The heavy lifting for the offseason appears to be over, unless there’s a big trade coming down the pike. (Remember, Dylan Cease wasn’t moved from the White Sox to the Padres until March 13 last year.) But that doesn’t mean nothing has happened in the last week; there were still some stragglers on the free agent market who found teams as spring camps opened, and there’ll be more yet in the lead up to Opening Day. Let’s go over the moves, all of which are updated in the Offseason Matrices document.

Free Agent Signings

Cubs Sign Justin Turner for One Year, $6 Million

• Esteban Rivera’s Write-Up of the Deal
• Updated Roster Projection
• Updated Payroll Projection

Effect on the Cubs

Turner’s days of getting significant action at third base are over, so I don’t think his acquisition is going to give Matt Shaw any less of a chance of winning the job out of camp. Most of Turner’s plate appearances are likely to come against lefties, spelling lefty-swinging first baseman Michael Busch. The Cubs could also theoretically do some rearranging (Ian Happ to center, Seiya Suzuki to left) to give Turner some DH run against lefties, but that’s a big defensive downgrade from Pete Crow-Armstrong.

Pirates Sign Andrew Heaney for One Year, $5.25 Million

• Updated Roster Projection
• Updated Payroll Projection

Effect on the Pirates

Heaney hasn’t been anything spectacular over the last couple of years, but he’s a pretty good bet to take the ball for 25-plus starts for a third straight season. He’ll follow Paul Skenes, Jared Jones, and Mitch Keller in the rotation. Bailey Falter is likely to take the fifth spot, with Johan Oviedo, who is coming off Tommy John surgery, also in the mix. Heaney’s recent dabbling in bouncing back and forth between the rotation and bullpen could prove useful down the stretch, assuming at least one of Bubba Chandler, Mike Burrows, Braxton Ashcraft, and Anthony Solometo is ready to contribute at some point this year.

Nationals Sign Lucas Sims for One Year, $3 Million

• Updated Roster Projection
• Updated Payroll Projection

Effect on the Nationals

Sims signed a deal identical to the one Jorge López got last month, and both will be taken into account for the Nationals’ open closer job after they non-tendered Kyle Finnegan. Sims ended the season with a rough 15 appearances for the Red Sox in which he walked more batters than he struck out, but has a good track record of swing-and-miss stuff. Derek Law and Jose A. Ferrer could also get outs in the late innings for Washington.

Rockies Sign Scott Alexander for One Year, $2 Million

• Updated Roster Projection
• Updated Payroll Projection

Effect on the Rockies

Alexander is one of just two relievers who is 100% assured of a spot in the Rockies bullpen, along with presumptive closer Tyler Kinley. Seth Halvorsen and Luis Peralta had excellent (small-sample) MLB debuts last year, Victor Vodnik showed some flashes and picked up nine saves, and former closer Justin Lawrence is out of options. Alexander’s ability to get grounders with the best of them should work quite well at Coors Field.

Rangers Sign Luke Jackson for One Year, $1.5 Million

• Updated Roster Projection
• Updated Payroll Projection

Effect on the Rangers

The top six (!!!) relievers in the Rangers’ projected bullpen weren’t on the 2024 club, though Texas is plenty familiar with Jackson, who made his MLB debut with the team in 2015, the last year of Mike Maddux’s first stint as the club’s pitching coach. The Rangers are probably all set with the bullpen now, with those top six spots locked in and no fewer than 10 arms vying for the final two.

Athletics Sign Luis Urías for One Year, $1.1 Million

• Updated Roster Projection
• Updated Payroll Projection

Effect on the Nationals

Urías figures to compete with fellow new Athletic Gio Urshela for the open third base spot, and he can also spell Zack Gelof at second base when he needs a day off. It’s possible that the A’s have just one open roster spot remaining for a position player, with the top contenders being Esteury Ruiz, Max Schuemann, Darell Hernaiz, Brett Harris, and CJ Alexander. The Other Max Muncy could make his debut sometime this year.

Nationals Sign Paul DeJong for One Year, $1 Million

• Updated Roster Projection
• Updated Payroll Projection

Effect on the Nationals

DeJong is settling for a much more limited role than he signed for last year, when he agreed to a $1.5 million contract with the White Sox early in the offseason to be their starting shortstop. Despite hitting 24 homers in his best season 2019, DeJong had to take a deal for two-thirds of his 2024 salary. With the Nationals, he’ll have to fight for plate appearances at third base with José Tena and Amed Rosario, while also occasionally spelling CJ Abrams at short. Alas, the free agent market isn’t always rational, especially this time of year.

Guardians Sign John Means for One Year, $1 Million

• Updated Roster Projection
• Updated Payroll Projection

Effect on the Guardians

For the 2025 Guardians, Means doesn’t mean too much. After undergoing his second Tommy John surgery in three years last June, it’s hard to foresee the lefty pitching for Cleveland at any point this year, since his first rehab took 16 months. If his recovery goes well, the Guardians have a $6 million club option for 2026, a bargain for a pitcher of Means’ caliber so long as he is healthy.

Who’s Still a Free Agent?

Remaining free agents who could plausibly earn a major league deal include:

• Catchers: Yasmani Grandal, James McCann

• Infielders: Jose Iglesias, Anthony Rizzo

• Outfielders: Mark Canha, Alex Verdugo, David Peralta, Manuel Margot

• Utilitymen: Whit Merrifield

• Designated hitters: J.D. Martinez

• Righty starters: Kyle Gibson, Lance Lynn, Spencer Turnbull, José Urquidy

• Lefty starters: Jose Quintana, Patrick Corbin

• Righty relievers: David Robertson, Kyle Finnegan, Dylan Floro, Hunter Strickland, Dillon Tate, Craig Kimbrel, Héctor Neris, Joe Kelly, José Ureña

• Lefty relievers: Jalen Beeks, Andrew Chafin, Brooks Raley, Ryan Yarbrough, Drew Smyly, Will Smith

The need to define a scope, to create a boundary of coverage, creates a hole in prospect writing. Most public-facing prospect publications, FanGraphs included, analyze and rank players who are still rookie-eligible because, contrary to what you’ve probably learned about my capacity to be long-winded over the years, you just have to stop somewhere. Because of this, every year there are players who fall through the cracks between the boundaries of prospect coverage and big league analysis. These are often players who came up, played enough to exhaust their rookie eligibility, and then got hurt and had a long-term rehab in the minors. Or who graduated and then have been mothballed at Triple-A due to clogged major league rosters ahead of them. The goal of this piece is to highlight some of the players who no longer fit the parameters of my prospect lists and provide an updated long-term scouting prognosis for each of them.

Oswald Peraza, SS, New York Yankees

Peraza was evaluated as an average everyday shortstop when he was last a prospect. Backburnered due to the emergence of Anthony Volpe, Peraza is still an above-average shortstop defender despite average arm strength. He’s always had a slight power-over-hit offensive skillset, and that dynamic has continued; Peraza still has above-average bat speed but only had a 71% contact rate in 2024. He dealt with a shoulder strain which kept him out for most of the first two months of the season and might have impacted his hitting ability. If the shoulder injury continues to affect his bat and he ends up with closer to a 30-grade hit tool instead of his projected 45, he would end up as a utility man rather than a regular.

Endy Rodriguez, C, Pittsburgh Pirates

Rodriguez came to Pittsburgh via the three-team Joe Musgrove deal in 2021, and graduated in 2023 as a 55-FV prospect thanks to projected plus contact ability and catching defense. He needed Tommy John surgery after the 2023 season and missed almost all of 2024, except for 10 games in September at Altoona and Indianapolis. Rodriguez looks bigger and stronger now, and the receiving aspect of his catching defense was fine when he returned, though he had only a few opportunities to throw (he popped 1.97, and 1.90 on a throw cut in front of the bag) and wasn’t really forced to block any pitches in the dirt in his few games back there. Offensively, he looked rusty. He wasn’t rotating as well as before the injury, but he still flashed low-ball bat control from both sides of the dish. I’m wondering if the Pirates had conversations about Rodriguez playing winter ball as a way to get him live reps and, if so, why they decided not to send him. He didn’t play enough to have cogent, updated thoughts on anything but his defense, which I thought looked fine.

Marco Luciano, 2B/OF, San Francisco Giants

I started to move off of Luciano prior to the start of the 2023 season, when he fell to the very back of my Top 100, then was completely off it in 2024. Not only had he made zero progress as a shortstop defender but cracks began to show in his offense. Across the last couple of seasons, as opposing pitchers’ fastball velocity climbed while Luciano traversed the minors, his ability to pull fastballs completely evaporated. He can crush a hanging breaking ball, but his bat path is such that he can really only inside-out heaters to right field. Through my own learned experience, this has become a warning sign when it’s true of low-level prospects. If Luciano can’t pull fastballs when they’re 92 mph, what happens when they’re 95? Well, we’re finding out that it means he has a 70% contact rate, and that in effort to be more on time against fastballs he’s lunging at sliders and missing 40% of those. For a player who is only now just starting to learn the outfield, and therefore not really bringing anything polished to the table at the moment, that’s a problem. The late transition on defense was a stubborn misstep, probably by some combination of Luciano and the org. The Giants were perhaps trying to preserve Luciano’s prospect value for as long as possible (which I suppose worked to an extent, just not here at FG) by leaving him at shortstop and hoping nobody would notice he couldn’t actually play there.

The good news is that Luciano still hits the ball really hard, as do the couple of good big league outfielders who power through their sub-70% contact rates, which appears to be what Luciano will have to do. Think of guys like Teoscar Hernández and Brent Rooker, who broke out in their late 20s. Outcomes like that are perhaps an eventuality for Luciano, but the Giants aren’t exactly in a long-term rebuild such that they’ll be happy to wait around for it to happen. Luciano is also entering his final option year, which means if they want to retain him, those growing pains will have to occur under the big league spotlight. His tenure with San Francisco has been painted into a bit of a corner. He’s still a 40+ FV player for me, and I think Luciano will have a meaningful power-hitting peak in his physical prime, but I think that’s more likely to occur in a different uniform.

Luis Matos, LF, San Francisco Giants

I’m still keen on Matos who, despite some relevant flaws, is a special contact hitter with unique pull power characteristics. Matos graduated as a 55-FV prospect in 2023, in part because I believed he could play a viable center field (he cannot). He spent most of 2024 at Triple-A and has struggled to find big league footing, slashing a career .235/.288/.344 in 400 total plate appearances across a couple of seasons. Despite a frustrating tendency to chase, Matos has still maintained high-end contact rates (92% in-zone, 85% overall), and he has a special ability to cover high fastballs with power. A body blow to Matos’ fit on a big league roster is that he’s a below-average corner defender. That’s fine for guys like Juan Soto, Yordan Alvarez, Riley Greene, and Anthony Santander, but less so for one-note offensive performers, which is what Matos might be. Matos’ chase, and the way it saps his game power because he’s putting sub-optimal pitches into play, makes it more likely that his FV hovers in that 30-to-40 range when you stack him against the other corner outfielders across the next several seasons.

Jordan Walker, RF, St. Louis Cardinals

Walker was sent down to Memphis in April, didn’t come back up until mid-August, and struggled on both sides of the ball upon his return. The Cardinals have a new hitting coach and so this might change, but Walker’s swing (and more specifically his spray despite his style of swinging) is bizarre. He hits with an enormous open stride, bailing way out toward third base, the swing of someone trying like hell to pull the ball. But he still mostly doesn’t, certainly not as much as you’d expect from someone swinging like this. Walker has also never had especially good secondary pitch recognition, and changeups and sliders both performed like plus-plus pitches against him last year. His current swing certainly doesn’t help him cover those outer edge sliders.

On defense, Walker made a full-time transition from third base to the outfield in 2023, but he’s never looked comfortable catching the baseball out there, and that remained true at the end of 2024. Walker is still only 22 years old and has impact tools in his power, speed, and arm strength. His top-end speed for a 6-foot-6, 250-pound guy is amazing, his outfield arm is one of the better ones in baseball, and his bat speed is near elite. Aside from his lack of plate discipline, Walker shares a lot of similarities with Pat Burrell. Burrell was also a heavy-footed outfielder who relied on his arm on defense, and his issues with secondary pitches continued throughout his career, but ultimately his power made him a very productive player for a long time. Walker was in the big leagues before he turned 21, and Burrell didn’t debut until well after his 23rd birthday. I think Walker deserves more runway, and I’m still optimistic that he can be a middle-of-the-order hitter during his window of team control, but there probably has to be a swing change here.

Nick Pratto, 1B/OF, Kansas City Royals

For the last couple of years, Pratto’s strikeout rates have continued to hover around 30%, even in the minors, and while his swing still has superlative lift, his raw power has plateaued and is insufficient for a first baseman striking out this much. He’s out of options and is on the Royals’ roster bubble.

Taylor Trammell, OF, Houston Astros

Trammell only played 10 big league games last year. He looks pretty much the same as he did in 2021 when he was struggling to get his footing in Seattle. He still has above-average power and speed, but he’s a 65% contact hitter who hasn’t been able to cover high fastballs. Despite his speed, Trammell is still not an especially skilled defender; he is a clunky fit in center, and his arm makes left field his best spot. He doesn’t make enough contact to be a regular, but he fits great on a roster as the fifth outfielder. He brings big energy and motor to the party, and he can run into the occasional extra-base hit coming off the bench.

Vaughn Grissom, INF, Boston Red Sox

Grissom, who was traded straight up for Chris Sale, looked pretty bad in 2024 amid multiple hamstring injuries. He is not a good defensive second baseman (the only position he played last year), and has a 50-hit, 40-power combination on offense. That’s a fringe big leaguer.

One of the most exciting developments of 2025 is also one of the most surprising: Love Is Blind has its mojo back. After a white-hot start in 2020, Netflix’s reality dating show put out three consecutive snoozefest seasons in 2023 and 2024. (The entire D.C. season could’ve been an email.)

But the first six episodes of Season 8 debuted last Friday, covering the first phase of the show, and it’s been a hot minute since we saw this much drama in the pods. Far from the usual slate of boring couples playing along just to stay on TV, this season has had (I’ll try to avoid spoilers) a love quadrilateral, a shocking violation of show norms, and multiple contestants just packing it in and going home. It’s been a blast.

Here’s something else Season 8 has: Multiple former college baseball players. That’s right, it’s not a nightmare, we’re talking about reality. Read the rest of this entry »

Hunter Bigge’s baseball career was in limbo when he graduated from Harvard University in 2021 with a degree in physics. Drafted in the 12th round by the Chicago Cubs two years earlier, the 26-year-old right-hander had scuffled in High-A and was unsure if he should continue to pursue his boyhood dream or move on to a career outside of baseball. Returning to the Ivy League institution to complete his studies following that difficult season gave him options, but he still loved the game.

Fast forward to 2024, and Bigge was thriving in the big leagues.

Bigge debuted with the Cubs on July 9, then a few weeks later was dealt to the Tampa Bay Rays along with Ty Johnson and Christopher Morel in exchange for Isaac Paredes. He excelled in both uniforms. With 15 of his 19 appearances coming after the trade, Bigge worked 17 1/2 total frames, fanning 24 batters while allowing 17 hits and just five free passes. Moreover, he posted a 2.60 ERA, a 2.76 FIP, and a 32.9% strikeout rate. His heater played a huge role in his success. At 97.5 mph, it ranked in the 94th percentile among his contemporaries.

Bigge discussed his path to the big leagues, and his approach on the mound, during the final weekend of the 2024 season.

———

David Laurila: Let’s start with one of my favorite icebeaker questions: Do you approach pitching as more of an art, or as more of a science?

Hunter Bigge: “I approach it more as an art. I’m pretty analytical, but I don’t think the analytical part of my brain is the one that allows me to play the best. I try to come at it with a little more flexibility. I let the science inform the high-level decisions, but when I’m out there, I’m thinking of it more like a dance with the hitter.” Read the rest of this entry »

Spring is the time of year when we wax poetic about possibility. “Behold,” we say to ourselves as we remember the feeling of the sun’s warmth on our skin, “we have once again foiled the earth’s attempts to murder us with subzero temperatures and an unceasing barrage of unrelentingly cheery and/or horny Christmas songs. The time for survival is past; now is the time to thrive.” Among baseball players, pitchers stand alone in their capacity for reinvention. They have the chance to add a new weapon, and in so doing level up into an entirely new pitcher. After all, what are we if not a collection of our attributes? Maybe you used to be a sinkerballer, but once you added a slider, you evolved into an entirely new species: the sinker-slider guy.

I spent Wednesday afternoon trawling through search results and Jeff Zimmerman’s indispensable Mining the News feature looking for reports of new pitches. The fruits of that labor populate the table below, and they are legion. As it turns out, even MLB: The Show has finally added a sweeper. Beneath the table, I will spend a sentence or three on each of the 21 pitchers who is reportedly working on a new offering. Not all of these pitches will actually make it into a regular season game. Fewer still, possibly even none, will have a discernible impact on a player’s season or career. But that shouldn’t keep us from dreaming on them. There are some really big names here. Maybe Kevin Gausman’s new cutter will run interference for his four-seamer, returning him a while longer to the fraternity of undisputed aces. Who are we to deem any future unreachable before even attempting the journey? Read the rest of this entry »

For the third consecutive offseason, Justin Turner has signed to play for a new team. This time, he is heading to the north side of Chicago, after he and the Cubs agreed to a one-year deal worth $6 million earlier this week. Turner, who turned 40 in November, will likely split time at DH and 1B. The reason to add Turner at this stage in his career is straight forward: He can still hit at an above league average clip.

Considering Turner is entering his 17th major league season, you likely already know a lot about his game. His whiff and strikeout rates have stayed in the upper quartile even as he has aged, he doesn’t chase much, and has a great feel for spraying the ball to all fields. It’s the exact group of traits that a hitter without much explosiveness needs to survive this many years. Here is a quick reminder of his performance over the last handful of years to put into perspective where he is at right now:

There is no doubt his contact quality has dipped. That’s likely a function of his bottom decile bat speed. But along with that has come improved whiff rates. This compensation represents a new version of how Turner has been successful with his current physical attributes. It’s a benefit to any team to plug in this type of hitter, especially because he is productive and essentially platoon neutral.

To be frank, though, I don’t think a full on, comprehensive analysis of Turner’s offensive game is completely needed at this point. We’ve seen what he can do and have a good idea what type of hitter he is now. Instead, I want to use this time to highlight what I think is the most impressive part of Turner’s game, the part that makes me enthusiastic to watch him in the twilight of his career: His ability to hit sinkers. Read the rest of this entry »

The first deadline of the 2025 season has come and gone: February 17, the last day Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was open to signing an extension with the Blue Jays before he hits free agency this coming winter. While both Guerrero and Toronto GM Ross Atkins remain interested in continuing their partnership, it does not appear that the two sides were close to a deal. Guerrero has his price, and the Jays didn’t meet it. No hard feelings; we’ll talk again in November.

It seems like just last week that Guerrero brought his bonkers power and elite hit tool up to the majors, but time flies. Should Guerrero choose to play elsewhere next season, losing him would be a definitive moment in Blue Jays history. Not just because of his star power and the hype that accompanied him since he first signed with the team as an amateur free agent, but because he’s Toronto’s best player by far. Read the rest of this entry »

Geraldo Perdomo is not leaving Arizona any time soon. On Monday night, Mike Rodriguez reported that the Diamondbacks and their switch-hitting shortstop had agreed to a contract extension, which is for four years and $45 million, includes a club option for a fifth season, and starts in 2026, according to ESPN’s Jeff Passan. The 25-year-old Perdomo has just over three years of big league service time, so the deal will buy out his final two arbitration seasons and at least the first two years after he would’ve reached free agency. Perdomo was an All-Star in 2023, and he put up 2.0 WAR in 2024 despite an April knee injury that limited him to 98 games. He’s now set to spend the entirety of his 20s providing the Diamondbacks with a throwback blend of solid shortstop defense and an absolute refusal to swing the bat.

Perdomo got a cup of coffee in 2021 and played his first full season in 2022, running a 59 wRC+ that limited him to just 0.3 WAR. In 2023, he earned an All-Star nod on the back of a torrid, BABIP-fueled start that saw him with a 200 wRC+ on May 3. He quickly came back to earth, but ended up running a 117 wRC+ in the first half and a 74 wRC+ in the second half, for an overall mark of 98 and 2.3 WAR. Perdomo missed just over two months due to a torn meniscus in 2024, but he put up a 101 wRC+ and his second straight two-win season. Essentially, he’s been a bit better than league average for two seasons now, and that was enough to convince Arizona to lock him down for the entirety of his prime. Perdomo and the Diamondbacks had already avoided arbitration by agreeing on a $2.55 million salary for 2025, and the new deal will add a $5 million signing bonus to that. He’ll receive a $5 million salary in 2026, then $8 million in 2027, $11 million in 2028, and $13 million in 2029. The Diamondbacks also have a $15 million club option for 2030, with a $3 million buyout should they choose not to exercise it. There are also incentives for a top-10 finish in the MVP voting.

That’s a pretty big commitment, even bigger when you consider the fact that the Diamondbacks have shortstop Jordan Lawlar, whom Eric Longenhagen just ranked our 14th overall prospect. Let’s talk about why the Diamondbacks feel Perdomo is worth extending, even if it means blocking the best prospect in their system.

Personally, I think Perdomo is one of the most fascinating players in the game. He came up as a glove-first shortstop prospect, and he certainly looks the part, but the advanced defensive metrics have been split on his performance for his entire career.

For his first two seasons, DRS thought he was costing the Diamondbacks runs. Then in 2024, the season when he missed time due to a major leg injury, it thought he was one of the best shortstops in baseball. Statcast has pretty much seen him as neutral throughout his three-year career, while DRP thinks he’s been great with the exception of 2023. Clearly, though, the Diamondbacks believe in his defense.

On offense, Perdomo is just plain weird. I know I summarized his overall offensive performance earlier, and those numbers are pretty standard – he’s been right around league average for two straight seasons – but it’s important to understand how he got to those numbers. For starters, Perdomo cannot stop bunting. Over the past three seasons, Perdomo has laid down 66 bunts, the most in baseball. His 33 sac bunts are also the most in the game; only three other players have even reached 20. His 15 bunt hits rank eighth, but among the 61 players with at least six bunt hits over that period, his 23.8% bunt hit rate ranks dead last. Even more damning, he leads baseball with 52 foul bunts. According to Baseball Savant, those fouls have cost the Diamondbacks four runs. That’s the worst number in baseball.

The bunting is genuinely a problem, but it fits perfectly with Perdomo’s overall approach at the plate, because that approach could be best summed up as “Try with all your might to avoid swinging.” Perdomo is one of the most passive players in all of baseball. Our database goes back to 2002, and since then, Perdomo’s 39.2% swing rate ranks 48th out of the 1,129 batters with at least 1,000 plate appearances. That puts him in the fifth percentile. Over the past three seasons, it’s the sixth-lowest mark in the game. Perdomo is the exact kind of player whom Robert Orr’s SEAGER metric was built to expose. In 2024, SEAGER had him in the 77th percentile in terms of selectivity, but it put him in the second percentile in terms of taking hittable pitches. In other words, Perdomo’s unwillingness to swing at strikes is way more extreme than his ability to lay off balls.

Keep in mind that SEAGER was meant to assess a player’s ability to do damage, and, well, that’s just not Perdomo’s game. He runs some of the lowest contact quality numbers in baseball. However, he makes tons of contact. Not only that, but over the past two seasons, he’s run a foul rate of nearly 43%, one of the higher marks in the game. It’s nearly impossible to get him to swing and miss, even when he swings and doesn’t put the ball in play. So even though pitchers attack the zone like crazy, he runs excellent walk and strikeout rates. If I’m making it sound like every single part of Perdomo’s game is at one extreme or another, well, yeah, that’s pretty much how it is. His Baseball Savant sliders are either bright red or bright blue. He’s all patience, no power. He’s the rare player who runs an incredible squared-up rate but an unimpressive line drive rate. Because Perdomo puts tons of balls in play, he’ll always have the chance at posting a great BABIP and putting up a three- or four-win season, but unless he decides to try attacking the ball, there’s not much ceiling here.

I am so, so curious to see what it would look like if Perdomo were to start attacking the ball. He’s still young, and I really do think it’s possible that he has the capacity to be more than an average hitter. I’m sure the Diamondbacks remember clearly how well it worked out when he was pulling everything in sight at the beginning of the 2023 season, and maybe they’ll try to help him become that player again. Still, I don’t think we should expect that going forward. I think the Diamondbacks are paying for floor rather than ceiling. However he gets there, if Perdomo keeps performing like a two-win player, the contract will work out well for both sides. If he can remain a solid defender and a league-average bat, he’s a really useful player, even if he pushes Lawlar to third base. In the meantime, we all get to enjoy watching Perdomo live at the extremes in order to perform right at the mean.

There’s one thing that unites almost all great center fielders: They end their careers somewhere else. Ty Cobb, Mickey Mantle, and Ken Griffey Jr. combined for zero defensive innings in center field in their last major league seasons. Even Willie Mays, the greatest of all time, who played 25% more innings at the position than anyone else, made 11 of his last 12 regular-season starts at first base. Maybe that’s how he knew it was time to retire.

So anyone with an iota of sense knew this was coming someday for Mike Trout. It’s been obvious since he arrived in the majors as a callow but wide teenager, looking more like Mike Alstott than Mike Cameron. And anyone who didn’t see the signs then surely got the hint as the injuries started to pile up. Trout last played more than 140 games in a season in 2016, last qualified for the batting title in 2020, and has missed an average of 96 games a season since 2021.

The Millville Meteor told reporters Monday that he’d recently met with GM Perry Minasian and manager Ron Washington to discuss — to borrow an idiom from basketball — load management. It would’ve been irresponsible not to. Read the rest of this entry »

The first baseball cap I remember buying was a gorgeous Orioles throwback. I’m not sure what exactly drew me to it. Maybe it was my mom’s lifelong Orioles fandom. Maybe it had to do with the crisp colors. Maybe I’d just listened to noted ornithological transporter Jay-Z on the drive to West Town Mall. “Before Mitchel and Ness did it/I was moving birds like an Oriole fitted/I’m Cal Ripken Jr., let’s get it” always got me excited to watch some baseball. Whatever the reason was, though, that hat called out to me, so I paid an exorbitant price for something I ended up not wearing very frequently.

I’m telling you this story for a few reasons. First, I want to establish my bona fides as someone who has always had a soft spot for the O’s. Second, I get to show my age a bit — I was in high school when The Blueprint 2 came out. Third, who doesn’t like telling stories? But the main reason is that ledes are hard to write, and I want to talk about the O’s today. To quote Jay-Z: Let’s get it.

A recent Ken Rosenthal article had me double-checking payroll lists and salary tables. The Orioles – the Orioles!! – were listed as the team who increased its payroll by the most from 2024 to 2025. I looked at that for a little bit, looked at the data to confirm that the never-errant Rosenthal had, in fact, not erred, and then I let out a long puzzled sigh. It’s true! The O’s have opened the purse strings this winter. There are a few ways to calculate payroll, but based on the yearly expenditures listed in RosterResource, here are the top five payroll increases across the majors:

Read the rest of this entry »