By Darragh McDonald | at
The Yankees are going to claim outfielder Yanquiel Fernández off waivers from the Rockies, reports Francys Romero of BeisbolFR. Colorado designated him for assignment a week ago. The Yanks haven’t yet officially announced this claim. When they do, they will need to make a corresponding move to open a 40-man spot.
More to come.
By Steve Adams | at
The Pirates have emerged as a surprise entrant in the Framber Valdez market, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, who calls the Bucs “one of the most aggressive clubs” in their pursuit of the star left-hander. Valdez rejected a qualifying offer from the Astros at the start of the offseason and would cost the Pirates their third-highest selection in the 2026 draft if a deal were to come together.
It’s an unexpected development that seems illogical at first blush, given the team’s already enviable stock of starting pitching and need to bolster the lineup. But adding Valdez to the mix could make sense, as it’d allow Pittsburgh to further dip into its supply of up-and-coming rotation arms and leverage that depth to acquire another bat.
Trade targets have thinned out as the offseason has worn on, but the Pirates could always try to engage with the D-backs on Ketel Marte, the Red Sox on Jarren Duran (or Wilyer Abreu), or the Nationals on CJ Abrams, speculatively speaking. There are surely some other names who’d be available if the Pirates, depending on which young arms the Pirates were to make available. Paul Skenes, of course, is wholly off limits. General manager Ben Cherington plainly said as much just days into the offseason. But even beyond Skenes, the Pirates have Mitch Keller, Braxton Ashcraft and Bubba Chandler ticketed for big league innings. Jared Jones will be back from UCL surgery this season. Young arms like Hunter Barco, Thomas Harrington and Wilber Dotel are on the 40-man roster and close to MLB-ready. Pittsburgh selected high school righty Seth Hernandez with the No. 6 overall pick in last summer’s draft. It’s a deep collection of starters.
Pairing Valdez with Skenes would give the Pirates one of the best one-two punches in the entire game. The 32-year-old lefty has been an iron man in Houston’s rotation in recent years. He’s pitched 767 2/3 innings of 3.21 ERA ball with a 23.9% strikeout rate, 7.9% walk rate and gargantuan 60% ground-ball rate across the past four seasons. Among qualified starters, only Logan Webb has pitched more innings in that time. Andre Pallante, Clay Holmes and Jose Soriano are the only starters with better ground-ball rates in that same span, and Valdez’s ERA is tied with Seattle’s Bryan Woo for 18th.
Signing Valdez would very likely require the Pirates to put forth the largest contract in franchise history, but they’ve shown a willingness to do that already this winter, reportedly offering Kyle Schwarber $120-125MM over a four-year term. Valdez has been seeking a long-term deal, but the manner in which he’s lingered on the market is a good reminder of the paucity of such contracts for pitchers aged 32 and up. As can be seen in MLBTR’s Contract Tracker, there are only three instances of a free agent pitcher 32 or older commanding a five-year deal over the past 15 offseasons: Blake Snell, Jacob deGrom and Zack Greinke. All were former Cy Young winners with even stronger cases than Valdez currently has.
The Pirates currently project for a $95MM payroll in the upcoming season, per RosterResource. That, somewhat remarkably, is only a few million shy of their franchise-record. However, the pursuit of Valdez and unsuccessful bids for Schwarber and slugger Eugenio Suárez demonstrate a clear willingness to push the budget to previously unseen levels.
There’s been speculation about Valdez acquiescing to a shorter-term deal with opt-outs, as we’ve seen from various high-end free agents both this winter and in recent offseasons. It’s not yet clear whether he’s amenable to such a structure, nor is it clear whether Pittsburgh is considering that type of offer or a more conventional multi-year deal to lock Valdez into place for the foreseeable future. The Orioles have been the team most prominently linked to Valdez throughout the winter, but the Blue Jays are still in the mix and he’s been at least loosely connected to the Braves, Giants, Mets and Red Sox in recent weeks.
By Darragh McDonald | at
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By Steve Adams | at
Having missed out on several higher-profile big bats, the Pirates are showing some interest in veteran designated hitter Marcell Ozuna, per Katie Woo and Will Sammon of The Athletic. There’s no indication anything is close to fruition at the moment, but it’s notable in that the Bucs are the first team prominently connected to Ozuna all winter.
Ozuna, who turned 35 in November, turned in a down showing by his standards in 2025 but was still a better-than-average offensive performer overall. He hit .232/.355/.400 with a career-high 15.9% walk rate, a 24.3% strikeout rate, 21 homers and 19 doubles in 592 turns at the plate with Atlanta in the final season of his six-year run there. Ozuna raced out to a scorching start in April and May, was one of the league’s worst hitters in June, and then settled in as a slightly above-average hitter for the season’s final three months.
While he’d be a clear upgrade to the team’s run-production capabilities, Ozuna isn’t exactly a clean fit in Pittsburgh. Beyond the fact that PNC Park is perhaps the worst environment in MLB for right-handed power, the Buccos’ roster isn’t well constructed to accommodate an everyday designated hitter. Spencer Horwitz and Ryan O’Hearn are lined up to share time at first base and designated hitter. Horwitz, after a slow start to his season in 2025, finished the year out on a blistering .314/.402/.539 tear in his final two-plus months of play. He’s locked into an everyday role. O’Hearn can play in the outfield corners, but Bryan Reynolds has one of those two spots locked down.
Signing Ozuna would push O’Hearn into a primary outfield role. He’s graded out as a quality first baseman in recent seasons with Baltimore but has below-average grades in the outfield corners. Slotting O’Hearn into left field with any sort of regularity could also cut into playing time for fleet-footed Jake Mangum and serve as a roadblock for top prospect Jhostynxon Garcia to push his way onto the big league roster; the Pirates acquired Garcia earlier this winter in the trade sending righty Johan Oviedo to Boston.
Of course, there’s an argument to be made that the perennially punchless Pirates ought to be willing to sacrifice some defense in the name of adding thump to the lineup. Pittsburgh’s pitching staff is the backbone of the roster, with Paul Skenes, Bubba Chandler and Braxton Ashcraft all boasting well above-average strikeout capabilities (and, in the case of Skenes and Ashcraft, plus ground-ball rates that slightly lessen concerns regarding a shakier outfield defense). The lineup, meanwhile, has been one of the weakest — if not the weakest — in Major League Baseball for more than a decade. The last time Pittsburgh fielded even an average offensive club by measure of wRC+ was back in 2014.
An outfield with O’Hearn in left, Oneil Cruz in center and Reynolds in right would be ugly from a defensive standpoint, but a lineup including Reynolds, O’Hearn, Horwitz, Ozuna, trade acquisition Brandon Lowe and, eventually, the top prospect in all of baseball (shortstop Konnor Griffin) would be more formidable than anything the Pirates have trotted out in recent seasons.
The elephant in the room is that it’d be difficult to fit both Ozuna and franchise icon Andrew McCutchen onto the same roster. Both are right-handed hitting outfielders who’ve moved primarily into DH status — Ozuna in particular. He didn’t play a single inning in the field in 2024 or 2025 and only logged 14 innings in 2023. McCutchen played only 16 games in the outfield last season. They’d hold similar roles on this version of the Pirates, but the Bucs would probably feel more confident in Ozuna’s abilities versus right-handed pitching after he hit .235/.347/.415 against righties to McCutchen’s .228/.326/.358.
When McCutchen returned to the Pirates three years ago, he signaled that his intent was to close out his career in Pittsburgh, where he still lives. The team clearly felt similarly, welcoming him back in each subsequent offseason. He’s signed a trio of one-year, $5MM contracts as he continues that full-circle final chapter of his career. But the 39-year-old McCutchen recently voiced some frustration with the manner in which talks have (or have not) progressed this winter. Ken Rosenthal and Stephen Nesbitt of The Athletic reported this week that McCutchen met personally with team owner Bob Nutting last Thursday.
[Related: Where Can The Pirates Turn For Another Bat?]
Whether it’s Ozuna, McCutchen or another target entirely, it seems clear that the Bucs are still intent on adding to the lineup despite various high-profile misses. They had interest in Josh Naylor before he re-signed with the Mariners and were reportedly willing to offer him upwards of $80MM. They put forth a reported $120-125MM offer to Kyle Schwarber, which would’ve been the largest contract in franchise history. The Pirates had interest in both Kazuma Okamoto and Eugenio Suárez before the pair signed in Toronto and Cincinnati, respectively. Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Alex Stumpf of MLB.com both reported after the Suárez signing that the Pirates were willing to (or perhaps did) offer an extra year at the same annual value, but Suárez preferred to return to an organization he already knew — particularly given the Reds’ hitter-friendly park and last season’s playoff berth.
There’s still a week before pitchers and catchers report and about seven weeks until Opening Day. The Pirates’ $95MM projected payroll, per RosterResource, is up a bit from last year’s levels, but their pursuits of Suárez and especially Schwarber suggest a willingness to push things considerably higher. It’s likely they’ll add at least one more bat, but their options have dwindled considerably.
By Steve Adams | at
The Royals announced Wednesday morning that they’ve signed infielder/outfielder Brandon Drury to a minor league contract. The Wasserman client will be in big league camp with Kansas City this spring as a non-roster invitee.
Drury, 33, put on a show in spring training with the White Sox last year when he hit .410/.439/.821 with three homers and seven doubles in only 41 plate appearances. He looked to have secured a spot on Chicago’s Opening Day club but suffered a broken thumb in the final days of camp, sinking any hope of cracking the roster. The veteran utilityman struggled in the minors upon returning and was eventually cut loose by the ChiSox. He didn’t fare much better on a minor league deal with the Angels. Drury didn’t play in the majors last year and closed out the season with a disappointing .214/.338/.323 slash in 228 minor league plate appearances following that ill-timed hand injury.
Of course, Drury has plenty of track record in the big leagues. It’s been an up-and-down career for the righty-swinging slugger, but at his best he’s shown the ability to pop 25 homers in a season, albeit typically with a low on-base percentage.
Drury’s most recent big league work came in 2024, when he struggled through a career-worst year and hit just .169/.242/.228 with sub-par defense in 97 games for the Angels. In the two preceding seasons, however, he was terrific. From 2022-23, Drury slashed .262/.313/.495 with 54 home runs, 64 doubles, five triples, a 5.8% walk rate and a 24% strikeout rate in 1091 plate appearances between the Reds, Padres and Angels.
A bat-first utility player, Drury has extensive experience at all four corner positions and second base, though he hasn’t been considered a strong defender at any of those five spots. That’s not likely to change as he progresses into his mid-30s, but there’s still some value in even being a below-average option at multiple spots in the diamond if his bat can get back on track.
The Royals have Vinnie Pasquantino and Maikel Garcia entrenched at first base and third base, respectively. They added Isaac Collins in an offseason trade with the Brewers and figure to give the late-blooming switch-hitter the bulk of the playing time in left field. Former top pick and top prospect Jac Caglianone will get the first crack at right field, with free agent pickup Lane Thomas perhaps serving as a platoon partner. Jonathan India will aim for a rebound campaign at second base.
The presence of that quintet — plus catcher Salvador Perez, who figures to spend a chunk of time at DH and first base this year — makes for a crowded outlook at Drury’s positions. He could still compete for a bench job, and having him on hand provides some depth in the event of injuries to the primary options currently on the roster.
By Nick Deeds | at
Here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world today:
1. Skubal, Tigers head to arbitration:
As noted by The Athletic’s Cody Stavenhagen, an arbitration hearing is scheduled for today between the Tigers and back-to-back AL Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal. That makes today the last day for the sides to reach an agreement to avoid a hearing, though that looks extremely unlikely. Not only is there a massive $13MM gap between Skubal’s $32MM filing figure and the team’s $19MM figure, but the Tigers typically refuse to negotiate on one-year deals following the filing deadline. Assuming the case does go to a hearing in front of an arbitration panel, a decision won’t be expected today. When that decision does get handed down, however, it has the potential for notable consequences. If Skubal wins, his $32MM salary for this year would raise the bar substantially for future ace pitchers after decades of arms falling short of even $20MM in salary arbitration. If the Tigers win, they could have significantly more resources available to further bolster the club.
2. The Valdez market:
Framber Valdez is the top name left on the market, with the Orioles standing as the only team aggressively linked to him on the rumor mill. Baltimore has some competition, however, as their AL East rivals in Toronto were also connected to Valdez yesterday. If the Jays pick up their interest, that could put some pressure on the Orioles to get a deal done, and after a busy offseason where the Jays missed out on both Kyle Tucker and Bo Bichette the team successfully luring Valdez to Canada can’t be ruled out. With fewer and fewer avenues left to improve, teams who were focused on other targets could start to circle back to Valdez in the days ahead.
3. Two DFA resolutions expected:
Left-hander Konnor Pilkington of the Nationals and Rockies outfielder Yanquiel Fernandez were both designated for assignment one week ago today, meaning they’ve been placed on waivers and a resolution should be expected today. If either player clears, they figure to head to Triple-A as non-roster depth for their current club via outright assignment. A waiver claim from a rival club would send them off to a new organization with their hold on a 40-man roster spot intact. Pilkington made his MLB debut in 2022 as a member of the Guardians and sports a career 3.97 ERA across 88 1/3 innings of work, albeit with lackluster peripheral numbers. Fernandez, meanwhile, made his MLB debut in 2025 and hit just .225/.265/.348 in 147 plate appearances, but he’s only 23 years old, isn’t far removed from top-100 prospect status, and also has a minor league option remaining.
By Charlie Wright | at
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By Anthony Franco | at
Astros general manager Dana Brown met with reporters this afternoon at the team’s media luncheon. As he has throughout the offseason, the GM downplayed the possibility of trading from his infield while noting that they’re still looking for ways to add a left-handed bat.
“If we can trade a guy to potentially get a left-handed bat or something like that, we’ll consider it,” Brown told reporters (including Matt Kawahara of The Houston Chronicle). “But I think right now we have a really good infield. We do have the depth. We have a long season, 162. We have some veterans that we’d like to give some breaks during the course of a season, and to have this depth is good.”
That’s the tone Brown has struck all winter. He said as early as the GM Meetings that they weren’t motivated to trade Christian Walker and had no interest in moving Isaac Paredes. He again spoke about those corner infielders today. “Right now, both of them are still part of our roster. We have plans for both of them to play. So right now, the plan is for both of them to be there,” Brown said.
Walker and Paredes are in very different spots in terms of trade value. Walker is signed for $20MM annually for his age 35-36 seasons. He’s coming off a .238/.297/.421 showing with a drop in his defensive grades in his first year in Houston. The Astros would likely need to pay down more than half the contract to move Walker. He’s unlikely to fetch a significant left-handed bat no matter how much of the money they cover. Walker did connect on 27 homers and had an alright second half, so the Astros probably don’t want to move him solely to save a fraction of the contract.
Paredes would have much bigger appeal. He’s making $9.35MM after reaching an arbitration settlement this afternoon. The Astros don’t have an obvious spot for him in the starting infield after reacquiring Carlos Correa to play third base while Paredes was injured last summer. Correa obviously has ample shortstop experience but isn’t going to play there often on a team with Jeremy Peña. Houston plans to keep Jose Altuve primarily at second base. Manager Joe Espada has said all winter that they want to keep Yordan Alvarez at designated hitter as much as possible.
That leaves Paredes as a multi-positional infielder for now, though all it takes is one injury to change that. They’d find ways to get his bat into the lineup on a regular basis even if everyone’s healthy. Walker, Altuve and Correa are all in their 30s and could benefit from more rest than the team was able to provide last season. Paredes is coming off a significant hamstring strain that cost him most of the second half, so early-season off days wouldn’t be the worst thing for him either.
The Red Sox are the team that has been most frequently tied to Paredes in trade rumors. They haven’t replaced Alex Bregman in the infield and have a pair of controllable lefty-hitting outfielders, Wilyer Abreu and Jarren Duran, who would fit Houston’s biggest lineup need. It’d be a surprise to see the Sox part with either Duran or Abreu for Paredes — at least not a one-for-one deal. Paredes has the shortest window of contractual control among that trio. Boston also reportedly prefers Marcelo Mayer at the hot corner and is ideally looking to add a plus defensive second baseman, which isn’t Paredes’ specialty. Even if there’s a workable framework, it’d probably require Houston sending more talent to the Sox to even the package.
Former first-round pick Brice Matthews is likely headed back to Triple-A to begin the year. He hit 17 homers and stole 41 bases while batting .260/.371/.458 at the level a year ago. Matthews struck out at an alarming 28% rate, however, and he fanned in 20 of his first 47 MLB plate appearances. Baseball America grades him as the #3 prospect in a weak Houston farm system. He still has a pair of minor league options but could theoretically be a trade chip if the Astros don’t deal any of their veteran infielders.
Brown noted that the Astros are still evaluating free agent possibilities to add a lefty bat as well. They’re within a few million dollars of the $244MM luxury tax threshold which owner Jim Crane is reportedly reluctant to surpass. Even a role player like Mike Tauchman or Adam Frazier could put them too close to that mark to leave the front office with enough space for in-season additions. Maybe there’s a workable deal for a pre-arbitration lefty hitter who could be squeezed out by another club. Daniel Schneemann, Robert Hassell III or Yanquiel Fernández (the latter of whom should currently be on waivers after being designated for assignment by the Rockies) are a few speculative options who’d likely be available at a minimal cost.
By Anthony Franco | at
Outfielder Jordyn Adams has an agreement with the Brewers, reports Chris Cotillo of MassLive. That’ll almost certainly be a minor league contract with a non-roster invite to MLB camp once the signing is finalized. Adams is a CAA client.
The 26-year-old Adams was the 17th overall pick by the Angels out of high school in 2018. He’s an elite athlete who covers a lot of ground in center field but has never been a consistently productive hitter. Adams’ strikeout rates hit alarming levels by the time he reached Double-A. That swing-and-miss remains the biggest impediment for the speedster, though he has gotten brief looks at the MLB level over the past three seasons.
Adams combined for 28 games with the Halos between 2023-24. The Angels non-tendered him last winter. Adams signed a minor league deal with Baltimore and cracked the big league club at the end of May. He got into 10 games but only picked up five plate appearances, as he was mostly a late-game defensive substitute. Baltimore outrighted him off the 40-man roster in August. He finished the season at Triple-A Norfolk, where he batted .213/.291/.379 with a 30.3% strikeout rate over 310 plate appearances.
Milwaukee places a lot of emphasis on athleticism and defense in the outfield. Adams fits that role as a non-roster depth piece. The Brewers have Jackson Chourio, Sal Frelick, Garrett Mitchell and Blake Perkins lined up to split the majority of the outfield reps. Christian Yelich will get some work as a left fielder while serving mostly as a designated hitter, and Jake Bauers will rotate between the corners and first base. Brandon Lockridge, Steward Berroa and Akil Baddoo are potential center fielders with minor league options who all occupy 40-man roster spots. Adams joins Greg Jones, another elite runner and former first-round pick, as offseason depth adds.
By Anthony Franco | at
The Blue Jays remain interested in top free agent starter Framber Valdez, report Jon Heyman and Joel Sherman of The New York Post. Toronto reportedly met with Valdez at the GM Meetings back in early November. That predated their seven-year, $210MM contract with Dylan Cease, so it was hardly a given that the Jays were still involved.
Valdez is arguably the last impact player available on the open market. He’s certainly the highest-upside player remaining. There’s a decent supply of unsigned starting pitching, but most other players fit in the middle or back of the rotation. That includes Zac Gallen, the only other free agent who rejected a qualifying offer. Valdez is at least a high-end #2 starter and has ace potential.
The southpaw finished top 10 in Cy Young voting each season from 2022-24. He looked on that pace through the All-Star Break last year, turning in a 2.75 earned run average over 19 starts. Things went off the rails in the second half, as Valdez surrendered a 5.20 ERA over his final 12 starts. He also had the much publicized cross-up incident with third catcher César Salazar, as he came under fire for not showing much immediate concern after hitting Salazar in the chest with a fastball. Astros officials maintained they did not believe Valdez intentionally crossed the catcher up, and Salazar did his best to downplay the situation publicly.
In any case, Valdez hit the market coming off arguably his worst two-month stretch in years. He’s entering his age-32 season, an age at which five-plus year deals for free agent starting pitchers are rare. Blake Snell and Jacob deGrom are the only pitchers at 32 or older to sign for five years within the past decade. It’s not clear what Valdez sought at the beginning of the offseason, but it’s generally not a great omen for players’ markets if they’re unsigned into February. A short-term deal with opt-outs probably isn’t as appealing for Valdez as it would be for a younger free agent.
The Jays already run six deep in the rotation with Cease, Kevin Gausman, Trey Yesavage, Shane Bieber, Cody Ponce and José Berríos. They’re broadly involved on every top free agent, so it’s possible they’re circling back to see if Valdez’s market has dropped to a level at which they feel the value is too good to ignore. Bieber has battled some elbow fatigue. Yesavage had some injury questions in college and just completed his first full professional season. Ponce is something of an unknown coming back from Korea, though the Jays wouldn’t have guaranteed him $30MM if they didn’t think he could be an effective starter.
Toronto could certainly justify taking this group into the season, but they’re evidently still kicking around rotation possibilities. Heyman said on an MLB Network appearance this afternoon that the Jays have some amount of interest in bringing Max Scherzer back. That’d obviously be a much cheaper move than even a short-term deal for Valdez, but Scherzer isn’t as clear of an upgrade over Toronto’s back-end arms.
RosterResource calculates the Jays’ luxury tax payroll around $310MM. That’s already a franchise record and lands them in the top tier of penalization. The Jays are near the Yankees and Phillies to round out a clear top five in projected spending behind the Dodgers and Mets. Signing Valdez would probably push them close to $340MM in CBT commitments, which would take them ahead of the Yankees and Philadelphia. They’d pay a 90% tax on the average annual value of any further free agent contracts. A hypothetical $30MM salary for Valdez would add another $27MM to their tax bill and amount to a $57MM investment overall.
Valdez comes attached to draft compensation, though that penalty isn’t as severe for the Jays because they already signed Cease. Toronto punted their second-round pick and their compensatory pick for Bo Bichette (after the fourth round) to add Cease. They’d give up their third and fifth rounders for Valdez, but those are each outside the top 100 overall.
Houston paid the luxury tax last year, so they’ll only receive a compensation pick after round four once Valdez signs elsewhere. That’s all but inevitable, as they’ve never seemed interested in meeting the southpaw’s asking price on a free agent deal. The collective bargaining agreement prohibits team personnel from explicitly saying they’re not pursuing specific players, but Houston GM Dana Brown reiterated this afternoon that the Astros “haven’t had any conversations lately” with the pitcher’s camp (video via Jason Bristol of KHOU 11 News).
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