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Giants Could Listen To Offers On LaMonte Wade Jr.

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There are likely to be some trades amidst an interesting offseason in San Francisco. As Buster Posey looks to put his stamp on the roster, a few veterans could find themselves in trade rumors. Jeff Passan of ESPN wrote this morning that the Giants are making LaMonte Wade Jr. and Mike Yastrzemski available. The Athletic’s Andrew Baggarly similarly wrote last week that Wade, Yastrzemski, and former closer Camilo Doval could be in play on the trade market.

All three players stand as logical trade candidates. The hitters are headed into their final seasons of arbitration and are one year from free agency. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projects Wade for a $4.7MM salary, while Yastrzemski is projected for a lofty $9.5MM sum. Doval is projected at $4.6MM for his first of three arbitration seasons. Dealing him would be selling low on a talented arm, but the righty pitched himself off the MLB roster in the second half. If he doesn’t rebound next season, he’d be a non-tender candidate going into 2026. Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle recently reported that the Giants had received interest from multiple teams on Doval.

Of the two hitters, Wade would have greater appeal. The 30-year-old first baseman is more affordable than Yastrzemski and gets on base much more consistently. Wade is coming off a .260/.380/.381 showing through 401 plate appearances. He has a .258/.376/.401 slash over the past two seasons. The lefty-hitting Wade has posted plus OBP marks against left-handed and righty pitching alike.

Few players draw more walks or get on base as consistently. While there’s value in that plate discipline, Wade doesn’t have the power associated with most first basemen. He hasn’t topped 18 home runs in a season and hit just eight longballs this year. Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area writes that some within the organization view first base as an area for upgrade. They’d presumably look for a more traditional power bat.

It’s a solid free agent class for first basemen. Pete Alonso and Christian Walker headline the group. They’d certainly add power, but both players would require draft pick and international signing bonus forfeitures as qualifying offer recipients. Alonso and Walker are on track for multi-year deals — potentially five or six years in Alonso’s case — which doesn’t fit well for San Francisco. The Giants’ top prospect, Bryce Eldridge, reached Triple-A before his 20th birthday and could get to the majors by the end of next season. Signing one of Alonso or Walker would lock up designated hitter once Eldridge arrives.

If San Francisco wanted a short-term stopgap, Paul Goldschmidt or Carlos Santana are one-year options. Goldschmidt is coming off a middling offensive season. Santana had a nice year for the Twins but has some similarities to Wade as a first baseman without massive power. Josh Naylor, Ryan Mountcastle, Nathaniel Lowe and Yandy Díaz are potential trade candidates who are down to their final year or two of club control.

The Pirates, Astros, Yankees, Reds and Nationals are some of the teams that could gauge Wade’s availability. San Francisco should be able to net a mid-level prospect if they move him. They might have a harder time matching up on a Yastrzemski deal. The left-handed outfielder could just as easily be a non-tender candidate before next Friday’s deadline.

Yastrzemski hit 18 homers with a .231/.302/.437 slash through 474 plate appearances this year. It was the fourth straight season in which he was around league average offensively. He grades as a solid right field defender but is stretched in center. Yastrzemski is a reasonably productive player, but there might not be much of a market for an arbitration salary pushing $10MM in his age-34 season. The Giants wouldn’t get much in return if they did find a team willing to tender him a contract.

Trading or non-tendering Wade and Yastrzemski would knock around $14MM off next year’s payroll projection. A Doval trade could push that to roughly $19MM. Baggarly reported last week that the Giants planned to reduce payroll after exceeding the luxury tax threshold in 2024. They can do that without trading any of their arbitration-eligible players. RosterResource calculates their tax number (including arbitration estimates) around $183MM, nearly $60MM shy of this year’s spending level. A few trades would create more room for free agent strikes for a shortstop and potentially top-end starting pitching.

At shortstop, San Francisco has already been connected to Ha-Seong Kim and is one of the best on-paper fits for Willy Adames. They haven’t been closely connected to any pitchers, though Passan suggests they’re likely to be in the mix for Max Fried. San Francisco has been loosely floated as a potential suitor for Juan Soto, but Jayson Stark of the Athletic reports (on X) that they’re not among the teams that currently have a meeting scheduled with the market’s top free agent.

Blue Jays, Red Sox To Meet With Juan Soto, Scott Boras

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7:54pm: There is currently no meeting scheduled between Soto and the Giants, tweets Jayson Stark of the Athletic.

11:10 am: The list of known teams who have upcoming meetings with Juan Soto and agent Scott Boras continues to grow. ESPN’s Jeff Passan reports that both the Blue Jays and Red Sox are set to meet with Soto and his representative this week. They’ll join Mets and Yankees in that regard. Passan adds that the Jays are “serious about adding a star” to the lineup alongside Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and Soto unsurprisingly tops their wishlist.

Similarly, the New York Post’s Jon Heyman paints the Jays as a legitimate contender in the Soto bidding. Toronto was famously willing to put forth the same offer that the Dodgers did to lure Shohei Ohtani to Los Angeles last winter, and Heyman adds that the Jays tried to trade for Soto last winter as well before the Yankees ultimately acquired him from the Padres. Both reports peg Toronto as a motivated buyer on the heels of a disastrous 2024 season that saw them finish in the AL East cellar.

From a payroll vantage point, the Jays should have a clear path to making a compelling offer. Jose Berrios and Yariel Rodriguez are the only players the Blue Jays have signed beyond the 2026 season — the latter never earning more than $8MM annually. RosterResource projects Toronto’s 2025 payroll at around $197MM at the moment — a good ways shy of last year’s franchise-record $225MM Opening Day mark. That projected number could drop even further with several non-tender/trade candidates still on the roster (e.g. Dillon Tate, Erik Swanson, Jordan Romano, Zach Pop). By 2026, the Blue Jays have under $75MM in guarantees on the books.

Toronto, of course, hopes to extend the aforementioned Guerrero and would need a massive offer to do so, but a long-term payroll ledger with Soto and Guerrero seems plenty doable given the lack of other commitments. Shortstop Bo Bichette could be another extension candidate, but he’s a tough case for a long-term deal after an injury-shortened season that included career-worst production at the plate. At the very least, it’s easy to see how the Blue Jays could make an aggressive push and competitive bid for Soto, as they did with Ohtani.

That’s generally true of the Red Sox as well, though their short-term books aren’t quite so clean. Rafael Devers, Brayan Bello and Ceddanne Rafaela are the only players signed truly long-term in Boston, but the Red Sox will still be paying Masataka Yoshida and Trevor Story notable salaries through the 2027 season at least. That said, the Sox have a much smaller arbitration class and don’t have the specter of a superstar’s potential departure hanging over them, as the Jays do with Guerrero. They’re projected for a payroll around $136MM in 2025 (again, via RosterResource) — modest relative to their franchise-record spending levels.

That said, the Red Sox have curbed spending in recent seasons. They did open the 2022 season with a $206MM payroll but have otherwise spent in the $170-180MM range since 2020. Back in 2018, when they last won a World Series, the Sox opened the season at $233MM. They followed with a $236MM in 2019 (both figures via Cot’s). Signing Soto would require a willingness to return to those 2018-19 levels — if not exceed them — but there are some signals the organization is willing to do just that.

Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow has been vocal about his intention of “deliver[ing] the team that’s capable of winning the AL East and making a deep playoff run,” adding that the Sox need to be willing to be big players in the free agent and trade markets in order to do so. Skeptics will call back to chairman Tom Werner’s regrettable and oft-mocked “full throttle” comments from an offseason ago, but Breslow has taken a more direct and repeated stance on his intent to be active in both markets.

The Sox have multiple areas they’ll need to target, however, as Breslow has also voiced his intent to “raise the ceiling” in the rotation. (They’ve also been linked to Max Fried, further lending credence to the idea that they’re willing to spend this winter.) Soto won’t accomplish that specific goal, nor will he help to balance out a heavily left-handed lineup (another of Breslow’s stated objectives), but that’s of little consequence. Free agents as young and impactful as Soto only come around every few decades; adding him to the lineup is an endeavor unique unto itself, and the rest of a team’s given goals can take a backseat to such a rare pursuit.

The Cardinals’ Trio Of Bullpen Trade Candidates

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The Cardinals’ direction is one of the key storylines of the offseason. The franchise has made clear they’re prioritizing the future while giving more playing time to young players in 2025. They’ve pushed back on initial chatter about a complete teardown, at least in part because a couple veterans with no-trade clauses prefer to see things through in St. Louis.

Even if they’re not in a complete rebuild, the Cardinals should gauge interest on players with limited windows of contractual control. That’s especially true in the bullpen. Their star closer will get the most calls from other teams, but St. Louis has a few relievers who could come up in talks. Projected salaries are courtesy of MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz.

  • Ryan Helsley (eligible for arbitration through 2025, $6.9MM projected salary)

The Cards are down to one year of control over Helsley. If they’re not all-in for 2025, he should move either this winter or at next summer’s deadline. An offseason deal would give an acquiring team a few extra months of Helsley’s services and allow them to consider a qualifying offer when he hits free agency.

Katie Woo of the Athletic wrote last week that the Cardinals were already receiving quite a bit of interest. Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch suggested the Cards may need to be “overwhelmed” to deal the righty, but they should be able to weigh multiple compelling offers.

Helsley is among the best few relievers in MLB. He’s coming off three straight fantastic seasons. Helsley broke out with a 1.25 earned run average across 64 2/3 innings in 2022. A forearm strain wiped out a few months of his ’23 campaign, but he posted a 2.45 ERA through 36 2/3 frames when able to take the mound. Helsley’s arm held up over a completely healthy season this year. He fired a career-best 66 1/3 innings with a 2.04 mark over 65 appearances.

After beginning his career in a setup role, Helsley proved himself an elite closer this past season. He led the majors with 49 saves while surrendering only four leads. He paced the National League with 62 games finished. Helsley punched out nearly 30% of opposing hitters against a tolerable 8.6% walk rate. Going back to the start of the ’22 season, he carries a 1.83 ERA with a huge 34.6% strikeout percentage through 167 2/3 innings.

Helsley has the kind of overpowering arsenal teams want in the late innings. His four-seam fastball sits above 99 MPH. Opponents had a surprising amount of success against that heater this year, but the ability to reach back for triple digit heaters makes it tough for hitters to adjust to his wipeout slider. Opponents whiffed on more than half their swings against the Helsley slider in 2024. He got swinging strikes at a 17.3% clip overall, a top 15 mark among relievers with at least 20 innings.

Alongside Devin Williams, Helsley is one of this winter’s top two bullpen trade candidates. He’d fit for any contender. Teams that already have a closer could push him into the eighth inning. Clubs like the Phillies, Rangers and Red Sox have seen their closers hit free agency. The Blue Jays, Yankees, Orioles, Royals and Diamondbacks are other potential suitors.

  • JoJo Romero (eligible for arbitration through 2026, $1.9MM projected salary)

Romero has had a nice two-plus year run at Busch Stadium. Acquired from the Phillies at the 2022 deadline for utility player Edmundo Sosa, Romero has emerged as skipper Oli Marmol’s top lefty reliever. He has posted consecutive seasons with a sub-4.00 ERA, turning in a career-best 3.36 mark through 59 innings this year.

There are some concerns. After striking out 28.6% of batters faced in 2023, he posted a middling 21% strikeout rate this year. Romero had a much more difficult time missing bats within the zone in 2024. That’s an issue for a pitcher who has never excelled at getting batters to chase off the plate. Romero has intriguing stuff, pairing a 94 MPH sinker with a slider and changeup. The breaking ball is by far his best offering and served as the putaway pitch for 40 of his 51 strikeouts this year.

As one might expect given that profile, Romero has been much better against same-handed hitters. Lefties have a .172/.267/.270 slash against him in his career, while right-handed hitters have teed off at a .280/.337/.472 clip. His 2024 platoon splits are just as extreme. Romero might be best suited for a situational role, but perhaps another team feels there’s a tweak they can make to get better production against righty hitters. While Romero has increased the usage on his slider in every season since 2021, he still only used it about a third of the time this year.

Romero finished the year on the injured list due to forearm inflammation. The Cardinals announced that he isn’t expected to require surgery and should have a normal offseason. Assuming that’s the case, he should attract interest.

John King (eligible for arbitration through 2027, $1.5MM projected salary)

The 30-year-old King isn’t as well known as Helsley or Romero, but he’s coming off a nice season. The southpaw turned in a 2.85 ERA through a career-high 60 innings spanning 56 appearances. King is a pure ground-ball specialist. He kept the ball on the ground at a massive 61.7% rate this year and has a career rate just north of 62%. Among the 160 relievers who threw at least 50 innings, only three (Tim Hill, Clay Holmes and Yennier Cano) had a higher grounder percentage.

King doesn’t miss bats, but he’s a situational lefty who should appeal to teams looking to deepen their middle relief group. (The Yankees make for a speculative fit considering New York’s love of relievers with plus grounder rates.) King is cheaply controllable for another three seasons and has held left-handed batters to a .250/.300/.320 slash over 308 career plate appearances. While the Cardinals aren’t under any contractual pressure to deal him, this isn’t the type of player that St. Louis would refuse to entertain in trade talks. If the Cards could pull a mid-level prospect or two, King could be on the move.

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The Cards have two other bullpen arms who’d attract interest, though they’re less likely to move. Rule 5 pick Ryan Fernandez had a strong rookie season. With five more years of team control, St. Louis probably prefers to hold him in a leverage role. Former top prospect Matthew Liberatore looks to have found a home in relief. He’s also still controllable for five seasons. The Cardinals aren’t likely to find an offer that pushes them to move the 25-year-old southpaw this early in his career.

MLB Announces Silver Slugger Winners

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MLB and Louisville Slugger announced the 2024 Silver Slugger award winners. MLB had announced the list of finalists last week. The results are as follows:

American League

National League

Reds Hire Brad Mills As Bench Coach

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The Reds announced today the coaching staff that will be working under new manager Terry Francona. One new hire that was not previously reported is Brad Mills in the bench coach position. Freddie Benavides, who got Cincinnati’s bench coach gig going into 2019, is listed today as bench coach/field coordinator.

Mills, 68 in January, is a familiar face for Cincinnati’s new skipper. Francona managed in Philadelphia from 1997 to 2000, in Boston from 2004 to 2011 and then Cleveland from 2013 to 2023. Mills was first base coach for the Phillies during those years and bench coach for the Red Sox during most of Francona’s time there. Mills left to manage the Astros from 2010 to 2012, but then reunited with Francona in Cleveland in 2013.

He started his Cleveland tenure as third base coach but moved to bench coach in 2014. He stayed in that role through 2019 but then sat out the 2020 season, which was played in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, but Gordon Wittenmyer of the Cincinnati Enquirer reports that Mills actually stepped away from the game due to the tragic drowning of his 18-month-old grandson. For the 2021 season, Mills was reassigned to some unspecified non-coaching role with Cleveland, so this will be his first stint in the dugout in many years.

Francona himself was away from baseball in 2024 as he focused on his health. He will return in 2025 by taking over the managerial job for the Reds and has filled in the staff with some old friends. Chris Valaika had been the hitting coach in Cleveland from 2022 to 2024 but was whisked away to Cincinnati last month. Now Mills will be brought in to return to Francona’s side, with Benavides also sticking around, though perhaps in an altered role.

Nick Pivetta Unlikely To Accept Qualifying Offer

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Red Sox right-hander Nick Pivetta was one of the more surprising recipients of a $21.05MM qualifying offer earlier this month, but he’s likely to reject the offer in search of a multi-year deal, reports ESPN’s Jeff Passan, who suggests that “at least” a three-year deal should be waiting for the righty, who’s heading into his age-32 season. Passan lists the Orioles, Cubs and Braves as potential landing spots.

Anything more than a three-year deal for Pivetta would register as a surprise and something of a precedent-breaker. In the past ten offseasons, only four pitchers have commanded a contract of four or more years when signing ahead of their age-32 season or later (link via MLBTR’s Contract Tracker): Jacob deGrom (five years, $185MM starting at age 35), Hyun Jin Ryu (four years, $80MM starting at 33), Zack Greinke (six years, $206.5MM starting at 32) and James Shields (four years, $75MM starting at 33).

Solid as Pivetta is, he doesn’t have the track record of any of those four pitchers. When healthy, deGrom has been the best pitcher on the planet. Ryu signed his four-year deal after a Cy Young runner-up. Greinke was opting out of a six-year, $147MM deal with the Dodgers and was one of the game’s best pitchers at the time he signed his six-year deal with Arizona. Shields was a clear No. 1 or 2 starter, having pitched 933 innings over the prior four seasons — 233 per year — with a 3.17 ERA and strong strikeout and walk rates.

Pivetta doesn’t have that sort of resume, though his high-end strikeout and walk rates have made him a candidate for a quietly strong deal. When preparing for our annual top 50 free agent rankings, we felt a three-year deal in the $14-17MM annual range was possible for Pivetta — at least before he received a qualifying offer. The right-hander has never turned in a sub-4.00 ERA campaign, but that’s largely due to a regular susceptibility to home runs, something that another club might feel can be curbed or improved with a tweak in mechanics, approach or pitch selection. Pivetta is durable, misses bats at a premium level and has improved his command three years running. He ranked 10th among 126 big league pitchers (min. 100 innings) in terms of his K-BB% this season (22.9%).

It still seems feasible that a three-year deal could be there, but suggesting anything more feels like a stretch, unless multiple teams feel Pivetta is untapped as a potential No. 1-2 starter and is willing to ignore historical norms for pitchers in this age bracket. That could well be the case, but Passan opines that Pivetta “is looking at one of the biggest deals of the winter for a starter,” which would surprise plenty of onlookers. That’s a subjective sentence, but no one expects Pivetta to top Corbin Burnes, Max Fried, Blake Snell and Jack Flaherty, while others like Sean Manaea and Yusei Kikuchi should have greater per-year earning power on a three- or four-year contract.

Time will tell where the bidding lands, but the more immediate takeaway is that Pivetta apparently doesn’t feel inclined to lock in a one-year deal that would more than double his career earnings. That speaks to the strength of the market he and his agents at CAA are finding for his services thus far.

Nicky Lopez, Sammy Peralta Elect Free Agency

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The White Sox announced that both infielder Nicky Lopez and left-hander Sammy Peralta cleared waivers and elected free agency in lieu of accepting outright assignments. The club’s 40-man roster count drops to 36.

There wasn’t any previous indication that either player had been removed from the roster, but it’s a common time of year for a bit of shuffling. The Rule 5 protection deadline is coming up on November 19, meaning that all clubs are likely going to be needing a few spots to shield young players from that draft. As that deadline date approaches, roster spots around the league will be at a premium, increasing the chances of a player being nudged off and then passing through waivers unclaimed.

Lopez, 30 in March, has a decent track record now as a glove-first utility player. He was acquired by the White Sox as part of the November 2023 trade that sent Aaron Bummer to Atlanta, then went on to appear in 124 games for Chicago this year. He hit just one home run in 445 plate appearances, leading to a pyramid-shaped slash line of .241/.312/.294. That production translated to a 77 wRC+, indicating he was 23% worse than league average at the plate.

That season brought his career batting line to .248/.312/.314, which equates to a 73 wRC+. Lopez has been able to bounce around the field, playing all four infield spots and even a small amount in the outfield, stealing some bases here and there as well. But the bat is clearly subpar, with seven career homers in 2,346 trips to the plate.

The Sox could have retained him for one more season via arbitration, with MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projecting him for a salary of $5.1MM, but it seems the Sox weren’t planning to do that. Lopez has more than enough service time to reject an outright assignment, so he’ll head to the open market. He’ll likely garner interest from clubs interested in a depth infielder, either on a minor league deal or a major league pact with a modest guarantee.

Peralta, 27 in May, was first selected to Chicago’s roster in May of 2023, but he’s been on and off since then. He was designated for assignment in March of this year, went to the Mariners via waivers, but then came back to the Sox via another waiver claim in May. Shortly after coming back to the Sox, he was put back on waivers and cleared, getting outrighted to Triple-A. He was selected back to the 40-man in June but has now been outrighted for a second time.

Around those transactions, he has thrown 35 big league innings with a 4.37 earned run average, 17.9% strikeout rate and 11.1% walk rate. His Triple-A track record consists of 125 2/3 innings over the past three years. He has a 4.80 ERA at that level, along with a 24.1% strikeout rate and 8.8% walk rate.

Since this is his second career outright, he has the right to elect free agency and has done so. He will market himself to other clubs around the league and will likely be looking at minor league offers.

D-backs Eyeing Back-End Relievers; Payroll Expected To Be In Same Range As 2024

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The Diamondbacks entered the offseason on the heels of a narrow postseason miss that saw their bid for a playoff spot last until the final day of regular-season play. It’s a bitter pill for any club to swallow, and general manager Mike Hazen didn’t shy away from acknowledging as much today in an appearance on Arizona Sports 98.7’s Wolf and Luke Show (full audio of the 11-minute interview). Arizona’s GM sidestepped questions when asked about specific players who are currently free agents (e.g. Christian Walker) but did suggest he’ll be in the market for some upgrades to his late-inning relief corps this winter.

“I’ll beat you to the punch on this question,” Hazen joked with hosts Ron Wolfley and Luke Lapinski. “Where we get to the closer situation, in the end, I don’t know. I still feel like a back-end bullpen guy to help out with [Justin Martinez] and with [A.J. Puk] and those guys, I still see that. I thought when [Paul Sewald] was closing, we had the best version of who we were, frankly. … But, we know [Martinez and Puk] can close, too, so we’ll see.”

Sewald, as referenced by Hazen, was a key piece in Arizona’s bullpen after coming over from Seattle at the 2023 trade deadline. He opened the 2024 season on the injured list due to an oblique strain but was virtually unhittable upon activation, rattling off 16 2/3 innings of one-run ball while only yielding five hits and three walks with 15 punchouts. He hit a rough patch over the next seven weeks, however, yielding 18 runs in 23 innings before landing on the injured list to close out the season. When healthy, Sewald has been terrific over the past four years, logging 229 innings with a 3.18 ERA and 81 saves between the Mariners and Diamondbacks.

A reunion with Sewald could make sense on paper, though the D-backs will have various other options to consider both in free agency and on the trade market. Sewald will turn 35 next May and posted his lowest average fastball velocity since 2019, so while his track record makes him a clear rebound candidate, the Snakes and other clubs will hold at least some degree of concern about his ability to bounce back from this season’s injuries. He should still command a nice one-year deal at the very least, given how well he’s pitched since 2021, but he’ll also surely draw interest from other teams as well.

Alternatives on the free-agent market are plentiful, though many will be costly. Tanner Scott, Jeff Hoffman, Carlos Estevez and Clay Holmes are among the top relievers in this year’s class, each with a chance to command at least a three-year contract. The D-backs have never committed three years to a free agent reliever at any point in the past 14 years — hat tip to MLBTR’s Contract Tracker — and haven’t committed more than the $14MM they gave Mark Melancon during Hazen’s time as GM. This winter’s market has several high-end arms who could be available for one year and an eight-figure salary (David Robertson, Kirby Yates, Kenley Jansen and Blake Treinen among them), which could serve as a means of adding an impact arm without bucking that preference to avoid multi-year spending on premium relievers. The trade market is likely to include names like Ryan Helsley, Devin Williams, Ryan Pressly and Pete Fairbanks, among others.

As with all clubs, the extent to which the D-backs can pursue upgrades is tied directly to ownership’s appetite for spending. Arizona currently projects for a $149MM payroll, per RosterResource, which is about $14MM from where they opened the 2024 campaign. Hazen doesn’t expect a significant dip in payroll but also cautioned that there’s no guarantee that what was already a club-record payroll will climb even higher.

“I would expect we’re somewhere in the same area, plus or minus,” said Hazen when asked about his budget for the 2025 roster. “I don’t know exactly where that’ll all end up. We work through a lot of these decisions with [owner Ken Kendrick] and [president/CEO Derrick Hall] as players become available or as situations get presented to us via trade or via free agency. So, that number kind of fluctuates for us a little bit as we move through the offseason, but we’re going to have plenty of resources to have a winning team next year.”

The D-backs aren’t going to idle with regard to their lineup, but Hazen spoke more favorably of the position-player group, noting high expectations for Corbin Carroll, Jake McCarthy, Eugenio Suarez, Ketel Marte, Geraldo Perdomo, Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and Gabriel Moreno, in particular. On the rotation side of things, Hazen downplayed rumors of a potential trade from his starting staff, noting that teams call all the time and it’s his job to listen — but that doesn’t mean a move is particularly likely.

KBO’s Kia Tigers To Sign Adam Oller

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Right-hander Adam Oller has agreed to terms with the Kia Tigers of the Korea Baseball Organization, reports Ari Alexander of Houston’s KPRC-2. It’ll be the Gaeta Sports Management client’s first stint overseas, and he’ll join the reigning KBO champs.

Oller, 30, has pitched in each of the past three big league seasons. Originally a 2016 draftee of the Pirates, he wound up out of affiliated ball by 2019 but parlayed stints in the independent Frontier League (2019) and in the Australian Baseball League (2020-21) into a minor league opportunity with the Mets. He made the most of that, pitching his way into prospect status with an outstanding age-26 season split between Double-A and Triple-A. The A’s were intrigued enough to acquire Oller and fellow righty J.T. Ginn as their return from the Mets in the trade sending Chris Bassitt to Queens.

Things didn’t work out for Oller in Oakland, however. He was in the majors early during his first season with the organization but hit hard in both 2022 and 2023, yielding a combined 7.09 ERA in 94 frames. The A’s tried to pass him through waivers in July of ’23, but the Mariners claimed him and optioned him to Triple-A Tacoma. He’d spend the remainder of the season with Seattle’s top affiliate, eventually clearing waivers and electing free agency after being dropped from the roster in October.

Oller caught on with the Guardians and Marlins on minor league deals in the year that followed, the latter of whom selected him to the majors this past July. He pitched another 42 1/3 MLB frames across eight starts but was tagged for a 5.31 ERA. Oller did have a handful of nice outings in Miami, but it was an up-and-down tenure with more lows than highs. He was passed through waivers again at the beginning of this month, elected free agency and will quickly find a new opportunity overseas.

Despite his lack of MLB success, there’s reason to think Oller could fare well in the KBO. He posted sharp numbers in Triple-A in 2021-22, struggled through a disastrous season with the Athletics’ Triple-A Vegas club in 2023, and then again pitched to a 2.88 ERA with the Marlins’ top affiliate this past season. His 6.22 Triple-A ERA in 2023 skews his career-long mark to 5.01, but he’s typically been a solid arm at the top minor league level. Oller averages 93.7 mph on his four-seamer, complementing the pitch with a curveball and lesser-used changeup.

It’s at least feasible that Oller could spin one strong KBO season into a big league return, though success overseas can also open further opportunities in Asia. It’s common for players who thrive in the KBO to re-sign for a pay raise in their second season or perhaps to draw interest from teams in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. However it plays out, the earning power for Oller overseas is surely greater than it would be on a minor league deal in North America, and for a pitcher who’s already turned 30 and is still not into arbitration, that’s a compelling selling point.

Tropicana Field Can Be Fixed For 2026 Season

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A damage assessment report on Tropicana Field was presented to St. Petersburg City Council members today, per Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. Per that report, the stadium could be fixed in time for the 2026 season at an estimated cost of $55.7MM. It’s still unclear whether the city will actually want to pay that cost for essentially just two years of use, since the facility is slated for demolition prior to the 2028 season, when the club is hoping to unveil a new stadium.

About a month ago, the Trop was significantly damaged by Hurricane Milton, with the roof appearing to be the part most affected. The takeaway from today’s report is that the building is structurally sound and could return to an operational state after some repairs, primarily to the roof. Fixing the roof is necessary because the field doesn’t have drainage. Given the frequency of rain in the area, playing without a roof would be logistically difficult, which is why it was built in the first place.

The city of St. Petersburg owns the stadium and has already filed an insurance claim. Per Topkin, the policy has a $22MM deductible and $25MM of coverage, though it had $100MM coverage as of March, when the city opted to save $275K in annual premium payments by reducing their coverage.

It’s a bit of an awkward spot. As mentioned, the plan has long been to build a new stadium on essentially the same plot of land that currently houses the Trop. As part of that plan, the Trop would be demolished and the new stadium opened in time for the 2028 season. With the extensive damage of the storm, a decision has to be made about whether it’s worth investing resources into a doomed facility. Presumably, the city has plenty of other repair projects that could use that money.

That leaves 2026 and 2027 sort of undecided for now. In the short term, it seems all but guaranteed that the Rays won’t be playing in the Trop in 2025. Though it’s not stated outright, that seems to be the implication of today’s assessment report. That’s not necessarily a surprise, as it already seemed unlikely the roof could be fixed so quickly, but it does seem to confirm that the Rays will be nomads next year.

That means the Rays will need to find somewhere to play their home games for at least one year and possibly longer. There’s little clarity on where that will be, though Topkin notes that both MLB commissioner Rob Manfred and Pinellas County politicians have encouraged the Rays to stay in the area. That could perhaps be somewhere like BayCare Ballpark in Clearwater, home of the Threshers, the Single-A affiliate of the Phillies.

That scenario or any similar proposal would have the domino effects of needing to find a new home for the displaced club or altering the schedule enough for the two clubs to share one park. Such logistical challenges and others will need to be smoothed out over time. For now, it seems a lock that Major League Baseball will have two nomadic clubs at the same time, at least for one year. The Athletics are leaving Oakland but their new stadium in Las Vegas isn’t slated to be ready until 2028, so they are planning to play the next three seasons in West Sacramento’s Sutter Health Park, home of the Giants’ Triple-A club.

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