Nick Lodolo To Open Season On Injured List
The Reds will place starter Nick Lodolo on the 15-day injured list to begin the year, reports Gordon Wittenmyer of The Cincinnati Enquirer. The southpaw joins Hunter Greene in starting the season on the shelf.
Greene will miss most or all of the first half after undergoing surgery to remove bone chips from his elbow. Lodolo’s issue is far less concerning. He’s dealing with a blister on his index finger, which forced him out of his start on Sunday after 10 pitches. A season-opening IL stint can be backdated by three days, meaning he’ll be eligible to return 13 days into the regular season.
It’ll probably be close to a minimal stint, though it’s nevertheless frustrating for Lodolo to miss at least one or two turns through the rotation. Lodolo has a history of blister issues. This will be the third consecutive season in which one sends him to the injured list. He had a minimal absence in 2024 and missed around three weeks last August.
Andrew Abbott makes his first career Opening Day start opposite Garrett Crochet and the Red Sox on Thursday. Lodolo had been slated to start the second game of the season, followed by Brady Singer in the series finale. They’ll now likely bump Singer up to Saturday and have Rhett Lowder take the ball to close the Boston series. Chase Burns and Brandon Williamson round out the starting five and can open next week’s series against the Pirates.
Manager Terry Francona announced last week that Lowder, Burns and Williamson had all made the team. The Reds weren’t planning a six-man rotation but could have used Burns and Williamson as tandem starters or swing options. They’ll instead work as more traditional starters until Lodolo is healthy, which will open a spot in the bullpen. Kyle Nicolas was their most recent bullpen cut and could be brought back up. Julian Aguiar or Chase Petty are other possibilities for a long relief role.
Giants Likely To Designate Luis Matos For Assignment
The Giants are expected to designate outfielder Luis Matos for assignment, reports Susan Slusser of The San Francisco Chronicle. She adds that minor league signee Jared Oliva is expected to break camp in a bench role, so he’ll take Matos’ spot on the active and 40-man rosters.
More to come.
Cubs, Pete Crow-Armstrong Agree To Extension
March 24th: It’s a six-year deal starting in 2027 worth $115MM, reports Jeff Passan of ESPN. That means it buys out Crow-Armstrong’s four arbitration seasons and what would have been his first two free agent years. There are no options in the deal. Bob Nightengale of USA Today reports that Crow-Armstrong can unlock an extra $18MM via escalators.
March 23rd: The Cubs and star center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong are finalizing an extension, reports Jeff Passan of ESPN. Once the deal is complete, the Cubs will have one of the sport’s best defensive players signed for the long haul. Crow-Armstrong is a CAA client.
Chicago tried to get a deal done with Crow-Armstrong during last year’s Spring Training. He was coming off a modest .237/.286/.384 season as a rookie, but the Cubs clearly felt he had another gear offensively. There has never been any doubt regarding his elite center field defense.
The sides couldn’t reach an agreement last spring. Crow-Armstrong’s asking price has certainly jumped 12 months later. He took a huge step forward from a power perspective, connecting on 31 home runs with 72 extra-base hits. He stole 35 bases, making him one of seven players to go 30-30 last year. He also led all outfielders with 24 Outs Above Average, while tying for second among center fielders (behind Ceddanne Rafaela) with 15 Defensive Runs Saved.
For a good portion of the season, Crow-Armstrong looked to be on track for a top three MVP finish. He was on an offensive tear for four months, hitting 27 homers with a .272/.309/.559 slash line through the end of July. His bat went ice cold to close the season, as he stumbled to a .188/.237/.295 mark over his final 200 trips to the plate.
The tough finish “dropped” Crow-Armstrong to ninth in NL MVP balloting. He deservedly earned his first All-Star selection and Gold Glove. He finished the season as a slightly above-average hitter, posting a .247/.287/.481 line across 647 plate appearances. Crow-Armstrong had a tough postseason (batting .185 without an extra-base hit in eight games) but was much better this spring while playing for Team USA in the World Baseball Classic.
Crow-Armstrong’s late-season slump highlights the remaining concerns about his offensive consistency. He’s one of the most aggressive hitters in the league, swinging at nearly 60% of the pitches he has seen in his career. No other player who took 500 plate appearances last year swung more often.
Only Yainer Diaz and Michael Harris II more frequently chased pitches outside the strike zone. As a result, Crow-Armstrong has walked in fewer than 5% of his career plate appearances. He has gone down on strikes at a slightly elevated 24% rate. The approach leaves him with a low floor from an OBP perspective that’ll probably continue leading to a streaky offensive game.
At the same time, Crow-Armstrong clearly has a ceiling that few players in the league can match. The glove isn’t going to slump. He’s an elite runner and athlete with a fantastic arm and an excellent first step. The defense alone would give him a high floor even if he had minimal offensive upside. Crow-Armstrong can carry a lineup when he’s going well, as he showed for the first two-thirds of last season. He has above-average bat speed and plus power, particularly against right-handed pitching.
The lefty hitter posted a .271/.315/.523 mark with 24 homers when holding the platoon advantage. He struggled against southpaws, batting .188/.217/.376 with seven longballs in 188 plate appearances. The defense is so good that the Cubs won’t use him as a platoon player, but they’re surely hoping to see more competitive at-bats against lefties.
It’s possible that’ll come with experience. Crow-Armstrong is entering his age-24 season. It’s unlikely he’s ever going to become a patient hitter, but it’s fair to project him some improvements to his selectivity as he gets into his mid 20s. If he plateaus at 10-15 percent better than average offensively, he’d remain one of the better all-around players in the National League. FanGraphs and Baseball Reference each valued him around 5-6 wins above replacement a year ago. Crow-Armstrong’s all-out playing style has also made him a favorite of the fanbase and arguably the face of the franchise.
Crow-Armstrong is two days shy of having two full years of service time. He would have qualified for early arbitration as a Super Two player next offseason. He was five years away from reaching free agency, when he would have hit the market at age 29.
Jackson Merrill’s nine-year, $135MM extension with the Padres last spring is the top guarantee for a player with between one and two years of MLB service. Merrill and Crow-Armstrong have similar profiles as star center fielders with power but some on-base concerns. Crow-Armstrong is the superior defender, though Merrill is a very good outfielder in his own right. The latter probably has a slightly higher offensive floor because he makes more contact.
Merrill was a year younger than Crow-Armstrong is now. He was not on track to qualify as a Super Two player, but he was trending towards hitting free agency by age 27. Merrill probably left some money on the table, though his deal is the most obvious comparison point for talks between the Cubs and Crow-Armstrong’s camp. Bob Nightengale of USA Today reports that the Cubs’ 2025 offer was for $66MM. If he matches or exceeds the Merrill contract, he’d more than double that sum.
The Cubs have two nine-figure contracts on the books with the Dansby Swanson and Alex Bregman deals. RosterResource projects them right around the $244MM base luxury tax threshold. Assuming the extension goes into effect this season, their CBT number would jump significantly even if it’s a backloaded contract. The deal’s average annual value is the relevant number for tax purposes, and that’ll obviously be much higher than the pre-arbitration salary which Crow-Armstrong had been set to make. The Cubs would pay a 20% tax on overages between $244MM and $264MM, then a 32% charge between $264MM and $284MM.
Chicago’s long-term outfield is wide open. Seiya Suzuki and Ian Happ are on track to hit free agency next offseason. Nico Hoerner, Shota Imanaga, Matthew Boyd and Jameson Taillon are also slated to hit the market, and the Cubs surely aren’t bringing everybody back. They traded Owen Caissie to the Marlins as a centerpiece of the Edward Cabrera return. Prospect Kevin Alcántara has power but concerning strikeout rates. Crow-Armstrong would have been in center field either way, but there could be a fair amount of turnover around him in the Wrigley outfield a year from now.
Image courtesy of Rick Scuteri, Imagn Images.
Angels To Sign Joey Lucchesi
The Angels are going to sign left-hander Joey Lucchesi, reports Jon Heyman of The New York Post. Heyman adds that the CAA Sports client is expected to be on the Opening Day roster, suggesting it’s a major league deal. That would mean the Halos would need a corresponding 40-man move. They have some candidates to move to the 60-day injured list, with Anthony Rendon being an obvious one, but they may also need spots for Adam Frazier and Jeimer Candelario if they plan to roster those guys.
Lucchesi, 33 in June, was in camp with the Giants on a minor league deal as of a few days ago. He was granted his release, which may or may not have involved him triggering an opt-out in that deal. Regardless, he was back on the open market and the Halos have scooped him up.
The southpaw has been a starter or swingman for most of his career. 2025 was his first big league season where he pitched exclusively as a reliever. He averaged just under 93 miles per hour with both his four-seamer and his sinker while also throwing a low-80s splitter and high-70s curveball. He gave the Giants 38 1/3 innings over 38 appearances, allowing 3.76 earned runs per nine frames. His 18.8% strikeout rate was subpar but his 7.3% walk rate was good and he induced grounders on 53% of balls in play.
The Giants could have retained Lucchesi for 2026 via arbitration, with MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projecting him for a $2MM salary. Instead, they non-tendered him and then re-signed him to a minor league deal that would have paid him $1.5MM in the majors. As mentioned, they released him from that pact a few days ago.
The Angels signed Kirby Yates, Jordan Romano, Drew Pomeranz and Brent Suter to free agent deals this offseason. No one in that group can be optioned to the minors. Chase Silseth is out of options. Guys like Ryan Zeferjahn, Sam Bachman and Walbert Ureña seemed to be trending to Opening Day jobs but all three can be optioned. Perhaps one of them will get bumped to the minors to make room for Lucchesi, though knocking out Silseth could be a way for the club to open a 40-man spot.
Photo courtesy of Mark J. Rebilas, Imagn Images
Orioles Sign Elvis Peguero To Two-Year Minor League Deal
The Orioles announced that they have signed right-hander Elvis Peguero to a minor league deal covering the 2026 and 2027 seasons. He has been assigned to the Triple-A Norfolk Tides, though his current health status is unclear.
Two-year minor league deals are normally signed when a pitcher is facing a lengthy injury absence, often due to a notable procedure such as Tommy John surgery. These types of deals allow the pitcher to rehab using a team’s facilities while collecting a paycheck. For the team, they know they will get little or no return on that investment in the near term but the hope is that the deal pays off when the pitcher is healthy in the second year.
There hasn’t been any public reporting about Peguero undergoing surgery recently. The White Sox did put him on the 15-day injured list in August due to a right elbow strain. He stayed there through the end of the campaign. He was outrighted off the roster in October and became a free agent shortly thereafter. Perhaps the Orioles will reveal more information about Peguero’s status soon.
Over the past five seasons, Peguero has pitched for the Angels, Brewers and White Sox. He’s essentially been a two-pitch guy with an upper-90s sinker and a low-90s slider. He has allowed 4.26 earned runs per nine innings. His 19.5% strikeout rate and 10.8% walk rate are both a bit worse than average but he has induced grounders on 54.3% of balls in play.
He exhausted his final option season in 2025, meaning he will be out of options going forward. If he can eventually earn a roster spot and hold it, he can be retained for several years via arbitration. His service time count is currently at two years and 136 days.
Photo courtesy of Matt Marton, Imagn Images
Marlins To Sign Austin Slater To Major League Deal
The Marlins are in agreement with outfielder Austin Slater on a major league deal, reports Craig Mish of SportsGrid. He just opted out of a minor league deal with the Tigers a few days ago. He’ll make $1MM plus bonuses, per Kevin Barral of Fish on First. The Marlins will need to open a 40-man roster spot but that should be as easy as transferring right-hander Adam Mazur to the 60-day injured list. Mazur underwent Tommy John surgery a few weeks ago and will miss the entire season.
Slater, 33, just had a strong camp with the Tigers. He stepped to the plate 36 times in 15 games and slashed .267/.389/.467. Detroit’s roster is fairly crowded, however. They are going to carry prospect Kevin McGonigle on the Opening Day roster and have bumped outfielder Wenceel Pérez to the minors.
The Marlins will take advantage of that roster crunch by scooping up Slater. In his career, he has generally combined solid defense in all three outfield slots with strong offense against left-handed pitching. His overall batting line is .248/.336/.384. That’s almost exactly league average, translating to a 101 wRC+. That includes a .267/.357/.430 line and 119 wRC+ against southpaws, compared to a .227/.311/.329 slash and 80 wRC+ otherwise.
That profile should fit well in the Miami outfield. The Marlins are slated to begin the season with Kyle Stowers on the injured list, which will leave Jakob Marsee, Owen Caissie and Griffin Conine in the outfield. All four of those guys are lefties, so Slater should have plenty of chances to slot in against southpaw opponents.
Photo courtesy of Brad Penner, Imagn Images
Astros To Select Christian Vázquez
The Astros are going to open the season with Christian Vázquez as their backup to catcher Yainer Diaz, manager Joe Espada tells Matt Kawahara of The Houston Chronicle. He had been in camp on a minor league deal. César Salazar has been informed he won’t make the team. Since Salazar is out of options, he’ll need to be removed from the 40-man, which means he’ll be traded or placed on waivers in the coming days.
Vázquez, 35, has over a decade of big league experience under his belt. He’s probably not going to provide much offensively at this point in his career. He has had some good performances with the bat before but has a combined .215/.267/.311 line dating back to the start of the 2023 season. That’s why he had to settle for a minor league deal coming into 2026. He was playing for Puerto Rico in the World Baseball Classic at the time of that pact. He put up a flat .250/.250/.250 line in that tournament and then slashed .222/.364/.222 in 11 spring plate appearances with the Astros.
But he is considered one of the better defensive catchers in the game. He’s been credited with 64 Defensive Runs Saved since the start of 2014, his debut season. Only three other catchers are ahead of him in that category. One of them is Buster Posey, who retired long ago and is now running the Giants’ front office. Another is Roberto Pérez, who hasn’t played in the majors since 2023. The other is Austin Hedges. Vázquez generally ranks near the top of framing leaderboards as well.
The Astros are known as an organization that values catcher defense, as they have often rostered glove-first guys like Jason Castro and Martín Maldonado. They acquired Vázquez at the 2022 deadline and went on to win that year’s World Series, after which Vázquez signed a three-year, $30MM deal with the Twins. That deal didn’t really pan out the way the Twins hoped due to the aforementioned decline in his offense but Vázquez still has enough of a reputation to get back to the majors with Houston.
Rostering Vázquez means the Astros may be ending their relationship with Salazar. He has appeared in 36 games for the Astros over the past three years, putting up a .232/.318/.268 line in 67 plate appearances. He was considered a strong defender as a prospect but has only been able to log 143 2/3 innings behind the plate as a big leaguer.
As mentioned, he is out of options, meaning he can’t be sent to the minors unless he first clears waivers. It’s possible some other club could be interested. He does have the aforementioned strong defensive reputation. He hasn’t hit much in the majors yet but has a .238/.369/.389 line and 113 wRC+ at the Triple-A level dating back to the start of 2024. If any club were to pick him up, he could be controlled for another five seasons and is also two years away from qualifying for arbitration.
If he were to clear waivers, the Astros could keep him as non-roster depth. He doesn’t have three years of service time and doesn’t have a previous career outright, so he wouldn’t have the right to elect free agency. The Astros would probably be happy if that happened, as they don’t have any other catchers on their roster. Carlos Pérez is their only non-roster backstop with big league experience.
Photo courtesy of Troy Taormina, Imagn Images
Phillies Extend Cristopher Sanchez
For the second time in less than two years, the Phillies have announced a contract extension with Cristopher Sanchez. The left-hander’s previous extension in June 2024 gave the team control over Sanchez’s services through the 2030 season, but this new contract now locks Sanchez into the fold through at least the 2032 season for $88MM in new money. Sanchez is represented by Mato Sports Management.
The new deal keeps Sanchez’s $3MM salary in place for the 2026 season and adds a $6MM signing bonus. He’ll also earn the $6MM in 2027 and the $9MM in 2028 that was promised to him under the terms of his old extension. The Phillies previously held a $14MM club option on Sanchez for 2029 and a $15MM club option for 2030, but those option years have now been guaranteed under the new extension at those prices. Sanchez will then earn $27MM in each of the 2031 and 2032 seasons, though $10MM is deferred each year. Philadelphia holds a $32.5MM club option for the 2033 campaign. The value of that option can increase based on Cy Young voting from 2027 to 2032, with $2MM for a win, $1MM for second or third place, $750K for fourth or fifth and $500K for sixth through tenth. A buyout would also attach to the option by the same criteria. That becomes a $10MM club option if Sanchez spends 130 consecutive days on the injured list in 2031 or 2032. Sanchez can also earn up to $13MM extra via incentive bonuses over the course of the contract.
Sanchez’s four-year, $22.5MM extension from June 2024 had already proven to be a huge bargain for the Phillies, as the southpaw continued to produce throughout the 2024 campaign and then took a step forward by finishing second in NL Cy Young Award voting in 2025. It would’ve been easy for the Phillies to sit back and continue benefiting from the surplus value created by the extension, but president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski took the long view towards Sanchez’s future in Philadelphia.
“We kind of assumed years four and five were a no-brainer as far as we were going to pick those up,” Dombrowski told The Athletic’s Matt Gelb and other reporters. “So we couldn’t even imagine a scenario in which we wouldn’t. Now we start talking beyond that. And we thought that somebody of Cristopher’s stature, we’d rather get this done now, while he’s still at the age that makes sense for us.”
It naturally isn’t uncommon for teams to sign their stars to multiple extensions over the course of their careers, as we’ve seen recently with the Guardians and Jose Ramirez back in January or the Diamondbacks with Ketel Marte last year. Those deals weren’t quite the same as the Sanchez extension, however. Both Ramirez and Marte had more than a decade of MLB experience under their belt and had already played out significant portions of their initial team-friendly extensions. In addition, those teams had the motive of restructuring their star’s previous deal to include deferred money.
That’s not to say Sanchez is undeserving of his new payday, of course. After earning a trip to the All-Star Game in 2024, Sanchez cemented his ace status with a superb 2025 season. The lefty spun a 2.50 ERA with a 2.55 FIP in 202 innings of work, striking out 212 batters across 32 starts. He paired his 26.3% strikeout rate with a 5.5% walk rate and a 58.3% ground ball rate, giving him a lower SIERA than every qualified starter in the NL and the third-lowest in baseball behind Tarik Skubal and Garrett Crochet.
By measure of fWAR, Sanchez’s 2025 season was a top-20 campaign by a qualified starter since 2015, tied with Cy Young-winning campaigns by future Hall of Famers like Chris Sale (2024), Max Scherzer (2017), and Justin Verlander (2019). Sanchez ultimately finished second behind Paul Skenes in Cy Young voting last year, but nonetheless established himself as among the upper-echelon of starters in today’s game with that performance.
Clearly, the Phillies are betting on Sanchez to age well like those other elite arms did by signing him to a big-money extension for his mid-thirties. Philadelphia has been unafraid of signing players well past their prime years previously, as shown by the fact that Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola are under contract through their age-37 seasons, while Jesus Luzardo‘s new contract extension includes a club option for his age-34 campaign.
With this new contract, Sanchez joins Luzardo (2032 club option) and Trea Turner (contract guaranteed through 2033) as the only three players under team control beyond the expiration of Bryce Harper‘s contract in 2031. This restructured contract for Sanchez could be an interesting data point for Harper and agent Scott Boras, as the two-time MVP and future Hall of Famer has previously publicly expressed a desire to extend or restructure his contract with Philadelphia to keep him in town beyond the 2031 campaign. Of course, those previous attempts were before this past offseason’s comments from Dave Dombrowski critical of Harper that drew the superstar’s ire, prompting trade speculation that Dombrowski later firmly shut down.
Sanchez’s extension was first reported by FanSided’s Robert Murray. The Athletic’s Matt Gelb reported the total of money involved in the deal, while Francys Romero of Beisbol FR had the details about the performance incentives and Ronald Blum of The Associated Press provided all the financial details.
Inset photo courtesy of Bill Streicher — Imagn Images
Astros’ Peter Lambert Granted His Release
Astros righty Peter Lambert was granted his release after triggering an out clause in his minor league deal, manager Joe Espada tells reporters (link via Matt Kawahara of the Houston Chronicle). The team told Lambert over the weekend that he wouldn’t make the roster.
Lambert, 29 next month, had a solid spring showing and at one point looked to be in legitimate contention for a bullpen spot. He pitched 12 1/3 innings with the ‘Stros and held opponents to four runs on 16 hits and five walks with eight punchouts. That came on the heels of a decent season in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball last year, where he tossed 116 1/3 innings with a 4.26 ERA for the Yakult Swallows.
Lambert has pitched in parts of four MLB seasons, all coming with the Rockies, who originally selected him 44th overall in the 2015 draft. He’s been tagged for an unsightly 6.28 ERA in 243 2/3 MLB frames, battling myriad injuries and the inherent rigors of pitching at altitude in Denver.
This spring, Lambert’s average fastball clocked in at 95 mph — way up from the 93.3 mph he averaged with the Rox from 2019-24. That velocity bump, coupled with a solid (albeit small-sample) swinging-strike rate of 11.4% suggest Lambert could probably be counted on for a better mark than the ugly 14.8% strikeout rate he posted this spring.
It’s always feasible that veterans in these situations will re-sign with the same team on a new minor league deal — perhaps with better minor league pay and/or more additional opt-out dates that grant them some flexibility. The Astros seem to like Lambert’s arm, but he’s also out of minor league options, which makes him a tough fit for a Houston club that currently has four relievers (Bryan Abreu, Enyel De Los Santos, Steven Okert, Roddery Munoz) who can’t be optioned — plus another two (Josh Hader, Nate Pearson) rehabbing on the injured list.
Yankees Trade Zack Short To Nationals
The Yankees have traded infielder Zack Short to the Nationals in exchange for cash, per announcements from both clubs. Short, who’d been a non-roster invitee to Yankees camp, will head to Triple-A Rochester with his new organization for the time being.
Short, 30, signed a minor league deal with New York back in December and hit .278/.480/.333 in 25 spring plate appearances. He’s played in parts of four major league seasons between the Tigers, Mets, Red Sox, Braves and Astros, tallying a total of 594 plate appearances. In that time, he’s slashed .172/.271/.296 with 15 homers, 10 steals, a stout 11.8% walk rate and a bloated 29% strikeout rate.
The Nationals are relatively thin on infield depth, and Short has experience at second base, shortstop and third base in the majors — more than 300 innings at each position (including 784 at shortstop). He hasn’t posted especially strong defensive grades, but he’s a versatile right-handed bat with modest pop and solid on-base skills. His low batting averages persist even in Triple-A, where he’s batted just .216 in six seasons, but he also sports a .353 on-base percentage in that time.
Looking around the Nationals’ infield, CJ Abrams is the lone established player. Former first-round pick Brady House will get another look at third base, while Nasim Nunez and Luis Garcia Jr. look like options at second base and first base. Infielder Jorbit Vivas also came over from the Nats in a more notable trade and is out of minor league options, so he’ll mix in to some extent, as will righty-swinging first baseman Andres Chaparro.