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Dodgers To Re-Sign Kiké Hernández

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12:06pm: It’s a one-year, $4.5MM deal, reports Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic.

11:48am: As expected, the Dodgers are bringing Kiké Hernández back for the 2026 season. The utilityman announced the agreement on social media, posting “What else did you expect? Three in a row has a nice ring to it!” The Dodgers have not yet announced the signing. They’ll need to open a spot on the 40-man roster once the signing is final.

Hernández has spent the past two and a half seasons in L.A. He sandwiched a few seasons in Boston in between but has spent the majority of his career with the Dodgers. Hernández was a high-end utility player earlier in his career, playing plus defense everywhere on the diamond while hitting left-handed pitching well. His offensive production has tailed off over the past few years, but the Dodgers love him as a clubhouse presence and he remains a versatile defender.

The 34-year-old Hernández is coming off a .203/.255/.366 showing across 256 regular season plate appearances. He popped 10 home runs in 93 games but struck out at a career-high 26.6% clip. Since returning to L.A. at the 2023 trade deadline, he’s a .228/.279/.382 hitter in a little over 800 trips to the plate. His .220/.278/.393 line against left-handed pitching is well below what he did against southpaws earlier in his career.

Hernández does have a strong postseason track record, compiling an .826 OPS over 103 games in October. That didn’t really materialize last season, when he hit .250/.290/.359 with one homer in 69 playoff plate appearances. He nevertheless clearly had the trust of skipper Dave Roberts, who penciled Hernández into the lineup for every game of their World Series run. Hernández played mostly left field in October as the Dodgers lost faith in the slumping Andy Pages down the stretch.

Image courtesy of Michael McLoone, Imagn Images.

Diamondbacks To Sign Paul Sewald

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The D-backs are bringing right-hander Paul Sewald back to Arizona on a one-year, $1.5MM contract, Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic reports. The agreement is pending a physical. Sewald is represented by ISE Baseball.

Sewald spent the second half of the 2023 season and all of the 2024 season in Arizona after coming over in a trade that shipped Dominic Canzone, Josh Rojas and Ryan Bliss to the Mariners. He battled shaky command but posted solid results down the stretch in ’23 before seeing his overall production take a step back in a 2024 season that was truncated by oblique and neck injuries.

After becoming a free agent following the 2024 campaign, Sewald signed a one-year, $7MM deal in Cleveland. He pitched only 15 1/3 innings for the Guardians, this time due to a shoulder strain. The Tigers picked him up in a small deadline deal despite the fact that he was on the injured list, and he pitched 4 1/3 innings for Detroit late in the year.

Sewald was a tenth-round pick by the Mets back in 2012 and had an unremarkable four-year stint in Queens, pitching to a 5.50 ERA in 147 1/3 innings. He was a minor league free agent gem for the Mariners, however, signing with Seattle ahead of the 2021 season and quickly emerging as a go-to reliever. In two-plus seasons as a Mariner, Sewald pitched 171 2/3 innings with a 2.88 ERA, 52 saves, 24 holds, an enormous 35% strikeout rate and a solid 8.1% walk rate.

More to come.

Dodgers, Max Muncy Agree To Extension

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The Dodgers announced Thursday that they’ve agreed to a one-year contract extension with third baseman Max Muncy. He’s now guaranteed an additional $10MM in the form of a $7MM salary in 2027 and a $3MM buyout on a $10MM club option for the 2028 campaign. Muncy is repped by Hub Sports Management.

As can be seen in a quick look at MLBTR’s Contract Tracker, this is the fourth extension of the past six years between the two parties. Muncy signed a three-year. $26MM contract covering his arbitration years back in 2020 and gave up control over his first free-agent season via a club option in that process. In Aug. 2022, he agreed to a new deal that saw his 2023 club option picked up in advance, with the Dodgers tacking on another year of control via a club option for the 2024 season. Following the 2023 campaign, the Dodgers renegotiated a two-year, $24MM deal with a $10MM club option for the 2026 season, which the club exercised back in November.

The new deal now covers Muncy’s age-36 season (2027) and gives the Dodgers a net $7MM decision on his age-37 campaign. With this contract, he’s effectively locked into spending an entire decade with L.A., as he made his Dodgers debut in 2018 after being cut loose by the A’s and signing a minor league deal.

Muncy will go down as one of the best minor league pickups in recent memory. He immediately broke out in Los Angeles, slashing .263/.391/.582 with 35 home runs in his debut Dodger campaign. He’s been a well above-average offensive performer in each of his eight seasons with L.A. so far, save for the 2020 campaign when his .192/.331/.398 slash checked in a bit shy of average overall (98 wRC+).

Injuries have hobbled Muncy in recent seasons, but he’s remained a threat in the batter’s box whenever healthy. He was limited to 100 games last season thanks to a bone bruise in his knee and an oblique strain, but Muncy still delivered a .243/.376/.470 slash with 19 home runs and a massive (career-high) 16.5% walk rate in the 388 plate appearances he was able to take. He’s averaged just 111 games per season over the past four years and regularly hits for a low average, but his impeccable patience and well above-average power continue to make him a productive player.

Muncy will reach 10 years of major league service on the 145th day of the 2026 season. At that point, he’ll gain 10-and-5 rights (10 years of service, the past five with the same team), granting him full veto rights over any potential trade scenario. Today’s extension all but locks him into third base at Dodger Stadium for the next two seasons. Muncy hasn’t been an option at second base in years now, and across the infield Freddie Freeman is signed through the 2027 season. Shohei Ohtani, of course, will continue to take the team’s at-bats at designated hitter.

Muncy’s glovework has always drawn mixed reviews, and that’s been no different in recent seasons. Defensive Runs Saved has pegged him as an above-average third baseman in each of the past two seasons, while Statcast felt he was average in 2024 and a fair bit below average in 2025. The Dodgers, clearly, are comfortable with any defensive concessions they’ll need to make to keep Muncy’s perpetually excellent on-base percentage and plus power in the lineup — at least against right-handed pitching.

While Muncy crushed fellow lefties early in his career, his numbers in left-on-left matchups have gone south recently. He still held his own against southpaws in 2024 but was well below average in 2023 and again in 2025, when he hit just .157/.250/.314 in 80 plate appearances. Platoon options at third base for the Dodgers include veteran Miguel Rojas and switch-hitting top infield prospect Alex Freeland.

Guardians, Ben Lively Finalizing Minor League Deal

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The Guardians are finalizing a two-year minor league contract with right-hander Ben Lively, per Zack Meisel of The Athletic. Lively, who underwent Tommy John surgery last June, is already at the team’s spring complex in Arizona, suggesting the deal should be wrapped up soon. He’s represented by Meister Sports Management.

A fourth-round pick by the Reds back in 2013, Lively struggled in a handful of major league opportunities with the Phillies and Royals in 2017-19 before heading over to the Korea Baseball Organization, where he enjoyed a nice two-and-a-half year run with the Samsung Lions. The Reds brought him back to North American ball ahead of the 2023 season, but he struggled in 88 2/3 frames (5.38 ERA) before being cut loose. Cleveland saw enough in his raw stuff and underlying metrics to bring him aboard on a major league deal in the 2023-24 offseason, and it proved to be a major bargain.

In 2024, Lively tossed 151 innings with a 3.81 earned run average, an 18.7% strikeout rate and a 7.8% walk rate over the life of 29 starts. He entered the 2025 season locked into a rotation spot for manager Stephen Vogt and posted a sharp-looking 3.22 ERA in nine starts, but the under-the-hood numbers were less encouraging. Lively’s strikeout rate dipped to 16.3% while his walk rate rose to 8.4%. His chase rate, swinging-strike rate and opponents’ contact rate all went in the wrong direction. Metrics like SIERA (5.30) and FIP (4.59) were far more bearish than his baseline earned run average.

Lively hit the injured list after just nine starts in 2025. He was originally diagnosed with a strained flexor tendon, but further imaging revealed significant damage to the ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow as well. The Guardians announced in late May that Lively was headed for Tommy John surgery and would also have that flexor tendon repaired in the process. The procedure came with a recovery period of 12 to 16 months, per the club.

Given that timetable, the two-year nature of this new arrangement makes sense. There’s at least a chance Lively could be back in the fold midseason, but his rehab could extend into September, effectively eating up the entire 2026 campaign. In that case, Cleveland would still retain the right-hander as a non-roster player over the course of the 2026-27 offseason, and he could compete for a spot in the rotation ahead of the ’27 campaign.

Lively obviously won’t be in Cleveland’s rotation mix heading into the season. The Guardians will rely on Gavin Williams, Tanner Bibee, Parker Messick, Slade Cecconi and Logan Allen, perhaps with left-hander Joey Cantillo also factoring into the equation.

Orioles To Sign Chris Bassitt

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The Orioles are reportedly in agreement with starter Chris Bassitt on a one-year, $18.5MM contract, pending a physical. Bassitt, a client of Meister Sports Management, receives a $3MM signing bonus and would unlock another $500K if he reaches 27 starts. Baltimore has an opening on the 40-man roster after losing infielder Bryan Ramos on waivers to St. Louis.

President of baseball operations Mike Elias has made a habit of signing veteran starters to one-year deals over the past few years. They found some success with Kyle Gibson in 2023. Last winter’s reunion with Gibson and additions of Charlie Morton and Tomoyuki Sugano did not go as planned. Bassitt is in a similar stage of his career as he nears his 37th birthday, but he should have a higher floor than those previous additions.

Bassitt didn’t reach 100 MLB innings in a season until his age-30 campaign in 2019. He has been a consistent mid-rotation presence over the last seven years. Only once did his earned run average climb north of 4.00. His 2.29 mark during the shortened season was a small sample outlier, but he has otherwise been a safe bet to allow between three and four earned runs per nine while logging a heavy workload. Bassitt has surpassed 150 innings in each of the last five seasons, one of just six pitchers to do that. He’s eighth in total innings over that stretch.

The veteran righty has paired the bulk with mid-rotation quality. He’s coming off a 3.96 ERA with slightly better than average underlying marks. Bassitt fanned 22.6% of batters faced against a 7.1% walk rate across 170 1/3 innings a year ago. His per-pitch whiff rate is a little below average, but he has managed to strike out between 22-23% of opponents in each of the past four seasons.

Bassitt’s velocity has ticked down slightly as he has gotten into his mid-30s. His sinker averaged 91.6 mph last season, narrowly a career low. That’s still not far off the 92-93 mph range in which he had worked throughout his career. The sinker is Bassitt’s primary offering, but Statcast identified eight distinct pitches that he used at least occasionally during his final season in Toronto. He mostly works with a sinker, cutter and curveball and generally does well to limit hard contact.

The biggest concern may be Bassitt’s issues against left-handed hitters. While he held them in check earlier in his career, Bassitt has seen his platoon splits widen over the past few seasons. Since the start of 2023, lefties have gotten to him at a .284/.360/.483 clip in more than 1200 plate appearances. He has held same-handed opponents to a punchless .224/.286/.323 line in a similar number of at-bats over that stretch.

Bassitt is coming off a three-year, $63MM contract with the division rival Blue Jays. He provided Toronto with 541 1/3 innings of 3.89 ERA ball during the regular season. Bassitt only once missed a start, as a minor bout of back inflammation sent him to the injured list last September. He missed the Division Series win over the Yankees but returned for the AL Championship Series. Bassitt pitched out of relief and emerged as one of John Schneider’s most trusted leverage arms in October. He fired 8 2/3 innings of one-run ball with 10 strikeouts during Toronto’s pennant run.

One year after helping the Jays go worst to first in the AL East, Bassitt will hope to accomplish the same feat with Baltimore. The Orioles have had a big offseason after stumbling to a 75-87 showing. They signed Pete Alonso (a former teammate of Bassitt’s in New York) to a monster five-year, $155MM deal. The O’s swapped oft-injured starter Grayson Rodriguez for another righty power bat, Taylor Ward, while dealing four prospects and a draft choice to the Rays for Shane Baz. They signed Ryan Helsley to a two-year deal to replace injured closer Félix Bautista and reunited with Zach Eflin on a $10MM contract.

The Orioles again shied away from the top of the free agent starting pitching market, preferring to make a splash in the middle of the lineup. They’ll hope to unlock another gear from Baz, a former top prospect who has shown flashes but been inconsistent over his first couple seasons. Trevor Rogers will look to build off last year’s fantastic final few months, while Kyle Bradish has a chance to be an upper mid-rotation starter now that he’s recovered from Tommy John surgery.

Bassitt slots behind Rogers, Bradish and Baz as locks to open the year in Craig Albernaz’s rotation. Eflin will be assured of the fifth starter role as long as he’s fully recovered from last August’s back surgery. He’s expected to be a full participant in Spring Training, so that should be the case. That could push Dean Kremer and/or Tyler Wells back to Triple-A Norfolk to open the season. Both pitchers still have an option remaining, though they’re each approaching the five-year service cutoff at which they’d earn the right to refuse any minor league assignments. Wells needs another 40 days on an MLB roster to get there, while Kremer is 60 days away.

The O’s could use Wells in long relief and start the year with Kremer rounding out a six-man rotation if they want both pitchers in the majors. A rotation surplus usually works itself out before long. The Braves, Blue Jays and Tigers have all announced significant injury losses within the first two days of camp. Even if all of Baltimore’s starters are currently healthy, they’d be fortunate if that’s the case by Opening Day.

Bassitt may not be the top-of-the-rotation type that O’s fans had coveted, but he’s a sensible pickup for a team that’ll keep an eye on Bradish’s and Eflin’s innings after lost seasons. MLBTR had predicted a two-year, $38MM contract at the beginning of the offseason. Baltimore was able to avoid committing that second season in an offseason when Merrill Kelly commanded $20MM annually over two years from the Diamondbacks at the same age.

The O’s payroll projection climbs to $166MM, as calculated by RosterResource. Despite the handful of significant offseason pickups, they’re only about $6MM above where they opened last season. This will probably wrap their significant offseason dealings, but they shouldn’t have an issue taking on some money midseason if they’re positioned to buy. Bassitt’s removal from the market leaves Zac Gallen, Lucas Giolito and Max Scherzer as the best free agents available for teams still looking to add.

Jeff Passan of ESPN first reported the agreement and terms. Image courtesy of John E. Sokolowski, Imagn Images.

Twins To Sign Julian Merryweather To Minor League Deal

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The Twins are bringing in reliever Julian Merryweather on a minor league contract, reports Dan Hayes of The Athletic. The client of Warner Sports Management will be in camp as a non-roster invitee. Minnesota also agreed to a minor league deal with Liam Hendriks this evening.

Merryweather made 21 appearances for the Cubs last season. He was hit hard, surrendering 13 runs (12 earned) across 18 2/3 innings. Merryweather struck out 15 while issuing 11 walks. Chicago released him at the end of May. Merryweather finished the season on successive minor league contracts with the Mets and Brewers. He didn’t find much more success in Triple-A, where he was tagged for a 5.87 ERA across 23 innings.

The 34-year-old righty has pitched parts of six MLB seasons between the Blue Jays and Cubs. He had one above-average season, firing 72 frames of 3.38 ERA ball in 2023. The past two years have been a struggle, and he holds a 4.72 mark over 158 1/3 career innings. Merryweather has a 96 mph fastball with a good slider but has never had strong command. He’s also battled various injuries, including 2018 Tommy John surgery and oblique/abdominal issues in 2020 and ’22, respectively.

As was the case for Hendriks, it’s easy to see the appeal for Merryweather in signing with Minnesota. There’s a strong opportunity for non-roster bullpen arms. Minnesota has a patchwork bullpen that probably only has four locks: Taylor Rogers, Justin Topa, Cole Sands and Kody Funderburk. Trade pickup Eric Orze should enter camp with a good chance to win a job. Jackson Kowar is out of options and needs to make the team or be designated for assignment. Kowar has a career 8.21 ERA, while everyone else aside from Rogers and Topa have a minor league option remaining. Dan Altavilla, Matt Bowman and Grant Hartwig are also in camp as non-roster invitees.

Twins, Liam Hendriks Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Twins have an agreement to bring veteran reliever Liam Hendriks back to Minnesota, reports Robert Murray of FanSided. It’s a minor league deal with an invite to MLB camp for the client of ALIGND Sports Agency, reports Jon Heyman of The New York Post.

It’s a homecoming for Hendriks, who signed with the Twins as an amateur out of Australia and made his MLB debut at Target Field in September 2011. Hendriks spent parts of three seasons with the club, struggling to a 6.06 ERA in 30 appearances (28 starts). The Twins designated him for assignment over the 2013-14 offseason and lost him on waivers.

Hendriks bounced around the league for a few years before a full-time move to the bullpen and accompanying velocity spike took him to a much higher level. The righty broke out as an elite closer in Oakland and continued on that pace after signing a four-year free agent deal with the White Sox. He earned three All-Star nods, finished top 10 in Cy Young balloting in consecutive seasons (2020-21) and led the American League in saves.

The past couple seasons have been far more challenging. Hendriks famously was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in the 2022-23 winter, though he quickly beat the disease. His return to the field was unfortunately cut short by an elbow injury. Hendriks underwent Tommy John surgery and has barely pitched over the last three seasons split between Chicago and Boston. He missed all of ’24 and was limited to 14 MLB appearances last year by a series of setbacks.

Elbow inflammation shelved him early in the year. He landed on the injured list at the end of May with an abdominal strain. Hendriks attempted to ramp up in September but felt renewed forearm discomfort and underwent ulnar surgery that ended his season. The Red Sox bought him out after just 13 2/3 innings of 11-run ball.

Although he settled for a minor league contract, Hendriks has a good chance to make the team. Minnesota has a patchwork bullpen that probably only has four locks: Taylor Rogers, Justin Topa, Cole Sands and Kody Funderburk. Trade pickup Eric Orze should enter camp with a good chance to win a job, while Jackson Kowar is out of options and needs to make the team or be designated for assignment. Kowar has a career 8.21 ERA, while everyone else aside from Rogers and Topa have a minor league option remaining.

As a player with six years of service time who finished last season on Boston’s major league roster, Hendriks hit the market as an Article XX(b) free agent. That means this deal comes with a trio of automatic opt-out dates under the collective bargaining agreement. He can trigger an out clause five days before Opening Day, on May 1, or on June 1. If he does, the Twins would have two days to either promote him or grant him his release.

Pirates Sign José Urquidy

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February 11: Pittsburgh officially announced Urquidy’s one-year deal on Wednesday evening. Jones was placed on the 60-day injured list in a corresponding move. He’ll miss at least the first two months of the regular season but could be back before the All-Star Break as he rehabs from the elbow procedure. Pittsburgh will need to make another 40-man roster move — likely designating someone for assignment — once they finalize their agreement with DH Marcell Ozuna.

February 5: The Pirates and right-hander José Urquidy are reportedly in agreement on a one-year, $5MM contract. Urquidy, an Octagon client, can boost that salary further via incentives.

Pittsburgh generated headlines yesterday when they jumped in as a late entrant in the Framber Valdez bidding before he ultimately went to the Tigers last night. They’ll still add a former Astros hurler to reunite with new pitching coach Bill Murphy, though on a much smaller scale. Murphy coached Urquidy with Houston from 2021-24.

From 2021-22, Urquidy was an unheralded but quality member of the Houston rotation, starting 48 games and pitching to a solid 3.81 ERA with a 20.3% strikeout rate and a tiny 5.2% walk rate. Injuries began to slow him down in 2023. He missed three months with a shoulder injury that season, and his entire 2024 campaign was wiped out by an elbow injury that ultimately required Tommy John surgery over the summer. The 2025 season had been scheduled to be Urquidy’s final year of club control, so the Astros unsurprisingly cut him loose following the season.

Urquidy latched on with the Tigers on a one-year, $1MM contract that included a 2026 club option valued at $4MM. He returned from the injured list in September but pitched only 2 1/3 innings in the majors before consenting to be optioned. He pitched well in the minors last year (2.91 ERA, 22.2 K%, 6.2 BB% in 21 2/3 frames) but was hit hard in his small big league sample. The Tigers opted to decline their 2026 option and send Urquidy back to the open market.

With the injury troubles ostensibly behind him, Urquidy heads to the Pirates as an interesting buy-low candidate with some upside. Because he favors a changeup as his go-to offspeed pitch, he has substantial reverse splits in his career. Lefties have posted an awful .203/.257/.362 slash against him, whereas righties — with some help from the short left-field porch in Houston — have tagged him for a .267/.314/.468 batting line. Moving from one of the best environments for right-handed home runs to perhaps the worst in MLB will surely benefit his skill set.

Exactly what role the Pirates have in store for Urquidy, who turns 31 in May, remains to be seen. The Bucs are as deep as nearly any team in the sport when it comes to starting pitching but seem to add a low-cost veteran around this time of the offseason every year. In the past, that’s meant short-term pickups of Tyler Anderson, Jose Quintana, Martín Pérez and Andrew Heaney. Urquidy isn’t a lefty like that quartet but still seems to meet general manager Ben Cherington’s annual bargain starter quota.

Reigning NL Cy Young winner Paul Skenes will, of course, be the Pirates’ Opening Day starter. He’ll be followed in some order by veteran Mitch Keller and young flamethrowers Bubba Chandler and Braxton Ashcraft, both of whom impressed as rookies in 2025. Urquidy will join a competition for the fifth spot that includes Carmen Mlodzinski, Hunter Barco, Thomas Harrington and Jared Jones, who’ll be returning from 2024 Tommy John surgery. Mlodzinski fared better as a reliever than a starter last season, so this move could push him to the ’pen. If Urquidy is outshined by Jones, Barco or Harrington in camp, he could open the season in a swingman capacity.

Will Sammon of The Athletic first reported that the sides had an agreement. Jon Heyman of The New York Post reported that it was a $1.5MM base with incentives.

Nationals Sign Miles Mikolas

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The Nationals added an innings eater on Wednesday, announcing a one-year contract with veteran right-hander Miles Mikolas. It’s reportedly a $2.25MM base salary for the Octagon client, who can earn another $750K in bonuses. Mikolas would collect $100K apiece for every 10 innings between 100 and 120, $200K at 130 frames, and $250K at 140 innings. DJ Herz has been placed on the 60-day injured list to open a spot on the 40-man roster. Herz underwent Tommy John surgery last April.

Mikolas, 37, became a workhorse in his mid-thirties. He began his career with the Padres and Rangers before spending three years with the Yomiuri Giants in NPB. During the 2017-18 offseason, he signed with the Cardinals and made 32 starts in each of the next two years, but forearm issues kept him off the field for most of 2020-21. Since 2022, he has started at least 31 games each year, including a league-leading 35 in 2023. Only one pitcher, Logan Webb, has made more starts than Mikolas over the last four seasons, and only four have thrown more innings.

Unfortunately for Mikolas, the quality of those innings has declined as he has aged and his stuff has diminished. In 2025, he pitched to a 4.84 ERA and a 4.83 SIERA. While the righty has never been one to rack up strikeouts, his strikeout rate and strikeout-to-walk ratio dropped to 14.9% and 2.70, respectively, the lowest either has ever been since before he left for Japan. The only pitcher to throw at least 150 innings last year with a worse strikeout rate was Mikolas’s new Nationals teammate Mitchell Parker. Meanwhile, no pitcher (min. 150 IP) gave up barrels at a higher rate than Mikolas; according to Statcast’s xERA, he ranked among the bottom 9% of pitchers in MLB. Pitch models that evaluate raw stuff, such as Stuff+ and PitchingBot, also suggest that the veteran took a big step back in 2025. Overwhelming batters with nasty stuff was never how he succeeded, but his stuff metrics went from poor to some of the worst in the game this past season.

As negative as all that sounds, it’s important to keep in mind that Mikolas still took the mound 31 times in 2025, tossing 156 1/3 frames. He made eight quality starts and finished five innings in all but seven of his outings. The Nationals badly needed an innings eater for a woefully inexperienced rotation set to include names like Josiah Gray, Cade Cavalli, Foster Griffin, Jake Irvin, Brad Lord, and Parker. Of those arms, only Irvin and Parker have pitched so much as one qualifying major league season, while Gray is the only other to have a 30-start campaign under his belt. It’s a group replete with injury concerns, consistency issues, and limited track records. The dependable Mikolas will boost the floor of what projects to be one of the worst starting rotations in the league.

TalkNats first reported the Nationals and Mikolas had conversations. Jake Mintz of Yahoo Sports! was first on the agreement. Mark Zuckerman of Nats Journal confirmed it was a major league deal, while Jon Heyman of The New York Post had the $2.75MM base plus incentives. The Associated Press reported the incentive specifics. Image courtesy of Jeff Curry, Imagn Images.

Kris Bubic Wins Arbitration Hearing

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Left-hander Kris Bubic won his arbitration hearing against the Royals, reports Mark Feinsand of MLB.com. He’ll be paid the $6.15MM salary figure he and his reps at Apex Baseball submitted rather than the $5.15MM figure submitted by the team.

Bubic, 28, looked well on his way to a breakout in 2025 before a strained rotator cuff ended his season in late July. He’s shown flashes off a new gear upon returning from Tommy John surgery in 2024, when he posted a 2.67 ERA with eye-popping strikeout and walk rates (32.2%, 4.1%) in a small sample of 30 1/3 frames of relief work. He wasn’t quite that dominant in 2025 but still gave reason to buy into the prior season’s results; in 116 1/3 innings back in the Kansas City rotation, Bubic logged a terrific 2.55 ERA with a 24.4% strikeout rate, an 8.2% walk rate and a strong 47.2% ground-ball rate.

Put those two seasons together, and Bubic carries a stout 2.58 ERA, 26% strikeout rate, 7.4% walk rate and 48.8% ground-ball rate in his past 146 2/3 innings. He’s locked into a spot in manager Matt Quatraro’s rotation, and with a full, healthy season will position himself as one of the more desirable arms on next year’s free agent market. This is his final season of club control, given his 5.135 years of big league service time.

Bubic will join Cole Ragans, Seth Lugo, Michael Wacha and Noah Cameron in what should be a formidable Royals rotation. His proximity to free agency prompted the Royals to at least consider the idea of trading him to acquire help on other areas of the big league roster this winter,  but obviously no deal came together. The Mets and Red Sox were both linked to Bubic at various points this winter as they scoured the trade market for rotation upgrades.

If the Royals fall out of contention in the season’s first half, Bubic’s name could once again surface on the trade market. However, provided he’s healthy and anywhere close to his 2024-25 form, he’ll be a qualifying offer candidate, so Kansas City would likely seek a fairly notable return to pry him loose. That’s a down-the-road consideration anyhow; the Royals enter the 2026 season with a very similar club to the one they trotted out in 2026, though they’ll hope that better health and newcomers Isaac Collins, Lane Thomas, Matt Strahm and Nick Mears can help them contend in a perennially thin American League Central.

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