The Rangers have signed right-hander Jakob Junis to a one-year, $4MM contract, according to The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal. Shawn McFarland of the Dallas Morning News reports that the deal contains a mutual option for the 2027 season. The signing will become official once Texas makes a corresponding move on its 40-man roster. Junis is represented by Wasserman.
Rosenthal adds in a follow-up note that Texas will indeed use Junis as a reliever, coming off Junis’ first bullpen-only season of his nine-year MLB career. Junis has started 116 of his 249 career games, and still made some spot starts and swingman-esque appearances in 2023-24 even as he took on larger relief roles. In 2025, however, Junis signed a one-year, $4.5MM deal with the Guardians and worked only as a reliever over his 57 appearances and 66 2/3 innings.
The results were more than solid, as Junis posted a 2.97 ERA and an above-average 6.6% walk rate. Junis’ strikeout, chase, and whiff rates weren’t anything special, but in a reversal of career norms, he did a very good job of limiting hard contact. After posting a 1.4 HR/9 over his first eight seasons, Junis halved that number to 0.7 HR/9 during his lone season in Cleveland. Junis increased the use of his changeup, and throwing the pitch 20% of the time (up from 8.7% of the time in 2024) helped turn both Junis’ change and his primary slider into very effective out pitches.
Junis will look to keep things rolling as he enters his age-33 season, and the veteran has been pitching long enough that he broke into the majors with the 2017 Royals as a teammate of current Rangers president of baseball operations Chris Young. Junis will become the latest new face to join Young’s total makeover of the Texas bullpen this offseason.
Chris Martin decided to forego retirement to return for another season with the Rangers, but Hoby Milner, Shawn Armstrong, Jacob Webb, and Phil Maton have all left in free agency. Texas has filled those gaps with Alexis Diaz, Tyler Alexander, Carter Baumler, Zak Kent, and now Junis, who had far and away the best 2025 season of any of this group. Junis’ ability to cover innings and take on some higher-leverage assignments should be a big help to the Rangers as they continue to figure out their ideal relief mix.
