Here are a few things to monitor around the baseball world heading into this week:
1. Rookie of the Year awards announced tonight
It’s awards week! The league’s top honors will be handed out each day, starting with Rookie of the Year tonight and concluding with Most Valuable Player on Thursday. The ROY finalists on the American League side are first baseman Nick Kurtz of the Athletics, shortstop Jacob Wilson, also of the Athletics, and outfielder Roman Anthony of the Red Sox. Catcher Drake Baldwin of the Braves leads the way on the National League side, followed by Cade Horton of the Cubs and Caleb Durbin of the Brewers. Kurtz and his 36 home runs are considered the favorite for the AL. Baldwin, who slashed .274/.341/.469 as Atlanta’s primary backstop, is considered the favorite in the NL. The winners will be announced on MLB Network at 6 pm CT.
2. Big Japanese stars headed to the big leagues
A pair of NPB heavyweights are making the jump to MLB. The Yakult Swallows officially posted third baseman Munetaka Murakami on Friday. The 25-year-old has been one of the top power hitters in Japan over the past seven seasons. Murakami hit a single-season record 56 home runs in 2022. Contact has been an issue at times, and it’s unclear whether he’ll stick at third base, but Murakami immediately becomes one of the top bats on the market. The Saitama Seibu Lions announced they have accepted right-hander Tatsuya Imai’s request to be posted. The 27-year-old has a fastball approaching triple digits and a plus slider. Imai posted a 3.15 ERA over 963 2/3 innings across eight NPB seasons. He earned three All-Star selections. Imai will join Dylan Cease and Framber Valdez as one of the top starters on the market. Murakami, and Imai once officially posted, will have 45 days to work out a contract with an MLB team.
3. Cleveland pitchers indicted on gambling charges
It had been a couple of months since we had an update on the sports betting investigation regarding Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz. The big news dropped on Sunday, as Clase and Ortiz were indicted by prosecutors on charges including “wire fraud conspiracy, honest services wire fraud conspiracy, conspiracy to influence sporting contests by bribery, and money laundering conspiracy, for their alleged roles in a scheme to rig bets on pitches thrown.” The alleged scheme involved Clase and Ortiz purposely throwing balls so gamblers could bet on pitches being balls or strikes, per the indictment. The pitchers face up to 65 years in prison if convicted on all charges.
Photo courtesy of Charles LeClaire, Imagn Images.
I think Imai become the top choice given his age.
i just do not see #2 upside there, and on a per basis i think he ends up short of what Frambler and Cease get.
Just some semantics–I believe the Lions *agreed to post* Imai on Sunday. He’s not yet posted.
As much I’d like Horton to win the Rookie of the Year, it’s probably going to be Drake Baldwin. But it’s nice to see the Cubs get a guy that had as good first season as Horton had. All good choices!
For the AL it’s gotta be Kurtz, he had a great season.
I don’t think Horton gives a…..Who?
The worst talking head on MLB TV doomed Horton when he nonchalantly claimed that “Horton’s a lock” to win the NL Rookie of the Year award. If Horton does win, it’ll be the first time Harold Reynolds was ever right about anything.
That whole crew sucks, Harold is terrible though…
Not gonna lie, was glad to see Jomboy 9n MLB network earlier in the summer. Vastly prefer those guys.
If Roman hadn’t been held hostage in the minors so long, it would have been an epic battle for ROY with Kurtz.
Can’t wait to see what Roman can do in a full season.
RPG, does time on the IL count against service time when considered for rookie status the following year? If it does then Roman won’t be a rookie next year, so I am wondering if he would be a rookie if it doesn’t.
It does if it’s major league IL.
R Anthony had over 200 major league ABs in 2025. He is no longer considered a rookie
big – Right, and he also exceeded 45 days on the active roster.
DBH – Time on the IL does indeed count as service time, however it does not impact his rookie eligibility because the 45-day limit is for active roster only.
No, Nick Kurtz of the Sacramento A’s way outpaced Roman Anthony and every other rookie by a country mile.
Nick Kurtz 2025 5.4 WAR 420 At-bats 36 Hrs 0.290 Avg 1.002 OPS
Roman Anthony 2025 3.1 WAR 257 ABs 8 Hrs 0.292 avg 0.859 OPS
Jacpb Wilson 2025 3.0 WAR 386 ABs 13 HRs 0.311 avg 0.800 OPS
Drake Baldwin 2025 3.3 WAR 405 ABs 19 HRs 0.274 avg. 0.810 OPS
Caleb Durbin 2025 2.8 WAR 445 ABs 11 HRs 0.256 avg. 0.721 OPS
Cade Horton 2025 2.0 WAR 23 Games 118 innings 97 Ks 3.58 FIP
“way outpaced” is an exaggeration. Roman Anthony had a 3.1 WAR in 257 ABs. While it’s not the best way to do this, if you project that WAR over the 420 ABs that Nick Kurtz had, you get about a 5.1 WAR, which is pretty close to the 5.4 WAR that Kurtz had
You should read through what Fever said again. He was simply conjecturing that had Anthony had a similar amount of Plate Appearances, it might have been a closer race.
Yeah – as much as I’m tempted to disagree that you are looking at volume more than anything, even if we looked at wRC+ or tried to normalize for 420 AB’s (which is naive) your logic still stands. Kurtz was clearly superior to other rookies.
Certainly a more intriguing class than Gil and Cowser last year
Im wandering, if Hiroto Saiki ask his team (Hanshin Tigers) to posted him, which one would get higher contract. Saiki posted better number than Imai, but low K & a lot groundball.
baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=sai…
That would be another good option for sure.
He’s rumored to be post next year
Murakami and Imai to LAD, Clase and Ortiz to prison
More like Chase and Ortiz to the Witness Protection List.
@JRamHOF
C’mon, they just did a little gambling. It happens everyday in America. Maybe we should ban gambling just like we banned alcohol. That worked great!
From what i have read they were not betting, but were throwing certain pitches to help out the bettors, so basically throwing games
@jaysfansince1977
Sorry, I was just using sarcasm…
York – Did you invest in him? LOL
mlbtraderumors.com/2024/12/finlete-offers-fans-the…
@Fever Pitch Guy
No way would I invest in that. I can get better returns elsewhere.
Try reading before reacting. They cooperated with gamblers to fix outcomes. That’s not “a little gambling”.
@JRam
Imai possible for LAD but they’re not going after Murakami. OF is bigger need so Tucker is a target.
I think Dodgers make a run at Tucker, Cubs aren’t going to go for the 400m he’s going to be asking for.
The career of Caleb Durbin thus far has been interesting for more then whats happened on the field.
After being drafted by Atlanta, Durbin was traded with another prospect to the Yankees for a reliever, Lucas Luetge, who pitched one disastrous partial season for Atlanta and never pitched in the majors again.
Two years later, Durbin was traded by the Yankees (with Nestor Cortes) to Milwaukee for a reliever, Devin Williams, who pitched one disastrous season for NY before presumably moving on.
Teams need to stop trading Durbin for relievers. It does not work out well.
Can’t blame the Yankees too much for trading Durbin for Williams. After having Clay Holmes blow so many games, they needed a closer and Devin fit the bill.
I agree Williams should have been a good get for them. It’s just funny how both Durbin trades blew up spectacularly in the faces of the teams trading Durbin away.
Definitely agree with you on Durbin. He’s turned into a nice addition to the Brewers lineup. He puts up great at bats and can be a clutch hitter too. Another great trade for the Brewers.
65 years for corrupting gambling. Add 6 months if they murdered anyone in the process…
The AL ROY seems it should go to Nick Kurtz but the NL is pretty tight.
I predicted Drake Baldwin but it could go to any of the 3.
mlbtraderumors.com/2025/11/bbwaa-announces-2025-aw…
Kurtz had much bigger numbers than Baldwin.
@robw5555
Yes, but there is an AL award and an NL award. I said Kurtz would get the AL award but it was close in the NL.
Different leagues bud Kurtz is AL, Baldwin is NL.
Completely agree on Kurtz, if he doesn’t get all first place votes it would just be wrong and this is me speaking as a Red Sox fan. The only question will end up being who gets second place.
As for the NL, I know it shouldn’t matter but it usually does, I think Horton and Durbin might have the edge because they were on teams in the playoffs. It’s a close race, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the x-factor works against Baldwin.
@Sabermetric Acolyte
That makes sense. Either way, I think they were all pretty deserving so I wouldn’t be upset.
Voting happened before the Postseason, although I suppose the stretch run could factor into it.
It’s nice to see the A’s having some promising rookie performances.
Despite the way they left Oakland and can’t move to Las Vegas for another year…
I know a bit about sports gambing, but not the extent of some of these prop bets. I had no idea that you could bet on a single pitch. Bets like that are stupod and show that there is no regulation on these guys.The sports books share data and can easily see stuff like this. How much total action could they be taking on a single pitch. There will be more of this in all sports. We see the NBA scandal and this is merely the start. To some extent having legalized betting allows more investigations.
We’ve seen a lot of hitters take weird ABs over the years too. When will the league begin investigating them?
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What’s the over under on the number of years each pitcher gets for this? If either of them ever throws a pitch again will it be a ball or a strike?
-200 on plea deal with less than a year
+130 on >3.5
Both get acquitted on court but banned by MLB. You can’t create questions around the integrity of an MLB sponsor and go unpunished
According to Google, neither are US permanent residents or citizens. I do not know if either have spouses or kids who are U.S. citizens.
If Ortiz, who had a shorter duration of involvement, cooperates and is willing to testify, he might get off with deportation and a lifetime baseball ban. And a felony conviction on his record.
Clase should get actual jail time plus deportation and a lifetime ban.
its kurtz in a runaway but the omission of colson montgomery as a finalist is pretty egregious – more WAR than the other 2 finalists in half the playing time. smh.
are there rookies that didnt make the final 3 that people think will eventually excel? for example matt shaw. marcelo mayer. cole young. chase burns. Jac Caglianone. Kristian Campbell.
Shaw and Meyer still need to prove they can hit enough to stick. Both are pretty established on D, but considering both will likely be at 3B, they’ll need to step it up on the offensive side.
Burns looks good.
Young also needs to hit.
Excel? Maybe.
“…considering both will likely be at 3B, they’ll need to step it up on the offensive side”
What decade do you refer to? 3B has been an offensive hole for some time now. That’s why the Yankees were able to upgrade with McMahon. The Reds upgraded with Hayes. The Tigers contended with a combo of McKinstry, Ibanez, Jung, and Keith. Langsford got $40mm from Boston, Suarez was one of the most coveted at the deadline. There is a dearth of offensive 3B currently. There are the top 8 or so, and then nothing. If Shaw and Meyer are sound defensively, any offense will put them in the top half of players at the position.
Carney Lansford still playing?
I am not a lawyer nor well versed in sports gambling, you’d have to think that Clase and Ortiz are the first dominos to fall. I’m sure prosecutors are going to through out reduced sentences to them in exchange for names and other info. But I don’t know nothing.
Why didn’t this article point me to where I can bet on who will win the ROY?
How does one pitch help gamblers when they go over game plan on the day of there start and pretty much coaches are calling the pitch to the catchers so wouldn’t the catcher and member of the coaching staff be indicted also since it not like the gamblers hack into there sign piece on there hat saying what to throw..
They were betting on one pitch being a ball or a strike. You can bet on things as little as that now rather than a whole game. As for catchers and coaches, even if they call the game and say what pitch to throw it’s still the pitcher who will throw it.
I think they were throwing balls to get their pitch counts up, so probably per inning or per at bat pitch totals prop bets. Maybe you can bet on every pitch in real time on some sites, but not sure how they would be able to profit from that while on the mound…maybe every 0-1 and 1-1 count throw a ball? If they did that for a month and a group of bettors were in on every pitch, it would raise alarms so fast, which obviously eventually happened anyway. Pretty dumb, especially for Clase, who would have made another $50m+ in his career, most likely.
Seems folly to put such harsh punishments on players when the mlb is actively embracing gambling and garnering large $$ from its involvement. Kind of like going after college hoops players for taking gifts etc when March Madness makes everyone else so much money. Such disparities seem destined to have a “breach of corruption”.
I’m going to post the entire comment thread here, just to save everyone’s time.
“It’s gonna be Roman Anthony. East Coast bias.”
“Future Dodgers.”
“Should have had better interpreters.”
@Adrian Gonzalez German Marquez
I don’t think they should be awarding it every year. If a Rookie had an amazing year where they lead the league in all these major categories and had a 10+ WAR season then maybe they should but otherwise, we’re just handing out participation trophies.
If you don’t think Kurtz deserves a ROY Award, you don’t know the history of baseball very well. He was amazing.
The missing piece in the gambling investigation is whether these two pitchers were being threatened. It just doesn’t make sense any other way. People think if you legalize something it removes the criminal element. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Could be an issue, both are DR players with family back home. I’m sure it will be investigated, but we may never hear about it *especially* if it’s a non-factor.
Didn’t Alexander Mogilny go through something similar in NHL? Russian mafia had his family kidnapped or something
Not to mention Wilson Ramos, Ugueth Urbina, Victor Zambrano, Yorvit Torrealba, and a handful of others that had family held hostage for payouts, etc. Let the investigations continue, and hopefully Ortiz and Clase have viable explanations. Doubtful, but possible.
i.disagree that Baldwin “leads the way” for NL ROY. The leader should be Cade Horton. For a rookie to do things never done before in MLB history is really something. And yes, I’m a Cubs fan, but also trying to be objective.
Baldwin has it clean and cut. Plays the hardest position too.
Pardon my ignorance, but what did Cade do that had never been done before?