Minor League Deal Roundup: Hoskins, Conforto, and Estrada

Spring training is underway and rosters are getting filled up. We’re now down to the part of the offseason where veterans whose recent performances have left them unable to find a guaranteed spot sign minor league deals with non-roster invites. Today we’ll break down the signings of Rhys Hoskins with the Guardians, Michael Conforto with the Cubs, and Thairo Estrada with the Orioles. All three have seen their production drop off over the past two years, but all three have a viable path toward sticking on the roster or even landing a starting spot.

We’ll start in Cleveland, where Hoskins will receive $1.5 million if he makes the roster. This move makes plenty of sense, but it’s important to note that the Guardians aren’t as desperate for a player like him as they would have been in years past. From 2021 to 2023, the only team with fewer than their 454 home runs was the Pirates (441). Cleveland’s 82 wRC+ against left-handed pitching was also the second-worst mark in baseball over that period. Back then, adding a big right-handed slugger who strikes out and hits homers would have been just what the doctor ordered. However, the Guardians are in a different spot right now. Over the past two years, they’ve ranked right around the middle of the league in home runs overall and in wRC+ against left-handed pitching. This is still a good fit, but Hoskins is no longer the slam dunk he would have been a couple years ago.

Hoskins was a reliably great hitter with the Phillies, running a 126 wRC+ and averaging 25 home runs a year during his first six seasons. He missed the entire 2023 season with a torn ACL, and he wasn’t the same hitter during his two-year stint with the Brewers. In Milwaukee, he had a 104 wRC+ and added 4.5 percentage points to his strikeout rate. However, Hoskins’ 2025 campaign was shortened by a thumb sprain, and it certainly seems like he might’ve come back a bit too early. He returned for eight games at the end of the season and went 1-for-10. If you ignore those games, his wRC+ was 114. Hoskins is about to turn 32, he’s coming off another injury-shortened season, the strikeouts are scary, and he doesn’t look like the lefty-masher he once was. Our projections are in very strong agreement that he’ll put up a wRC+ from 102 to 104. I can’t recall such a small range of expected outcomes, so maybe they’re seeing something we can’t. However, even in that scenario, Hoskins is still an above-average hitter with power, and for what it’s worth, he just ran the highest hard-hit rate of his entire career.

The Guardians have Kyle Manzardo at first base, and they’ll have some combination of David Fry and CJ Kayfus at DH. Hoskins represents an upgrade over Fry, who put up a 63 wRC+ in 2025. Kayfus is an exciting young player who performed well in his 44-game debut in 2025, and most of our projections see him as an above-average hitter right now. However, he put up a wRC+ of 67 against lefties, and Eric Longenhagen has him tagged him as a platoon player.

The Guardians don’t necessarily have room for all of these guys. Their RosterResource page shows platoons at several other positions, and there are only so many bench spots to go around. At one point, Fry was a productive hitter who ran a 124 wRC+ over his first two seasons and provided Cleveland with immense roster flexibility, as he could play catcher and all four corner positions. However, he hasn’t played the field since he hurt his throwing elbow in the summer of 2024, an injury that ultimately required him to undergo his second Tommy John surgery that offseason. He is getting reps at catcher this spring, but it’s unclear how well he’ll be able to throw. Besides, the Guardians brought back Austin Hedges to back up Bo Naylor at catcher, so it seems unlikely that Fry will see much playing time behind the plate. If he is capable of throwing, he would probably warrant a roster spot even if he isn’t a league-average hitter. But if he can’t throw well enough to play the field except for in a pinch, and if he isn’t contributing at DH, he doesn’t really have a place anymore. Manzardo is going to play every day, and Kayfus is young enough that the Guardians may at least want to give him a chance to hit lefties before deciding he’s a platoon player forever. Still, if Kayfus struggles, Hoskins could find his way into an everyday role. Either way, $1.5 million for a short-side platoon and veteran insurance policy is good deal for any team, even one with Cleveland’s limited financial resources.

We now move to Michael Conforto, who had a perplexing 2025 season. Conforto put up an 83 wRC+ with the Dodgers, and because his defense graded out terribly, he ended the season with -0.6 WAR. He ran the lowest batting average and ISO of his career, and he struck out just under a quarter of the time. However, his 95 DRC+ wasn’t quite so bad, and his .330 xwOBA was downright good. Then again, Confroto has unperformed his xwOBA in each of the past four seasons. Maybe we should expect him to do so going forward. Was the left-handed Conforto at least good against right-handed pitching? No! He was not! Somehow he ran a 120 wRC+ against lefties and a 76 wRC+ against righties. What is even happening here?

Conforto will turn 33 in a couple weeks, so it’s not like he’s ancient, but there’s no guarantee that he’ll bounce back to the above-average hitter he once was with the Mets. The safest bet is that Conforto will be something approaching an average bat in 2026 (though that may be hard to believe if you watched a lot of Dodgers games last year). While that’s enough to earn him a chance, it doesn’t make him a particularly useful piece, considering that he’s a below-average corner outfielder and a below-average runner.

Chicago’s roster certainly gives Conforto a lane to get playing time. The Cubs have Seiya Suzuki and Ian Happ in the corners, and RosterResource projects no. 84 overall prospect Moisés Ballesteros to platoon at DH with Tyler Austin. It seems highly unlikely that Conforto would displace the up-and-coming Ballesteros as the left-handed side of that platoon. However, the fourth outfielder spot sure looks like it’s up for grabs. The top contenders are Conforto, Dylan Carlson, and Chas McCormick. Carlson’s offense has been worse than Conforto’s in recent years. So has McCormick’s, but McCormick has the advantage of providing excellent defense, which you kind of want from your fourth outfielder. If Conforto can impress the Cubs, especially with his glove, he may well have a chance.

The news of Estrada’s signing with the Orioles broke on Monday morning, filling a pretty immediate need. Second baseman Jackson Holliday is recovering from hamate bone surgery, and third baseman Jordan Westburg was just diagnosed with a partially torn UCL that may or may not require surgery. He’ll be out until the end of April at the earliest. Jorge Mateo and Ramón Urías are gone. Gunnar Henderson is going to be out there turning double plays all by himself! Blaze Alexander, whom the Orioles acquired from the Diamondbacks via trade a couple weeks ago, looks like he’ll be the team’s starting second baseman to open the season. If nothing else, Estrada can at least make sure there are enough bodies in the infield throughout spring training.

Estrada just turned 30, and after averaging a 105 wRC+ and 2.5 WAR for the Giants from 2021 to 2023, the bottom fell out of his offense. Over the past two years, Estrada put up a combined wRC+ of 65 in San Francisco then Colorado. At the same time, DRS and DRP have started grading his defense poorly in recent years (though FRV still likes it some).

Estrada’s stat line is a monument to the power of a high contact rate on pitches in the zone. He chases too much to run a high contact rate overall, but making so much contact in the zone allows him to avoid both walks and strikeouts. And yet, he’s not necessarily what you think of when you think contact hitter. He’s got a small amount of pop, which has allowed him to reach 14 home runs in a season twice, but he doesn’t run great squared-up rates. Personally, I’m not too bullish on Estrada, but he’s the youngest of these three players, and when you put the ball in play as much as he does, you’ve always got a chance to put together a great stretch of BABIP-aided hitting. If you’re inclined to believe that anybody could fix Estrada at this point in his career, you might as well pick the Orioles, who have an app that gives players daily feedback on their swing decisions.

Moreover, it’s not inconceivable that Estrada could end up on this roster for a while. Say Westburg ends up needing surgery on his elbow, and say Alexander disappoints in his stint as the team’s starting second baseman. Let’s assume that Holliday will come back and lock down the starting second base job and Coby Mayo ends up starting at third base. If they play well enough, that would leave Jeremiah Jackson in the backup infield role and block Estrada’s path. However, if any of those three should falter, or if – and it pains me to even suggest this – Henderson should come down with his own injury, then Estrada certainly looks like the next man up.