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:
Old Man Turner’s Still Got It
Season
wRC+
K% Percentile
Whiff% Percentile
Chase% Percentile
xwOBACON
VBA
2021
126
80th
88th
83rd
.383
36.9
2022
123
78th
78th
65th
.367
34.9
2023
115
77th
92nd
71st
.367
34.4
2024
117
74th
90th
72nd
.343
34.2
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 »
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.
Geraldo Perdomo Advanced Defensive Metrics
Year
DRS
FRV
DRP
2022
-3
0
6.4
2023
-3
1
-3.4
2024
10
-1
4.2
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:
The team that lost 121 games last season has a strong farm system. Revitalized by a major trade, an especially-promising 2024 fifth-overall draft pick, and the emergence of a 6-foot-9 southpaw, the Chicago White Sox boast one of baseball’s best prospect pipelines. Six of the organization’s young hopefuls are ranked among our new Top 100 list: left-handed pitchers Noah Schultz (18th) and Hagen Smith (22nd), catcher Kyle Teel (49th), shortstop Colson Montgomery (58th), catcher Edgar Quero (90th), and right-handed pitcher Grant Taylor (94th).
As White Sox director of player development, Paul Janish plays a key role in the club’s efforts to produce big league talent. Hired into his current position in November 2023, the 42-year-old Janish spent nine seasons as a major league infielder, from 2008-2017.
Janish discussed some of the organization’s philosophies and several of its top prospects earlier this month.
———
David Laurila: How has player development changed since your playing days?
Paul Janis: “I think the best way to synopsize that is resources. There are more hands on deck. There is also more technology involved versus the kind of old-school eye test, if you will. At the end of the day, you’re still trying to help make players better, it’s just that player development systems are more robust now than they’ve ever been. When I was playing — even though, relatively speaking, it wasn’t all that long ago — there weren’t as many resources as our guys have.
“Ancillary to the actual player development system, there is what the guys have access to in terms of private facilities during the offseason. That’s a benefit to them, as well.”
In his prime — and it was not a long prime — nobody hit a majestic home run like Joey Gallo. It was something about the violence of the swing, the loopy lefty uppercut, the two-handed follow-through, and the way he’d stand up straight right after contact, a confirmation that the baseball was indeed crushed.
Those high arcing blasts powered one of the more bizarre careers of his generation. In the heart of the Three True Outcomes era, he was its emperor, threatening to lead the league in either walk rate, strikeout rate, or home runs in any given year.
Sadly, time passes. Those with prominent residences on Gallo Island now fear foreclosure proceedings. The big slugger has fallen on hard times; last week, he signed a minor league contract with the Chicago White Sox. A non-guaranteed deal with the team that just set the major league record for losses carries some pretty clear subtext. Gallo is hanging off the cliffside of his career, one finger latched to a jagged rock.
It all feels too soon. He’s just 31 years old, a normal and cool age that is in no way old. As Tom Tango’s research shows, bat speed generally starts to decline right at this point, not years before. But even at his best, Gallo lived at the extremes. In his magical 2019 half-season, which unfortunately was cut short by a broken hamate bone, he posted a .635 xwOBA on contact. Across 2,865 player seasons in the Statcast era, only 2017 Aaron Judge topped that figure.
All player seasons with 250 plate appearances in the Statcast era (2015-present).
At his apex, nobody — save for one of the greatest hitters of all-time — crushed the baseball like Joey Gallo. He paired that supreme power with some of the lowest chase rates in the league, giving him enough on-base juice to offset the batting averages that made boomers want to gauge out their eyes. That excellent plate discipline allowed him to hunt mistakes in the middle of the plate, mostly fastballs and hanging sliders. His swing was geared for these middle-middle meatballs, and his 70-grade batting eye allowed him to lay off most pitches on the black. Yes, when he got into a two-strike count and was compelled to swing, he most likely was going to come up empty. But he forced pitchers to battle.
Over the last handful of years, though, the other extreme in Gallo’s game eclipsed his prodigious power. Remember those 2,865 player seasons? Two of Gallo’s seasons rank first and second across the decade in the percentage of all swings resulting in whiffs. That decade-leading 44.3% whiff rate came in the 2023 season, when he still managed, I must note, to run an above-average wRC+.
All player seasons with 250 plate appearances in the Statcast era (2015-present).
In retrospect, it all started to go downhill after that infamous July 2021 trade to the Yankees. Gallo was coming off perhaps his finest month as a big leaguer, striking out “just” 25.3% of the time, walking nearly as frequently as he struck out, and mashing 10 homers. Painfully, he hit just .160 following the trade, and despite his 16.2% walk rate and usual home run pace, his anemic batting average turned him into a villain with the Yankees. After another dismal half-season, the Yankees shipped him off to the Dodgers; things didn’t get much better in Los Angeles, where he ran strikeout rates that dipped into the 40s for the first time.
Gallo hit free agency for the first time after that 2022 season, and since then teams have made increasingly small bets on his ability to return to his prime form. It started with the Twins in 2023, who paid him $11 million for a single year’s services. Next up were the Nationals, who handed out a $5 million deal, and he turned in his worst season yet. So now here we are, with Gallo at the bleakest end of the baseball universe.
It isn’t hard to see how things ended up like this. Gallo is a big guy who swings hard, and the bills have come due for his high-impact style of play. Over the last two seasons, he battled a sprained shoulder, a strained oblique, a foot contusion, and two separate hamstring strains, the second of which forced him out of action for nearly two months. He even came down with a case of pink eye. His body appears to be breaking down rapidly, and you can almost see the effects of this as he sets up in the box, constantly shifting and readjusting like he’s in the middle seat on a Spirit flight.
Perhaps as a result of all this discomfort, Gallo’s carrying tool is showing signs of erosion. In the second half of 2023, his average bat speed of 73.9 mph ranked in the 84th percentile of hitters. That 2023 mark is the first bat speed data available to the public, and one can imagine that at his peak, Gallo could swing a few miles per hour harder than that, ranking among the likes of Giancarlo Stanton and Kyle Schwarber as one of the fastest swingers in the league.
Gallo’s bat slowed even further in 2024. His average bat speed dipped 1.5 mph, dropping him into the fat part of the bell curve, only a tick above the major league average of 71.3 mph. His once-excellent plate discipline now looks more like passiveness. White Sox manager Will Venable says Gallo will primarily play first base. He is definitively an aging slugger, and his career depends on whether he can revive his famous power skills.
It’s possible that some of Gallo’s bat speed decrease was intentional; in 2023, only Trey Cabbage squared up fewer balls, and that mark improved slightly in 2024. But it’s Joey Gallo. If you have him on your team, you don’t want him trading off power for contact because he’s never going to make enough contact for that to matter. You want him swinging out of his shoes, walloping tanks into the stratosphere.
As my editor Matt Martell pointed out, the White Sox have an institutional history of old slugger resuscitation attempts. There were the ill-fated midseason acquisitions of Manny Ramirez and Ken Griffey Jr., a deal for post-peak Andruw Jones, even the four-year deal they handed out to Gallo’s evolutionary predecessor, Adam Dunn. All these guys landed on the South Side hoping to recapture the magic one last time.
Unlike those other players, though, there are no guarantees that Gallo makes the team, especially because Miguel Vargas is out of minor league options. But let’s just dream for a minute that Gallo took up yoga or any of the other offseason workout routines that prompt players to boast that they’re in the best shape of their lives. Picture this: a .190 average, a 35% strikeout rate, 30 home runs, a permanent spot in the middle of the order against right-handed pitchers. Gallo is one of the strangest and most spectacular players I’ve ever seen. I’m crossing my fingers he gets one last go.
Derrick Edington is hoping to join select company. MLB history includes fewer than a dozen players born in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, the most accomplished being Mike Bordick (Marquette) and George Brunet (Houghton). Also notable are Kevin Tapani, who was born in Iowa but grew up in the U.P. (Escanaba), and John Michaelson, whose family moved to a small town in the Copper Country when he was five years old so that his father could work in the mines. Michaelson, who got a cup of coffee with the Chicago White Sox in 1921, is the only big-leaguer to have been born in Finland.
Edington is from the village of Pickford, which is located roughly 40 miles north of the Mackinac Bridge, which separates the state’s two peninsulas. The 6-foot-8, 230-pound right-hander’s journey from rural Michigan to affiliated baseball spanned several years at baseball’s lower runs, and included a helpful boost from a former All-Star closer.
Signed out of an independent league by the Tampa Bay Rays last May, Edington has gone from throwing “maybe 82 [mph]’ as a high school senior — basketball was his better sport — to sitting 95-96, and occasionally reaching triple digits. Raw but nonetheless promising, he made 20 relief appearances between the Florida Complex League and Arizona Fall League, logging high ERAs but also fanning 39 batters in 32 innings.
Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone! It’s not all ❤️ and 🥰 for MLB teams, though, as the reporting of pitchers and catchers throughout the week has allowed some previously unreported injuries to come to light. The flip side of that coin is that injuries (and 60-day injured lists opening up) create more spots for lingering free agents.
There were a flurry of moves this past week, including the last two big dominoes to fall, with Alex Bregman and Nick Pivetta finding homes. Here’s all that transpired, which as always is reflected frighteningly quickly on the FA Matrix and Trades/Claims page of the Offseason Matrices document:
Marquee Free Agent Signings
Red Sox Sign Alex Bregman for Three Years, $120 Million
With Rafael Devers entrenched at third base, Bregman is expected to slide over to second with the Red Sox. He played positions other than third base earlier in his career — mostly shortstop (966 innings) while Carlos Correa was injured, but also 32 innings at second and 3 2/3 innings in left field — but he hasn’t left the hot corner since 2019. Still, as Ben Clemens noted in his piece on the signing, “Bregman has always felt a bit like a second baseman.”
Top prospect Kristian Campbell looked to be in strong position to claim the second base job out of spring training, something that doesn’t appear to be in the cards any longer with Bregman’s signing. But injuries, slumps, and trades (Triston Casas and Masataka Yoshida have had their names swirling in trade rumors all offseason) happen, and if the big three of Campbell, Marcelo Mayer, and Roman Anthony force the issue at some point during the season, the Red Sox will adjust their roster accordingly.
Effect on Other Teams
The Tigers and Cubs were reportedly the other finalists for Bregman’s services, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be looking for an everyday third baseman in the free agent or trade market. Bregman is a great player, and the Tigers and Cubs would’ve shuffled their rosters to accommodate him if they would’ve signed him, but neither team actually needed a third baseman. Indeed, both clubs have a top prospect who is expected to be their starting third baseman: Jace Jung in Detroit and Matt Shaw in Chicago. It’s possible that the two teams could still sign a third baseman, such as Jose Iglesias or Paul DeJong, as insurance just in case either Jung or Shaw isn’t ready, but both veterans would be nothing more than depth pieces.
Effect on Similar Players
I’m not sure any remaining position player will sign for even 10% of what Bregman received.
Padres Sign Nick Pivetta for Four Years, $55 Million
San Diego now has four starters set in stone… if they don’t trade any of them. Pivetta will be in the middle of the rotation with Yu Darvish, behind co-aces Dylan Cease and Michael King. The structure of Pivetta’s deal (just $4 million in the first year between the signing bonus and base salary) helps the Padres basically kick the can down the road on figuring out their cash flow problems. Cease, King, and Luis Arraez are set to hit free agency after this season, freeing up tens of millions of dollars.
As for Cease himself, the Padres are reportedly inclined to hang on to him and make their rotation a real strength. Matt Waldron, Randy Vásquez, and the newly signed Kyle Hart (more on him below) are the top contenders for the fifth spot in the rotation.
Effect on Other Teams
Pivetta was clearly the best remaining starting pitcher on the market, and if Cease and King are unavailable in trades, teams still looking for pitching are not going to be able to acquire anyone nearly as good as Pivetta, let alone better. Andrew Heaney, Jose Quintana, Kyle Gibson, Lance Lynn, and swingman Spencer Turnbull are the most notable free agents starters left.
Effect on Similar Players
There are no similar players left in Pivetta’s class, so his deal isn’t informative for anyone else. He got a really nice deal considering how late in the offseason he signed.
Ben Joyce got some run as the Angels’ closer after Carlos Estévez was shipped off to the Phillies, but that job should now firmly be Jansen’s in 2025. The 37-year-old is 32 saves away from passing Lee Smith for third all time and 53 away from becoming the third member of the 500-save club, where he would join Mariano Rivera and Trevor Hoffman. All three players ahead of Jansen on the saves list are Hall of Famers.
Joyce’s more fluid usage might actually make him more valuable to the Angels. Last season, he averaged 4.9 batters faced per appearance until his first save on August 3 — including getting six outs five times — before closing out his year with an average of 4.1 as the ninth-inning man.
Effect on Other Teams
With Jansen heading back to Southern California, there are just two free agent relievers left who could conceivably serve as closers for a contender this year: David Robertson and Kyle Finnegan, and Finnegan was non-tendered! Still, he was an All-Star last season before his performance cratered in the second half. Some team might be enamored by his high-velocity fastball and have some tweaks in mind for his secondary stuff to get him back into high-leverage form. Meanwhile, the ageless Robertson only recorded two saves last year with the Rangers because he was behind closer Kirby Yates in their bullpen. But Robertson was absolutely brilliant (3.00 ERA, 2.65 FIP, 3.19 xERA) in his setup role and has plenty of experience closing games. Teams who could still use (but won’t necessarily add) a clear-cut ninth-inning arm include the Red Sox, Rangers, Diamondbacks, and Nationals.
Effect on Similar Players
Robertson had a better year than Jansen, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll sign a better deal. At this point in the offseason, there are fewer teams in the market for an established high-leverage reliever, so he may have to settle for less given then lesser demand.
At the start of the season, there’ll be no real effect on the Dodgers. Kershaw underwent toe and knee surgeries at the end of the 2024 campaign, keeping him out of action for the Dodgers’ World Series run. He expects to open the season on the 60-day IL, and Los Angeles obviously has the starting pitching depth to withstand Kershaw’s extended absence.
Effect on Other Teams
No team has to pivot here: Kershaw was always going to remain with the Dodgers.
Effect on Similar Players
And there aren’t any similar players either, just waiting for one team to bring them back without considering the other 29.
Hernández’s addition could be considered a somewhat superfluous one for the Dodgers. In his appearance on Dodger Territory, Andrew Friedman said that it would’ve been “Kiké or nothing” in adding to the team’s offense.
Hyeseong Kim is the only one of the 13 hitters on the Dodgers’ projected roster who can be optioned to the minors, and it would probably take an especially rough spring training for that to come to fruition. Chris Taylor could, I suppose, be DFA’d following last year’s rough season, but he was decent enough down the stretch to make that unlikely. This means the likes of Andy Pages, James Outman, Dalton Rushing, and Alex Freeland will have to wait for an unfortunate injury to get time at the major league level.
For now, the defensively brilliant Taylor will back up and provide insurance for oft-injured center fielder Luis Robert Jr., who’ll be flanked by Andrew Benintendi in left and a Mike Tauchman/Austin Slater platoon in right. Taylor could give Benintendi some days off against southpaws, but he’s not going to have a big role on the White Sox unless (or until) Robert is moved. The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reported that the White Sox had discussions with the Giants and Reds about a deal for Robert, but the likelihood of a trade coming into play before the start of the season is unknown.
Heyward and Joe should make for a playable, if uninspiring, left field platoon for a Padres team that’s extremely strapped for cash and in the midst of an ownership battle between family members of the late Peter Seidler. On days Heyward is playing, San Diego will have a formidable defensive outfield with Jackson Merrill in center and Fernando Tatis Jr. in right, and Heyward can always replace Joe late in games. The Padres could probably use one more hitter to serve as their DH (or part of a DH rotation), but it’s unclear if they have the budget for that. Tirso Ornelas is probably the front-runner for that role as the roster is currently constructed.
Which Hitters Are Still Left?
Remaining free agent hitters who could plausibly earn a major league deal include:
Junis made 18 relief appearances and six starts for the Brewers and Reds last year, never going beyond six innings or 73 pitches. That short leash fits the Guardians’ dogma well; they’re going to rely heavily on their bullpen, anyway. Junis figures to compete with Triston McKenzie, Logan Allen, Slade Cecconi, and Joey Cantillo for the fifth starter spot. If Junis isn’t in the rotation, he’ll be a Swiss Army knife in the bullpen akin to Pedro Avila last year.
Marlins Sign Cal Quantrill for One Year, $3.5 Million
The 30-year-old Quantrill is, amazingly, the second-oldest player on the Marlins’ projected roster, just a week younger than Anthony Bender. His “elder” presence will hold down a rotation spot behind ace Sandy Alcantara, in addition to lefty Ryan Weathers and erratic righty Edward Cabrera. That leaves one rotation spot open, most likely to be filled by Max Meyer, Valente Bellozo, or Adam Mazur. Young phenom Eury Pérez should be back from Tommy John surgery around the All-Star break.
Tigers Sign John Brebbia for One Year, $2.75 Million
Brebbia is the second major league reliever the Tigers have added this offseason, along with the $7.75 million deal for Tommy Kahnle. The red-bearded righty was awful last season with the White Sox before turning in five really nice performances with the Braves to end his year, parlaying those into a nice little major league deal. He’ll probably be used in lower-leverage spots to start, though the Tigers’ fluid bullpen roles means he could pick up a few saves here and there.
Barlow joins a Reds bullpen that’s already full of veteran relievers. Barlow, Taylor Rogers, Brent Suter, and Emilio Pagán all have six-plus years of service time and will help set up for closer Alexis Díaz. Tony Santillan performing anywhere close to how he did last year (30.3% K-BB%) would go a long way toward helping a unit that looks to be stronger in name value than real value.
Despite pitching brilliantly in the KBO last year, Hart had to settle for a modest one-year deal (plus a club option for $5 million, which can increase with escalators based on games started). And with the first four rotation spots already set and Randy Vásquez and Matt Waldron also around, Hart won’t be assured of a rotation spot out of camp. Additionally, he can still be optioned to the minors (unless his contract includes a clause that says otherwise, but we haven’t heard that it does), so it’s not guaranteed that he’ll make the team out of camp.
Graveman has been a great reliever when healthy, with a 2.74 ERA in 187 1/3 innings with the Mariners, Astros, and White Sox from 2021-23, but he missed all last season because of shoulder surgery. He’ll slot in behind co-closers Justin Martinez and A.J. Puk, helping set up along with Kevin Ginkel, Ryan Thompson, and Joe Mantiply. We’ve currently got Jordan Montgomery projected as the long reliever, though he could pitch his way back into a rotation spot or find his way out the door in a trade.
This won’t affect the 2025 Mets much at all, since Smith could miss the entirety of the season after undergoing Tommy John surgery in July. The contract includes a $2 million club option for 2026, allowing the Mets to keep Smith around at a low price if his rehab goes swimmingly.
Which Pitchers Are Still Left?
Remaining free agent pitchers who could plausibly earn a major league deal include:
