The San Francisco Giants, with their unique front office leadership and unconventional manager, have gone the traditional route. “Acquire Harrison Bader” is a tried-and-true team-building strategy for a would-be contender; the former Florida Gator is on his way to his seventh organization in the past four-and-a-half years.
The Giants, unlike Bader’s previous employers, seem interested in keeping him around long enough to unpack all his furniture: Bader’s new contract is for two years and $20.5 million.
Regardless of any analysis to follow, this move makes the Giants stronger in 2026. Bader is a legitimate center fielder who’ll relieve the defensive pressure on the freshly emancipatedJung Hoo Lee (who’s stretched in center) and Heliot Ramos (who’s stretched at any position that requires him to wield a glove). Guys who can play center field comfortably and have a clue at the plate are harder to find than you’d think — especially in free agency — and the Giants got one. Read the rest of this entry »
Last week, the White Sox admitted defeat in their handling of Luis Robert Jr.’s contract, shipping him out to the Mets for two lottery tickets and salary relief. That salary relief must have been burning a hole in their pocket, though. Or perhaps someone looked at their books, said “Guys, we play in Chicago but we’re projected for the lowest payroll in baseball and people are going to talk,” and handed GM Chris Getz a list of players who hadn’t yet signed. In any case, Seranthony Domínguez and the White Sox have agreed to terms on a two-year deal worth $20 million, as ESPN’s Jeff Passan first reported.
The right-handed Domínguez is no stranger to high-pressure relief work. In both the 2022 and 2023 postseasons, he appeared in mid- and high-leverage situations for the Phillies, and he handled them quite well (1.13 ERA, 0.78 FIP in 16 innings). In 2024, Philadelphia didn’t have much use for his services after his slow start, and so they sent him and Cristian Pache to the Orioles for platoon bat Austin Hays (whom they promptly non-tendered after the season). The O’s employed Domínguez for a year (he made two appearances for them in the playoffs), then dealt him and cash to the Blue Jays in exchange for Juaron Watts-Brown, a 40-FV relief prospect. He pitched for the Jays in October, and memorably had some ups and downs in their long run.
In other words, playoff teams have been employing Domínguez for years, but they haven’t been placing particularly high importance on his performance. He’s twice been traded to contenders in deadline deals, and at no point did his suitors offer much to get him. Those teams considered him a mid-leverage option; even the Blue Jays had him as a second-tier option out of their weak-link bullpen that flailed its way through October. Read the rest of this entry »
Our long national nightmare is over. After weeks of back and forth between Cody Bellinger and the New York Yankees, it’s official: He’s staying in the Bronx. The two sides have agreed to a five-year, $162.5 million deal with opt outs after the second and third seasons, a $20 million signing bonus, and a full no-trade clause, as first reported by Jeff Passan.
This fit was so obvious that it almost had to happen. The Yankees need offense, and they’d prefer it to come in the form of a left-handed outfielder who can cover center field in a pinch. They’re already familiar with Bellinger, who just put up a 5-WAR season in pinstripes. No other teams needed this exact type of player as much, at this current moment, as they did. Likewise, Bellinger was probably going to have to sign with the Yankees to get the deal he wanted. Now that that foregone conclusion has been reached, let’s unpack how this all fits together.
This contract is the culmination of a long, decorated career that was conspicuously lacking in free agency appeal. Bellinger burst onto the scene in 2017 with 39 homers for the Dodgers, taking Rookie of the Year honors in the process. He then went fully supersonic in the homer-happy 2019 season, with the rocket ball propelling him to 47 homers, a 161 wRC+, and NL MVP honors. Disaster struck in the 2020 World Series, however. Bellinger dislocated his shoulder celebrating a home run, and his performance fell off a cliff immediately after. Read the rest of this entry »
Over the weekend, Ha-Seong Kim’s whirlwind offseason took a jarring tumble. After opting out of his contract with the Braves (really his contract with the Rays, which the Braves assumed after they claimed him off waivers), he turned around and signed a one-year, $20 million deal to remain in Atlanta. But disaster struck when he slipped on a sheet of ice and tore a tendon in his right middle finger. That injury required surgery that will sideline Kim for four to five months, including roughly the first two months of the regular season.
This will be the second straight season where Kim misses significant time due to injury. In late 2024, he tore his labrum on a pickoff throw, then injured his hamstring and later his calf while rehabbing, costing him the first half of 2025. He then hit the IL twice with back injuries last year. In all, he managed just 191 plate appearances and looked understandably rusty.
That star-crossed sequence has to raise questions about the future course of Kim’s career. How could it not? It’s not so much that any of these injuries are devastating on their own, but this much missed playing time over two-plus years of his prime is no laughing matter. Last year, he never hit his stride after a late start. This year, it’s fair to expect more of the same. Even without knowing how Kim’s injured finger might affect him upon his return, our projection systems have him down for a below-average offensive line. Read the rest of this entry »
“I’ve talked to Byron [Buxton] and other players through this offseason already about ways we can get better as a team,” Twins President of Baseball Operations Derek Falvey told reporters back in November at the GM meetings. The answer was in response to a report that Buxton’s loyalty to the Twins may waiver if he felt they were entering a rebuild, as Minnesota’s behavior during last season’s trade deadline suggested. Falvey went on to insist that the team intends to add, not subtract, and it seems the term rebuild is taboo among Twins spokespeople.
Falvey is lying. I say this with no inside information, malice, or even judgement. MLB organizations operate within a system where this particular lie is not only acceptable, but also encouraged. Because “we’re not rebuilding; we’re trying to get better” is a corollary to a larger lie — that all teams are trying their hardest to win.
What is the truth, but a lie agreed upon? — Friedrich Nietzsche
Though this quote is often attributed to him, Nietzsche never actually said it. However, it does seem to offer a reasonably accurate distillation of his beliefs. And if we all agree that he did say it, then by his own logic, it must be true. Likewise, teams have decided to hold to the line that they’re all trying to win, and since they’ve all agreed, it falls to fans to take the lie as truth, along with all the subsequent lies necessary to support the original lie. Read the rest of this entry »
Well, that’s a relief. On Friday afternoon, the Phillies, spurned by Bo Bichette, got swept up in the tidal wave of hot stove transactions, agreeing to a three-year, $45 million deal (plus $15 million in incentives) to keep J.T. Realmuto in Philadelphia, according to Ken Rosenthal and Matt Gelb of The Athletic. You may have your qualms about rebounding from a rejection by signing a catcher three years into his decline phase for another three years, but consider what other options the Phillies had, and then consider how weird it would have felt to watch Realmuto playing in another uniform after all this time. It’s probably too many years, and that’s not great, but look at everything else that’s going on in the world right now and realize how much nicer it is to spend a moment thinking about something that’s merely not great.
Before we dive into the here and now, let’s take this chance to remind ourselves just how special a career Realmuto has had. He debuted with the Marlins in 2014 and blossomed into a star in 2017, combining excellent defense with a great bat and an exquisite baserunning prowess unbefitting a backstop. (He currently ranks 23rd all-time among catchers with 104 stolen bases. If we limit ourselves to 1901 and later, he moves up to 11th.) Such things were never meant for Miami. In February 2019, after he’d put up two four-win seasons and earned an All-Star nod and a Silver Slugger, the Marlins traded him to Philadelphia for a blockbuster package that netted them 2.0 total WAR and $250,000 in international bonus pool money. Realmuto got even better the next season.
From 2017 to 2022, Realmuto wasn’t just the best catcher in baseball; there was an ocean between him and the rest of the competition. He led all catchers with 28.2 WAR. Yasmani Grandal, in second place, had just 19.6. Of the 207 catchers who played during that stretch, Grandal and future Hall of Famer Buster Posey were the only ones whose WAR total Realmuto didn’t double. Over that stretch, he tops our leaderboards at the plate, on the basepaths, and on defense, and nobody else is even close. Realmuto has earned two Gold Gloves, two Silver Sluggers, three All-Star nods, and MVP votes in two seasons. He has a career 104 wRC+ in the playoffs. It’s great that the Phillies have held onto him. He’ll reach 200 career home runs in Philadelphia. He’s the team’s longest-tenured position player, ahead of Bryce Harper by roughly a month and trailing only Aaron Nola on the pitching side. He’s a grinder, the heart of a Phillies team that has been at the top of the league for years now. Still, you know the problem as well as I do.
It’s not 2022 anymore, and Realmuto has got so, so many miles on his knees. He has caught at least 125 games seven different times, and led the league in innings caught in three of the last four seasons. He ranks seventh in innings caught since 2002. Two of the guys ahead of him played through their age-39 seasons. One is a manager now.
Realmuto started looking human in 2023, and he missed a couple months due to a meniscectomy in 2024. Over the past three years, he’s run a perfectly average 100 wRC+. That’s still plenty good for a catcher, but it dropped to 94 in 2025, and advanced numbers like DRC+ have him even lower. Although he hit the ball just about as hard as ever, his bat speed took a very scary dive from the 70th percentile in 2024 to the 47th in 2025, and his barrel rate followed suit. Realmuto once feasted on four-seamers, but over the past three seasons, he’s put up negative run values against them. He started struggling with cutters in 2024 and sinkers in 2025, meaning he now struggles against any kind of fastball.
He has combined this weaker bat with poor framing numbers, and despite still possessing plenty of speed, he’s even started to take on water in the baserunning department. Put it together, and Realmuto has recorded almost exactly 2.0 WAR in each of the past three seasons. Despite all the doom and gloom I just laid on you, that’s not just a useful player, it’s an above-average catcher.
It makes Realmuto the best option behind the plate on the Phillies roster, ahead of Rafael Marchán and Garrett Stubbs. Likewise, it made Realmuto the top-ranked catcher on our Top 50 Free Agents list, where he came in at 30th overall. Wouldn’t you rather have him than Danny Jansen or Victor Caratini, who ranked 38th and 39th? In 2025, you definitely would, but projections pegged Realmuto for a two-year deal with an average annual value of $13 million. Instead, he’s making $15 million for an extra year, which will be, once again, the age-37 season of the guy who already ranks seventh in innings caught this century. Still, there was no better catcher on the trading block, and unless the Tyrell Corporation has started manufacturing them while I wasn’t paying attention, we’ve now exhausted all the ways by which a baseball team can get its hands on a baseball player.
Everything makes sense here. The Phillies are a win-now team that’s already above the highest luxury tax threshold. It’s hard to blame them for holding onto the best catcher available to them, especially when he’s a guy they love – a guy they and their fans are capable of appreciating far more deeply than anybody else is – for a year and a few million dollars more than would be ideal. Three years is not forever, and Realmuto now has an excellent chance at ending his career as a Phillie. It’ll be OK. Try to enjoy your weekend.
Bichette and the Dodgers had been in discussions over a short-term, high-AAV deal like the one Tucker ultimately signed, but Bichette, like most free agents, seemed to be interested in a contract with more term and overall value, but a lower annual salary. Back in August, I made a case for Bichette to cash in by pitching him as Trea Turner, but slow. And when America went to bed on Thursday, the smart money was on Bichette signing with the Phillies, who had already invested $300 million in Original Recipe Turner.
The Mets were reeling from Tucker’s rejection, amidst mortifying vagueposting from Steve Cohen. (Seriously, if you’re worth more than $500 million, you should not be allowed on social media.) But credit to Cohen and David Stearns, who suddenly found themselves with $220 million earmarked for Tucker, and no Tucker to spend that money on. They not only grabbed the next-best bat left on the market, in so doing they put a finger in the eye of their division rival. Read the rest of this entry »
Our annual preview of free agency doesn’t include projected destinations for free agents. I don’t know if that has always been a site-wide editorial decision, but it’s one I wholeheartedly agree with. Predicting how much money someone will get is hard enough. Predicting which team out of many similar teams will give that money to them is essentially guesswork; sure, matching names to teams has entertainment value, but it’s hard to actually be good at it. Except, if you made me predict where Willi Castro would have signed before this offseason started, I absolutely would have picked the Rockies, and voila: Castro agreed to a two-year, $12.8 million deal with Colorado on Thursday.
The Rockies haven’t been players in free agency for a number of years, though that appears to be changing. Earlier this month, they signedMichael Lorenzen to a $8 million contract, the largest deal they’ve given to a pitcher in the 2020s. Castro’s deal is the biggest guarantee they’ve handed out to a free agent since Charlie Blackmon, and that hardly counts, what with him being a long-time Rockie signing the last deal of his career and all. Really, Castro is the team’s biggest signing since Kris Bryant, which says a lot about how the past few years have gone in Colorado.
What compelled the team to wade into the free agent position player pool – the shallow end, to be sure – for the first time in years? Signing a good major league player, that’s what. Castro is a versatile defender who won’t embarrass you offensively. In 2025 alone, he logged 100 innings at four different positions, plus cameos at shortstop and in center field. He’s not a standout at any of those spots, but the sheer flexibility is inarguably useful. Roster Castro, and you have a nice backup plan nearly everywhere. He’s a switch-hitter, too, so he can shore up any of the positions where you’d really prefer a platoon, regardless of who his platoon partner might be. Read the rest of this entry »
The Dodgers have struck again. For the second winter out of the past three, they’ve snuck in and landed the top free agent on the market, just when he was expected to sign elsewhere. But unlike Shohei Ohtani, who in December 2023 nearly signed with the Blue Jays before agreeing to a 10-year, $700 million contract with the Dodgers, one in which all but $2 million per season was deferred, Kyle Tucker has gone for a short-term deal of four years and $240 million.
According to ESPN’s Jeff Passan, the deal includes a $64 million signing bonus; $30 million of the total salary is deferred, reducing the net present value to $57.1 million a year. That still means that Tucker, who will turn 29 on Saturday, has set a record for the highest average annual value of any contract, exceeding that of last year’s record-setter, Juan Soto, by about 12%, albeit on a much shorter deal:
The Red Sox have finally done it. On Wednesday afternoon, the Sox became the last team in baseball to agree to terms with a major league free agent and they did so with a bang, nabbing southpaw Ranger Suárez on a five-year deal worth $130 million. Jon Heyman of the New York Post first reported the signing, while Bob Nightengale of USA Today reported the terms. Alex Speier of the Boston Globe reported that the deal contained no deferred money, meaning that the average annual value is a straight $26 million. Setting aside Alex Bregman’s opt-out laden pillow contract and several two-year deals given to pitchers who missed the first while recovering from injuries, this represents the first true multi-year commitment the team has made to a free agent during the tenure of chief baseball officer Craig Breslow. The Red Sox are finally going for it using every means available, and with one of the game’s most consistently good (if not consistently available) starting pitchers on their roster, they are looking more and more like a championship contender.
The Red Sox went into the offseason with one of the game’s greatest starters in Garrett Crochet, but there was a big gap between him and the rest of the rotation, which featured a number of solid pitchers who hadn’t managed to step up and grab the no. 2 spot in Brayan Bello, Tanner Houck, and Kutter Crawford. Boston upgraded through trades for Sonny Gray and Johan Oviedo, and according to our depth charts, they projected to have the best rotation in the game even before signing Suárez (the Phillies, even without Suárez, rank fourth).
Still, this is a different caliber of move, the effects of which seem likely to cascade down the roster. It represents a major commitment in both years and dollars, and according to RosterResource, it pushes Boston just over the second luxury tax threshold. All of a sudden, Bello and Co. are likely jockeying for the fourth or fifth spot in the rotation rather than the second. The Red Sox also boast Patrick Sandoval, who missed the 2025 season recovering from internal brace surgery, and Kyle Harrison, who came over in the Rafael Devers trade and projects for an above-average line in 2026. We’ve now named nine different viable big league starters, before you even get to coveted prospects like Payton Tolle and Connelly Early, who debuted in 2025. That’s a lot of depth to deal from, freeing Boston up to trade a starter and maybe some of its outfield surplus to reinforce a particularly weak infield. Read the rest of this entry »
