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Phillies Re-Sign Michael Mercado To Minor League Deal

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The Phillies have re-signed right-hander Michael Mercado to a minor league deal, reports Steve Potter of philliesbaseballfan.com. Presumably, the righty will also receive an invite to big league camp in spring training.

Mercado, 27 in April, was just non-tendered last month. He hadn’t yet qualified for arbitration but the non-tender deadline is the only day in the year when a player can be sent directly to free agency without being exposed to waivers. By taking that path with Mercado, the Phils gave him a chance to sign with the other 29 clubs but it also gave them the chance to quickly bring him back in a non-roster capacity.

The Phils initially acquired Mercado from the Rays in November of 2023. He was about to become a minor league free agent at that time but the Phils wanted him enough that they stopped that from happening. They sent right-hander Adam Leverett and cash considerations to Tampa and immediately gave Mercado a 40-man spot before he could hit the open market.

Since being acquired, he has worked both as a starter and a reliever for the Phils, with some strikeout stuff but also a lack of control. He has thrown 118 2/3 Triple-A innings over the past two seasons, allowing 3.11 earned runs per nine while striking out 22.9% of batters faced but issuing walks at a 12.5% clip. An 80.6% strand rate seemed to help him out with run prevention, leading to a less optimistic 4.48 FIP. Regardless, the Phils gave him some occasional big league looks, which he didn’t take advantage of. He currently has an 11.81 ERA in 16 big league innings.

Mercado is clearly not fully established in the majors yet but the Phillies presumably like his arsenal. He had averaged 95.8 miles per hour with his fastball in his big league career while also featuring a cutter, splitter, curveball and changeup. He’ll give the club some depth as he looks to earn his way back onto the roster. If he eventually gets his spot back, he still has one minor league option and just a handful of service days. That means he can still provide roster flexibility and cheap control.

Photo courtesy of Nathan Ray Seebeck, Imagn Images

Diamondbacks Re-Sign Tommy Henry To Minor League Deal

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The Diamondbacks and left-hander Tommy Henry have reunited on a minor league deal, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com. The southpaw underwent Tommy John surgery in June, so it’s possible this is a two-year deal, though the tracker doesn’t specify that.

Henry, now 28, has been in the Diamondbacks’ organization since being drafted in 2019. He made it to the big leagues in 2022 and has spent the past few years serving as an optionable swingman, working both as a starter and a reliever.

He exhausted his final option in 2025, which was going to make it tougher for him to hold a roster spot going forward, even before his surgery complicated things. The Snakes designated him for assignment last month in order to open roster space for prospects they wanted to protect from the Rule 5 draft. A few days later, Henry was non-tendered. That sent him to free agency without being exposed to waivers and allowed the Diamondbacks to bring him back in a non-roster capacity.

Henry will spent at least the first half of 2026 rehabbing. He could be back on the mound late in the year but missing the entire season is also a possibility. It’s anyone’s guess what the Arizona pitching staff will look like in the future. Currently, they definitely need arms, as guys like Corbin Burnes, A.J. Puk and Justin Martínez are also facing lengthy surgery rehabs at the moment. The team still has an entire offseason to make moves and then the 2026 campaign could go any number of ways.

Whenever Henry is recovered, he can try to earn his way back onto the roster. In his career, he has logged 181 big league innings, allowing 5.07 earned runs per nine. He has struck out 17.4% of batters faced, given out walks at a 9.4% clip and induced grounders at a 39.3% rate. If he gets a roster spot at some point down the line, he is out of options but has just barely two years of service time, meaning he is still cheap and controllable.

Photo courtesy of Mark J. Rebilas, Imagn Images

Twins To Sign Grant Hartwig To Minor League Deal

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The Twins are going to sign right-hander Grant Hartwig to a minor league deal, reports Darren Wolfson of KSTP. The ACES client will also receive an invite to major league camp in spring training.

Hartwig, 28 this month, has a limited big league track record. He tossed 42 innings for the Mets over the 2023 and 2024 seasons. He allowed 24 earned runs, giving him a 5.14 ERA. He struck out 18% of batters faced and issued walks at a 10.1% rate, both subpar figures, but induced grounders on 46.5% of balls in play. He averaged in the mid-90s with his four-seamer and sinker while also mixing in a cutter, slider and changeup.

In June of the latter campaign, he required surgery to repair a meniscus tear in his left knee. He was non-tendered at the end of the year and re-signed on a minor league deal. In July of 2025, he headed overseas to play for Hanshin Tigers of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. He posted a 3.65 ERA for the Tigers in a small sample of 12 1/3 innings.

As a minor leaguer, Hartwig has generally been able to get strikeouts but hasn’t featured pristine control. Dating back to the start of 2023, he has thrown 94 2/3 innings on the farm, mostly at Triple-A. In that time, he has a 4.47 ERA, 25.6% strikeout rate and 11.3% walk rate. In 2025, he was out to a good start, having tossed 23 2/3 innings with a 3.42 ERA, 29.2% strikeout rate and 8.8% walk rate.

That was enough to get him interest in Japan but he didn’t make the most of the opportunity there. In his limited sample of work with the Tigers, he only struck out 15.1% of batters faced while giving out walks at a 13.2% clip. It’s always tough to find meaning in that kind of sample size but that should be especially true about a guy making a midseason move from MLB to Japan.

For the Twins, they stripped down their bullpen at last year’s deadline. They sent out Jhoan Duran, Griffin Jax, Louis Varland, Brock Stewart and Danny Coulombe. It’s unclear whether they plan for 2026 to be a sort of reset year or if they plan to reinvest in the roster in an attempt to compete. Either way, they will need some fresh bullpen arms. If Hartwig can crack the roster, he is still optionable and has less than a year of service time. That means he can provide roster flexibility and affordable control for the foreseeable future.

Photo courtesy of Reinhold Matay, Imagn Images

Reds Re-Sign Emilio Pagán

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December 4th: The Reds officially announced the Pagán signing today.

December 3rd: The Reds are reportedly bringing back closer Emilio Pagán on a two-year, $20MM contract. The deal, which is pending a physical, allows the Ballengee Group client to opt out after next season. Cincinnati’s 40-man roster count will climb to 39 once the signing is finalized.

Pagán returns on another two-year deal after one of the best seasons of his career. The Reds surprisingly signed him to a $16MM contract over the 2023-24 offseason. There was obvious risk in adding a fly-ball pitcher to work in high-leverage spots at one of the sport’s most hitter-friendly parks. Pagán didn’t post great numbers and missed a couple months with a lat injury in 2024, so he had an easy call to bypass an opt-out and return to Cincinnati.

This year went a lot more smoothly. Pagán took over the closer role from Alexis Díaz and recorded a career-high 32 saves. He did blow six save chances but had a strong season overall, pitching to a 2.88 earned run average across 68 2/3 innings. He punched out 30% of opponents against a solid 8.1% walk rate. Pagán avoided any injuries and pitched well against left- and right-handed batters alike. He got swinging strikes at a strong 14.6% clip while sitting in the 95-96 MPH range with his fastball.

Pagán has always had an elite strikeout and walk profile. He hasn’t had the year-by-year consistency of the sport’s best closers, though. The fly-ball approach still leaves him vulnerable to the home run ball. Pagán has only had one season in his nine-year career in which he has allowed fewer home runs than the average reliever. He has surrendered 85 home runs since entering the league in 2017. That’s 19 more than any other reliever over that stretch.

The longball is always going to be an issue, but Pagán sticking around as a high-leverage reliever despite the homers is a testament to his effectiveness in other areas. He’s a reliable control artist with above-average velocity. His splitter gives him an option to attack opposite-handed hitters, while he mixes in a cutter as his main offspeed pitch versus righty batters. Pagán has generally been durable outside of the aforementioned lat strain. He has topped 50 innings in every other full schedule of his career, including six years with 60+ frames.

Pagán’s strong walk year earns him a nice contract for his age 35-36 seasons. The guarantee narrowly beats our two-year, $16MM prediction. Pagán also gets the upside of the out clause, which allows him to get back to free agency if he has an equally strong ’26 season. Another two-year deal at age 36 would be rare but not unprecedented, so it’s not out of the question that he pitches well enough to consider that route.

Assuming Terry Francona slots Pagán back in the ninth inning, he’ll pitch behind a solid setup group that includes Tony Santillan, Connor Phillips and Graham Ashcraft. Cincinnati should add a left-hander at some point. The only southpaw who’d be in their bullpen at the moment is Sam Moll, who was up and down from Triple-A Louisville throughout the year.

Cincinnati has $32.275MM in guaranteed contracts to six players: Pagán, Hunter Greene, Ke’Bryan Hayes, Jose Trevino, Ben Rortvedt, and Moll. They owe $15MM in dead money ($12MM salary and a $3MM option buyout payable after the World Series) to Jeimer Candelario. Cincinnati has a sizable arbitration class which MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projects to cost around $45MM. They’d owe another $8-10MM in minimum salary players, which puts their current commitments in the $100-105MM range. President of baseball operations Nick Krall said he expects payroll to be around the $116MM at which they opened the 2025 season.

That’d leave them with roughly $15-20MM to spend. They’re in the market for an impact bat and reportedly trying to bring Kyle Schwarber back to the Cincinnati area. That would surely cost more than $20MM annually. It’s possible ownership would make an exception for someone like Schwarber or Pete Alonso. The front office could also look to trade a player or two from the arbitration class to free up more spending capacity if they feel they’ve got a strong chance to sign an elite hitter.

Ken Rosenthal and C. Trent Rosecrans of The Athletic first reported that the Reds and Pagán had reached a two-year, $20MM deal with an out. Image courtesy of Imagn Images.

Poll: Would Kyle Tucker Or Bo Bichette Fit The Blue Jays Better?

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The Blue Jays have been the most aggressive team in free agency by far this winter. Their offseason so far has been headlined by a seven-year deal for Dylan Cease. That hasn’t stopped them from remaining aggressive at the top of the market, however, and the Jays remain the team that’s been most clearly connected to the winter’s top two free agents: outfielder Kyle Tucker and infielder Bo Bichette. Bichette, of course, has spent his entire career with the Blue Jays and has not been shy about his desire to remain with Toronto going forward. Tucker, meanwhile, seems all but certain to depart from the incumbent Cubs for greener pastures and just yesterday met with the Jays at the club’s Spring Training complex in Dunedin.

While Toronto is very clearly involved in the markets for both players, it’s worth remembering that the Blue Jays already have a luxury tax payroll of around $282MM, according to RosterResource. Adding Tucker or Bichette and a $25-40MM annual salary to the books would push them past the highest threshold of the luxury tax, which sits at $304MM and carries with it the steepest penalties for going over.  They might not be willing or able to both re-sign Bichette and also bring Tucker into the fold. If the Jays are only able to land one of the offseason’s top two hitters, then, who would be the better fit for their roster?

Bichette is the familiar pick, and it’s hard to argue with his impact on the team. A three-run homer off Shohei Ohtani Bichette hit while playing through injury in Game 7 of this year’s World Series nearly made the Jays champions and that was just one piece of the .348/.444/.478 performance he turned in across seven Fall Classic games despite being hobbled on the bases and in the field. While an injury-marred and deeply disappointing season for Bichette in 2024 soured some on his overall profile, he’s still turned in a wRC+ of 120 or higher in six of his seven MLB seasons with a career mark of 122. That he’s done all that while typically playing a generally adequate shortstop is all the more impressive.

With that being said, Bichette isn’t exactly a perennial MVP candidate. His defense on the infield has never been great and a disastrous defensive season by the metrics this year has made it all the more clear that his future is likely at second or third base. For as consistently impressive as Bichette has been when healthy, he was only the third-best hitter on the Jays in 2025. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has, of course, stood head and shoulders above the rest of the team in terms of star power and overall offensive impact, but there have been years where Bichette was outperformed by George Springer, Alejandro Kirk, Brandon Belt, Marcus Semien, and Teoscar Hernandez in the Jays’ lineup over the years. None of those players come close to matching Bichette’s consistency, but it’s fair to argue that he doesn’t offer the sort of six-plus win upside offered by many of the recent top free agents available.

That’s where Tucker stands out. The 28-year-old (29 in January) is a simply a cut above Bichette as a hitter. Tucker’s career 138 wRC+ is four points higher than the mark Bichette posted this year, which was his career-best in a season, outside of his 46-game rookie campaign in 2019. Since the start of the 2021 season, Tucker has hit .277/.365/.514 with 23.4 fWAR, a greater total than Bichette has accumulated across his entire career. Tucker is also a perennial threat to steal 25 to 30 bases, while Bichette has swiped more than 13 bags just once before in his career. Tucker’s status as a left-handed bat would also make him a strong complement to the Jays’ cache of impressive right-handed hitters, which includes not only Guerrero but also Springer and Kirk.

As perfect as the fit between Tucker and the Jays might seem, however, it’s worth considering the fact that Bichette could prove to be a better long-term investment. Both have dealt with injuries over the past two years, with 214 games played for Tucker and 220 for Bichette. With that said, Bichette is a year younger than Tucker and also figures to command the shorter (and cheaper) deal of the two; MLBTR predicts an eight-year, $208MM deal for Bichette, while Tucker is predicted to land a $400MM deal across 11 years. Paying Bichette through his age-35 season certainly sounds more appealing than paying Tucker through his age-39 campaign in terms of the team’s long-term prospects. At the same time, Tucker would undoubtedly offer more near-term impact to a team that just came just a few outs within a World Series title and has already made it as clear as can be that they’re all-in on their current window.

There’s also the positional fit to consider. Bichette could either return to his shortstop position or take second, with Andres Gimenez taking the other middle infield spot. That would leave every other position player in a similar spot to 2025. Addison Barger and Davis Schneider both played some infield and some outfield while Ernie Clement played all around the infield.

If Tucker were signed, he would jump into an outfield mix with Springer, Anthony Santander and Daulton Varsho. It would push Barger and Schneider more firmly into the infield and bump Nathan Lukes to the bench, unless someone were then traded.

Assuming the Blue Jays can only sign one of Bichette or Tucker, which one do MLBTR readers think would be a better fit for the organization? Would Bichette’s status as an anchor of the current team, consistency, and more affordable expected contract make him the better choice? Or does the immediate impact and big lefty bat Tucker offers outweigh those advantages? Or should they skip both and spend their money on relievers or a different bat? Have your say in the poll below:

Padres Sign Ty Adcock To Major League Deal

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The Padres announced that they have signed right-hander Ty Adcock to a one-year deal for the 2026 season. The Friars have multiple 40-man vacancies and don’t need to make a corresponding move.

Adcock is still a bit of a project, even though he was drafted over six years ago and will turn 29 years old in February. The Mariners selected him in the in eighth round of the 2019 draft but he wouldn’t make his professional debut for a few years. The pandemic wiped out the minor leagues in 2020 and then Adcock required Tommy John surgery in 2021. He has been back on the mound but has also spent time on the minor league injured list in each of the past three seasons.

Those stops and starts have limited his ability to rack up innings and have also pushed him into a fringe roster position. The M’s called him up in 2023 but he got bumped off the roster the following year. He went to the Tigers and Mets via waivers in 2024. The Mets released and re-signed him later that season. He was added back to the roster in 2025 but was later outrighted. He was able to elect free agency at season’s end.

Around all of that, he has thrown 23 major league innings, allowing 14 earned runs for a 5.48 ERA. He has thrown 94 innings in the minors with a 4.40 ERA. Those numbers may not leap off the page but the Padres are probably more interested in the stuff. Adcock’s fastball averaged over 97 miles per hour in his limited big league action this year. He also averaged over 93 mph on his cutter while mixing in a splitter, sinker and slider.

That stuff hasn’t yet translated into results but it’s still a small sample of work. He has a 20.4% strikeout rate in his major league innings but a more robust 25.2% rate in his slightly larger collection of minor league innings.

Adcock has exhausted his three option years but the Padres could be in position to apply for a fourth. A team can apply for a fourth option when a player has played fewer than five full seasons. In these instances, a “full season” involves spending 90 days on an active roster, either in the majors or minors. It’s also possible to be credited with a full season with 30 active days and then 90-plus days on the roster total when combined with injured list time. As mentioned, Adcock didn’t make his professional debut until 2022, so he would seem to qualify.

More clarity on his option status will perhaps be revealed in time. For now, he adds a wild card arm to the Padres’ bullpen, likely at minimal cost. Adcock has less than a year of service time and will probably make something close to the $780K league minimum.

That’s surely attractive for the Padres, given their ongoing financial crunch. Their bullpen has lost Robert Suarez to free agency and they also might end up moving Mason Miller and/or Adrián Morejón to the rotation. If Adcock thrives with the Padres, he can be retained until he gets to six years of service time and he is still years away from qualifying for arbitration.

Photo courtesy of Gregory Fisher, Imagn Images

Rangers Unlikely To Have Payroll Room For J.T. Realmuto

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The Rangers non-tendered catcher Jonah Heim, which means they are on the lookout for more catching. The top free agent available is J.T. Realmuto but columns today from Ken Rosenthal and Patrick Mooney of The Athletic as well as Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News both suggest the club doesn’t have the payroll space to sign him.

Without Heim, the Rangers are down to two catchers on their 40-man roster. Kyle Higashioka is a solid player but he turns 36 years old in April. He has started between 68 and 77 games in four straight seasons. He can be part of the club’s catching corps next year but should have someone to share the workload. The other catcher on the roster is Willie MacIver, a 29-year-old waiver claimee with 33 games of big league experience. He is still optionable and would ideally be in Triple-A as depth.

Realmuto would certainly be a nice addition. He has been arguably the best catcher in baseball over the past decade. He is now about to turn 35 years old and isn’t at his peak but he’s still a solid contributor. In 2025, he had average-ish offense, stole eight bases and got mixed reviews for his glovework. All together, it was worth 2.1 wins above replacement, according to FanGraphs. He’s averaged a bit above two wins per year for the past three years.

Though he’s the top free agent out there, his earning power is capped by his age. MLBTR predicted him for a $30MM guarantee over two years. It’s possible he can secure himself a third year at a similar average annual value. The fact that a deal like that is too rich for the Rangers’ blood doesn’t bode especially well but they will have other options.

Both of the columns linked above mention Victor Caratini and Danny Jansen is more realistic free agent targets. MLBTR predicted Caratini for a two-year, $14MM deal and had Jansen as an honorable mention on the Top 50 Free Agents list. The 32-year-old Caratini has spent the past two years with the Astros. The switch-hitter was above average from both sides of the plate in those years, though his defense was more questionable. Jansen, a righty swinger, was also decent at the plate in 2025 but with some shaky defensive metrics.

There’s also the trade market. Both aforementioned columns speculate on various possible trading partners. Grant specifically calls out Carter Jensen of the Royals as a player the Rangers have long been interested in. Jensen is one of the top Royals’ prospects and one of the top catching prospects in the game. He hit .290/.377/.501 in the minors this year and then .300/.391/.550 in a 20-game major league debut. He just turned 22 in July.

The Royals probably don’t have a ton of interest in trading him, though there’s at least a case for them to consider it. They have Salvador Perez signed through 2027. He has been spending more time as a first baseman and designated hitter in recent years but has still been catching about 90 games per year for Kansas City. Jensen could share the catching duties with Perez but the Royals also have another strong catching prospect lurking. Blake Mitchell was the eighth overall pick in 2023 and will likely start 2026 at Double-A.

Since the Royals need upgrades and don’t appear to have a ton of spending power, perhaps they would consider trading from a position of relative depth, but that doesn’t mean they’d give Jensen away. Grant speculates that the Rangers might have to give up a prospect of similar value such as Sebastian Walcott.

There are a few other options available to the Rangers. Grant also speculates that they could go after a short-term solution, such as Ryan Jeffers of the Twins or Joey Bart of the Pirates. The Rangers used their 2024 first-round pick to nab Malcolm Moore but he has struggled at the plate and hasn’t climbed higher than High-A, so won’t be helpful for a while. Jeffers is controlled for just one more year and Bart two, so a player like that could serve as a bridge to Moore or at least buy the Rangers some time.

Time will tell how the Rangers play the catching situation specifically but the larger takeaway about the budget is perhaps not great for fans. For a few months now, the signs have been piling up that the club won’t have a ton of spending capacity for building out the 2026 roster. Back in September, the club parted ways with manager Bruce Bochy. At the time, president of baseball operations Chris Young stated that part of the cause of that split was that they didn’t have a clear plan for 2026 due to financial uncertainty. Pitching coach Mike Maddux departed for the Angels and it’s been speculated that might have been motivated by similar circumstances. The Rangers non-tendered Heim but also Adolis García, Josh Sborz and Jacob Webb. García was expected but Sborz and Webb were projected for salaries barely above the league minimum. Then the club traded Marcus Semien to the Mets for Brandon Nimmo, a move that involved taking on more money overall but saved them a few million annually.

After the deal, Nimmo said he was assured by the Rangers that they are not rebuilding and plan to compete, but it appears they will be trying to do that while spending less. RosterResource projects them for about $169MM in spending next year. That’s well below last year’s $224MM. In addition to bolstering their catching group, they need to rebuild the bullpen and shake up the lineup. Their apparently inability to go after Realmuto may be a bit of a moot point in a sense, since many expect him to re-sign in Philadelphia regardless, but it appears to be yet another sign of a tight budget in Texas going into 2026.

Photo courtesy of Kyle Ross, Imagn Images

Cubs, Phillies, Yankees Among Teams Interested In Tatsuya Imai

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The Seibu Lions of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball posted ace Tatsuya Imai for major league teams back on Nov. 19. The flamethrowing 27-year-old has until Jan. 2 to negotiate a deal with interested MLB clubs. The Mets, Cubs and Orioles have each been linked to the right-hander so far. The Cubs, in particular, are expected to be a “strong” player in Imai’s market, per Bruce Levine of 670 The Score. They also made an offer to Dylan Cease before the former Cy Young runner-up (and former Cubs draftee) signed with the Blue Jays last week, according to Levine.

Jon Heyman of the New York Post adds the Phillies and Yankees as another pair of teams in the running for Imai. He adds that Imai’s camp could schedule in-person visits with interested teams following next week’s Winter Meetings — if he hasn’t already agreed to a deal by that point.

The Cubs make a sensible fit for Imai, even after countryman Shota Imanaga accepted Chicago’s $22.025MM qualifying offer, opting to forgo free agency in the process. Manager Craig Counsell’s rotation currently includes Imanaga, Cade Horton, Matthew Boyd, Jameson Taillon and Colin Rea. Ace Justin Steele is still on the mend from UCL surgery performed last April. He won’t be ready for Opening Day. Javier Assad and Ben Brown could both factor in, too, but both have bullpen experience and minor league options remaining.

Chicago’s interest in bolstering the rotation is well-known. Even after Imanaga opted to return, the Cubs have reportedly been seeking a playoff-caliber starter to add to the top portion of their staff. Imai isn’t necessarily a slam-dunk to fit that description, but his electric stuff and recent performance in NPB suggest he has that ceiling.

Imai, who’ll turn 28 next May, has posted a sub-3.00 ERA in each of the past four NPB seasons — headlined by a career-low 1.92 mark in 163 innings in 2025. Along the way, he’s steadily increased his strikeout rate while at the same time lowering his walk rate. Those improvements culminated in last year’s dominant season, wherein Imai punched out 27.8% of the batters he faced and cut his walk rate to a tidy 7%. He’s one of NPB’s hardest throwers, topping out around 99 mph and sitting more comfortably in the mid-90s. Imai complements that pitch with a slider, splitter and changeup.

Signing Imai would push Rea back into his familiar swingman role and could even create a logjam if everyone is healthy once Steele finishes off his rehab from surgery. That’s wishful thinking, however, given the proliferation of pitching injuries throughout the sport. And if the Cubs do manage to have a full contingent of healthy rotation arms at that point, it’d fall under the “good problem to have” cliche. A playoff rotation including a healthy Steele, Horton and Imai could be formidable.

The Phillies, meanwhile, haven’t been big players in free agency for pitchers — at least not to the extent they have with hitters — outside of retaining homegrown Aaron Nola on a seven-year contract. However, that decision is now one of many contributing to a far shakier outlook than we’re used to seeing with the Philadelphia rotation.

Left-hander Cristopher Sanchez broke out as a top-tier arm with this year’s runner-up finish in Cy Young voting, but the rest of the staff has more questions and/or dwindling club control. Ranger Suarez is already a free agent. Zack Wheeler underwent thoracic outlet surgery late in the season. He’s owed $84MM over the next two seasons. Nola struggled to the worst extent of his career, posting an ERA north of 6.00 in 2025. Jesus Luzardo is a quality mid-rotation arm but will be a free agent next winter. Taijuan Walker is also entering the final season of a four-year deal. He rebounded to an extent in 2025, but the first two seasons of that $72MM pact were a disaster. Andrew Painter has long been one of the game’s top pitching prospects, but he was hit hard in Triple-A during his return from 2024 Tommy John surgery.

Obviously, the Phillies already have a lot of money on the long-term books — but perhaps not to the extent some might think. Nola, Trea Turner and Bryce Harper are the only players signed beyond the 2027 season. A backloaded deal for Imai — likely one including at least one opt-out opportunity — could make his salary more manageable in years one and two. Those seasons would dovetail with the remaining years on the contracts of Wheeler (through 2027) as well as Walker (through 2026), Nick Castellanos (through ’26), Jose Alvarado (through ’26) and Matt Strahm (through ’26).

Signing Imai would give the Phillies another large contract on the books but also offers protection against a potentially thinned-out starting group come 2027. Luzardo and Walker are free agents at that point. Painter hasn’t pitched in the majors yet. It’s hard to know what to expect from Wheeler and Nola in 2026 — let alone 2027. Imai (or another multi-year rotation acquisition) could provide some protection, although he’s obviously an untested commodity himself (at least against MLB opposition).

On paper, the Yankees’ rotation need is the least acute of this group. Gerrit Cole could be back relatively early in 2026. Max Fried was dominant in his first season in Yankee Pinstripes. Carlos Rodon was outstanding in 33 starts. Luis Gil, Cam Schlittler and Will Warren are all impressive-looking young starters. Clarke Schmidt could be back late in the season after July Tommy John surgery.

The Yankees already have three pitchers on contracts valued at $162MM or more. Imai would very likely require a fourth commitment of over $100MM and do so at a time when the team is facing questions in the infield and in the outfield. If the Yankees believe Imai can pitch at or near the top of a major league rotation, however, they could sign him and use some of their young pitching and/or prospect depth to make compelling offers for bats on the trade market. It’s a thing offseason with regard to free-agent hitters, after all.

Whoever signs Imai will need to do so within the next four weeks. His posting window closes Jan. 2. The team to sign him will also owe a separate release fee to the Lions in NPB. That fee will equal 20% of the contract’s first $25MM, plus 17.5% of the next $25MM and 15% of any guaranteed money thereafter. Additional earnings unlocked via incentives, escalators and club option years would also be subject to that 15% rate once they become guaranteed.

Latest On Mariners’ Bullpen Targets

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Mariners general manager Justin Hollander publicly admitted a few weeks back that the club would be looking for bullpen upgrades. Adam Jude of The Seattle Times reports that Seattle plans to add two relievers and hopes to have one locked down by the end of the Winter Meetings next week. Adding a lefty is a priority and Jude lists five names they are considering, with four of them being southpaws. They are Matt Strahm of the Phillies, JoJo Romero of the Cardinals, Jose A. Ferrer of the Nationals, as well as free agents Tyler Rogers and Hoby Milner. Rogers is the lone right-hander in that group. Jude also mentions that the Mariners had interest in right-hander Phil Maton before he signed with the Cubs.

Seattle had a decent bullpen group in 2025. Their relievers had a collective 3.72 earned run average, which was ninth in the majors. Andrés Muñoz is one of the better closers in the game. But just about any club can add an extra leverage arm or two and bump other guys down a peg. That’s particularly true for the Mariners from the left side, as Gabe Speier is their only established southpaw reliever at the moment. Robinson Ortiz is the other lefty reliever on the 40-man but he hasn’t yet made his major league debut.

It’s unlikely that the club will spend a lot on the relief group. President of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto suggested that the M’s will likely begin 2026 with a similar payroll to where they were at the end of 2025. RosterResource estimates that they are currently about $15MM shy of that target. They already re-signed Josh Naylor but could look to further bolster the infield by re-signing Jorge Polanco or Eugenio Suárez. Jude unsurprisingly suggests the M’s aren’t likely to go after a big name reliever like Edwin Díaz or Robert Suarez.

Strahm, 34, is the most established of the bunch. He now has ten big league seasons under his belt. Though he has pushed into his mid-30s, he has remained effective. He just tossed 62 1/3 innings for the Phils this year, allowing 2.74 earned runs per nine. His 7.8% walk rate was a bit better than average and his 27.3% strikeout rate was quite strong. He triggered a vesting option in his contract and will make $7.5MM next year.

All that makes him attractive for the Mariners but also valuable for the Phillies. It’s possible the Phils may be willing to move a lefty due to a relative surplus. They have reportedly received some trade interest since they have Strahm, José Alvarado and Tanner Banks. The Phils have a lot they want to accomplish this winter, including re-signing Kyle Schwarber and J.T. Realmuto while also remaking their outfield and perhaps bolstering the rotation. They have some money to spend but perhaps trading one of their lefties could leave them less reliant on spending their cash.

Romero, 29, is a much more straightforward trade candidate. The Cardinals are rebuilding and he is just one year away from free agency. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projects him for a salary of $4.4MM next year. Over the past three years, he has tossed 156 2/3 innings for the Cards with a 2.93 ERA, 22.9% strikeout rate, 8.5% walk rate and 53.3% ground ball rate.

Ferrer, 26 in March, is also on a rebuilding club. However, he’s under club control for four more years and hasn’t yet qualified for arbitration, so the Nats don’t really need to trade him anytime soon. They are surely hoping to return to contention within his window of control but they may be open to a trade anyway, given that a pitcher can get hurt at any time and reliever performance tends to be volatile.

In Ferrer’s career, he has an unimpressive 4.36 ERA but that might mask his true skills. He is a ground ball guy and the Nats have been one of the worst defensive clubs in recent years, so perhaps a change of scenery would help him unlock a new gear in terms of run prevention. In 76 1/3 innings for the Nats this year, his 21.9% strikeout rate was just shy of league average. His 4.9% walk rate and 62.6% ground ball rate were both excellent. His 4.48 ERA doesn’t look great but his 3.03 FIP and 2.85 SIERA provide more optimism about him thriving in a different environment.

Milner, 35 in January, has a somewhat similar grounder-heavy profile to Ferrer. He has logged at least 64 innings in four straight seasons now. Over that 2022-25 span, he has thrown 264 frames with a 3.55 ERA, 22.6% strikeout rate, 5.8% walk rate and 51.1% ground ball rate. Despite the solid track record, he was only able to secure a one-year, $2.5MM deal from Texas last winter. Perhaps he’ll have some extra earning power after finishing another solid season but he’s also a year older.

Rogers, 35 this month, is one of the most unique pitchers in the game. Not to be confused with his lefty brother Taylor, Tyler is the submarining righty. He doesn’t rack up strikeouts but he is one of the best in the game when it comes to staying healthy, avoiding walks and inducing grounders as well as soft contact. He has logged at least 70 innings in five straight campaigns. Dating back to the start of 2021, he has 378 1/3 innings with a 2.71 ERA, 17% strikeout rate, 4.4% walk rate, 56.3% ground ball rate and consistently strong numbers in terms of exit velocity allowed. He is a free agent for the first time and should be in high demand but some teams may be scared off by his age and lack of velocity, as he can barely even get into the 80s with his fastballs.

Photo courtesy of Jayne Kamin, Oncea-Imagn Images

Mets Interested In Joe Ryan

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The Mets have been perusing the trade market in hopes of bolstering their rotation and have their eye on Twins right-hander Joe Ryan as one of several targets, Jon Heyman of the New York Post reports. He adds that the Twins like young Mets righty Jonah Tong — hardly a surprise, given that Tong is widely regarded as one of the sport’s top pitching prospects.

As recently as the All-Star break, the idea of the Twins trading Ryan seemed far-fetched. Minnesota spent the entirety of the first half hovering around .500 and keeping themselves in the AL Central/Wild Card races. The Twins cratered coming out of the Midsummer Classic enough to push ownership and the front office into sell mode. What was originally thought to be a soft sale of primarily rental players instead turned into a staggering dismantle of the roster. The Twins traded 11 players in the final week of July.

Notably absent from that swath of trades was the 29-year-old Ryan. He drew plenty of interest, with the Red Sox, Blue Jays and Dodgers among those reported to be in pursuit. But given his affordable salary and multiple years of remaining club control, the asking price was understandably steep. No deal materialized.

Ryan is projected by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz to earn an eminently affordable $5.8MM in 2026 — his penultimate season of club control. He’d be owed one more raise next winter before reaching free agency post-2027. It’s an unequivocal bargain for a pitcher who’s logged a 3.50 ERA with a 27.8% strikeout rate and just a 5.1% walk rate across the past two seasons (3.79, 27.6% and 5.7% in his career, respectively).

What’s not yet clear, however, is how aggressively the Twins will explore trades for Ryan — if they do at all. President of baseball operations Derek Falvey suggested earlier in the offseason that he’d yet to be given a firm budget by ownership. That seems hard to believe, but the Twins have ostensibly been in the process of finalizing the addition of two significant minority investors for months now. To this point, there’s been no firm indication that the addition of those partial stakeholders — and any influx of cash they might bring to the table — has been finalized.

Falvey plainly stated that unless or until he hears otherwise, his offseason focus will be on adding pieces to help the 2026 Twins — not further subtracting from the roster. It’s been quiet for the Twins all offseason with the exception of some small-scale moves leading up to the non-tender deadline and Rule 5 protection deadline. Minnesota acquired Alex Jackson from the Orioles, giving them a backup to starting catcher Ryan Jeffers, and they also nabbed reliever Eric Orze in another small trade with the Rays.

That’s the extent of the Twins’ activity thus far, making it tough to get a read on whether Falvey & Co. might genuinely be given the green light to add to the club or whether a further teardown will take place. If Ryan and/or Pablo Lopez (owed $43.5MM through 2027) are traded this winter, then it’s only logical that Jeffers (entering his final year of club control) would be on the table as well. And though star center fielder Byron Buxton said on record in August (even after the deadline sell-off) that he wanted to stay in Minnesota and had no desire to waive his no-trade clause, offseason reporting has suggested that if the Twins further subtract from the roster, he may change his tune.

Ultimately, Ryan’s availability (or lack thereof) will come down to the Pohlad family’s willingness to invest some of those deadline cost-savings back into the roster. The Twins’ current payroll projection ($95MM, per RosterResource) is nearly $50MM south of last season’s Opening Day figure. In theory, there’s room for Falvey to turn around and spend a fair bit of money, even if payroll won’t climb back into the $140-145MM range, but he doesn’t have final say over the budget.

If the Twins do make Ryan available, Tong is a sensible target as a potential headliner in the trade. The 22-year-old righty was hit hard in his first 18 2/3 MLB frames late in the season, but Tong’s blazing ascension up the Mets’ minor league ranks in 2024-25 catapulted him into the game’s top 50 overall prospects at Baseball America, MLB.com and FanGraphs.

Tong, a 2022 seventh-rounder, has laid waste to minor league lineups in each of the past two seasons, climbing from Low-A in early ’24 to the Mets’ big league rotation this past September. In 2024, the wiry right-hander pitched 131 innings with a 3.03 ERA, 34.2% strikeout rate and 10% walk rate as he climbed to Double-A. Tong returned to Double-A to begin the ’25 campaign and was bumped to Triple-A late in the season. He pitched a combined 113 2/3 minor league frames and recorded an immaculate 1.43 ERA with an eye-popping 40.5% strikeout rate against a 10.6% walk rate.

One way or another, next week’s Winter Meetings figure to bring some clarity on the Twins’ direction. No one is expecting them to dive headlong into the deep end of free agency, but if ownership is comfortable with even a diminished $120-125MM payroll, that might be enough to spur the front office into some midlevel additions in hopes that with some steps forward from a deluge of young big leaguers, a return to Wild Card contention is possible. If payroll is mandated to be kept under $100MM or pared back even further, however, then the prospect of trades involving Ryan, Lopez, Jeffers and even Buxton become far more realistic — if not likely.

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