It looks like Nathan Eovaldi made the right decision. So far this offseason, the pitching market has been much hotter than projected, and as the Winter Meetings kicked into high gear in Dallas on Tuesday, that trend continued. The 34-year-old right-hander will not regret for a moment declining his $20 million player option with the Rangers. After signing a two-year, $34 million contract (plus that option) before the 2023 season, Eovaldi will remain in Texas on a brand new three-year, $75 million deal. That $25 million average annual value far outstrips the projections of $16 million by Ben Clemens, $20 million from our readers, and $22 million from MLB Trade Rumors. As Nick Deeds noted for MLBTR, Eovaldi is only the third pitcher in the past 15 years to sign a deal for more than two years that starts in his age-35 season or later.

Speaking of pitchers who are old enough to remember the band the Wallflowers, the Texas rotation features an awful lot of them. Eovaldi rejoins Jon Gray, Tyler Mahle, and Cody Bradford, along with whatever presumably small, magnificent portion of a season Jacob deGrom can provide. If you’re keeping track at home, the average age of those pitchers is 32.28 years. Bradford is the baby, as he’ll be a tender 27 when the season starts. Dane Dunning, who took a step back last season (and turns 30 the week after next), will also be available. The rotation could also get an infusion of youth from Kumar Rocker, who absolutely annihilated the minors and pitched well in three big league starts during the 2024 season, and Jack Leiter, who struggled mightily in nine big league appearances.

That might just be enough starting pitching depth to make it through the season, but – with the exception of free agents Andrew Heaney and Max Scherzer – the Rangers are running back a rotation that finished the season ranked 22nd in WAR and 21st in ERA, FIP, and xFIP. Even in their championship 2023 season, the Rangers ranked just 18th in all four of those metrics. And it’s not as if they’re obviously due for a huge bounce-back year. If that group is going to meaningfully improve, it’ll mean deGrom staying healthy and either Rocker or Leiter making that last big jump, and neither of those propositions is what you’d consider a sure thing. Eovaldi is a proven big-game pitcher with a 3.05 career ERA and a 9-3 record in the postseason. (Of course, if the Rangers hope to avail themselves of that skill set, they’ll need to go out and find approximately one entire bullpen’s worth of relievers, but that’s a conversation for a different day). Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2025 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Before Joe Mauer began starring for the Twins, there was Torii Hunter, and before Chase Utley began starring for the Phillies, there was Jimmy Rollins. Hunter, a rangy, acrobatic center fielder who eventually won nine Gold Gloves and made five All-Star teams, debuted with Minnesota in 1997 and emerged as a star in 2001, the same year the Twins chose Mauer with the number one pick of the draft. The pair would play together from 2004 to ’07, making the playoffs twice before Hunter departed in free agency. Rollins, a compact shortstop who carried himself with a swagger, debuted in 2001 and made two All-Star teams by the time he and Utley began an 11-year run (2004–14) as the Phillies’ regular double play combination. The pair helped Philadelphia to five NL East titles, two pennants, and a championship, with Rollins winning NL MVP honors in 2007 and taking home four Gold Gloves.

Hunter and Rollins both enjoyed lengthy and impressive careers, racking up over 2,400 hits apiece with substantial home run and stolen base totals. From a Hall of Fame perspective, both have credentials that appeal more to traditionally minded voters than to statheads, but in their time on the ballot, they’ve gotten little traction. Hunter debuted with 9.5% in 2021 but has yet to match that since, finishing with 7.3% on the ’24 ballot. Rollins debuted with 9.4% in 2022 and has gained a little ground in each cycle since, with 14.8% in ’24. Both have been outdistanced by their former teammates, whose advanced statistics are much stronger despite comparatively short careers; Mauer was elected this past January, while Utley debuted with 28.8%, nearly double Rollins’ share. Still, it appears that this pair will persist on the ballot for awhile, with enough support for us to keep reliving their careers and discussing their merits on an annual basis. There are far worse fates for Hall of Fame candidates. Read the rest of this entry »

DALLAS — The dawn of a new baseball season brings relief from the monotony of winter, hope for a successful campaign, and a multitude of questions in the vein of “Wait, where did Player X sign? How long has Player Y been on the Rays?”

In a (possibly vain) effort to head off those questions, here are some developments from the Winter Meetings: Alex Cobb has signed a one-year contract with the Detroit Tigers for $15 million, with an additional $2 million available through incentives. The details of the contract took a while to come out as Cobb took a physical; that’s a pro forma step in your garden variety free agent signing, but likely an adventure for Cobb. More straightforward: The Toronto Blue Jays have agreed to a two-year, $15 million pact with right-handed reliever Yimi García.

Both Cobb and García changed teams at the most recent trade deadline; in fact, García was traded by Toronto less than five months ago. Read the rest of this entry »

Two days after coming up short in their bid to retain Juan Soto, the Yankees made their first major move of the offseason, landing left-hander Max Fried via an eight-year, $218 million contract. The deal is pending a physical, a nontrivial matter for a pitcher who has made 30 starts just once in the past four seasons while landing on the injured list seven times, though only one of those absences was for longer than three weeks.

Though he was chosen by the Padres in the first round of the 2012 draft out of Harvard-Westlake High Schol in Los Angeles, Fried — who will turn 31 on January 18 — has spent his entire eight-year big league career with the Braves, helping them to seven playoff berths, including a 2021 World Series victory; in fact, he helped seal the deal by throwing six shutout innings in the Game 6 clincher against the Astros. After making just 14 starts in 2023 due to a forearm strain that cost him three months and then a blister that limited him to 10 innings (four in the postseason) after September 12, he returned to take the ball 29 times in ’24, throwing 174.1 innings with a 3.25 ERA, a 3.33 FIP, and a 3.64 xERA. While those were his highest marks in each category since 2019, his ERA still ranked fifth among National League qualifiers and his FIP seventh.

Those numbers were not only quite respectable at face value, they were more impressive once you account for his early-season struggles. In his first turn on March 30, Fried retired just two of the seven Phillies he faced while throwing 43 pitches, walking three and allowing three runs before getting pulled. In his second start, against the Diamondbacks on April 6, he yielded six first-inning runs including a leadoff homer by Ketel Marte (who added an RBI double in the same inning) but hung around until the fifth, when he got into a jam and was charged with two more runs. But from that point to the end of the regular season, he posted a 2.82 ERA and 3.26 FIP, and at times he was downright unhittable. Read the rest of this entry »

After missing out on Blake Snell and losing a Juan Soto bidding war to their crosstown rivals, the Yankees landed a big free agent on Tuesday, signing left-handed pitcher Max Fried to an eight-year contract worth $218 million. Fried, a first-round pick in 2012 for the Padres, had spent his entire MLB career with the Atlanta Braves after being one of the big-name prospects included in the 2014 Justin Upton trade. Fried’s contract contains no opt-outs or elevator clauses or any fancy deferral schemes to bring down the total money. The Yankees are opening their wallets to pay one of the best pitchers available a whole lot of cash. Fried’s contract is the largest for a left-handed pitcher in baseball history.

After Fried was limited to just 14 starts in 2023 due to hamstring and forearm injuries, as well as a blister on his index finger, the lefty returned to the mound last season and pitched well enough and stayed healthy enough to max out his deal in free agency. Enough is the key here because, for the second straight season, Fried missed time with a forearm injury. The more recent one, which was diagnosed as ulnar neuritis, cost him a handful of starts in July, but he returned to the rotation the first week of August. He finished the regular season strong, posting a 2.99 FIP across his final 11 starts, though he faltered against the Padres in his lone playoff appearance. All told, Fried had a solid platform season, with a 3.25 ERA and 3.33 FIP in 174 1/3 innings over 29 starts, good for 3.4 WAR and peripherals right in line with his career numbers.

If I didn’t include the eight-year projections, some of you might picket my house and eat the local chili in vengeance, so here we go.

I’m actually a bit surprised at the bearishness of the projections; ZiPS is thinking he’s worth $120 million, which is shockingly low to me. Most likely it’s from a few things. ZiPS is likely seeing something similar to what’s reflected in his xERA, which was 3.64 last season, and his contact-against numbers have declined a bit. Also complicating matters are Fried’s four IL stints over the past two years — which are keeping his projected inning totals fairly conservative. Beyond that, ZiPS has a lot more excitement for Snell’s upside than it does for Fried’s steadiness. I tend to be more optimistic than ZiPS here.

Even if Fried falls short of being the 1B to Gerrit Cole’s 1A in the rotation, some kind of signing here was necessary for the Yankees after they lost out on Snell and failed to retain Soto. Sure, the rotation wasn’t the team’s biggest problem entering the offseason, but it wasn’t exactly a highlight, either. Even with an improved Carlos Rodón during his second season in pinstripes, as well as a Rookie of the Year campaign from Luis Gil, the Yankees’ rotation was right around league average in terms of WAR. Some of that middling production was due to Cole’s missing the first two and a half months of the season with elbow inflammation, which limited him to 95 innings. However, Cole is now 34, Rodón has a significant injury history, and Gil could be due for some regression. Nestor Cortes and Clarke Schmidt also missed time last season, and Marcus Stroman was inconsistent enough that he was booted from the rotation down the stretch and didn’t pitch in the postseason. Considering all of this, the Yankees were wise to add another dependable arm here, even if Fried’s forearm ailments are a bit concerning.

Maybe it’s just me, but it never felt like the Braves were really all-in on Fried this winter. With the conversion of Reynaldo López back to a full-time starter going successfully and Spencer Schwellenbach’s terrific debut (and very good projections), I’m guessing the team was happy to count on Spencer Strider’s return and a healthy Chris Sale to anchor the rotation.

The Yankees still have a lot to do to fill the Soto-sized hole in their lineup, but they needed to do more than just make up for his lost production. In signing Fried, they’ve fortified their rotation.

According to the Billboard Hot 100 charts, the biggest hit of Justin Bieber’s career is “Stay,” a song you either can’t get out of your head, won’t admit you can’t get out of your head, or just don’t realize you can’t get out of your head because you hear it playing everywhere — all the time — but didn’t know the title or artist. Anyway, it seems as if the not-so-subliminal messaging of one Bieber influenced the other. Shane Bieber has decided to stay (oh, ooh-woah) with the Guardians, and he’s hoping the decision proves to be just as lucrative as Justin’s song.

Bieber’s contract is essentially a one-year prove-it deal with the added security of a player option for a second year. The right-hander will earn $10 million for his age-30 season in 2025. After that, he can either exercise a $16 million option for 2026 or take a $4 million buyout and return to free agency. In other words, the player option is really only worth $12 million to Bieber, which means he surely doesn’t intend to exercise it unless things go particularly wrong. After all, he managed to net this contract halfway through his rehab from Tommy John surgery. The Guardians are prepared to pay him $14 million for half a season of work, and reportedly, that wasn’t even his highest offer. It’s safe to say he’s not picking up that option unless he suffers another injury.

So, if Bieber’s plan is to continue his rehab, rebuild his value, and cash in next offseason, it’s easy to understand why he might have taken less money to stay in Cleveland. Not only does he already have a relationship and a rehab plan with the Guardians, but this is an organization with a strong track record for helping pitchers thrive. Just look at Matthew Boyd, who came back from Tommy John this summer and turned a handful of starts with the Guardians into a two-year, $29 million deal with the Cubs. Alternatively, look at Bieber himself. The organization took a fourth-round draft pick (122nd overall) and 45-FV prospect and developed him into a Cy Young winner. It’s hardly surprising that he wants to stick with the same organization as he works his way back from a career-altering injury. The chances that he’ll ultimately receive a big, long-term deal from the Guardians are slim to none, but he’s counting on them to help him get that offer from someone else. Read the rest of this entry »

For the 21st consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the next team up is the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Batters

They’re the Dodgers, so as usual, they have big stars, good depth, and a truckload of versatility at most positions. Is that ’nuff said?

A 7-WAR projection for a DH is, of course, bananas, and ZiPS actually has a 40/40 season as the average Shohei Ohtani projection, not an aspirational goal. Naturally, he’s got a great shot at going 50/50 again, though I have to wonder if, now that he’s reached that milestone and will be back to pitching, the Dodgers will insist on him being more conservative with his baserunning. Read the rest of this entry »

DALLAS — There’s only so much oxygen available for big-payroll Northeastern teams that are in crisis despite a largely successful 2024 campaign. And the Yankees, as ever, have been sucking up most of the attention. But don’t underestimate the furor that’s been floating around Philadelphia since the Fightins’ ignominious four-game NLDS exit. Dave Dombrowski has been rumored to have his finger in many pots in the first month of the offseason — an Alec Bohm change-of-scenery trade here, a Garrett Crochet blockbuster there — but as of the opening of MLB’s Winter Meetings, nothing had yet materialized.

Well, wait no longer. Longtime Blue Jays closer Jordan Romano is on the Rob Ducey Highway, bound for South Philly on a one-year, $8.5 million contract. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2025 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

David Wright is the greatest position player in Mets history, a face-of-the-franchise player who holds the team leads in plate appearances, hits, runs, RBI, total bases, walks, and WAR. A first-round pick out of high school in 2001, the Virginia native spent his entire career with the team, making seven All-Star teams, winning two Gold Gloves, and helping the club to a pair of playoff appearances, including their 2015 pennant.

Though he was surrounded by dysfunction in Queens under the late stages of the Wilpon family’s ownership — the financial tight-fistedness in the wake of the owners’ involvement in the Madoff scandal, the endless micromanagement of injuries, the tone-deaf approach when it came to public relations — Wright stood apart from all of that. Charismatic, exceptionally talented on both sides of the ball, with an off-the-charts work ethic, he was Queens’ answer to Derek Jeter, an icon who avoided scandal, almost invariably said the right thing, and never did anything to embarrass himself or the franchise. Small wonder that he was named team captain in the spring of 2013, and even acquired the nickname “Captain America” while playing for Team USA in that year’s World Baseball Classic. Read the rest of this entry »

While the New York Mets were busy spending three-quarters of a billion bucks, the defending champion Dodgers were making a couple of lower-key moves, re-signing reliever Blake Treinen and signing outfielder Michael Conforto. Treinen, a Dodger since 2019, will make $22 million over the next two seasons. Conforto arrives in Los Angeles on a one-year, $17 million contract after two seasons with the organization’s biggest rival, the San Francisco Giants.

Treinen is a known commodity for the Dodgers, so this is basically a status quo signing. He had a solid first season with the organization in 2020 — 3.86 ERA, 3.15 FIP, 25 2/3 innings — and won a World Series, and then he was even better in 2021, posting a 1.99 ERA and 2.88 FIP across 72 1/3 innings. However, in 2022, Treinen’s shoulder started becoming a problem. After the season, he had surgery to repair his labrum and rotator cuff, forcing him to miss all of 2023. This March, his spring training was interrupted when he was hit by a line drive that bruised his lung, but that didn’t prevent him from having a successful campaign. His velocity was down a bit, though the dip had little effect on his results: 1.93 ERA, 3.00 FIP, 46 2/3 innings. And while his sinker wasn’t the weapon it was before the shoulder surgery, his sweeper was scarier than ever.

Bringing back Treinen doesn’t really change the outlook of the Dodgers bullpen, simply because it already looked pretty nasty, especially if you agree with ZiPS. (Steamer isn’t quite as bullish on their relief corps.) Treinen does have some associated downside risk to keep in mind beyond the normal pitcher injury stuff. He didn’t reach his final form until he was around 30, so he’s probably a bit older than most people think; he turns 37 at the end of June. While I always tell people that “hitters age, pitchers break,” Treinen is approaching ages where actual decline beyond normal injury/attrition is a thing that happens. The Dodgers have more than enough depth to deal with this, should it come to pass.

Adding Conforto isn’t quite as sexy a move as it would have been four years ago. With the Mets, Conforto had established himself as an All-Star talent, with a 133 wRC+ and 13.5 WAR in just under 2,000 plate appearances from 2017 through 2020. But a hamstring injury and a case of COVID marred his 2021 season, and a shoulder injury from a workout during the offseason lockout resulted in surgery that cost him the entire 2022 campaign. Signed with the Giants to a make-good contract before 2023, Conforto’s first season back from injury was rather underwhelming, with a bland .232/.344/.384 triple-slash line, a 99 wRC+, and 0.8 WAR, but he bounced back in 2024, though not quite to his previous levels. Across 488 plate appearances, he hit .237/.309/.450 with 20 home runs, a 112 wRC+, and 1.3 WAR.

Naturally, the Dodgers will not be counting on Conforto to be one of the grand movers of the offense. At this stage in his career, he’s basically taking over the role of late-period Jason Heyward, in that he’s a lefty-hitting corner outfielder who’ll complement the team’s righty-hitting role players, such as Andy Pages and Chris Taylor. ZiPS projects a .766 OPS from Conforto against right-handed pitchers in 2025 for the Dodgers.

Having Conforto on the roster clarifies a couple other unanswered questions when looking at the Dodgers. Dalton Rushing saw a good bit of time in the outfield for Triple-A Oklahoma City this past year, but I suspect that until the Dodgers are ready to use him in a full-time role, they’d rather see him get at-bats in the minors than fight for scraps in the majors. It also likely ensures that Mookie Betts will primarily be an infielder in 2025, unless injuries strike. Conforto’s signing probably doesn’t have much of an effect on whether Los Angeles brings back free agent Teoscar Hernández returns, though Pages may end up without a roster spot should Hernández return.

Do Treinen and Conforto make the Dodgers a significantly better team? Of course not. But they are a deeper, more resilient group with the two of them around.