José Urquidy is back on the open market.
The right-hander elected free agency, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com, which signals that he cleared waivers after the Phillies designated him for assignment a few days ago.
Urquidy spent this season bouncing between the Pirates, White Sox and Phillies in a utility-style pitching role, handling emergency starts, swing work and long relief as needed. Across 13 appearances, he threw 36 1/3 innings and posted a 4.95 ERA. His 18.3% strikeout rate sat below league average, but his 4.3% walk rate was excellent, and his 40% ground ball rate landed just under par.
Philadelphia claimed him off waivers in September to help cover innings down the stretch, but because he arrived after the September 1 cutoff, he was never going to be eligible for the postseason roster. That made the move easy to unwind, and it also explains why no other club stepped in to claim him. Any team that grabbed him would have been in the same spot: no playoff eligibility and free agency coming at season’s end anyway.
So Urquidy moves on without much delay, and he’ll head into the offseason with a clearer runway than he’s had in a while. This year marked his most significant big league workload in years.
He was once a rotation regular in Houston, and by the end of the 2022 season he had piled up 342 innings over 63 appearances with a 3.74 ERA. His performance slipped in 2023, then Tommy John surgery erased most of his 2024 and 2025 seasons.
This season, though, he was healthy and useful. Along with his major league work, he logged 95 2/3 innings in Triple-A over 20 starts, finishing with a 3.48 ERA, a 20.8% strikeout rate, a 5.3% walk rate and a 41.3% ground ball rate.
Last winter, he landed a big league deal from the Pirates worth a $1.5MM guarantee, and his market this time around should land in a similar range. A club looking for experienced rotation depth could still view him as either a big league add or a minor league signing.
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