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Offseason Outlook: Seattle Mariners

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The Mariners' second near-miss of the playoffs in the past two years prompted significant leadership changes before the season drew to a close. Manager Scott Servais was shown the door shortly before the completion of his ninth year on the job and replaced not an interim basis but by the full-time appointment of former M's catcher Dan Wilson as the club's new skipper. President of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto and general manager Justin Hollander remain in place and will be under even more pressure to field a playoff club next year.

Guaranteed Contracts

  • Julio Rodriguez, OF: $180MM through 2034 (contract could climb as high as $450MM through 2039 based on series of options/escalators)
  • Luis Castillo, RHP: $68.25MM through 2027 (contract contains 2028 vesting option)
  • J.P. Crawford, SS: $21MM through 2026
  • Mitch Garver, C/DH: $12.5MM through 2025 (includes buyout of 2026 club option)
  • Victor Robles, OF: $8.5MM through 2026 (includes buyout of 2027 club option)
  • Dylan Moore, INF/OF: $3.825MMM through 2025
  • Andres Munoz, RHP: $2.5MM through 2025 (contract contains club options for 2026-28 seasons)

Option Decisions

Arbitration-Eligible Players (service time in parentheses; salary projections via MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz)

Free Agents

The Mariners' 2022 return to postseason baseball after a 20-year drought raised expectations in Seattle. Those expectations have not been reached in two subsequent seasons. The Mariners have played winning ball in each of the past two seasons but have failed to secure even a Wild Card berth. This year's loss is particularly painful for the organization, as Seattle held a dominant 10-game lead on the division in early June but had squandered it by the following month. A resurgent Astros club stormed to yet another AL West crown. There's no indication that front office changes are nigh -- team chairman John Stanton already said Dipoto would remain at his post -- but baseball operations turnover often follows coaching changes if the results don't quickly improve.

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Ha-Seong Kim, Joe Musgrove Undergo Surgeries

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Before the Padres’ season came to an end with tonight’s shutout loss in Los Angeles, San Diego provided a pair of injury updates. Ha-Seong Kim and Joe Musgrove both underwent their previously announced surgeries this week. Dennis Lin of the Athletic tweets that Kim had a labrum repair on his right shoulder yesterday, while Musgrove’s Tommy John surgery was performed on Friday.

Kim’s status will be one of the bigger stories of the offseason. The Padres haven’t provided a timetable for the infielder’s return. It’s not clear how much of next season, if any, he’ll be sidelined. The surgery comes at a brutal time for Kim, who is set to decline his end of an $8MM mutual option and reach free agency this winter. The defensive stalwart had an argument for a deal of four or five years at $15MM+ annually if he were healthy.

His market value is much more difficult to pin down now. Kim looked like a lock to receive and decline a qualifying offer midway through the summer. Unless the Padres expect him to be fully recovered early in the 2025 season, they probably won’t make the QO. The surgery raises the possibility of Kim taking a shorter-term contract. That could be a straight one-year deal or, more likely, a two-year pact that allows him to opt out after the first season.

San Diego will need to weigh a qualifying offer decision on both Kim and Jurickson Profar. If they let Kim walk, they’ll decide whether to go outside the organization for a shortstop or move one of their current players back to the position. The Padres used Xander Bogaerts at shortstop down the stretch. They could keep Bogaerts there with Jake Cronenworth and Luis Arraez on the right side of the infield. San Diego also has the option of giving Jackson Merrill a look at shortstop, but the 21-year-old had such a fantastic season in center field that the Padres may not want to change his role again. Bringing Merrill back into the infield would open a second gap to plug in the outfield alongside Profar’s potential departure.

Musgrove is under contract for $20MM in the third season of his five-year extension. The timing of the surgery means he’s very likely to miss the entire 2025 season. Musgrove isn’t willing to already close the book on the year, however. The righty told reporters he’s maintaining some hope that he could contribute if the Friars make a playoff push. “Some guys regenerate tissues faster than others,” he said earlier this week (via Jeff Sanders of the San Diego Union-Tribune). “I’m always going to leave room for the miracle of coming back in a crazy amount of time. But hearing the stories and reading up and doing my homework and talking with our trainers who have rehabbed tons of these, there’s a lot of importance in giving it the time on the front end that it needs.”

The 31-year-old (32 in December) would need an atypically quick recovery to pitch next season. The standard Tommy John rehab takes around 14-16 months. If Musgrove were to make a surprising return, it’d probably in short relief. The Padres will go into next season with Michael King, Dylan Cease and Yu Darvish as healthy starters. Martín Pérez will be a free agent, while Matt Waldron and Randy Vásquez profile better in depth roles. Musgrove’s injury could lead the Padres to acquire multiple starting pitchers this winter.

Ricketts Discusses Hoyer, Cubs’ Payroll

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The Cubs missed the postseason for the fourth consecutive season. Chicago finished 83-79 for a second straight year. That’s a frustrating outcome in a down NL Central — especially since Chicago added around $30MM to its Opening Day payroll relative to 2023, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts.

Owner Tom Ricketts spoke with Meghan Montemurro of the Chicago Tribune about the team’s payroll outlook. Ricketts confirmed that the Cubs narrowly exceeded the $237MM base competitive balance tax threshold — as president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer suggested they would in August. Like most owners, Ricketts didn’t provide a clear answer as to whether he’d be willing to pay the tax for a second straight year.

“The penalties on CBT, they grow over time and so you want to be careful when you do it,” Ricketts said. “And so if there’s ever some point in the future where there’s a large financial commitment you want to make midseason, you have to be thoughtful about it.” Ricketts is referencing the escalating penalties for teams that pay the tax in consecutive seasons. The Cubs stayed below the CBT threshold in 2023, so they’re first-time payors this year. That’ll subject them to a 20% tax on their first $20MM in overages. Cot’s estimates that they were only about $300K over the line, so the actual tax payment (roughly $55K) is more or less a rounding error for an MLB team.

Paying at all means the Cubs would be taxed at a 30% rate for their first $20MM in overages if they surpass the threshold next season. That jumps to 42% for the next $20MM and comes with higher penalties (75% and 90%) for the respective $20MM after that. The penalties would increase if the Cubs paid the tax for a third straight year.

The CBT also includes higher penalties for teams that lose or add a free agent who declined a qualifying offer. The Cubs don’t have any impending free agents who’ll get a QO. If they signed a qualified free agent, they’d forfeit their second- and fifth-highest selections in the 2025 draft and $1MM in international bonus pool space.

Next year’s base threshold climbs to $241MM. Cot’s projects the Cubs around $150MM in CBT obligations. That assumes Cody Bellinger will not opt out of the final two seasons on his contract but does not include arbitration projections. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projects the entire arbitration class to cost around $33MM if they were all tendered contracts. Moving on from some or all of Patrick Wisdom, Yency Almonte, Christian Bethancourt, Julian Merryweather, Nick Madrigal, Trey Wingenter, Jimmy Herget and Colten Brewer could knock that down to the $20MM range.

That’d leave approximately $70MM before the lowest threshold, so there’s a lot of payroll room before the tax becomes a concern. Ricketts’ note about the potential for midseason acquisitions could point to a preference to stay below the tax line during the offseason. A team’s CBT number isn’t calculated until the end of the season. Salary acquired in midseason pickups counts on a prorated basis in the calculation.

Allocating those resources will be at Hoyer’s discretion. The front office leader is entering the final season of the five-year extension that he signed in 2020. Chicago is still seeking its first playoff appearance since Theo Epstein turned the reins to Hoyer after the ’20 season.

It’s relatively common for teams to sign executives and coaches to extensions before the final year of their deal, thereby preventing from operating in a lame duck situation. Ricketts sidestepped a question regarding a potential Hoyer extension. “He’s under contract, that’s the way I see it,” the owner told Montemurro. “I think he’s motivated. … I think Jed’s going to have a great offseason and put us back in the playoffs next year.”

Brewers Manager Discusses Rotation Options

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The Brewers’ season came to a heartbreaking end last week, as they carried a lead into the ninth inning of their deciding game against the Mets in the Wild Card round, but the Mets put together a late rally and took the series. For Milwaukee, that means the focus has now shifted to 2025 and manager Pat Murphy recently discussed some topics related to the roster, with Curt Hogg rounding them up in a piece for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

One of the players Murphy discusses was Aaron Ashby. The lefty once looked like a budding starting before getting derailed by shoulder issues. He finished 2024 on a strong note out of the bullpen but it seems the skipper hasn’t given up on the possibility of the southpaw being a rotation option again in the future.

“If you’re asking me today if he belongs in that late inning role, I’d say no,” Murphy said. “I’d say he’s more of a candidate to throw more innings because his stuff is pretty special and there’s a variety there. That’s going to be discussed, the path. And it has to be player-driven. The player has to want certain things or at least be in a healthy discussion about it.”

Ashby showed his potential when he first came up to the big leagues. Over the 2021 and 2022 seasons, he tossed 139 innings in a swing role, making 23 starts and 17 relief appearances. He allowed 4.47 earned runs per nine innings but with better peripherals. He struck out 27.1% of batters faced, gave out walks at a 9.7% rate and kept balls in play on the ground at a 57.8% clip.

The Brewers clearly believed in what was ahead for Ashby, as they signed him to an extension during that 2022 campaign. The five-year deal guaranteed him $20.5MM and also came with club options for 2028 and 2029, valued at $9MM and $13MM respectively, with a $1MM buyout on the first one.

Unfortunately, the first year of that deal was wasted. Ashby dealt with shoulder problems in 2023 and eventually required arthroscopic surgery, not pitching in the majors at all. Here in 2024, Ashby had been relegated to a depth option. He spent most of the first half on optional assignment, being recalled twice to make spot starts.

In late August, Ashby was recalled from the minors and added to the Milwaukee bullpen. He tossed 19 2/3 innings over 12 appearances down the stretch, with excellent results. He had a 1.37 ERA, 36.8% strikeout rate, 3.9% walk rate and 51.1% ground ball rate.

Given those excellent results, there might be some temptation to just keep Ashby in a relief role, but it’s also understandable that the Brewers haven’t given up on the rotation path. A solid starter is more useful to a club than a good reliever, generally speaking, and the Brewers should be able to put together a bullpen without Ashby’s contributions. Even if Devin Williams is traded, which seems to be on the table, Milwaukee can turn to guys like Trevor Megill, Joel Payamps, Bryan Hudson and Jared Koenig for key bullpen roles.

The variety that Murphy referred to is indeed present, as Ashby threw five different pitches in the majors this year: a four-seamer, sinker, changeup, curveball and slider. It seems he had a bit of rust in harnessing that arsenal while getting over his lost season in 2023, as he walked 17.4% of batters faced in Triple-A this year while posting an 8.04 ERA. But as mentioned, he was able to get in a good grove by the end of the year.

Going forward, it seems Ashby can still try to carve out a rotation role if he wants one. Also in the rotation mix will be Tobias Myers, who Murphy views as a lock for a job. “In my thoughts, he’s a definite,” Murphy said. “But he’s got to go do it in the offseason. He’s got to come back out, recapture that mentality and recapture the arsenal, which isn’t always easy.”

It’s unsurprising that Myers has earned some job security after his strong performance in 2024. He pitched 138 innings for the Brewers this year with a flat 3.00 ERA. He had a 22.3% strikeout rate, 6.3% walk rate and 37.6% ground ball rate. He benefitted a bit from a .282 batting average on balls in play and 81.1% strand rate, but even his 3.91 FIP and 3.99 SIERA suggest he would have been solid without as much favor from the baseball gods.

There are some questions for the Brewers to answer in their rotation going forward. Freddy Peralta will be locked into one spot and it seems Myers will as well. Colin Rea posted a 4.29 ERA this year and the Brewers have a $5.5MM club option for 2025 with a $1MM buyout. That makes it a net $4.5MM decision, which is a bargain for a solid back-end starter. Guys like Lance Lynn, Kyle Gibson and Luis Severino got one-year deals worth between $11MM and $13MM last offseason. The Brewers themselves gave $8.5MM to Wade Miley, though he unfortunately required Tommy John surgery early in the year.

Aaron Civale can be retained for 2025 but he will cost more than Rea. He’s eligible for arbitration and MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projects him for a salary of $8MM next year. Given the aforementioned prices for back-end starters, that’s reasonable for Civale, who had a 4.36 ERA in 31 starts this year. But the Brewers generally work with tight budgets and might have less TV revenue coming in next year, so perhaps they might explore the trade market.

DL Hall is another option, as he worked both out of the rotation and bullpen in 2024. But he missed a lot of time due to a left knee sprain and wasn’t able to pile up a big sample of work. He finished the year with a 5.02 ERA across seven starts and six relief appearances.

Another big question mark will be Brandon Woodruff, who missed all of 2024 recovering from shoulder surgery. He’s under contract for 2025 but he’ll be a great unknown for next year, likely until spring training rolls around. Robert Gasser could return late next year after undergoing UCL surgery a few months ago. Jacob Misiorowski is one of the best pitching prospects in the league and he finished the year at Triple-A, but he also walked 14.4% of batters faced on the year and might still need some fine tuning.

Between Peralta, Myers, Woodruff, Ashby, Hall, Rea, Civale and Misiorowski, the Brewers have eight potential rotation options, though the long winter ahead could change the picture via additions or subtractions.

Braxton Garrett Diagnosed With Elbow Impingement

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Marlins left-hander Braxton Garrett has been diagnosed with an impingement in his throwing elbow, tweets Christina De Nicola of MLB.com. The southpaw is going through a throwing program at the team’s Florida complex.

The diagnosis is a relief after Garrett ended the season on an uncertain note. Miami shut him down in late September when he experienced elbow soreness during a bullpen session. That raised the possibility of another significant injury for a Marlins starter. Fortunately, testing apparently didn’t reveal any ligament damage and Garrett is already throwing.

That offers hope for a mostly healthy offseason. Like most Miami pitchers, Garrett had his 2024 season wrecked by injury. The former 7th overall pick began the year on the shelf with an impingement in his shoulder. He missed about six weeks and returned in early May. Garrett took the ball seven times before a flexor strain put him back on the injured list in the middle of June. Garrett remained on the 60-day IL from there on out, as the late-season elbow soreness prevented him from returning.

Prior to this generally lost season, Garrett was a mid-rotation starter. He posted consecutive sub-4.00 ERA showings in 2022-23. That included 159 2/3 innings of 3.66 ERA ball during Miami’s surprising playoff season last year. Garrett punched out 23.7% of opposing hitters while walking fewer than 5% of batters faced.

Miami was without Sandy Alcantara for the entire season. They lost Eury Pérez to Tommy John surgery in April. Jesús Luzardo, Ryan Weathers and Garrett all had extended absences during the year. While Pérez will be out until the middle of the season, the Fish could welcome the other four pitchers back by Opening Day. A rotation with Alcantara, Luzardo, Garrett, Weathers and one of Edward Cabrera, Valente Bellozo or Max Meyer has a chance to be a strong group.

The outlook for the rest of the roster isn’t nearly as promising. The Fish have very few established players in their lineup or the bullpen. Even if the rotation stays healthier in 2025, they’re highly unlikely to be playoff contenders. Miami is overhauling the coaching staff after committing to a rebuild of the roster last winter.

Miami could trade from the rotation either this offseason or at next summer’s deadline. They’ll probably hold Garrett into next season to allow him to demonstrate his health. Garrett is eligible for the arbitration for the first of four times as a Super Two qualifier. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projects him for a $1.8MM salary.

Cubs, Third Base Coach Willie Harris To Part Ways

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The Cubs and third base coach Willie Harris are parting ways, per Bruce Levine of 670 The Score on X. Levine characterizes the split as mutual with the sides on good terms. He adds that Harris is open to other coaching positions.

Harris, 46, played in the majors from 2001 to 2012, suiting up for the Orioles, White Sox, Red Sox, Atlanta, Nationals, Mets and Reds. After his playing days were done, he moved into coaching, spending some time in the minors. The Cubs hired him as third base coach going into the 2021 season, working under manager David Ross.

Craig Counsell took over as the Cubs’ skipper coming into 2024, inheriting Mike Napoli as first base coach with Harris at third. It was reported last week that Napoli and a couple of other coaches won’t be returning and today’s news means the Cubs have yet another coaching vacancy to fill.

Back in August, Scott Merkin of MLB.com spoke to Harris about the managerial job with the White Sox, shortly after Pedro Grifol had been fired with Grady Sizemore taking over on an interim basis. Harris said that he would be interested in being the skipper of the White Sox but it’s unclear if that interest runs the other way.

“I would absolutely love it if they showed interest in me being the leader of this organization, this team,” Harris said. “But I also understand how it goes. It’s a waiting process. If they call, great, I’ll be ready. I’ll be prepared.”

Orioles Part Ways With Three Coaches

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The Orioles are parting ways with three coaches, per Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com on X. Co-hitting coach Ryan Fuller, bench coach Fredi González and major league coach José Hernández will not return to the club in 2025.

Fuller, 34, was an internal promotion. He was hired by the O’s in 2019, working as a minor league hitting coordinator. Going into the 2022 season, Fuller and Matt Borgschulte were announced as co-hitting coaches, with Borgschulte coming over from the Twins.

The results have been pretty good under those two, though this year ended on a bit of a sour note. The Orioles hit .255/.321/.421 for a 105 wRC+ last year, 12th-best in the league. They were actually better in 2024, slashing .250/.315/.435 for a 115 wRC+ which trailed only the Dodgers and Yankees.

But that season-long performance came despite a mediocre finish. The O’s hit .238/.307 /.395 over August in September for a wRC+ of 102. They were then swept out of the playoffs by the Royals, losing two straight games in the Wild Card series while scoring just one total run between the two contests.

Separating the contributions of a coach from the performances of the players is always tough, but it seems the Orioles have decided to make a change. They haven’t made any official announcement, so perhaps Borgschulte will take on the hitting coach job by himself, though it’s also possible further reporting will emerge in the coming days to provide a clearer picture.

González has been with the O’s for the past five seasons, getting hired prior to the 2020 campaign. He was given the nebulous title of major league coach but was given the bench coach title two years after that. Prior to joining the O’s, González had worked for the Marlins and Atlanta, working coaching jobs and as manager for both clubs. Hernández played in the majors from 1991 to 2006, suiting up for nine different clubs. He joined the O’s as a minor league coach in 2010 and worked his way up to the majors for the 2019 season.

Josh Jung Undergoes Wrist Surgery

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The Rangers provided medical updates on some injured players today, with Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News among those to relay the info. Third baseman Josh Jung underwent a tendon release surgery on Tuesday that will keep him sidelined for the next three to four weeks, after which he will start regaining strength with the hope of having a normal offseason. Additionally, outfielder Evan Carter had an ablation procedure on his back while outfielder Adolis García has been diagnosed with a strained patellar tendon in his left knee and will rehab for the next eight weeks before beginning his offseason program.

Jung, 26, was limited by his right wrist in 2024, both in terms of the quality and quantity of his production. Last year, he hit 23 home runs in 122 games for the Rangers, slashing .266/.315/.467 for a 112 wRC+. Ideally, he would have built upon that this year but he was hit by a pitch in just his fourth contest of the season and suffered a fractured right wrist.

He underwent surgery in early April but the problems with his wrist were not solved at that point. The club initially anticipated a six-week recovery timeline but the surgery ended up being more complicated than expected, expanding his expected timeline to eight to ten weeks. By May, it was reported that even that longer timeline was optimistic. As he tried to work his way back to health, inflammation and discomfort continued to pop up.

He was reinstated from the IL at the end of July but eventually ended the season back on the IL, heading there in late September due to discomfort in that wrist. He finished the season with a .264/.298/.421 slash line and 102 wRC+ in just 46 games.

Jung was considering a platelet-rich plasma injection with the hope of that providing some healing, but he would have had to wait six weeks to see if that worked, which may have just been kicking the can down the road. “Rupture of the tendon was inevitable,” Jung tells Grant. By getting the procedure over with now, he’ll ideally have some time to get back to feeling 100% before spring training ramps up.

It was a somewhat similar story for Carter, 22, this year. He had a huge debut with the Rangers in 2023, hitting .306/.413/.645 in his first 23 major league games and then .300/.417/.500 in 17 postseason games. But he also had a mostly lost season, hitting .188/.272/.361 in just 45 games, with a stress reaction in his back the culprit in his case. Per Grant, this ablation procedure was to “burn” off some scar tissue that was hampering his recovery. He has already been cleared to begin a hitting progression.

As for García, he got into 154 games this year but with clearly diminished production. His .224/.284/.400 batting line and 92 wRC+ were both far worse than last year’s .245/.328/.508 line and 126 wRC+. He also put up a massive .323/.382/.726 line and 199 wRC+ in the postseason, helping the Rangers win the World Series and earning ALCS MVP honors along the way. Perhaps the knee injury provides an explanation for the big drop-off. The eight-week timeline should give him plenty of time to be healed before spring training ramps up.

Offensive struggles were a big reason why the Rangers disappointed on the heels of their World Series victory. Collectively, they hit .263/.337/.452 in the 2023 regular season. That led to a 116 wRC+ which trailed only Atlanta and Tampa. In 2024, they dropped all the way to a collective line of .238/.305/.380 and 95 wRC+, putting them in the bottom third of the league.

The club’s poor performance wasn’t limited to these guys, but it’s obviously less than ideal to have three projected regulars at less than full strength. Ideally, all can be healthy for spring and back to their best selves in 2025. Jung figures to be the everyday option at third while Carter and García should be in the outfield alongside Wyatt Langford and Leody Taveras. García is about to turn 32 and has two years of club control left, so he’s a theoretical trade candidate for this winter, but the Rangers would obviously be selling low given his rough season and injured knee.

Front Office Subscriber Chat Transcript

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MLBTR’s Anthony Franco held a live chat today, exclusively for Front Office subscribers. Anthony took questions on Willy Adames' market,  where the Royals can look for offense, what it might cost to sign Tanner Scott, Cardinals' trade possibilities, if the D-Backs can re-sign Christian Walker, the upcoming playoff games, and much more.

 

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10 Players Elect Free Agency

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As the offseason nears, a number of players elect minor league free agency each week. These players are separate from six-year MLB free agents, who’ll reach the open market five days after the conclusion of the World Series. Eligible minor leaguers can begin electing free agency as soon as the regular season wraps up. These players were all outrighted off a team’s 40-man roster during the year and have the requisite service time and/or multiple career outrights necessary to reach free agency since they weren’t added back to teams’ rosters.

Electing free agency is the anticipated outcome for these players. There’ll surely be more to test the market in the coming weeks. We’ll offer periodic updates at MLBTR. These transactions are all reflected on the MiLB.com log.

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