantity of quantity from its bullpen in 2025. Seven Marlins relievers pitched a minimum of 50 innings, with Tyler Phillips’s 77 2/3 innings main the group. He pitched to a 2.78 ERA and received groundballs at a well-above-average 55.6% fee, albeit with only a 16.6% strikeout fee and middling peripherals. Calvin Faucher and Lake Bachar had ERAs of three.28 and three.78, respectively, however with anticipated values within the mid-4.00s. In the meantime, Anthony Bender, Cade Gibson, and Valente Bellozo had stable groundball charges however below-average strikeout numbers. The signing of Fairbanks upgrades the group with extra velocity, strikeouts, and groundballs whereas overlaying for Henriquez’s harm and taking stress off the youthful arms.
Based on RosterResource, the signing of Fairbanks brings the Marlins’ projected payroll to $73MM, a slight bump from $70MM in 2025. That determine contains simply over $15MM for eight arbitration-eligible gamers, with $2MM of that going to the recently-signed Christopher Morel (beforehand non-tendered by the Rays). Up to now, Morel and Fairbanks have been the membership’s solely big-league free agent signings, although the membership is reportedly keen to spend greater than common this offseason.
Photographs courtesy of Nathan Ray Seebeck and Kim Klement, Imagn Photos
