Reds right-hander Graham Ashcraft won his arbitration hearing against the team, ESPN’s Jeff Passan reports. He and his reps at the Bledsoe Agency filed for a $1.75MM salary, while the team filed at $1.25MM. Ashcraft will receive the larger of those two figures in 2026. Players have won all five arbitration hearings that have been decided thus far in 2026.
More to come.
The Athletics announced that infielder Max Schuemann has been designated for assignment. That’s the corresponding move to open a spot for their claim of Andy Ibáñez, a move that was previously reported.
More to come.
Right-hander Edwin Uceta won his arbitration hearing against the Rays, Ari Alexander of 7News reports. He’ll be paid the $1.525MM salary figure he and his agent at Nova Sports submitted rather than the $1.2MM sum submitted by the team. Players have now won the first four arbitration hearings of the 2026 season.
More to come.
The Reds announced that catcher Ben Rortvedt has been claimed off waivers by the Dodgers. Cincinnati designated him for assignment when they signed Eugenio Suárez earlier this week. The Dodgers have a full 40-man roster and will need to open a spot for Rortvedt.
More to come.
The Cardinals have claimed infielder Bryan Ramos off waivers from the Orioles, reports Francys Romero of BeisbolFR. There wasn’t any previous indication that Ramos had been designated for assignment but it seems the O’s tried to quietly sneak him through waivers. Their 40-man count will drop to 39. The Cards have had an open 40-man spot since trading Brendan Donovan to the Mariners earlier this week and don’t need to make a corresponding move.
Ramos had spent his entire professional career with the White Sox until getting designated for assignment last week. The Sox then flipped him to the Orioles for cash. It might seem odd that Baltimore sent out cash to get Ramos and then put him on waivers a few days later, but there’s logic at play.
Most teams currently have full 40-man rosters but the 60-day injured list opens up next week, which creates some extra flexibility for fringe roster moves. Getting a player through waivers is therefore easier now than it will be next week. Baltimore also bolstered their infield after getting Ramos by acquiring Blaze Alexander from the Diamondbacks.
Ramos is out of options is was going to have a tough time cracking Baltimore’s roster. He would have been a better fit as a non-roster guy, providing some minor league depth. The Cardinals have swooped in and prevented that from happening for the O’s.
More to come.
The Braves have agreed to a minor league contract with infielder Kyle Farmer, reports Mark Bowman of MLB.com. The BHSC client will be in camp as a non-roster player this spring, where he’ll compete for a bench job.
More to come.
The Red Sox have been connected to infielders all winter and and reportedly agreed to a one-year, $6MM deal with infielder Isiah Kiner-Falefa this week. That doesn’t mean they’re done, with Sean McAdam of MassLive reporting the club is still in the market for another infielder.
That aligns with Kiner-Falefa’s skill set. He’s a strong defender at many positions but has never offered much with the bat. His best role would be a utility player, providing cover at multiple positions. The Sox have an injury-prone shortstop in Trevor Story. They will seemingly give Marcelo Mayer a chance to carve out an everyday role somewhere but he has just 44 games of big league experience. Kiner-Falefa gives the club a fallback if Story gets hurt or Mayer struggles.
That still leaves the Sox with a hole somewhere. Mayer could be at either third or second base. The Sox seemingly prefer him at third but they would need to find a second base upgrade. Currently, they have a mix that includes Kiner-Falefa, Romy González, David Hamilton and others. González has value but is mostly a short-side platoon guy who can beat up lefties. Hamilton is a speed-and-defense guy somewhat like Kiner-Falefa. Kristian Campbell seems to be considered an outfielder now.
Upgrading on that group with a clear everyday second baseman makes a lot of sense but there are fewer options available at this stage of the offseason. The top remaining free agents are arguably not better than Kiner-Falefa, with Ramón Urías, Luis Urías and Adam Frazier some of the guys still out there. The trade market should be Boston’s best bet at this point. They have been connected to guys like Isaac Paredes of the Astros as well as Nico Hoerner and Matt Shaw of the Cubs.
The Astros have a bit of an infield logjam but have thus far held onto Paredes. He has some second base experience but hasn’t played there since 2023. Putting him back at the keystone might not align with Boston’s stated desire to improve defensively but he would certainly add thump, as he’s generally been good for 20-plus homers per season. It’s also possible the Sox like the bat enough that they would be willing to acquire him and put him at third with Mayer at second, despite their apparent preference for Mayer to be at the hot corner.
A trade with the Astros could also make a lot of sense from Houston’s perspective as well, as that club is looking to add a left-handed bat, preferably in the outfield. That’s something the Sox can offer, with Roman Anthony, Jarren Duran, Wilyer Abreu and Masataka Yoshida all on the roster.
Hoerner is perhaps the best defensive second baseman in the majors, so he would certainly fit in with Boston’s desires. The only problem would be convincing the Cubs to part with him. Shaw is less established and has less of a role on the Cubs right now. However, with Hoerner only signed for one more year, they may cling tightly to Shaw as well with the idea that he will take over for Hoerner a year from now.
Diamondbacks general manager Mike Hazen has said he’s not going to consider Ketel Marte trades any longer but that was before Boston signed Ranger Suárez. Maybe now that pitching prospects like Payton Tolle and Connelly Early have been pushed down the depth chart, perhaps Boston would be more willing to put them on the table in an effort to change Hazen’s mind.
Time will tell if chief baseball officer Craig Breslow can pull something off at this late stage of the offseason. Pitchers and catchers report to spring training next week.
Photo courtesy of John E. Sokolowski, Imagn Images
The A’s have claimed infielder/outfielder Andy Ibañez off waivers from the Dodgers, Francys Romero of BeisbolFR reports. Los Angeles signed Ibañez to a one-year, $1.2MM deal last month and then tried to pass him through waivers in order to stash him in Triple-A as a depth option. Instead, the A’s will pick up that $1.2MM bill and add the versatile lefty masher to their infield mix.
Ibañez, 32, is out of minor league options, so when the Dodgers signed him to a low-cost deal despite a crowded infield/bench group, it always seemed possible that they could try to sneak him through outright waivers to keep him as non-roster depth. Ibañez doesn’t have the service time needed to reject an outright assignment in favor of free agency and retain any guaranteed money on his contract, so if he’d passed through waivers he would surely have accepted the assignment.
That won’t be the case. He’ll now head north to West Sacramento and call the Athletics’ hitter-friendly temporary digs at Sutter Health Park his home park. The A’s don’t have a clear answer at third base, so Ibañez will compete for at-bats there while also providing a credible backup around the diamond.
In parts of five major league seasons, Ibañez is a .254/.304/.389 hitter. That includes sub-par work in right-on-right situations, but he’s feasted on lefties, hitting them at a .280/.372/.452 clip. He’ll compete with Darell Hernaiz, Brett Harris, Max Schuemann and (the other) Max Muncy for time at third base, but Ibañez has 5300 professional innings at second base, 724 at first base, 242 at shortstop and 186 in the outfield corners. He’s also the only member of that group of infield candidates who is out of minor league options, so he’s very likely to crack the Athletics’ Opening Day roster.
It’s still possible the A’s will make another move to bring in a third baseman. They had an agreement in place to acquire Nolan Arenado from the Cardinals, but Arenado (who had a full no-trade clause) preferred to go to the D-backs, with whom St. Louis had also been negotiating. There aren’t many third base options left on the market, but someone like Luis Rengifo might feel Sutter Health Park is a good place to try to rebound. The trade market also still has a few viable options (e.g. Mark Vientos, Alec Bohm), and any number of less-proven names could find themselves on waivers this spring as teams make final tweaks to their rosters.
Ibañez has 3.133 years of major league service time, making him controllable via arbitration for another three seasons. He’ll need to rebound from last year’s down showing at the plate for the A’s to keep him around long term, but he’s landed in a better hitters’ environment with a club that has a clearer path to playing time than he’d have had in Los Angeles.
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11:46am: It’ll be a minor league deal with a non-roster invitation to spring training once the deal is complete, per Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News.
10:47am: The Rangers are finalizing a deal with right-hander Ryan Brasier, reports Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com. It’d be a homecoming for the ALIGND Sports client, who was born in Wichita Falls, Texas and attended college in Weatherford, just 40 miles west of Arlington.
Brasier spent the 2025 season with the Cubs but was limited to just 26 innings thanks to a pair of groin injuries — one which kept him out of action for nearly two months. He logged a 4.50 earned run average when healthy and set down 19% of his opponents on strikes while recording a tiny 4.8% walk rate. A .321 average on balls in play — 30 points higher than average and 40 north of Brasier’s career mark — at least partially inflated his ERA. Metrics like SIERA (3.74) and FIP (3.17) were more bullish.
Injuries have hampered the now-38-year-old righty in each of the past two seasons. In 2024, Brasier tossed 28 innings with the Dodgers, missing considerable time due a right calf strain. He was generally effective that season as well, logging a 3.54 ERA with a 22.7% strikeout rate and another excellent walk rate (4.5%).
Overall, Brasier’s last three seasons have been solid — at least when he’s been healthy enough to take the mound. He’s put a nightmare 2022 season (5.78 ERA in 62 1/3 inning) in the rearview mirror, bouncing back with a combined 3.48 ERA, 22.3% strikeout rate, 6.4% walk rate, two saves and 20 holds in a total of 113 2/3 frames. That said, it’s worth noting that last year’s 94 mph average four-seam velocity was down substantially from the 95.7 mph he averaged as recently as 2023. Perhaps accordingly, his 9.7% swinging-strike rate was a career-low — and the first time in his career that he’s posted a mark decidedly south of the league average (11%).
Whether a healthier Brasier will be able to regain some of the lost velocity and strikeouts in his age-38 season remains to be seen, but the right-hander still possesses excellent command. He keeps the ball on the ground at a roughly average rate and has managed to avoid home runs over the past three seasons (0.63 HR/9).
If he makes the roster, Brasier will be the latest low-cost addition to a Rangers bullpen that has given out one-year deals to veterans Chris Martin, Alexis Diaz, Tyler Alexander and Jakob Junis this season. It’s the second straight year that Texas brass has cobbled together its relief corps primarily by way of low-cost free agent deals. It worked out quite well in 2025, as the Rangers got strong results from Martin, Hoby Milner, Jacob Webb and Shawn Armstrong.
Finding success on that many one-year pickups of relievers — perennially MLB’s most volatile performers — isn’t a sustainable way to put together a bullpen, but reductions in payroll in recent seasons have pushed president of baseball operations Chris Young to take this sort of piecemeal approach. Ideally, the Rangers would see some of their younger arms step up to fill some of the spots, just as Cole Winn did in 2025. Winn will be one of the primary setup options for closer Robert Garcia, whom Texas acquired in the trade sending Nathaniel Lowe to Washington last winter.
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