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MLB MLB Offseason Merrill Kelly had a 4. 23 ERA in 10 starts after the Rangers acquired him from the Diamondbacks at the trade deadline. Sam Hodde / Getty Images After a brief stint in Texas, Merrill Kelly is returning to the desert. A league source told The Athletic on Sunday that the 37-year-old righty is finalizing a two-year, $40 million deal with the Arizona Diamondbacks, the team with which he spent his entire major-league career before he was traded to the Rangers at the 2025 trade deadline. While in Arizona, Kelly established himself as a reliable mid-rotation starter despite lacking elite velocity. His 2025 season was typical: 32 starts, 184 innings, a 3. 52 ERA and a 1. 11 WHIP. Advertisement For much of his professional career, though, pitching for any major-league team was no guarantee. Kelly spent four seasons in Korea before making his MLB debut at age 30, and even then, he was nearly shipped back to the minors after his manager called him “statistically the worst starting pitcher in the National League. ” From such uncertainty, Kelly became a source of consistency. Kelly ranks 19th in the majors in innings pitched since 2019, and his 3. 66 ERA in that span is on par with Sonny Gray, Dylan Cease and former teammate Zac Gallen. Kelly doesn’t have the strikeout rate of those more highly touted pitchers, but he does generate a good amount of chase while keeping his walks in check. And he’s been dependable. Kelly’s made at least 27 starts in five of six full seasons in the majors, and he’s had a WHIP below 1. 20 the past four years in a row. Kelly pitched for Team USA in the 2023 World Baseball Classic, then pitched a gem in Game 2 of the 2023 World Series, allowing one run in seven innings in the Diamondbacks’ only win of the series. A shoulder strain cost him four months in 2024, but Kelly returned to throw the 14th-most innings in the majors last season. He had a 3. 22 ERA with the Diamondbacks before two rough starts at the end of the season pushed his Rangers ERA to 4. 23. Although he’s already in his late 30s, this winter was Kelly’s first time in free agency since his big-league debut. An eighth-round pick of the Tampa Bay Rays in 2010, Kelly signed with the SK Wyverns in the Korean Baseball Organization after five seasons in the minor leagues. From 2015-18, he had a 4. 21 ERA in four seasons in Korea. He signed a two-year, $5. 5-million deal with the Diamondbacks in December 2018 and made his MLB debut the following spring, but his initial results were erratic, leading to that frank conversation with Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo, who told Kelly he was on the verge of a demotion. Kelly responded with a 2. 18 ERA in September. Kelly has since pitched only twice in the minor leagues, both on rehab assignments, as he went from fringe big-league arm to reliable, in-demand big-league starter.