PHOENIX — Arizona Diamondbacks ace Zac Gallen isn’t bitter or angry, but he has a wad of receipts stashed away for safekeeping.
You see, he was a free agent last winter, armed with an impressive resume.
He finished in the top-10 in Cy Young voting three times, with two top-five finishes in the last four years. He has the second-most victories in MLB since 2022. He’s 30 years old. He has never had arm problems. And he has averaged 31 starts the past four years.
And yet ... the big offer never came.
Instead of receiving that nice long-term deal, Gallen wound up signing back with the Diamondbacks on a one-year, $22.025 million contract paying him just $6 million this year, with the rest deferred.
