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Rays To Sign Nick Martinez

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The Rays are reportedly in agreement with Nick Martinez on a one-year, $13MM contract. The signing, which is pending a physical, includes a mutual option for the 2027 season. Those are essentially never exercised, so that provision exists solely to delay the payment of a portion of the guarantee to the end of the season in the form of an option buyout. Tampa Bay will need to open a 40-man roster spot once the signing is finalized. Martinez is a client of the Boras Corporation.

Martinez is the second free agent swingman whom the Rays have added this offseason. They signed lefty Steven Matz to a two-year, $15MM deal at the Winter Meetings. Matz was already expected to win a job at the back of the rotation. Tampa Bay subsequently traded Shane Baz to the Orioles, leaving another rotation spot available.

The 35-year-old Martinez enters camp as the favorite to work as Kevin Cash’s fifth starter. He lands behind Drew Rasmussen, Ryan Pepiot, Shane McClanahan and Matz on the depth chart. That could push Ian Seymour and Joe Boyle back to Triple-A Durham while keeping the out-of-options Yoendrys Gómez in a long relief role for which he’s better suited. They’ll need way more than five starters to navigate the season given the injury histories for Rasmussen and McClanahan — the latter of whom hasn’t thrown an MLB pitch since August 2023 and will be on some kind of innings count.

Matz and Martinez each have ample experience working out of the bullpen. Either could transition to relief if Seymour or top prospect Brody Hopkins force their way into the rotation. The versatility has been a huge selling point for Martinez, in particular. He can start, work multiple innings out of the bullpen, or pitch short relief in high-leverage situations as needed.

Martinez has found a strong second act in his 30s after spending four seasons in Japan. This will be his fifth season since he returned to MLB on a deal with the Padres over the 2021-22 offseason. He posted a sub-4.00 earned run average in each of the first three years, working mostly out of the bullpen. Martinez spent the first two seasons in San Diego before signing a two-year free agent contract with Cincinnati. He had the best year of his career in 2024, firing 142 1/3 innings of 3.10 ERA ball while starting 16 of 42 appearances.

The righty triggered an opt-out but returned to Cincinnati after the Reds surprisingly extended a $21.05MM qualifying offer. That’s probably a move the Reds wished they had back. Martinez did pick up a career-high 165 2/3 innings while starting 26 of 40 games, but his production was that of a back-end starter. He allowed 4.45 earned runs per nine while striking out just 17% of opposing hitters, his lowest strikeout rate since he returned from Japan.

Although Martinez has never had huge swing-and-miss stuff, his strikeout rates between 2022-24 hovered around league average. He had a more difficult time getting hitters to chase pitches off the plate last year. His stuff wasn’t that much different than it had been, however, and Martinez’s biggest strength has been his ability to command a legitimate six-pitch mix. He uses each of his cutter, four-seam, sinker, changeup, curveball and slider at least 10% of the time. He’s able to attack the strike zone with any of those offerings, but the changeup is the only plus pitch in his arsenal.

The diverse repertoire has allowed Martinez to avoid any kind of platoon splits. He hasn’t been great at turning lineups over a third time but should be a capable five-inning starter. Martinez gets a decent number of weak fly-balls, an approach that might play more favorably at Tropicana Field than at Cincinnati’s Great American Ball Park. He did a solid job avoiding the longball overall, but his two worst months last season (June and August) were driven largely by home run spikes.

RosterResource estimated the Rays payroll around $79MM before the signing. It’s not yet clear how much will be paid in salary versus the option buyout, but the $13MM guarantee will very likely make Martinez their highest-paid player in 2026. It’ll push their payroll estimate into the low-$90MM range after they opened the ’25 season just north of $79MM.

Jon Heyman and Joel Sherman of The New York Post first reported Martinez and the Rays had an agreement. Marc Topkin of The Tampa Times reported that it was for one year with a mutual option. Mark Feinsand of MLB.com had the $13MM guarantee. Image courtesy of Charles LeClaire, Imagn Images.

Red Sox Acquire Caleb Durbin In Six-Player Trade

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10:02am: The two teams have announced the trade. All six players in question were on their clubs’ 40-man roster, so no corresponding moves were necessary.

8:25am: The Red Sox are acquiring infielder Caleb Durbin from the Brewers, reports Jeff Passan of ESPN. Milwaukee receives a three-player package including lefties Kyle Harrison and Shane Drohan as well as infielder David Hamilton, Passan adds. Boston is also picking up infielder Andruw Monasterio, catcher/infielder Anthony Seigler and a Competitive Balance Round B pick, per Will Sammon of The Athletic.

Durbin is a notable pickup for the Boston infield and should be penciled in for everyday at-bats — presumably at third base, though he can also handle second base if the Red Sox prefer Marcelo Mayer at the hot corner from a defensive standpoint. The 25-year-old Durbin (26 in a couple weeks) finished third in National League Rookie of the Year voting in 2025 after he batted .256/.334/.387 with 11 home runs, 25 doubles, 18 steals (24 attempts), a 5.9% walk rate and a tiny 9.9% strikeout rate. He turned in above-average marks for his glovework at third in the estimation of both Defensive Runs Saved (5) and Outs Above Average (2).

He’s not the big middle-of-the-order presence many Sox fans have coveted, but Durbin is an affordable, controllable and versatile defender who’ll further the Red Sox’ pivot toward run prevention and help to lower a team strikeout rate that was 10th-highest in the sport last year at 22.9%. He’s a right-handed hitter whose pull percentage (43.3%) is a bit higher than league average (40.6%), which should play well with the Green Monster at Fenway Park. Durbin comes to the Red Sox with five full seasons of club control and two minor league option years remaining (not that there’ll be any thought of optioning him to the minors anytime soon after last year’s strong performance).

If Durbin is ticketed for the hot corner, that’ll leave second base to a combination of the left-handed-hitting Mayer and righty-swinging Romy Gonzalez. Recently signed utilityman Isiah Kiner-Falefa can back up both those positions as well as shortstop.

The 28-year-old Monasterio could also factor in at either second or third base, although like Gonzalez and Kiner-Falefa, he’s a right-handed hitter. As is the case with Gonzalez, Monasterio also carries notable platoon splits. He’s a career .255/.352/.375 batter against lefties but a .246/.303/.338 hitter against fellow righties. He’s coming off a career-best showing in the majors — albeit in a limited sample of 135 plate appearances — having slashed .270/.319/.437 (111 wRC+) with four homers. He’s controllable for another four seasons and won’t be arbitration-eligible until at least next offseason (possibly later, depending on how much time he spends in the minors this year).

Monasterio also has nearly 3500 professional innings at shortstop under his belt, so he gives Boston another backup option to oft-injured Trevor Story at shortstop (alongside Kiner-Falefa). He also has a full slate of three minor league option years remaining, so there’s no guarantee he’ll open the season on Boston’s major league roster. He’ll have the opportunity to win a role in camp, but barring injury and/or trade, Boston’s bench seems likely to include Gonzalez, Kiner-Falefa, catcher Connor Wong and outfielder/designated hitter Masataka Yoshida.

All of that assumes that Mayer makes the Opening Day roster, but it’s possible that the former No. 4 overall pick could open the season in Triple-A Worcester, too. Mayer’s .228/.272/.402 slash was well below league-average in 2025, but he only turned 23 in December and has an impressive minor league track record. That includes a .271/.347/.471 showing in Triple-A last year. He’ll have every opportunity to win a starting job in camp with the Red Sox, but late additions of Durbin and Kiner-Falefa lessen the team’s reliance on the still largely untested top prospect.

Boston also picks up the 26-year-old Seigler, who’ll provide some depth in the upper minors and could be a frequently used bench piece over the course of the coming season. He’s batted just .194/.292/.210 in an insignificant sample of 73 major league plate appearances, but Seigler hit .285/.414/.478 with eight homers, 16 doubles, four triples, 23 steals (27 attempts), a 16.9% walk rate and a 19.2% strikeout rate in 307 Triple-A plate appearances this past season. He’s been used as an infielder (second base, specifically) far more frequently than a catcher in recent seasons due to troubles controlling the run game and a susceptibility to passed balls.

Even if he’s rarely deployed behind the plate, Seigler is at the very least an interesting third catcher option who also is comfortable at second base and third base. He has two minor league option years remaining and doesn’t even have a full season of major league service, making him controllable for at least the next six full seasons.

The Red Sox also add a Competitive Balance draft choice — the only picks permissible to be traded under MLB rules. Milwaukee’s Round B selection is the first in that round, currently 67th overall (although that could change by a spot or two depending on what happens with Zac Gallen, the final remaining free agent who rejected a qualifying offer and is thus subject to draft pick compensation). They’ll not only get to add an extra player but will also add that selection’s slot value to their draft bonus pool. Last year’s No. 67 selection came with a $1.285MM value. This year’s should be up from that a bit. The Red Sox don’t need to spend that amount on this pick specifically; the slot value will be added to their bonus pool, which they can freely divide up among their picks how they see fit.

Turning to Milwaukee’s side of the swap, it feels like a precursor to another acquisition. The Brewers not only traded their incumbent starter at third base — they traded two of the top depth options behind him in the same swap. Perhaps there’s some infield shuffling on the horizon, but it feels like the Brewers will need to add some help on the dirt. Hamilton could see reps at the hot corner this spring but has spent far more time at second base in the Red Sox organization. Shortstop Joey Ortiz and second baseman Brice Turang are plus defenders who could both slide one position over to the left, but doing so might weaken the overall defensive aptitude of the group.

Bringing in some help at third base seems prudent, but options there are few and far between. Time will tell if president of baseball operations Matt Arnold has another move up his sleeve, but for right now, the Brewers look thin at third base.

Their pitching depth, however, continues to grow — even after trading ace Freddy Peralta to the Mets last month. Today’s trade brings in a pair of big league-ready arms. Harrison, 24, already has 42 big league games (37 starts) under his belt. He’s pitched to a 4.39 ERA with a 22.9% strikeout rate and 8% walk rate in that time.

At the moment, Harrison profiles as a fifth starter option for the Brewers, but he carries more upside than most back-of-the-rotation candidates. The 2020 third-round pick ranked as one of the top minor league talents in all of baseball for several years, peaking as the No. 26 prospect in the entire sport on Baseball America’s top-100 prior to the 2023 season. He’s yet to put it all together in the majors, but Harrison has fanned better than 30% of his opponents in parts of two Triple-A seasons.

The Brewers have developed a reputation as one of the sport’s top “pitch labs.” They worked wonders with righty Quinn Priester in 2025 and have helped to facilitate turnarounds or breakouts from relievers like Trevor Megill, Joel Payamps, Bryse Wilson, Colin Rea, Nick Mears, Jared Koenig and others. There are plenty of parallels between Priester’s trajectory and that of Harrison; both were former top prospects traded to Boston and quickly buried on the Red Sox depth chart. The Brewers will hope to convert on that same profile for a second consecutive season now.

Drohan just turned 27 last month, making him old for a “prospect,” but he nonetheless sat 15th on Baseball America’s recent update of Boston’s system. His path to big leagues has been slowed both by injury and a selection in the Rule 5 Draft. The White Sox took Drohan back in 2023 after Boston left him unprotected. He required a nerve decompression surgery in his shoulder that spring, however, which limited him to 16 1/3 rehab innings that season. A forearm injury in 2025 limited him to 54 minor league frames.

When he’s been healthy, Drohan has looked the part of an interesting prospect. His Triple-A numbers are skewed by a rough showing late in 2023 and during some rehab work in 2024 — both potentially impacted by his shoulder — but he was excellent last season, tossing 47 2/3 innings with Worcester and recording a 2.27 ERA, a 35.3% strikeout rate, an 8.4% walk rate and a massive 17.3% swinging-strike rate. He also posted a 2.17 ERA in parts of two Double-A seasons and was part of the 2023 Futures Game. Drohan sat 93.3 mph with his four-seamer in Triple-A in 2025, complementing the pitch with an 84.7 mph slider, an 88.8 mph cutter, an 84.3 mph changeup and a 77.9 mph curveball (listed in order of usage rate).

Hamilton, 28, returns to the club that originally drafted him but traded him to Boston as part of 2021’s Hunter Renfroe swap. He’s played in parts of three seasons with Boston and totaled 550 plate appearances with a .222/.283/.359 batting line.

Hamilton hasn’t hit much but is a plus runner with 95th percentile sprint speed, per Statcast, and 57 career steals in 68 attempts (83.8%). On a rate basis, he’s been one of the game’s elite defensive second basemen during his time in the majors, piling up 16 Defensive Runs Saved and 8 Outs Above Average in only 679 innings.

The Brewers originally drafted Hamilton in the eighth round of the 2019 draft out of the University of Texas. Arnold and top lieutenants like AGMs Matt Kleine, Will Hudgins and Karl Mueller were all in the Milwaukee front office when they first signed Hamilton out of the draft. That familiarity with him both as a player and as a person presumably played a role in this morning’s trade.

Adam McCalvy of MLB.com reports that Hamilton will see plenty of reps at third base this spring. Whether his stellar second base defense carries over to third base and whether Hamilton performs well enough to secure a job will determine his roster status come Opening Day. He has a minor league option year remaining, so if the Brewers do make another acquisition or if Hamilton simply struggles to a great enough extent this spring, he can be sent to Triple-A Nashville without needing to pass through waivers. The Brewers can control him for at least four additional seasons — five if he spends more than 25 days in the minors this year.

For the Red Sox, today’s trade seems to largely round out the infield. With Kiner-Falefa also aboard as a glove-first utility option, there doesn’t appear to be much more room to add. Durbin should be an upgrade of a couple wins, and his extreme put-the-ball-in-play approach and defensive aptitude should help to raise Boston’s floor quite a bit, even if the offense as a whole looks suspect beyond the top few hitters.

The Brewers are now 10 to 12 deep in their rotation mix, which could set the stage for another trade. They could also simply hold onto that depth, knowing they’ll need an army of pitchers to get through a 162-game season and that many of their current arms have less than a full year of experience in the majors, but some form of additional infield depth seems likely to be on the horizon after today’s trade thinned them out.

Pirates To Sign Marcell Ozuna

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8:05am: ESPN’s Jeff Passan reports that Ozuna will earn $10.5MM in 2026 salary, plus a $1.5MM buyout on a $16MM mutual option for the 2027 season. A mutual option hasn’t been exercised by both parties since 2014, so that option effectively just kicks a portion of the guarantee down the road by a year.

7:54am: The Pirates and slugger Marcell Ozuna are in agreement on a one-year, $12MM contract, Jon Heyman of the New York Post reports. The CAA client’s contract is pending a physical.

Ozuna turned 35 in November. The 2025 season was a down showing by his standards, but he was still a better-than-average offensive performer overall down in Atlanta. He batted .232/.355/.400 with a career-high 15.9% walk rate, a 24.3% strikeout rate, 21 homers and 19 doubles in 592 plate appearances. That overall line was weighed down by a brutal stretch in the middle of a roller-coaster season. Ozuna raced out to a scorching start in April and May, was one of the league’s worst hitters in June, and then settled in as a slightly above-average hitter for the season’s final three months.

The downturn in production dovetailed with a hip injury through which Ozuna continued to play at less than 100%. It’s impossible to say for certain whether that, age, or a combination of both was the driving factor in last season’s dip in bat speed, but Statcast measured his bat speed at 75 mph in 2023 (86th percentile of MLB hitters), 74 mph in 2024 (81st percentile) and 72.9 mph in 2025 (64th percentile). Accordingly, his typically elite exit velocity and hard-hit rate both fell. Ozuna averaged 89.9 mph off the bat and logged a 44.4% hard-hit rate in 2025. Both are still decent marks, but they’re down considerably from the 92.2 mph and 53.3% marks he posted as recently as 2024.

While Ozuna ought to be an upgrade to Pittsburgh’s lineup overall, the fit isn’t exactly perfect. Beyond the fact that PNC Park is perhaps the worst environment in MLB for right-handed power, the Buccos’ roster is a bit cluttered with corner bats who could use some of the DH time that Ozuna will now command on an everyday basis. Spencer Horwitz and Ryan O’Hearn had been lined up to share time at first base and designated hitter, with O’Hearn perhaps seeing some time in left. Horwitz, after a slow start to his season in 2025, finished the year out on a blistering .314/.402/.539 tear in his final two-plus months of play. He’s locked into an everyday role. O’Hearn can play in the outfield corners, but Bryan Reynolds has one of those two spots locked down.

Signing Ozuna, who has hasn’t played in the field at all in either of the past two seasons (and only logged 14 innings in 2023), likely pushes O’Hearn into an everyday role in the outfield. He has plenty of experience on the grass but rates as a sub-par defender there, whereas he’s an above-average defender at first base. Horwitz does have 604 professional innings in left field to his credit, so he could perhaps be on option in left as well, but all 604 of those frames have been in the minors — half of them back in 2019 and 2021. He’s played some second base, too, but that was a short experiment and the Pirates already acquired Brandon Lowe to man that position.

Presumably, the primary alignment moving forward will have O’Hearn in left field, Lowe at second, Horwitz at first base and Ozuna at designated hitter. It’s not Pittsburgh’s ideal setup from a defensive standpoint, but the Pirates will make that sacrifice in the name of getting some quality bats into the middle of what has typically been one of MLB’s weakest lineups over the past decade-plus. Newcomers O’Hearn, Lowe and Ozuna will join holdovers like Reynolds, Horwitz and Oneil Cruz, giving the Bucs a potentially strong top six in their order at the very least — and that’s before counting shortstop Konnor Griffin, who is the sport’s consensus No. 1 overall prospect and should debut in 2026.

Bringing Ozuna into the fold also seems to formally put an end to Andrew McCutchen’s second act in Pittsburgh. He could feasibly be a right-handed bench bat who takes some occasional corner outfield reps, but McCutchen played 120 games at designated hitter in 2025. Signing Ozuna clearly displaces him from that role, and it’s hard to see the two fitting together on the same roster. McCutchen recently met with Pirates owner Bob Nutting, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported last week — a meeting that came on the heels of the franchise icon voicing some frustration with the manner in which the team had handled offseason talks.

Adding Ozuna pushes the Pirates’ payroll to $101.282MM, per Ethan Hullihen, which will somewhat remarkably establish a new franchise-record for Opening Day payroll. It’s still a very modest total relative to the rest of the league, but the Bucs have spent more than $50MM in free agency overall and also taken on Lowe’s $11.5MM salary in a trade with the Rays. It’s possible there are additional moves to come. The Pirates have been in the market for third base upgrades as well. That market has been largely picked over, but there are still surely some creative options they can pursue on the trade market.

It’s not clear exactly how much more ownership is willing to boost the payroll, but the team’s reported four-year, $120-125MM offer to Kyle Schwarber and the flurry of subsequent additions pretty clearly indicates that Nutting is willing to spend at levels he has not considered approaching in the past. The Bucs currently have a plus defender at the hot corner in Jared Triolo, but he’s a well below-average hitter who’s capable of fielding multiple spots around the infield, so he could fit nicely in a utility/bench role if GM Ben Cherington can find a third base acquisition to his liking on the trade market.

Mets To Sign MJ Melendez

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4:25PM: The deal is a split contract that will pay Melendez a lesser salary for time spent in the minors, as per Will Sammon and Tim Britton of The Athletic.  The Mets view Melendez as primarily an outfielder, but with the potential to chip in at first base, and act as an emergency catcher.

2:47PM: The Mets have agreed to a one-year deal with MJ Melendez, reports Jon Heyman of the New York Post. It’s a $1.5MM pact that includes $500K in incentives. Melendez is a Boras Corporation client.

Melendez broke camp with the Royals last season, but was sent to Triple-A midway through April. He spent another week with the big-league club in July, and finished his 2025 season with just five hits in 65 MLB plate appearances. Kansas City non-tendered Melendez after the season rather than pay him a projected $2.65MM in arbitration, and he wraps up his time in the organization with an 88 wRC+ over 1652 PA across parts of four seasons — a disappointment for a player once considered one of the Royals’ top prospects.

The 27-year-old Melendez did well to garner a guaranteed deal after the rough showing in not just 2025, but for the bulk of his big league career. The Mets are likely intrigued by his numbers at Omaha last season (.261/.323/.490 with 20 homers and 20 steals over 480 plate appearances) and his past top-100 prospect pedigree. Melendez is also arbitration-controlled through the 2029 season, due to Super Two status.

While the Royals were ready to part ways with Melendez, there is some change-of-scenery potential as he heads to Queens. For a relatively inexpensive one-year deal, it’s a risk the Mets are willing to take, though it should be noted that Melendez’s overall price tag is boosted by New York’s luxury tax overages. Because the Mets have exceeded the top tax threshold in each of the last four seasons, Melendez will really cost the team $3.15MM, between Melendez’s salary and then the 110% tax bill.

On paper, Melendez provides some outfield depth for a team planning to give star prospect Carson Benge a full shot at the everyday left field job. Benge has yet to make his Major League debut, so having another experienced outfielder like Melendez on hand gives the Mets some coverage if Benge isn’t yet ready for the Show. That said, Melendez (a converted catcher) has been a subpar defender as a left fielder, so he remains a question mark with both his glove and his bat.

Yankees To Re-Sign Paul Goldschmidt

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TODAY: Goldschmidt’s one-year deal is worth $4MM, as per the New York Post’s Jon Heyman.

FEBRUARY 6: The Yankees are reportedly in agreement with Paul Goldschmidt on a one-year deal. Salary specifics aren’t known, although it’s reportedly expected to come in around $5MM or less. The Yankees have a full 40-man roster and will need to make a corresponding move once this deal becomes official. Goldschmidt is represented by Excel Sports Management.

It’ll be Goldschmidt’s second season in the Bronx. The former MVP signed a $12.5MM deal last offseason to serve as New York’s everyday first baseman. The role will be different this year, as Goldschmidt seems ticketed for more of a short side platoon job after Ben Rice outplayed him last season. The left-handed hitting Rice connected on 26 homers with a .255/.337/.499 batting line across 530 trips to the plate.

Goldschmidt managed only 10 home runs in a similar amount of playing time. His .274/.328/.403 slash was a little better than league average. It came with dramatic splits, both in terms of handedness and timeliness. Goldschmidt started his Yankee tenure on a tear, hitting .338/.394/.495 with six longballs through the end of May. That plummeted to a .226/.277/.333 performance over the final four months of the season. It was essentially an inverse of his 2024 campaign in St. Louis. Goldschmidt started that year very slowly before picking it up in the second half.

Between his late-season struggles and Rice’s breakout year, the seven-time All-Star lost playing time as the season progressed. His plate appearance tally dropped in each month. Goldschmidt will remain in the lineup against left-handed pitching, as he continued to tee off on southpaws even as his numbers against righties dropped. He’s coming off a .336/.411/.570 slash against left-handers compared to a .247/.289/.329 mark when he didn’t hold the platoon advantage. Seven of his 10 home runs came off lefties even though he saw twice as many plate appearances versus right-handers.

Rice had seven homers in 119 plate appearances against lefties, but it came with a .208 average and .271 on-base mark. Even if the Yankees don’t want to make him a strict platoon bat, they’ll time some of his rest days against tough southpaws. Goldschmidt can pick up those at-bats and offers a fallback at designated hitter in case Giancarlo Stanton misses time. Lefty-hitting catcher Austin Wells had reverse splits last season but is a career .218/.282/.360 hitter against southpaws. If the Yankees want to continue giving Rice scattered reps behind the plate, they could shield Wells from a lefty and start Goldschmidt at first.

At 38, Goldschmidt is clearly on the downswing of what should be a Hall of Fame career, but he can still be productive if deployed in a more limited role. He’s also highly respected off the field and was just named to the U.S. World Baseball Classic roster for the third time in his career. He clearly made a strong impression in the clubhouse and with the coaching staff.

The late-season drop in playing time evidently didn’t sour him on giving it another go in pinstripes. Joel Sherman of The New York Post reports that he passed on more money from other teams to remain in the Bronx. The Padres were reportedly among the finalists as they look for one more bat after agreeing to a deal with Miguel Andujar. The Diamondbacks spent most of the offseason looking for a right-handed hitting first baseman. A reunion in the desert seemed to make sense, but it was clear that wouldn’t come to pass when the Snakes agreed to terms with Carlos Santana earlier this week.

New York has a lineup that skews to the left side generally. GM Brian Cashman and manager Aaron Boone had spoken multiple times about wanting to add a righty bat for balance. Goldschmidt joins utility infielder Amed Rosario as righty options off the bench. José Caballero would also be in that mix if Anthony Volpe reclaims the shortstop job once he returns from shoulder surgery.

They’re going to carry lefty-hitting J.C. Escarra as a backup catcher. That would only leave one bench spot for Oswaldo Cabrera and Jasson Domínguez if everyone gets through camp healthy. The Post’s Jon Heyman wrote on Thursday that it seems likely Domínguez will be optioned to Triple-A to begin the season. That’s even more probable with Goldschmidt back, though Spring Training injuries could certainly change the picture.

The salary remains unreported. The Yankees will pay a 110% tax on it as third-time CBT payors in the top bracket. RosterResource calculated their competitive balance tax number around $330MM before this deal. They had a $320MM tax payroll last year, leaving them with a nearly $62MM bill at season’s end.

Jeff Passan of ESPN first reported the Yankees and Goldschmidt were finalizing an agreement. Ronald Blum of The Associated Press reported that Goldschmidt was likely to make no more than $5MM. Image courtesy of Jeff Curry, Imagn Images.

Tarik Skubal Wins Arbitration Hearing

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Tigers ace Tarik Skubal has won his arbitration hearing against the team, reports ESPN’s Jeff Passan. He’ll be paid a record-shattering $32MM in his final season of arbitration eligibility and, in doing so, radically alter subsequent arbitration earnings for top-tier starting pitchers with five-plus years of big league service. The Tigers had submitted a $19MM figure, which was more in line with traditional arbitration earnings for elite starters. Skubal is represented by the Boras Corporation.

It’s a landmark decision that narrowly tops Juan Soto’s record $31MM salary (the most ever for an arb-eligible player) and absolutely shatters David Price’s longstanding record for arbitration-eligible pitchers. Coincidentally enough, Price was also a Tiger when he set that record, though the two sides came to terms without requiring a hearing; he settled on a $19.75MM salary for the 2015 season — a record that stood for more than a decade.

Skubal’s case was the most fascinating arbitration case in history. He and agent Scott Boras leveraged a clause in the CBA that allows players with five-plus years of major league service time to compare themselves not to prior arbitration precedents but to open-market prices for free agents. We haven’t seen a player try to break the conventional arbitration system in this way despite that clause’s presence, but Skubal’s consecutive Cy Young Award wins in the American League emboldened his camp to shoot for the moon.

It bears emphasizing that this clause pertains to players entering their final season of club control. For instance, while Paul Skenes will very likely file for a record salary for a first-time arbitration-eligible pitcher next offseason, he’s not going to submit a $30MM+ figure. He’d have no chance of winning. Rather, Skenes and his camp will likely look to move the needle forward beyond the current record for a first-time-eligible pitcher: Dallas Keuchel’s $7.25MM salary on the heels of his own AL Cy Young win back in the 2015-16 offseason.

Many onlookers marvel at the Tigers offering what appears to be a (relatively) low $19MM salary for Skubal’s final season. There’s a sentiment among fans that Detroit should have submitted a figure in the mid-20s, but that’s not how teams approach arbitration. Clubs generally fight tooth and nail to keep arb prices down — hence hearings over gaps of $200K or so every winter — because arbitration has historically been based entirely on past comparables within the same service class as the player in question. It’s not realistic to think any team would have willingly offered to move the needle for a service class forward by some $5-6MM.

The Tigers’ $19MM submission for Skubal already represented a raise of 87% over Skubal’s $10.15MM salary in 2025. On a percentage basis, that’s actually more than double the raise Price received; he’d earned $14MM in 2014 before a $5.75MM (41%) raise heading into 2015. Had Detroit offered Skubal a salary of $25MM, for instance, that would’ve represented a mammoth 146% raise over the prior year’s salary. With the benefit of hindsight, it’s easy to say that perhaps they should have done so, but that hasn’t been the modus operandi of any team in arbitration at any point over the years.

Similarly, it hasn’t been the M.O. for any player or the union to try to leverage that until-now obscure CBA clause in an effort to entirely upend the arbitration system as we know it. Doing so represented a risk for Skubal and Boras; the two could surely have taken a more conservative approach, filing for a $21-22MM salary that looked to more incrementally advance the market for stars (pitchers, specifically) in arbitration. Instead, they gambled on Skubal’s historic pair of seasons and were rewarded with a historic ruling. Skubal’s $32MM victory will now be fair game to be cited as a potential comp for stars at any point moving forward — at least those with “special accomplishments,” as laid out in the CBA.

MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes points out that given that context, this case boiled down as much to the league versus the union as it did the Tigers versus Boras. Passan reports that Skubal’s camp went so far as to enlist MLBPA deputy director Bruce Meyer, which speaks to the long-term importance of this specific case. (It’s standard for the MLBPA to aid agencies in preparing for and arguing arbitration cases, though not necessarily with one of the union’s top executives.) Skubal’s case was so unique and his accomplishments so “special” (again, using CBA terminology) that he compared himself to starting pitchers who topped $40MM salaries in free agency, Passan adds.

Turning to the more immediate future, the arbiters’ ruling has major payroll implications for Detroit. The Tigers agreed to a three-year, $115MM contract with Framber Valdez just last night and will now pay Skubal $13MM more than they would have if the panel had ruled in their favor. In a matter of 24 hours, their payroll went from a plausible $164MM or to something in the range of $215MM, depending on how Valdez’s contract breaks down on an annual basis and how much deferred money the contract contains — all of which is yet unclear.

One would imagine that had the Tigers won yesterday’s hearing, there might have been some extra wiggle room in the payroll for further late additions to the roster. Perhaps that’s still the case, but the extra $13MM, coupled with the massive Valdez deal, thrusts Detroit into franchise-record payroll territory and could mean the heavy lifting is largely finished.

Fans from other clubs will surely hope that Skubal’s arbitration win opens the door for a potential trade. That’s overwhelmingly unlikely to be the case. Tigers brass has declined to wholly declare Skubal off limits at any point this winter but has done so more as a matter of principle than due to an actual willingness to move him. President of baseball operations Scott Harris has declined to speak in absolutes regarding Skubal but has also done so with regard to virtually all other roster matters when asked.

That “never say never” mentality has led to plenty of wishcasting from fans who’d love to see Skubal in their club’s jersey, just as it’s led to hopeful inquiries from rival teams throughout the league. To this point, there’s no indication that a Skubal trade was ever seriously considered; Harris & Co. have seemingly given other clubs the chance to present a comical offer that they simply can’t refuse, but no team has done so.

Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported this morning that the Tigers, after adding Valdez, had no intent to trade Skubal even if he won his case. The addition of Valdez gives Detroit an arguably overqualified “No. 2” starter to pair with Skubal atop a rotation that now makes them the unequivocal favorites in a perennially weak American League Central.

Valdez’s relatively short-term deal also ensures that Detroit will have a high-end starter in place for the 2027 season in the event that Skubal departs as a free agent. If the Tigers are able to re-sign him on the open market, they’ll return that pairing for at least the ’27 season, after which Valdez could opt out — thus dropping the Tigers back down to “only” one immense, top-of-the-market salary for a member of their rotation.

Skubal and his camp are surely celebrating today, as is the Players Association at large. Players are now 3-0 over teams in arbitration hearings this year, and Skubal’s landmark win will have ramifications for future arb-eligible players for literal decades to come — assuming the system, as it currently exists, remains in place that long. The Tigers, even though they were handed a $13MM defeat, have cause to celebrate as well. Their rotation — which also includes Reese Olson and another pair of impending free agents, Jack Flaherty and Casey Mize — should be among the most formidable in the sport.

As for the rest of the American League Central — and owners around the game who now can look forward to heightened arb salaries for players with five-plus years of service — things may not be so rosy.

Tigers, Framber Valdez Agree To Three-Year Deal

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The Tigers land the offseason’s top remaining free agent, reportedly agreeing to a three-year deal with Framber Valdez that guarantees $115MM. The deal, which is pending a physical, allows the star left-hander to opt out after the second season. It contains a $20MM signing bonus and an unspecified amount of deferred money. Valdez is represented by Octagon.

Valdez reunites with A.J. Hinch and gives the Tigers a lethal 1-2 pairing at the top of the rotation. He’ll slot behind Tarik Skubal atop a starting staff that suddenly looks like one of the best in the American League. They’ll be followed by Reese Olson, Jack Flaherty and Casey Mize if everyone gets through camp healthy. That’d push KBO signee Drew Anderson into a swing role, while second-year righty Troy Melton can either pitch out of the bullpen or wait in Triple-A for a rotation spot to open.

The Skubal-Valdez pairing may only be together for one season, as the two-time defending Cy Young winner is a year away from what should be a record-setting free agent contract. Skubal and the club went to a hearing this morning that’ll determine whether he makes $19MM or $32MM for his final year under club control. The arbitrators will not reveal their decision until tomorrow, and Chris McCosky of The Detroit News confirms that neither the Tigers nor Skubal’s camp are aware yet of which way they’ll rule. The Valdez pickup is an independent decision.

It’s the kind of win-now strike for which much of the Detroit fanbase has waited all offseason. The Tigers had a fairly conservative trade deadline, and their biggest moves before tonight had been retaining Flaherty on a $20MM player option and Gleyber Torres via the $22.025MM qualifying offer. They also brought back setup man Kyle Finnegan on a two-year deal and added Anderson and closer Kenley Jansen on one-year contracts. They’d done a decent job building depth but without pushing the chips in for an impact player in what could be Skubal’s final season in the Motor City.

Valdez brings the ceiling that Detroit’s other acquisitions had lacked. He’s a two-time All-Star who has finished top 10 in Cy Young balloting in three of the past four seasons. Valdez worked his way from an unheralded amateur signee to the big leagues in 2018. He spent his first two seasons working in a swing role for an Astros club managed by Hinch. Valdez moved into the rotation permanently during the shortened 2020 campaign and has been one of the best pitchers in MLB over the last six years.

The southpaw has posted a sub-4.00 earned run average in each season since he became a full-time starter. He has been exceptionally durable as well, only twice landing on the injured list in his MLB career. He fractured his left ring finger when he was hit by a comebacker in Spring Training 2021. He was back from that injury by the end of May. His only other IL stint was a two-week absence for elbow inflammation early in ’24. He returned without issue and wound up making 29 starts between the regular season and playoffs.

Valdez is tied for 14th in starts and ranks fifth with 973 innings dating back to 2020. He has a cumulative 3.23 ERA in that time. That includes sub-3.00 showings in 2022 and ’24. Valdez was among the most consistent top-of-the-rotation starters in MLB — at least until the second half of his walk year. He posted an earned run average between 2.82 and 3.45 in each season between 2021-24. He topped 175 innings in each of the latter three years.

For the first half of last season, Valdez was on a similar pace. He took a 2.75 ERA over 121 frames into the All-Star Break. Valdez came out of the Break with two more quality starts and was sitting on a 2.62 ERA (a top 10 mark among qualifiers) as August arrived. He picked a tough time for arguably the worst couple months of his career. Valdez was blitzed for a 6.05 ERA with a dramatically reduced 17.7% strikeout rate over his final 10 starts. His sinker velocity dipped slightly, and opponents teed off on it in August and September. There’s no indication that he was tipping pitches, and it seems like the issue was mostly poor execution.

Valdez also found himself at the center of controversy during a start against the Yankees on September 2. Two pitches after giving up a grand slam to Trent Grisham, he hit catcher César Salazar in the chest with a 93 MPH sinker on a cross-up. Salazar was clearly expecting a breaking ball and didn’t have time to react to the fastball. Valdez didn’t check on the catcher in the moment. Salazar was not hurt and finished the game without issue.

The pitcher denied that the cross-up was intentional. Salazar did his best to publicly downplay the incident, saying he pressed the wrong button on his PitchCom. Even if that’s the case, the pitcher’s seeming lack of concern on the mound made for poor optics. Valdez said postgame that he had apologized to his battery mate.

Did that have any impact on his market value? It’s impossible to know from the outside, though one imagines some teams asked Valdez about the incident during the free agent process. It’s worth noting that a Detroit team managed by his former skipper is the one that eventually signed him, so it seems they don’t have any concerns about his makeup or clubhouse presence.

The late-season dip in production and Valdez’s age were probably bigger factors in his extended free agent stay. He finished the year with a 3.66 ERA across 192 innings. His 23.3% strikeout rate and 8.5% walk percentage were in line with his career marks. It’s a solid strikeout and walk profile, but his game has always been built more around ground-balls. He has a career 62% grounder rate and kept the ball on the ground at a 58.6% clip last season, the third-highest mark among pitchers with 100+ innings.

It’s not the whiff-heavy approach that someone like Dylan Cease brought to the table this offseason, though Valdez’s statistical profile isn’t that dissimilar from that of Max Fried. They’re both ground-ball specialists who sit in the mid-90s with a sinker that leads the profile. Fried commanded an eight-year, $218MM contract last winter. The biggest difference is that came in advance of his age-31 season, while Valdez turned 32 in November.

Although a one-year age gap might not seem like much, teams have been reluctant to make long-term commitments to free agent pitchers at 32. Zack Greinke, Jacob deGrom and Blake Snell are the only pitchers that age or older to command five-plus years since 2011. They’d all had at least one Cy Young on their résumés by that point. Valdez’s inconsistent finish essentially took a six-year contract off the table. MLBTR predicted a five-year, $150MM deal at the beginning of the offseason. That he remained unsigned into February made it increasingly apparent that a five-year contract wasn’t going to be out there.

On the surface, Valdez seems to have done fairly well despite signing a week before the beginning of Spring Training. The deal’s true value can’t really be known until the extent of the deferrals are reported, however. The sticker price comes with a massive $38.33MM average annual value that’d rank 10th all time. The net present value will be reduced to at least some extent by the deferred money.

Regardless of the contract breakdown, this easily goes down as Scott Harris’ boldest free agent move in his four years running baseball operations. It’s Detroit’s first nine-figure investment since the ill-fated Javier Baez deal, which was signed under former GM Al Avila. The Harris front office hadn’t gone beyond $35MM on a free agent. That was their two-year contract to re-sign Flaherty almost exactly a year ago. There are some parallels with Valdez in terms of waiting out the market to get a high-end starter for short term, but this is obviously a much more significant investment.

The Tigers ran a $188MM competitive balance tax payroll last season. They’re going to top that this year, though the extent isn’t clear. RosterResource currently estimates their CBT number around $237MM while penciling in the midpoint of the arbitration filing figures as a placeholder for Skubal. The arbitrators don’t have that luxury, meaning that CBT estimate will change by $6.5MM in one direction or another. It’s also using the base $38.33MM annual value for Valdez, which overshoots the actual number to an unknown extent until the deferral breakdown comes out.

Detroit also forfeits draft capital because Valdez rejected a qualifying offer from the Astros. They’re a revenue sharing recipient so it’s the lowest penalty, their third-highest pick in the 2026 draft. That’s currently slated to be their Competitive Balance Round B selection, which is 69th overall. The Tigers could look to trade that pick — Competitive Balance selections are the only ones that can be traded — rather than losing it as the compensatory pick. They’d then forfeit their third-round selection (#98 overall), but another team might be more willing to give up something of value for the higher draft choice and accompanying slot value that makes it worthwhile for Detroit to lose the third-rounder.

Houston never had any interest in meeting Valdez’s asking price. As luxury tax payors, they receive a compensation pick after the fourth round. That’ll land around 133rd overall. Houston traded for Mike Burrows and signed Tatsuya Imai and Ryan Weiss to backfill the rotation depth, even if they’re unlikely to replace the ceiling that Valdez brought.

The Blue Jays, Orioles and Pirates were recently linked to Valdez. ESPN’s Jesse Rogers reports that the Twins surprisingly jumped in the mix as well. He was probably a unique target for a Toronto club that already runs six deep in the rotation. Baltimore could pivot to a mid-tier starter like Zac Gallen (the last unsigned player who declined a QO), Chris Bassitt or Lucas Giolito. A mid-rotation arm is also possible for Pittsburgh. At the very least, the Bucs figure to add a fifth starter for a few million dollars. Minnesota has a solid rotation but reportedly kicked the tires on a Freddy Peralta trade as well, seemingly staying on the periphery of the market for a potential impact arm.

Jeff Passan of ESPN reported the three-year, $115MM agreement with the opt-out after year two. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic was first on the presence of deferrals. Jon Heyman of The New York Post had the $20MM bonus.

Image courtesy of Dale Zanine, Imagn Images.

Padres To Sign Miguel Andujar

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The Padres reportedly have an agreement with free agent corner infielder/outfielder Miguel Andujar on a one-year deal with a mutual option for 2027. It’s a $4MM guarantee that includes a $1.5MM salary for the upcoming season. That suggests there’s a $2.5MM option buyout. The CAA client can earn another $2MM+ via incentives. San Diego has a couple openings on the 40-man roster and won’t need to make any corresponding moves.

It’s a tidy bit of business for the Padres, who add a strong right-handed bat on a modest contract. Andujar, 31 next month, put together an excellent .318/.352/.470 slash line over 94 games a year ago. He split the year between the A’s and Reds, so he was certainly the beneficiary of favorable home parks, but that’s above-average production in any stadium.

It was Andujar’s best season since his 2018 Rookie of the Year runner-up campaign when he played for the Yankees. He has been a part-time player for the majority of his career and didn’t get to 200 plate appearances in any season from 2019-23. He tallied 319 trips to the plate while putting up a league average .285/.320/.377 mark for the A’s in 2024. Andujar weathered a pair of injuries that year, undergoing an early-season meniscus repair on his right knee and a season-ending core procedure in August.

The A’s nevertheless tendered Andujar a $3MM contract for his final season of arbitration. He hit .298/.329/.436 in 60 games before being traded to Cincinnati. He really turned things on upon landing with the Reds, running a .359/.400/.544 line over 110 plate appearances to close the season. He hit well against pitchers of either handedness but particularly teed off on left-handers. The righty-swinging Andujar has been a plus against southpaws throughout his career, batting .297/.332/.475 in 521 plate appearances with the platoon advantage.

It’s somewhat surprising that strong finish didn’t result in a better market. Although teams obviously weren’t going to expect him to keep up the pace he showed with the Reds, his track record against lefties and plus contact skills make him a strong bat to have on the bench. There are enough red flags in the profile that clubs seemingly still view him as a lower-end utility piece. Andujar has an aggressive approach and isn’t going to take many walks. He doesn’t have huge exit velocities and is largely dependent on an elevated average on balls in play to carry the offensive profile.

Andujar also has an extensive injury history going back to the 2019 labrum repair in his right shoulder that wiped out his second season in the majors. He had the aforementioned pair of surgeries in ’24 and missed five weeks last year with a right oblique strain. He also doesn’t have a clear defensive fit. He’s a subpar defender at third base and in the outfield. Andujar has a strong arm but isn’t a good runner or athlete.

That’s probably not a huge concern for San Diego, who projects to use him mostly as a first baseman or designated hitter. Manny Machado is locked in at third, while Ramón Laureano and Fernando Tatis Jr. have the corner outfield spots. Andujar should be a good complement to lefty hitters Gavin Sheets and Sung-mun Song, who had been lined up as the primary options at first base and designated hitter. He can step in for Sheets at first base against southpaws while still getting a decent amount of playing time at DH versus righty pitching, as Song is expected to bounce around the diamond to keep other players fresh.

The lower salary and mutual option is a common tactic for San Diego. It allows them to kick a little over half the contract back to the end of the season. RosterResource calculates their cash payroll around $221MM. Their luxury tax estimate is much higher, landing around $266MM. They’ll be paying the luxury tax for a second straight season. They’re taxed at a 30% rate on spending between $244MM and $264MM, which comes out to a $6MM hit. That jumps to 42% for their next $20MM. Andujar’s salary is low enough that it won’t much impact their CBT ledger, as they’re only paying around $1.25MM in taxes to add him. The Padres could still look for a bench bat and a back-end starter as Spring Training approaches.

Jon Heyman of The New York Post was first on the agreement. ESPN’s Jeff Passan had the one-year, $4MM terms. Heyman reported the mutual option and salary. Will Sammon of The Athletic reported the upwards of $2MM in bonuses.

Image courtesy of Jeff Hanisch, Imagn Images.

Red Sox To Sign Isiah Kiner-Falefa

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The Red Sox reportedly have an agreement with infielder Isiah Kiner-Falefa on a one-year contract that guarantees $6MM, pending a physical. There are an additional $500K in incentives available for the ALIGND Sports Agency client. Boston’s 40-man roster will be at capacity after the signing, so no corresponding move is required.

Kiner-Falefa will apparently be the Sox’s answer at second base after they lost Alex Bregman to free agency. Boston kicked around much bigger possibilities on the trade and free agent markets (e.g. Ketel Marte, Brendan Donovan, Isaac Paredes, Bo Bichette) but couldn’t find a deal to their liking. They reportedly prefer to keep Marcelo Mayer at third base and were looking for a quality defensive player whom they could plug in at the keystone.

A former Gold Glove winner, Kiner-Falefa qualifies on that front. He took home the defensive honor at third base as a member of the Rangers in 2020. He’s a plus defender at any of second base, third base or shortstop. He has more experience on the left side of the infield but carries strong marks from Defensive Runs Saved (+12) and Statcast (+2 Outs Above Average) in nearly 600 career innings as a second baseman.

The flip side is that Kiner-Falefa isn’t going to provide much at the plate. He puts the ball in play but has some of the lowest exit velocities in the sport. He has never reached double digits in home runs in a season, nor has he turned in a .700 OPS in any of his eight years in the majors. Kiner-Falefa is coming off a .262/.297/.334 showing across 459 plate appearances between the Pirates and Blue Jays. He’s a .262/.311/.349 hitter in more than 3300 trips to the dish over his career. He’s a solid baserunner despite average speed, stealing double digit bases in each of the past five years.

Second base was a weak point for the Red Sox last year. Kristian Campbell faded after a monster April and was back in Triple-A by the end of June. He posted disastrous defensive grades and no longer seems to be an option at the position. Chief baseball officer Craig Breslow has suggested a few times they view Campbell primarily as an outfielder. He’s a good enough athlete to have some promise as a defender on the grass, but Boston’s crowded outfield isn’t going to afford him many opportunities until someone suffers an injury.

The Sox used Romy Gonzalez, Ceddanne Rafaela, David Hamilton and Nick Sogard there in the second half and got just a .242/.292/.333 showing down the stretch. Rafaela is an elite defensive outfielder whom the Red Sox prefer to play in center field. Gonzalez hits lefties well but profiles as a short side platoon bat. Hamilton and Sogard are utility players on a team that expects to contend. Kiner-Falefa probably should be as well, yet there weren’t any clear regulars available in free agency at this stage of the offseason.

Kiner-Falefa is a right-handed hitter whose offensive profile doesn’t change regardless of the pitcher’s handedness. Gonzalez should still take the majority of at-bats against lefty pitching. Kiner-Falefa could slide to third on those days if the Sox want to shield Mayer from same-handed opposition. They might also prioritize having him on the field behind ground-ball pitchers like Brayan Bello and Ranger Suárez while plugging Gonzalez in for a little more offense on days when Garrett Crochet or Sonny Gray take the mound.

It appears the Sox had pushed close to their financial comfort zone after signing Suárez and trading for Gray and Willson Contreras. According to RosterResource, this pushes Boston to roughly $263MM in luxury tax commitments. They’re a few days removed from giving up a mid-tier starting pitching prospect, David Sandlin, to dump $16MM of the $24MM remaining on the Jordan Hicks contract on the White Sox. (Boston also picked up minor league pitcher Gage Ziehl in that trade.) If the cash considerations are evenly distributed, they saved $8MM on the 2026 payroll, some of which they’re now reallocating to Kiner-Falefa.

The Sox are above the $244MM first tax threshold. They’re second-time payors who pay a 30% tax on their first $20MM in overages, so they’re currently set for a minimal tax bill. That was also the case last year, as they paid a $1.5MM fee for going nearly $8MM above the line. The tax rate climbs to 42% for spending between $264MM and $284MM. There are no draft penalties associated with going into the second penalization tier, so that’d largely be an arbitrary stopping point if that’s where ownership sets the budget. The Kiner-Falefa signing comes with a $1.8MM tax hit.

Chris Cotillo of MassLive first reported the Red Sox and Kiner-Falefa were nearing a one-year deal. ESPN’s Jeff Passan confirmed an agreement was in place. Cotillo reported the $6MM guarantee and $500K in bonuses.

Image courtesy of Stephen Brashear, Imagn Images.

White Sox Sign Austin Hays

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February 4th: The Sox officially announced their signing of Hays today. The mutual option is worth $8MM, per James Fegan of Sox Machine.

January 31st: The White Sox have agreed to a deal with outfielder Austin Hays, ESPN’s Jesse Rogers reports.  The one-year deal will pay Hays $6MM, according to Jon Heyman of the New York Post, and the contract will be official following a physical. Hays will earn $5MM in salary in 2026, and there is a $1MM buyout on a mutual option for 2027, The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal writes.  Another $375K is available for Hays in incentive bonuses based around plate appearances. Chicago’s 40-man roster is full, so the team will also have to make a corresponding transaction before the signing is finalized.  Hays is represented by the MAS+ Agency.

Earlier today, Heyman reported that Hays was “said to be deciding this weekend” about his next landing spot.  Heyman listed the White Sox, Cubs, Padres, Tigers, and Rangers as teams who had showed some level of interest in Hays at some point during the offseason.  These five clubs were new to Hays’ market, as previous reports this winter linked the Royals, Reds, Mets, Yankees, and Cardinals to the 30-year-old outfielder.  The Athletic’s Zack Meisel also wrote that the Guardians “put out feelers on” Hays’ services.

Playing time was an apparent priority for Hays, as Meisel wrote that the outfielder was looking for “a situation in which he could play every day.”  That didn’t come in Cleveland since the Guardians didn’t want to block any of its up-and-coming younger outfielders, but Hays will now land with another AL Central team that has plenty of at-bats on offer.  Hays figures to step right into at least semi-regular duty in right field, and he might also get time in his regular left field position depending on how the White Sox approach Andrew Benintendi’s playing time.  Brooks Baldwin, Derek Hill, Tristan Peters, Everson Pereira, and Jarred Kelenic are among the names in Chicago’s outfield mix, plus Luisangel Acuna is likely to get a lot of time in center field.

Hays has held his own defensively over 483 career MLB innings as a center fielder, though he hasn’t played the position since 2023.  With both glovework and health in mind, Hays is probably better suited for a corner outfield slot, and some DH at-bats are probably also a consideration for a player who has taken six separate trips to the injured list over the last two seasons.  Four of those six IL stints were due to left calf and hamstring strains, and Hays also missed a few weeks last season due to a left foot contusion.

It was almost exactly one year ago that the Reds signed Hays to a one-year, $5MM guarantee, which broke down as $4MM in salary and a $1MM buyout of a $12MM mutual option for the 2026 season.  As with virtually all mutual options, Hays was cut loose following the 2025 campaign, though he had a respectable .266/.315/.453 slash line and 15 homers over 416 plate appearances for Cincinnati.

On a team that struggled to generate consistent offense, Hays’ 105 wRC+ was the third-highest of any Reds player who had at least 111 trips to the plate.  Though Hays was again hampered by injuries, it was least a step upwards from the uncertainty of the kidney infection that plagued him for much of the 2024 campaign, and cratered his numbers altogether after a deadline trade to the Phillies.

Since Opening Day 2021, Hays has a 106 wRC+ over 2348 PA, and he played in basically an everyday role with the Orioles from 2021-23.  Despite the decent production, Hays has never walked much or made a lot of hard contact, and his strikeout rates have shot upwards over the last three seasons.  Hays’ viability for an everyday role will probably hinge on how much he can hit right-handed pitching, as his splits have made him look like most of a lefty-masher in recent years.

The Reds hung onto Hays last summer both because they needed him for their own playoff push and probably in part because his injuries hurt his trade market, but it certainly seems possible the Sox could shop Hays at the upcoming deadline.  The focus remains on the future for the rebuilding White Sox, and plenty of teams would figure to have trade interest in a veteran bat who has a 160 wRC+ against left-handed pitching over the last two seasons.

The Hays signing is the latest intriguing move for a White Sox team that is planning to be more competitive in 2026, even if a full-fledged run at a playoff berth remains at least a year away.  Trading Luis Robert Jr. to the Mets freed up $20MM in payroll space, and the Sox reinvested that money into a two-year, $20MM deal for Seranthony Dominguez to become Chicago’s next closer.

Since Dominguez is only getting $8MM of that money in 2026, the White Sox have now been able to sign Hays and ostensibly still have $6MM more to spend from the $20MM hole Robert left in the team’s budget.  A pitching addition may be more likely than another position-player add given Chicago’s needs in the rotation and bullpen.

Inset photograph courtesy of Mark J. Rebilas — Imagn Images

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