After spending all winter long scouring the free agent market for a veteran addition to their starting rotation, the A’s finally landed one just in time for Pitchers and Catchers reporting, agreeing to terms with right-hander Aaron Civale on a one-year deal for the 2026 campaign.
Right-hander Aaron Civale and the A’s are in agreement on a one-year, $6 million contract, sources tell ESPN. Civale, 30, adds a veteran arm to an A’s team with hopes of competing for a postseason spot this year and can make an additional $1.5 million in incentives.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) February 10, 2026
One of the items on the team’s offseason wishlist was adding a veteran starter to stabilize a rotation short on certainty. Civale fits that bill to a T and it’ll only cost $6 million to secure his services (plus incentives). That’s a great deal for a pitcher like Civale at this stage of the offseason and fits perfectly with the Athletics’ needs.
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The 30-year-old Civale began his career in Cleveland and spent the first four and a half years of his career with the Guardians. At times the right-hander flashed potential but he was never quite able to find much consistency, though he was a reliable member of their starting staff for years.
Civale found his way to Tampa in a mid-season trade in 2023 but struggled in the second half of that year as well as the first half the following season, eventually finding himself on the move again mid-season to Milwaukee, where he stepped his game up over the final couple months of the 2024 campaign.
The right-hander began this most recent season in the Brewers’ starting rotation but was bumped to the bullpen when Milwaukee promoted top pitching prospect Jacob Misiorowski. That didn’t sit well with the 7-year veteran who subsequently requested a trade to a team that would use him as a starter. He got his wish with another trade, this time going to the Chicago White Sox and making 13 starts for the South Siders. The results weren’t great and he’d find himself on the move one more time before the season was out, getting claimed by the other Chicago squad and pitching five games in relief for the Cubbies, his first five relief appearances in his entire career. Overall on his big league resume Civale has a 4.14 EEA in 140 games as a big league pitcher.
Civale should immediately slide into the starting rotation behind fellow veterans Jeffrey Springs and Luis Severino. The A’s had lots of interesting young arms on the verge of being able to contribute but the team needed more certainty, and to replace the lost innings by the departures of JP Sears and Osvaldo Bido. Civale should be a workhorse for the A’s during the first half of the season and as always with these types of deals if Civale is pitching well come the trade deadline he could be used as trade bait to acquire more prospects to improve the farm system even further/opening a rotation spot for a younger pitcher.
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Now there are only two spots in the starting rotation left to be fought over. One would have to think left-hander Jacob Lopez has a leg up on one of those spots but he dealt with an injury at the end of last year so the A’s might take things easy with him to start. Arms like Luis Morales, JT Ginn, Gunnar Hoglund, and Jack Perkins now face an uphill battle to break camp with the club as a starting pitcher (though the bullpen may await one or two of those arms as well).
Welcome aboard Aaron! You’re joining a team certainly on the rise with outside hopes of contending. You’ll like the crew we have here.
