Headlines

Go To Pro Hockey Rumors
Go To Hoops Rumors

Transactions

Jose Ruiz Signs With NPB’s Yokohama BayStars

By | at

The Yokohama DeNA BayStars of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball announced yesterday that they’ve signed reliever José Ruiz. MLBTR’s Steve Adams reports that it’s a one-year deal with a 2027 club option. The OL Baseball Group client is guaranteed $1.2MM and can collect another $200K per season in incentives.

Ruiz, 31, split last season between the Phillies and Braves. He opened the year in Philadelphia’s big league bullpen but was hit hard, giving up 13 earned runs across 14 1/3 innings. They designated him for assignment and lost him on waivers to Atlanta at the beginning of June. Ruiz didn’t get much of a look from the Braves, who dropped him after he gave up three runs to the Rockies in his second appearance. He cleared waivers that time around and spent the rest of the season in Triple-A.

Atlanta flipped Ruiz to the Rangers as a salary offset in the Dane Dunning deal a month later. He didn’t make it back to the majors with Texas. The Venezuelan righty pitched well in Triple-A, though, combining for a 2.73 ERA in 33 innings. He struck out 24% of opponents against an excellent 5.4% walk percentage.

Ruiz has logged some big league action in each of the past nine seasons. He spent most of his career with the White Sox but was a useful middle reliever for the Phillies as recently as 2024. This is his first stint in Asia. The $1.2MM guarantee is better than he would’ve received had he sought minor league opportunities in affiliated ball. He’s young enough to explore a return down the line if he pitches well in Japan.

Mets Sign Devin Williams To Three-Year Deal

By | at

December 3: The Mets have officially announced their signing of Williams.

December 1: Another free agent reliever has come off the board. The Mets are reportedly in agreement with Devin Williams on a three-year deal that guarantees the Klutch Sports client $51MM, though the net present value is knocked down by $15MM in deferrals.

Williams receives a $6MM signing bonus that’ll be paid in $2MM installments. He receives $15MM annual salaries, $5MM of which is deferred each season. (Signing bonuses are paid even in the event of a work stoppage, while players would not receive salaries for any games lost to a 2027 lockout.) There’s also reportedly a $1MM assignment bonus in the event of a trade.

A second-round pick by the Brewers in 2013, Williams took a while to climb through the minor leagues as a starting pitcher. He took off after being moved to the bullpen in 2019, climbing from Double-A to the big leagues by the end of that season. Williams emerged as one of the sport’s best late-game weapons by his first full big league season. He turned in a 0.33 ERA across 27 innings during the shortened 2020 schedule and claimed the National League Rookie and Reliever of the Year Awards.

The righty continued to dominate over the next few seasons, forming a lethal back-end duo with Josh Hader. Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns had a front row seat as Milwaukee’s front office leader for most of that tenure. Williams stepped into the ninth inning when Milwaukee sent Hader to San Diego at the ’22 deadline. He reeled off 36 saves in 40 tries with a 1.53 ERA to win his second career Reliever of the Year honors a year later.

Over his first four full seasons, Williams pitched to a 1.75 ERA while striking out 40.5% of opposing hitters. Heading into 2024, there was a decent argument for him as the best reliever in MLB. He hit his first real setback that Spring Training, as testing revealed two stress fractures in his back. He didn’t make his season debut until shortly before the trade deadline. Williams looked every bit as dominant during the regular season, reeling off 21 2/3 frames of three-run ball with 38 strikeouts to finish the year. His season ended in heartbreak fashion, as he surrendered a go-ahead homer to Pete Alonso in the final game of the Wild Card Series.

That wound up being Williams’ final action in a Milwaukee uniform. Before his last year of arbitration, the Brewers flipped him to the Yankees for starter Nestor Cortes and rookie infielder Caleb Durbin. The Yankees felt they were acquiring one of the ten best relievers in the sport. Williams’ results, at least, didn’t come close to those expectations.

The 31-year-old righty had an inconsistent lone season in the Bronx. He was terrible early on, giving up multiple runs in three of his first 10 appearances. Consecutive poor outings at the end of April led the Yankees to move him to a setup role and put Luke Weaver back into the ninth inning. Williams had one more rough appearance in early May before settling into a groove over the next few weeks. He returned to closing when Weaver landed on the injured list at the beginning of June.

Williams was lights out from that point through the All-Star Break. He gave up runs in seven of his first nine appearances of the second half, though, and the Yankees pushed him out of the closer role for good when they acquired David Bednar at the trade deadline. Williams posted a 5.06 ERA in the second half despite striking out nearly 40% of batters faced — the second-best rate among qualified relievers behind Mason Miller. He worked in a setup capacity late in the season and into the playoffs. Williams tossed four scoreless frames with four strikeouts in the postseason.

The end result was a career-worst 4.79 earned run average over 67 appearances. The Mets are placing a decent sized bet that the poor run prevention was a fluke. Opponents had a .339 batting average on balls in play when runners were on base. That’s easily the highest mark in Williams’ career (aside from his brief 2019 debut). He had a very difficult time stranding runners as a result. While relievers certainly need to be able to work out of tough situations, that had never previously been an issue.

Batted ball metrics can be volatile, especially for relievers who only throw 60-70 innings in a season. Williams’ stuff still grades out extremely well, and he remains capable of missing bats at a level that few other pitchers can match. He struck out 34.7% of opponents behind a 16.8% swinging strike rate. Those are down slightly from his usual marks but remain among the best in MLB. Among relievers with 50+ innings, Williams finished eighth in strikeout rate and 10th in whiffs.

Williams has two pitches which he has used at roughly equal rates over the past couple seasons. His fastball sits around 94 MPH and while it’s a good pitch, his standout offering is his unique “Airbender” screwball/changeup. The pitch still moves unlike any other changeup in the league, and opponents have hit below .200 against it in every full season of his career.

The underlying numbers made Williams a popular “buy-low” target among teams and fanbases. That is borne out in the contract to an extent. Williams might have been in the running for a $100MM deal had he posted another sub-2.00 ERA season. It didn’t force him to settle for a pillow contract, as he’s still being paid as a high-end reliever. Williams falls well short of the four years and $72MM which Tanner Scott commanded last winter, but he’s within the $46-58MM range in which closers Robert Suarez, Liam Hendriks and Raisel Iglesias have found themselves over the past few offseasons. He came up shy of the four years and $68MM which MLBTR had predicted in ranking him the second-best reliever in the class.

While an ugly walk year ERA still has some impact on a pitcher’s market, Williams is the third example this offseason of teams placing a decent amount of emphasis on stuff and whiffs in spite of that. Dylan Cease commanded a seven-year deal from the Blue Jays coming off a 4.55 ERA over 32 starts. Ryan Helsley pulled $14MM annually from the Orioles on a two-year contract with an opt-out despite a brutal finish to his 2025 season with the Mets. It’s easier for clubs to place that kind of bet on pitchers coming from a different team. The Mets were never likely to bring back Helsley, and while the Yankees reportedly kept in contact with Williams’ camp, they also opted not to issue him a $22.025MM qualifying offer that probably would have kept him around on a one-year deal.

The Mets obviously don’t feel that Williams is incapable of succeeding in New York. He’ll slot into a key late-inning role in Carlos Mendoza’s bullpen. He projects as the closer for now but could slide back into a setup capacity if the Mets bring back Edwin Díaz, which they’re reportedly still considering. If the Mets allow their longtime closer to walk, they’ll need to bring in multiple right-handed setup arms to bridge the gap to Williams in the ninth.

RosterResource projects the Mets’ 2026 payroll and luxury tax commitments in the $277-280MM range. They’re likely to end up beyond the $304MM final surcharge threshold by the time they address the rotation, bullpen, and/or first base and the corner outfield. The estimate from FanGraphs currently has them in the second tier of penalization — just below the $284MM cutoff for Tier 3. They’re taxed at a 62% rate for spending between $264MM and $284MM, so the Williams signing comes with an approximate $8-10MM tax hit depending on the calculation of the net present value. They’ll pay a 95% tax on spending between $284MM and $304MM and a 110% bill on any money beyond $304MM.

Will Sammon of The Athletic reported that the Mets and Williams had agreed to a three-year deal. ESPN’s Jeff Passan noted that the guarantee was above $50MM, while Jon Heyman of The New York Post had the salary/bonus/deferral breakdown. The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal was first on the assignment bonus.

Image courtesy of Wendell Cruz, Imagn Images.

Braves Sign Austin Pope To Minor League Deal

By | at

The Braves have signed right-hander Austin Pope to a minor league deal, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com. The Beverly Hills Sports Council client has been assigned to Triple-A Gwinnett for now but will presumably receive an invite to big league spring training.

Pope, 27, joins a new organization for the first time in his career. The pontiff was drafted by the Diamondbacks back in 2019. He climbed the minor league ladder and got to make brief major league debut in 2025. He was added to the roster in the final week of the regular season and got to make one appearance. On September 25th, with the Snakes down 8-0 to the Dodgers, Pope tossed two scoreless innings of mop-up duty. He allowed two hits and a walk while striking out one.

The righty was outrighted off the roster at the end of the season and was able to elect free agency, which has allowed Atlanta to scoop him up. They are presumably placing stock in Pope’s minor league results. Over the past three years, he has thrown 160 1/3 innings in the minor leagues, mostly with the Triple-A Reno Aces. His 4.55 earned run average in that time isn’t especially impressive but the Aces play in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League. His 9.4% walk rate in that time was pretty close to average while his 27.6% strikeout rate was quite strong.

Pope still has a full slate of option and just a handful of service days. If he gets added to Atlanta’s roster at any point, he can give the club a depth arm with roster flexibility and years of cheap control. For now, he can provide them papal depth without taking up a spot on the 40-man.

Photo courtesy of Rob Schumacher, Imagn Images

Guardians, Connor Brogdon Agree To Major League Deal

By | at

The Guardians and right-hander Connor Brogdon have agreed to a major league deal, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. Brogdon will make a salary of $900K next year, per Zack Meisel of The Athletic. The Guardians have 40-man vacancies and don’t need to make a corresponding move.

It’s a bit surprising to see Brogdon, 31 in January, secure himself a big league deal. He settled for a minor league deal with the Angels last winter. He was added to the roster a couple of times during the season, but was later passed through waivers in both instances. He tossed 47 innings for the Halos around those transactions, allowing 5.55 earned runs per nine.

Those were obviously not great results but the Guardians are presumably seeing something attractive under the hood. Brogdon’s 24.6% strikeout rate and 9% walk rate were both close to league average. His ERA was inflated because he allowed 11 home runs, almost doubling his previous career high of six. There are some ERA estimators which consider home run spikes to be fluky. Brogdon’s SIERA, for instance, was just 3.86 this year.

It’s also perhaps worth pointing out that Brogdon’s velocity came back. He averaged 95.5 miles per hour on his fastball in 2025. In 2024, he had battled plantar fasciitis and only tossed three big league innings. In that small sample of work, his fastball was down to 92.8 mph.

The Guardians presumably feel there’s a path to get Brogdon back to his previous results. From 2020 to 2022, then with the Phillies, Brogdon tossed 113 innings with a 3.42 ERA, 25.1% strikeout rate and 7.3% walk rate. He earned three saves and 16 holds. He also tossed 8 2/3 postseason innings with a 2.08 ERA in 2022, as the Phils made it all the way to the World Series. His fastball velo was in the 95-96 mph range for those seasons.

In 2023, his results backed up. He posted a 4.03 ERA with a 20.5% strikeout rate and 10.2% walk rate. His average fastball velo fell to 94.7 mph. The following year, he bounced to the Dodgers and battled the aforementioned plantar fasciitis situation. With the Angels in 2025, his results weren’t fully back but the velo and strikeouts were close to his best years in Philadelphia.

The Guards generally have pretty good bullpens and that was the case in 2025. Even though they lost Emmanuel Clase to a gambling investigation in July, the club’s relief corps still finished the season with a collective 3.44 ERA, third in the majors behind the Padres and Red Sox. Brogdon will jump into that mix as the Guards try to coax better results out of him than the Angels did in 2025.

Brogdon is out of options, meaning he can’t be sent to the minors without being exposed to waivers. If the Guards pass him through waivers at some point, he would have the right to elect free agency as a player with at least three years of service time. However, since he has less than five years of service, he would have to forfeit his remaining salary commitments in order to exercise that right.

The $900K salary isn’t that high, considering the MLB minimum will be $780K next year. However, it is perhaps enough to dissuade other teams from claiming Brogdon. It’s also very unlikely Brogdon choose to leave that money on the table. Perhaps the Guardians are planning on having Brogdon in Triple-A as non-roster depth at some point in the future. If he is holding a roster spot at the end of the 2026 season, he can be retained via arbitration for 2027.

Photo courtesy of Ed Szczepanski, Imagn Images

Blue Jays Sign Dylan Cease To Seven-Year Deal

By | at

December 3rd: The full breakdown is provided by Jon Heyman of The New York Post. Cease gets a $23MM signing bonus and then a $22MM salary in 2026. His salary then jumps to $30MM in 2027 and falls by $1MM in each subsequent season. $10MM of his 2026 salary is deferred followed by $9MM in each season after that. The deal also contains awards bonuses and a limited no-trade clause.

December 2nd: The Jays made it official today, announcing they have signed Cease to a seven-year deal. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports that the MLBPA values the contract at roughly $184.6MM after adjusting for the deferred money.

November 26th: The Blue Jays are making a major splash at the top of the rotation. Toronto is in agreement with Dylan Cease on a seven-year contract, pending a physical. It’s reportedly a $210MM guarantee for the Boras Corporation client, though it includes deferred money that’ll drop the average annual value for luxury tax purposes to roughly $26MM. That puts the net present value closer to $182MM.

Even after adjusting for deferrals, it’s the largest free agent signing in franchise history. Though the Jays gave Vladimir Guerrero Jr. a $500MM extension earlier this year, they’d never gone beyond George Springer’s six-year, $150MM deal on the open market.

Cease, 30 next month, entered free agency as a test case of how much modern front offices care about earned run average. In two of the past three seasons, his ERA has jumped to the mid-4.00s, including a 4.55 mark in 2025. However, in just about every other respect, he has been great. He has been incredibly durable. His control isn’t amazing but he has racked up strikeouts. He has kept his fastball velocity in the upper 90s, while also featuring a slider, knuckle curve and changeup.

Though Cease debuted back in 2019, he has actually never been on the major league injured list, apart from a very brief stint on the COVID list in 2021. He made 12 starts in the shortened 2020 season and has taken the ball at least 32 times in each full season since. In total, he’s made 174 starts since the start of 2020, which leads all major league pitchers. He generally doesn’t pitch deep into games, however, so he’s ninth in that span in terms of innings.

On top of the quantity, the quality has been strong. For that same 2020-25 span, he posted a 3.88 ERA. His 9.9% walk rate was a bit on the high side but he punched out 28.9% of batters faced with a 14.4% swinging strike rate.

As mentioned, his ERA has wobbled in recent years, but it has done so while other elements of his game have stayed more consistent. He actually saw his ERA drop to 2.20 in 2022. With the White Sox at that time, he finished second in American League Cy Young voting to Justin Verlander. His ERA then shot up to 4.58 in 2023, dropped to 3.47 in 2024 and then climbed back up to 4.55 this year.

But during those ups and downs, his strikeout and walk rates have been less volatile. His strikeout rate did drop from 30.4% in 2022 to 27.3%, but then it climbed to 29.4% and 29.8% in the two most recent campaigns. His 10.4% walk rate in 2022 decreased to 10.1% and 8.5% in the next two years, followed by a slight uptick to 9.8% in 2025.

His batting average on balls in play, which tends to be a bit more luck based, has synched up more with his ERA shifts. A standard BABIP is usually around .290 but Cease was down at .260 in that 2022 season. It then swung the other way to .330 in 2023 as Cease’s ERA climbed, then went to .263 and .320 in the two most recent seasons as his ERA dipped and climbed again.

As such, ERA estimators have considered Cease to be far more steady than his actual ERA. His FIP has been between 3.10 and 3.72 for the past four years. His SIERA was at 3.48 in 2022, jumped a bit to 4.10 in 2023, and then has been at 3.46 and 3.58 in 2024 and 2025.

As we were deliberating our Top 50 Free Agents post at MLBTR, we had many debates about whether the inconsistent ERA would hurt his earning power, perhaps leading him to accept a short-term deal with opt-outs, or if teams would overlook the ERA and sign him based on his consistency in other areas. In the end, we opted for latter, predicting a seven-year, $189MM deal. Cease has surpassed that in terms of sticker price, though the deferrals will seemingly put the net present value closer just below that projection.

The Blue Jays are coming off their best season in years, as they charged all the way to Game Seven of the World Series, ultimately falling to the Dodgers in extra innings. However, the season ended with plenty of rotation uncertainty. Chris Bassitt and Max Scherzer became free agents. Shane Bieber had a $16MM player option he seemed likely to decline. In the long term, Kevin Gausman is a free agent after 2026. José Berríos has an opt-out in his deal after the upcoming campaign.

In the past few weeks and months, the long-term outlook has improved considerably. Trey Yesavage came up late in the year and was immediately able to get hitters out, quickly establishing himself as a rotation building block. Bieber surprisingly decided to trigger his player option and stick with the Jays for one more year. Now Cease is in the fold for the long run.

That gives the Jays a rotation of Gausman, Cease, Yesavage, Bieber and Berríos going into 2026, with guys like Eric Lauer, Ricky Tiedemann and Bowden Francis also in the mix. Though Bieber and Gausman are slated to depart after the upcoming campaign, with Berríos potentially joining them, Cease can serve as a bridge to another era. By then, it’s possible Jake Bloss has recovered from his Tommy John surgery and is back in the mix. Prospects like Gage Stanifer and Johnny King might have climbed into the picture by then as well.

Toronto is paying a significant cost to lock Cease in as a long-term anchor. RosterResource projected their 2026 payroll around $232MM, while their luxury tax number was right around the $244MM base threshold. It won’t be clear how much either number goes up until the payment and deferral structure is reported. The CBT number is based on the contract’s average annual value, so the salary breakdown doesn’t matter for tax purposes, but the deferrals reduce the contract’s actual value by around $4MM annually.

In any case, the Jays are clearly going to pay the tax in 2026, and this will push them beyond the $264MM first surcharge tier. They’re into CBT territory for a second consecutive season, meaning they’re taxed at a 30% rate for their first $20MM in overages. They’ll pay a 42% tax on spending between $264MM and $284MM, 75% for spending between $284MM and $304MM, and a 90% rate on any further spending. The Cease deal itself comes with roughly $8.5MM in taxes, but the penalties will get higher with any more significant additions.

The Jays almost certainly aren’t done. They’ve been loosely linked to Kyle Tucker and have interest in re-signing Bo Bichette. It seems fair to assume they won’t sign all three of this offseason’s top free agents, but a Bichette reunion could still be in play. They’ve also been linked to late-inning bullpen help, ideally a proven closer who’d push Jeff Hoffman into a leverage role in the seventh and eighth innings.

Cease rejected a qualifying offer from the Padres. The Jays are hit with the highest penalty to sign a qualified free agent because they paid the competitive balance tax this year. They’ll surrender their second- and fifth-highest selections in the 2026 draft plus $1MM from their international bonus pool in 2027. San Diego also paid the luxury tax this year, so they’re entitled to the lowest form of compensation: a selection after the fourth round next summer. They’ll get another of those if/when Michael King signs elsewhere.

Jon Heyman of The New York Post first reported the Blue Jays and Cease were in agreement on a seven-year, $210MM deal. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic was first on the presence of deferrals, while Mitch Bannon of The Athletic reported the approximate $26MM AAV.

Image courtesy of Christopher Hanewinckel, Imagn Images.

Giants Sign Sam Hentges

By | at

December 3rd: The Giants officially announced the Hentges signing today.

November 27th: The Giants and left-hander Sam Hentges have agreed to a one-year deal worth $1.4MM, reports Robert Murray of FanSided. The Giants have an open 40-man spot and won’t need to make a corresponding move when the deal becomes official. The southpaw is represented by Warner Sports Management.

It’s a buy-low wild card move for the Giants. Hentges was a solid bullpen piece for the Guardians a few years ago but he hasn’t been healthy for a while. Over the 2022 and 2023 campaigns, Hentges tossed 114 1/3 innings for Cleveland, allowing 2.91 earned runs per nine. His 7.9% walk rate was just barely better than average while his 27.4% strikeout rate and 60.1% ground ball rate were both very strong. He gradually moved up to high leverage work, earning 23 holds over that span.

In 2024, he kept things going for a while, posting a 3.04 ERA over another 23 2/3 innings. However, he hit the injured list in July due to some inflammation in his throwing shoulder. He required surgery in September, a procedure which came with a recovery timeline of 12 to 14 months.

Though he was likely to going miss most or all of 2025, the Guards still kept him around. He was still under club control through 2027, so there was still a potential long-term payoff. He had qualified for arbitration ahead of 2024 as a Super Two player and made $1.1625MM in his first of four arb seasons. The Guards gave him a slight bump to $1.337MM in 2025. Even if he couldn’t manage a late-season return to health, he would still have two further seasons of control.

In 2025, not only did he not make it back to the majors, but he didn’t even begin a rehab assignment. In September, he underwent arthroscopic surgery on his right knee. That procedure comes with a recovery timeline of three to four months. That means he should be healthy by the spring but the Guards decided to move on. They non-tendered Hentges last week, sending him to free agency.

The Giants have swooped in and will sign Hentges, giving him a slight raise over last year, even though he missed the whole season. San Francisco non-tendered Joey Lucchesi last week but currently has Erik Miller, Matt Gage and Reiver Sanmartin as lefties in their bullpen. Hentges is obviously a big unknown, having missed a season and a half at this point. But if he can get back to health, he could be the best southpaw in the bunch.

If he does get back on track, he would be a bargain at a salary barely above the league minimum, which will be $780K next year. He is out of options but could be retained via arbitration for the 2027 season if things go especially well next year.

Photo courtesy of Jim Rassol, Imagn Images

White Sox, Anthony Kay Agree To Two-Year Deal

By | at

The White Sox and left-hander Anthony Kay are reportedly in agreement on a two-year, $12MM contract. The former first-round pick and top prospect, who’s represented by CAA, will be paid $5MM in each of the next two seasons and has a $2MM buyout on a $10MM mutual option for the 2028 season. He can earn another $1.5MM via incentives. Kay has spent the past two seasons pitching well for the Yokohama DeNA BayStars of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball.

It’s a familiar page in general manager Chris Getz’s playbook: sign a former first-rounder to a two-year deal on the heels of a strong run pitching in one of the top leagues in Asia.

That strategy worked out reasonably well when Chicago signed Erick Fedde for two years and $15MM in the 2023-24 offseason following a terrific season in the Korea Baseball Organization; Fedde was traded to the Cardinals in a three-team swap in July 2024, netting the White Sox Miguel Vargas and minor league infielders Alexander Albertus and Jeral Perez. Vargas was a league-average bat for the South Siders in 2025 and is controlled another four seasons. Albertus and Perez rank within the top 25 prospects in the Sox’ system.

The Sox will hope for similar results in their similarly priced investment into Kay. The 30-year-old southpaw (31 in March) has pitched 291 2/3 innings since heading to Japan. In that time, he’s logged a 2.53 ERA with a 20.9% strikeout rate, 7.9% walk rate and 54.5% ground-ball rate in 48 starts out of the BayStars’ rotation.

Kay has changed his pitch repertoire since moving to NPB. He sat 94.1 mph with a four-seamer, 87.9 mph with a cutter and 86.2 mph with a slider during his limited big league work from 2019-23. He’s added about three miles per hour to that cutter and also begun throwing a sinker that he didn’t have during his last run in North America, which he credits with generating more soft contact. He’s still throwing a sweeper and occasional changeup, and the lefty has also dabbled with a curveball. (He spoke about those changes and more in an October chat with Fansided’s Robert Murray.)

From 2019-23, Kay pitched 85 1/3 innings between the Blue Jays, Cubs and Mets. It was the Mets who originally selected him 31st overall back in 2016, though they were actually the third team for whom he pitched in the majors. New York traded Kay and Simeon Woods Richardson to the Blue Jays in exchange for Marcus Stroman back in 2019, and Kay made his MLB debut not long after the swap.

Things never clicked for Kay in the majors. He’s been tagged for a 5.59 ERA with a solid 22.4% strikeout rate but an ugly 12% walk rate. Opponents averaged 1.27 homers per nine innings against him. He didn’t fare much better in terms of run prevention in parts of four Triple-A seasons, logging a 5.40 earned run average in 148 1/3 innings pitched.

As we saw with Fedde and with yesterday’s three-year, $30MM deal between the Blue Jays and Cody Ponce, what Kay did in his prior MLB work holds virtually no bearing on his newfound payday. He’s a different pitcher now than he was at any point in 2019-23, and the White Sox are paying him based on the their belief that the changes he’s implemented while pitching in Yokohama will beget better results back in Major League Baseball.

There’s inherent risk, but at this price point, it’s also hard to fault a White Sox club that’s still in the midst of a rebuilding effort. Kay will either pitch well, at which point he’d emerge as a nice trade chip, or he’ll continue to struggle and the Sox will be out a relatively modest $5MM per season. The overall scope of this commitment is less than the $15MM paydays we saw for aging veterans in their late 30s/early 40s last year (e.g. Charlie Morton, Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, Alex Cobb). It’s a life-changing deal for Kay but a small-scale gamble for the team.

Kay steps into a rotation mix that has plenty of options but is lacking when it comes to established contributors. Right-handers Shane Smith, Sean Burke and Davis Martin all pitched between 134 and 146 innings with ERAs between 3.81 (Smith) and 4.22 (Burke). None of the three has more than one full season of big league success. Smith was a Rule 5 pick at last year’s Winter Meetings and a rookie in 2025.

Those four are now favored to open the year in manager Will Venable’s rotation. Jonathan Cannon is tentatively penciled into the fifth spot for the time being, but he struggled greatly in 2025 and has minor league options remaining. Prospects Ky Bush and Drew Thorpe could be midseason options as they work their way back from Tommy John surgery performed last spring. Lefties Noah Schultz and Hagen Smith rank among the game’s top pitching prospects and could be ready at some point next summer as well.

There’s still room for the Sox to add some veteran innings. Getz has previously voiced a reluctance to commit to free agents beyond the 2026 season — though he did so with Kay, albeit in moderate fashion. There ought to be plenty of veteran arms looking at one-year deals, whether that’s a back-of-the-rotation innings eater (e.g. Michael Lorenzen, Patrick Corbin) or an upside play coming off an injury or poor performance (e.g. Nestor Cortes, Walker Buehler, Dustin May). The White Sox’ payroll currently projects at just $68MM, per RosterResource, so there’s room for Getz & Co. to bring in several additions to fill out the rotation, bullpen, outfield and infield.

Murray first reported that the two parties had agreed to a two-year, $12MM deal. The Athletic’s Will Sammon added details about the specific breakdown and incentives.

Blue Jays, Cody Ponce Agree To Three-Year Deal

By | at

The Blue Jays are reportedly in agreement with free agent starter Cody Ponce on a three-year, $30MM contract. The deal is pending a physical and has yet to be announced by the team. The Jays have two openings on the 40-man roster and do not need to make a corresponding move. Ponce, a client of Excel Sports Management, returns to the majors after an MVP-winning season in the Korea Baseball Organization.

Toronto continues to load up in the rotation on the same day they finalized their seven-year contract with Dylan Cease. They already had a strong top four with Cease, Trey Yesavage, Kevin Gausman and Shane Bieber. Ponce and José Berríos project as the fifth and sixth starters in what looks like one of the strongest rotations in baseball. Eric Lauer, who pitched to a 3.18 ERA over 104 2/3 innings in a swing role this year, is down to seventh on the depth chart.

The three-year deal and $10MM average annual value suggests the Jays view Ponce as a starter. He doesn’t have much rotation experience in the big leagues, starting five of 20 appearances with the Pirates between 2020-21. Ponce struggled in that first look but has reinvented himself since moving to Asia. He pitched parts of three seasons in Japan before a breakout 2025 season with the KBO’s Hanwha Eagles.

Ponce took the ball 29 times and turned in a 1.89 earned run average across 180 2/3 innings. He recorded a league-best 36.2% strikeout percentage against a tidy 6% walk rate. Ponce led the league with 252 strikeouts overall and was the only KBO pitcher with a sub-2.00 ERA in more than 100 innings.

The numbers alone would have been enough for Ponce to get back on the MLB radar. The more important factor for his contract was that his stuff has taken a matching jump. Ponce averaged 93.2 MPH on his fastball during his big league look, but a scout with a non-Toronto team told MLBTR in October that his velocity had climbed into the mid-90s. Eno Sarris of The Athletic wrote earlier this week that his average heater was in the 95 MPH range, and he has been clocked up to 98. Ponce has reportedly picked up a splitter — the carrying pitch for Yesavage and Gausman as well — and mixes in a cutter and curveball.

Ponce throws harder and has better secondary stuff than Erick Fedde did when he returned to North America after his own MVP season in Korea. As a result, the 31-year-old gets an extra year and doubled the $15MM guarantee that Fedde received from the White Sox over the 2023-24 offseason. Fedde, for what it’s worth, pitched well in his first year back before his numbers cratered this past season.

It’s a strong deal for Ponce, who tops MLBTR’s prediction of two years and $22MM. It’s by far the biggest payday of his career. Ponce received a signing bonus a little north of $1MM as a second-round pick by the Brewers in the 2015 draft. He did not come close to the service time to qualify for arbitration in his first stint in MLB and played on a $1MM contract with the Eagles.

The salary breakdown hasn’t been reported, but an even distribution of $10MM annually would push Toronto’s projected payroll to roughly $272MM (courtesy of RosterResource). The $10MM average annual value pushes their luxury tax projection above $280MM. The Jays are in the second tier and are taxed at a 42% rate on spending between $264MM and $284MM. That means they’ll pay $4.2MM in taxes for the first season of the Ponce contract. That’s a relative drop in the bucket given the amount the Jays are spending, but the payroll only seems likely to climb. They’d like to re-sign Bo Bichette and will almost certainly add a high-leverage reliever to join Jeff Hoffman and Louis Varland at the back end.

Spending beyond the $284MM mark would raise their tax penalties and result in their top pick in the 2027 draft being moved back 10 spots. That doesn’t appear to be much of a deterrent for a team that forfeited its second and fifth-highest picks in next summer’s draft and $1MM from its international bonus pool to sign Cease. The Jays are all in after coming tantalizingly close to their first World Series in three decades.

If payroll does become an obstacle to re-signing Bichette or adding to the bullpen, the Jays could look to shop Berríos. He’s making $18MM next season and will need to decide whether to opt out of the remaining two years and $48MM on the deal after 2026. It’s not an egregious contract but looks above market for what’ll be ages 32-34 on a pitcher who has struck out fewer than 20% of batters faced in consecutive seasons. Berríos is a solid source of back-of-the-rotation innings, but the Jays would probably need to pay down some of the money and/or take back a slightly underwater deal in a trade.

The simpler path would be to keep everyone and open the season with a six-man rotation if no one suffers an injury during Spring Training. No team gets through an entire season using only five starters. The pitching staff logged a lot of innings this fall. Gausman and Bieber will be free agents after next season, and while Berríos doesn’t look like he’s trending towards an opt-out, that could change with a strong platform year. Lauer will also return to the open market next winter.

Aside from Yesavage, the Jays don’t have much in the way of upper level pitching prospects. Former top prospect Ricky Tiedemann is on the 40-man roster and will probably make his MLB debut in 2026, but he missed the entire ’25 season and has pitched 140 innings since being drafted in 2021. The durability concerns might push him to the bullpen, and even if the Jays want to give him another chance as a starter, they’re certainly not going to let him throw 150 innings. Jake Bloss is unlikely to be a factor until the second half after undergoing elbow surgery in May. The Ponce signing probably rules the Jays out on bringing back Chris Bassitt or Max Scherzer but doesn’t make a Berríos trade a foregone conclusion.

Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic first reported that Ponce and the Jays were finalizing a three-year deal. ESPN’s Jeff Passan had the $30MM guarantee.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Angels Sign Alek Manoah To Major League Deal

By | at

The Angels announced they have signed right-hander Alek Manoah to a major league deal. Jeff Passan of ESPN previously reported the agreement and that Manoah will make $1.95MM next year. The Halos had multiple 40-man vacancies and didn’t need to make a corresponding move for the Covenant Sports Group client.

It’s a clear buy-low move for the Angels. Manoah was once a first round pick and top prospect, then became a Cy Young candidate as of a few years ago. But more recently, injuries and underperformance bumped his stock to the point that he was non-tendered by Atlanta last month.

The Blue Jays selected Manoah 11th overall in 2019. By 2021, he was making big league starts. He took the ball 20 times that year and threw 111 2/3 innings, allowing 3.22 earned runs per nine. His 8.7% walk rate was around average while his 27.7% strikeout rate was quite strong. 2022 was his first full season. He made 31 starts and logged 196 2/3 innings with a 2.24 ERA. His strikeout rate dropped to 22.9% but he also improved his walk rate to a 6.5% clip. He finished third in American League Cy Young voting behind Justin Verlander and Dylan Cease.

It’s basically been downhill since then. He struggled badly enough in 2023 to get optioned to the minors multiple times. He finished the year with a 5.87 ERA over 19 starts. His strikeouts dipped to a subpar 19% rate while his walk rate climbed to an ugly 14.2% pace.

Going into 2024, the Jays reportedly had some openness to trading Manoah, with the Angels checking in on him at that time. However, the Jays didn’t pull the trigger on a deal and he opened the 2024 season with Toronto. He was slowed by some shoulder soreness during the spring and began the season on the injured list. He was reinstated in May and then made five decent starts, with a 3.70 ERA, 25.2% strikeout rate and 7.8% walk rate. However, he then went back on the IL, this time due to an elbow sprain. He required Tommy John surgery in June of that year.

Manoah then spent the rest of that season on the IL. The Jays held him on the roster through the winter and tendered him a contract. They avoided arbitration by agreeing to a $2.2MM salary for 2025.  They then put him back on the 60-day IL in March. He began a rehab assignment in July. Rehab assignments normally are capped at 30 days for pitchers but guys recovering from Tommy John can push that to 60.

By the middle of September, Manoah’s clock was up but the Jays had a rotation featuring Kevin Gausman, Shane Bieber, Chris Bassitt, José Berríos and Max Scherzer, with Trey Yesavage lurking in Triple-A. Manoah also hadn’t done much to force the issue, as he had a 19.6% strikeout rate and 12.8% walk rate during his rehab outings. He was reinstated from the IL but optioned to Triple-A Buffalo.

Later that month, the Jays needed a 40-man spot to reinstate Anthony Santander from the 60-day IL. Manoah was designated for assignment as the corresponding move. With the trade deadline having passed, the Jays had to put him on waivers, with Atlanta claiming him. They held him on their roster for a while but then non-tendered him. It might seem a bit odd to claim a player off waivers and then cut him shortly thereafter. Speculatively speaking, it’s possible Atlanta tried to sign him for 2026 but then non-tendered him when they couldn’t agree on the price point.

For the Halos, it’s a low-cost bet on a bounceback. The salary isn’t much beyond the league minimum, which will be $780K next year. Manoah also still has options, so it’s possible he could be pitching in Triple-A as depth.

Pitching has been a weakness for the club for quite a while and 2025 was no exception. The staff as a whole had a 4.89 ERA this year, putting them ahead of just the Rockies and Nationals. That includes a 4.91 ERA from the rotation, again ahead of just Washington and Colorado. Tyler Anderson became a free agent at season’s end, thinning out the group even more.

Going into 2026, there is very little certainty in the rotation group. Yusei Kikuchi and José Soriano have two spots spoken for. Reid Detmers seems like he’ll get a chance to return to the rotation but he’s a big question mark after struggling in 2024 and then pitching out of the bullpen in 2025. There are a few other guys in the mix, such as Jack Kochanowicz, Caden Dana and Sam Aldegheri, though those guys have fairly mixed track records.

Since the offseason has begun, this is the second time the Angels have bought low on a former big name. A couple of weeks ago, they traded Taylor Ward to the Orioles in order to nab Grayson Rodriguez. It’s a somewhat similar situation to Manoah, as Rodriguez was the 11th overall pick in 2018 but has seen his career thrown off course by injuries. Perhaps the Angels will make more of a surefire rotation addition later in the winter but they have stuck with the less certain guys so far.

It’s hard to know what to expect from Manoah now. It’s been a few years since he was both healthy and effective. He was averaging just 91 miles per hour on his fastball in Triple-A this year. That’s almost three ticks below his 2022 season, when he averaged 93.9 mph. Perhaps being further removed from his surgery will allow him to find a new gear. If not, the Angels won’t have lost much. If it works out, Manoah will finish the 2026 season with less than six years of service, so he could be retained via arbitration for the 2027 season.

Photos courtesy of Kamil Krzaczynski, John E. Sokolowski, Imagn Images

Cubs Sign Scott Kingery To Minor League Deal

By | at

The Cubs signed utility player Scott Kingery to a minor league contract, the team informed reporters (including Maddie Lee of The Chicago Sun-Times). He’ll be in MLB camp as a non-roster invitee.

Kingery returned to the majors this past season, getting into 19 games with the Angels. It marked his first MLB action in three years. His 29 MLB plate appearances were the most he logged in a season dating back to 2020. The former top Phillies prospect recored four hits with two walks and 11 strikeouts. He has a lifetime .227/.278/.382 batting line in nearly 1200 career plate appearances, almost all of which came in Philadelphia from 2018-19.

Now 31, Kingery spent most of this year at Triple-A Salt Lake. He batted .228/.284/.402 while striking out in a quarter of his trips to the plate. It was a step back from his more impressive ’24 season with the Phillies’ top affiliate, when Kingery had a 25-25 season in the minors.

The Cubs won’t expect much offensively from the right-handed hitter. Kingery provides defensive versatility and plays anywhere on the diamond aside from first base and catcher. He’s an above-average runner who’ll compete for a spot on Craig Counsell’s bench during Spring Training.

Show all

MLB Trade Rumors is not affiliated with Major League Baseball, MLB or MLB.com

Do not Sell or Share My Personal Information

hide arrows scroll to top