In 2023, Franmil Reyes was hitting .186 with a .519 OPS for the Royals before getting released after just 19 games. No contract, no guarantees, and a career that looked like it might already be over. He was grinding through workouts in Tampa, and every day Jennifer — now his fiancée — loaded him into a Honda she’d bought off Facebook Marketplace and waited outside in that same parking lot running Uber while he worked.
This week, Reyes announced his engagement to her. The timing? Nine days after signing the richest contract in NPB history: four years, up to $40 million with the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters, including a $75,000 bonus for every home run past 26 in a season.
The Promise He Made — and Why He Broke It
Reyes was upfront about it: he had sworn off marriage. He didn’t get into the specifics of what led him there, but he was clear about what changed his mind. Jennifer didn’t argue him out of it. She just kept showing up — Honda running, Uber app open — on the days when his future in baseball was a genuine question mark.
From .186 in Kansas City to a Batting Title in Japan
To appreciate how far he’s come, you have to sit with how bad 2023 actually was. His slash line with Kansas City: .186/.231/.288. After the release, he bounced through minor-league deals with Washington and other organizations without ever cracking a 26-man roster again.
In January 2024, he signed his first deal with the Nippon-Ham Fighters — a club that had just finished its fifth straight losing season. What followed is almost hard to say out loud without it sounding made up, but the numbers hold up:
- 89 home runs and 237 RBI in 363 games across three seasons (2024–2026)
- A combined .294 average over that stretch
- In 2026: Pacific League batting title at .313, 32 home runs, 82 RBI in 128 games, and a .946 OPS
The four-year extension announced November 2 tops the previous NPB record of $32.5 million set by Raidel Martínez in 2024.
The Same Person in the Worst Moment and the Best One
What makes this story land isn’t the contract or the engagement on their own. It’s that they arrived together, and they both trace back to the same person.
Jennifer put her own time and her own car behind a dream that had no guaranteed ending. Now she’s there for the part where it paid off — all of it.
Reyes turned 31 in July. He’s got four secured seasons in Japan ahead of him, a built-in incentive to keep hitting home runs, and a wedding coming. The year that nearly ended his career also turned out to be the year Jennifer showed him it was worth trying again — on the field and everywhere else.
