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Mets To Sign Jorge Polanco

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The Mets and free agent infielder Jorge Polanco have agreed to a two-year contract, The Athletic’s Will Sammon reports (multiple links).  The deal is worth $40MM, according to ESPN’s Jeff Passan.  Polanco is represented by the Octagon Agency.

It’s a big strike for a Mets team that lost Pete Alonso and Edwin Diaz to free agency just within the last week, not to mention last month’s trade that sent another longtime Met in Brandon Nimmo to Texas.  New York acquired Marcus Semien in the Nimmo deal, and while Polanco also has a long history of playing second base, Passan writes that the Mets will deploy Polanco primarily as a first baseman and DH.  Polanco could also potentially chip in at third base, though it looks as it the Mets view Polanco a piece of the puzzle in replacing Alonso at first base.

The 32-year-old Polanco hit .265/.326/.495 with 26 home runs over 524 plate appearances for the Mariners last season, playing a huge role for a Seattle team that won the AL West and fell just short of reaching the World Series.  It was a fine bounce-back performance for Polanco after a down year in 2024, which still resulted in a one-year guarantee to return to the Mariners in 2025.  That deal paid Polanco $7.75MM in guaranteed money, and he made enough plate appearances to turn an $8MM mutual option for 2026 into a $6MM player option, and Polanco unsurprisingly rejected that player option to re-enter the market after his much improved platform year.

The 132 wRC+ Polanco posted in 2025 was the highest of his career, and he drastically cut back on his strikeouts after seeing his K% balloon in each of the previous four seasons.  While Polanco walked less than usual, his 45.8% hard-hit ball rate was a career best.  Overall, the advanced metrics suggest that Polanco’s resurgence in 2025 was legitimate, and if anything, his .269 BABIP indicates that he perhaps deserved even better numbers.

One concern within Polanco’s otherwise strong year was that he made 89 appearances as a designated hitter, after amassing only 45 DH days over his 11 previous big league seasons.  Polanco sustained an oblique injury early in the 2025 season that wasn’t quite serious enough to merit a trip to the injured list, but the Mariners compensated by using Polanco less frequently in the field, and cut back on the switch-hitter’s usage against left-handed pitching.

While there hasn’t been any concern that Polanco will be similarly limited going forward, the Mets’ plan to use him as a first baseman may also reflect Polanco’s age, his modest defensive numbers as a second or third baseman, and the fact that a stellar fielder like Semien is already in place at the keystone.  Throughout his long pro career, Polanco has made exactly one career appearance as a first baseman, and it was just a late-game cameo for a single at-bat in Seattle’s 5-4 loss to the Giants last April 6.

Polanco is an experienced enough infielder that the Mets obviously feel he’ll be able to learn the position in due course.  For all of Alonso’s pluses at the plate, he was a poor enough fielder that Polanco will be a defensive upgrade even if he’s just an average first baseman.  Because the DH spot is open and because Polanco could also be utilized at third base, this signing also doesn’t necessarily close the door on the Mets’ chances of signing other known targets like Cody Bellinger or even a more first base-specific player like the Cardinals’ Willson Contreras.

Between losing both Alonso and Nimmo, the Mets’ offense has taken a hit by essentially replacing the duo with Polanco and Semien, given how Semien struggled in 2025.  Run prevention has been a stated goal for Mets president of operations David Stearns, and upgrading the defense is another way of making the lineup better, even if the team will still need to add some more pop as the offseason develops.

MLB Trade Rumors ranked Polanco 23rd on our list of the offseason’s top 50 free agents, and projected a three-year, $42MM deal for the veteran.  Polanco ended up just about matching that dollar figure on a two-year deal, as he opted for the higher average annual value rather than the extra security of the three-plus years he was seeking in his next deal.

The shorter term lines Polanco up for another free agent bid when he’s 34, and some continued production could line him up for another lucrative shorter-term pact.  Stearns is known to prefer shorter-term commitments for free agents, so this also aligns with the PBO’s ideal method of roster-building.

The Pirates were known to have interest in Polanco this winter, and the infielder was also drawing a lot of attention from the Mariners about a possible reunion.  Seattle achieved its top offseason priority of re-signing Josh Naylor, and the team’s plan was then to explore Polanco and Eugenio Suarez as candidates to return.  With Polanco now in Queens, the Mariners could turn to Suarez as a DH candidate and part-time third baseman, or explore some other infield options on the free agent or trade fronts.  With plenty of internal candidates for third base, the M’s have been primarily looking at second basemen during their infield pursuits this winter.

Inset picture courtesy of Jordan Godfree — Imagn Images

David Dahl Announces Retirement

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Outfielder David Dahl announced his retirement on his X feed earlier this week, opting to end his playing career at age 31.  As Dahl wrote in his farewell post, “Baseball has been my life for as long as I can remember.  From being a kid in Alabama chasing a lifelong dream to stepping foot on a big-league field…after 13 seasons and several months to reflect on it, it’s officially time for the next chapter.  Thank you, baseball.”

Dahl appeared in parts of seven Major League seasons from 2016-24, playing in 350 games and hitting .268/.313/.460 with 46 home runs over 1311 career plate appearances.  The majority of Dahl’s pro career was spent in the Rockies organization, beginning when Colorado selected the outfielder with the 10th overall pick of the 2012 draft.

A regular on top-100 prospect rankings during his minor league career, Dahl’s progress hit an unexpected roadblock when he suffered a lacerated spleen after colliding with a teammate during a 2015 Double-A game.  Dahl opted to have his spleen removed entirely in order to get back onto the field before season’s end, as waiting for the spleen to heal would’ve likely cost him the entirety of the season.  This unusual situation in some ways defined Dahl’s career, highlighting his grit in trying to play through what ended up being a long list of injuries that set back his career.

Dahl had an impressive MLB debut in 2016, hitting .315/.359/.500 over his first 237 PA in the Show.  A stress fracture in his rib and then back spasms limited him to just 19 minor league games and no big league action in 2017, but Dahl was able to recover and appear in 177 games for Colorado over the 2018-19 seasons.  The outfielder batted .291/.342/.528 with 31 homers in 684 PA over this two-year stretch, helping the Rockies reach the postseason in 2018 and earning an All-Star nod for himself in 2019.

Even during those two seasons, however, Dahl missed a good deal of time recovering from a right foot fracture and then a right high ankle sprain.  2019 ended up being the high point of Dahl’s production, as after Opening Day 2020, he hit only .200/.237/.318 over the final 390 PA of his big league career.  Shoulder problems in 2020 led to a surgery after the season, and the Rockies chose to non-tender Dahl.  He bounced around to six different teams over the next four seasons, and saw some more MLB time with the Rangers, Padres, and Phillies.

After not playing at all in 2025, Dahl has now decided to hang up the cleats.  We at MLB Trade Rumors congratulate Dahl on a fine career and wish him all the best in his post-playing endeavors.

Dodgers Have Discussed Tyler Glasnow In Trade Talks

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Right-hander Tyler Glasnow “has come up in conversations” between the Dodgers and other teams, ESPN’s Alden Gonzalez writes.  There isn’t any indication that any sort of trade is close or that Glasnow will be dealt at all, as Gonzalez notes that a trade scenario seems like “a long shot.”  However, “the Dodgers would not be opposed to moving” Glasnow, so it would appear the starter isn’t exactly untouchable.

It was almost exactly two years ago that Los Angeles first acquired Glasnow in a major trade with the Rays, while also hammering out a long-term contract extension with the righty.  Glasnow had been heading into the final year of his contract with Tampa and was owed a $25MM salary in 2024, and the new extension restructured that money while adding a little over $111.5MM in new money over the 2025-28 seasons.  The former All-Star is owed $30MM in each of the 2026 and 2027 seasons, and the Dodgers hold a $30M club option for 2028 that (if declined) becomes a $21,562,500 player option for Glasnow.

The big question at the time of the extension was whether or not Glasnow would manage to stay healthy, as a Tommy John surgery and multiple other injuries had significantly cut into his playing time over his eight previous MLB seasons.  Glasnow did deliver a career-best 134 innings for L.A. in 2024, yet he didn’t pitch after August 11 due to tendinitis in his throwing elbow.  This year, Glasnow was limited to 90 1/3 regular-season innings, as a bout of shoulder inflammation led to another stint on the 60-day injured list.

When he has been able to pitch, Glasnow (who is entering his age-32 season) has lived up to expectations.  He has a 3.37 ERA, 30.9% strikeout rate, and 8.8% walk rate across his 224 1/3 frames of work in 2024-25, and his 1.69 ERA over 21 1/3 postseason innings this fall played a big role in the Dodgers’ second consecutive World Series title.

There isn’t any immediate reason why the Dodgers would feel pressured to move Glasnow, as he is still clearly capable of being an important member of a championship-level rotation.  But, L.A. is so loaded with starting pitching that it makes Glasnow just one piece of a star-studded puzzle, and perhaps makes him slightly expendable if the Dodgers want to find room in the rotation for their many young arms.  Obviously all this pitching depth has been a prime reason why Los Angeles has still been able to win despite an avalanche of rotation injuries, but the Dodgers might be looking to address the injury problem by dealing away a pitcher that (despite his talent) can’t seem to be relied upon to last a full season.

Moving Glasnow sooner rather than later, therefore, would allow the Dodgers to sell high on the right-hander, even if his contract will naturally limit the list of plausible trade suitors.  Not that payroll or the luxury tax are any real concerns for the Dodgers, but getting Glasnow’s contract off the books would provide some savings to the club.  Glasnow’s deal is one of the few L.A. mega-contracts that doesn’t include any deferred money, so all of his remaining salary is owed up front.

Rather than just deal Glasnow to reduce their tax bill, Los Angeles is probably more likely to re-allocate any savings from a Glasnow trade towards other needs.  The Dodgers could bring in another high-salaried player as part of the trade return, and Gonzalez even speculates that Glasnow could hypothetically be part of a Tarik Skubal trade package.  Any number of clubs in need of frontline pitching could be intrigued by Glasnow, if the higher price tags or draft compensation attached to this winter’s top free agent starters have left teams wary.

Brewers Open To Trading From Outfield Depth

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The Brewers are exploring trades involving their depth outfielders, report Ken Rosenthal and Will Sammon of The Athletic. The report lists Isaac Collins and Blake Perkins as the two likeliest candidates to move.

Jackson Chourio certainly isn’t going anywhere. Christian Yelich is owed $84.5MM over the next three seasons (including a 2029 option buyout), so they’re unlikely to line up any kind of trade there. There’d be significant interest in Sal Frelick, but Milwaukee is unlikely to move him when he’s under club control for another four seasons. Frelick and Chourio should have two outfield spots secure, while Yelich is ticketed for primary DH work with occasional left field playing time.

That leaves one opening for a handful of players. Collins, Perkins and former first-round pick Garrett Mitchell would battle for playing time if they’re all on the roster. The Brewers have speedster Brandon Lockridge as a fifth outfielder and took a flier on Akil Baddoo on a split contract. They all have minor league options, so it’s not necessary to force a trade. There’s enough depth that they’re willing to move someone for help elsewhere on the roster. Rosenthal and Sammon write that Milwaukee could target a relief pitcher with minor league options who’d provide additional flexibility for a team that leans heavily on its bullpen.

Collins coming off a breakout season in which he finished fourth in NL Rookie of the Year voting. The switch-hitting Collins batted .263/.368/.411 across 441 trips to the plate. He hit 22 doubles, three triples, and nine home runs. Collins stole 16 bases and walked at a 13% clip. He was Milwaukee’s primary left fielder and graded as a solid defender in a little over 800 innings.

That season was worth between two and three wins above replacement. Collins is under club control for five seasons and won’t qualify for arbitration for two more years. It’s fair to wonder whether he’ll be able to repeat that kind of season. Collins is already 28 and didn’t have particularly strong batted ball metrics. It’s a bit of a tweener profile since he’s not really an option to play center field. Yet the disciplined approach, contact skills, and solid glove in the corner should provide a reasonably high floor.

Perkins, 29, is a prototypical fourth outfielder. He’s a switch-hitter who has a middling .232/.314/.339 batting line in 773 career plate appearances. Perkins runs well and plays a plus center field. He also takes a lot of pitches and works a decent number of walks, albeit with more swing-and-miss than Collins has to his game. Perkins fell a little shy of the Super Two cutoff and will play next season for around the league minimum. He’ll be eligible for arbitration in 2027 and is under club control for four seasons.

Collins is probably the better all-around player, yet Perkins might hold broader appeal on the trade market. There are plenty of teams in need of center fielders and few options available in free agency. It’s unlikely many clubs would view Perkins as a regular, but teams like the Guardians, Angels and Giants should look for defensive upgrades up the middle.

A lot could depend on how the Brewers feel about Mitchell. He’s going into his age-27 season and still unproven at the MLB level. Mitchell is a fantastic athlete with plus speed, power and arm strength. He has the physical tools to be an impact center fielder. There’s also significant hit tool and health risk. Mitchell has punched out in more than a third of his 443 career plate appearances. He has gone on the 60-day injured list in three consecutive seasons: left shoulder surgery in 2023, a broken hand in ’24, an oblique strain and renewed shoulder pain this year. He underwent a second shoulder surgery in June and missed the rest of the season.

Mitchell is expected to be ready for Spring Training. If the Brewers remain confident that he’s their long-term answer in center field, that’d push Frelick and Chourio into the corners. Collins would make sense as the odd man out in that case because he’s stretched in center (though he has plenty of minor league second/third base experience). If they have more trepidation about Mitchell, they could pencil Frelick in as the center fielder with Collins back in left. That’d leave Mitchell and Perkins competing for playing time as the fourth outfielder with the latter potentially on the trade block.

Blue Jays, Tyler Rogers Agree To Three-Year Deal

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The Blue Jays are in agreement with free agent reliever Tyler Rogers on a three-year, $37MM contract, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. The deal, which is pending a physical, includes an $11MM vesting option for the 2029 season, specifics of which have not been reported. Toronto has a full 40-man roster and will need to make a corresponding move. Rogers is represented by Frontline Athlete Management.

Rogers, who’ll celebrate his 35th birthday next week, secures a sizable payday to pitch at the back of the Toronto bullpen. One of the sport’s most distinctive pitchers, Rogers is a soft-tossing submariner who bided his time awaiting an MLB opportunity. He was a 10th-round pick by the Giants in 2013 who signed for $7,500 after his senior season at Austin Peay State University. Rogers spent the next six years in the minor leagues, performing well all the way up through Triple-A but without the raw stuff to get the attention of the big league club.

It wasn’t until the end of Rogers’ third full season in Triple-A that he received an MLB look. He was nearing his 29th birthday and close to calling it quits to pursue a career as a firefighter (as Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area covered in 2020). The Giants finally gave him an opportunity at the end of the ’19 season. Rogers tossed 17 2/3 innings of three-run ball to hold his roster spot. He broke camp the following year and has never gone back down to the minors — not even on a rehab stint.

Rogers has played six-plus seasons in the big leagues without going on the injured list. While there’s obviously some luck involved in avoiding any fluke injuries, it’s clear that his underhand delivery puts less stress on his arm. Rogers has made 403 appearances since the start of the 2020 season. That’s 30 more than any other pitcher. Most of those outings have come in high-leverage situations, as his arm angle continues to flummox hitters.

After posting a 4.50 earned run average as a rookie, Rogers has turned in a 3.04 mark or better in four of the past five seasons. He ranks near the bottom of the league in whiffs and has never posted a league average strikeout rate. That’s to be expected for a pitcher who throws an 82-83 MPH sinker and a sweeping breaking ball that clocks in around 74 MPH. It’s a profile designed for weak, ground-ball contact. Rogers gets that year after year, and he almost never puts batters on via base on balls.

While some pitchers with extremely low arm slots can struggle with opposite-handed batters, that hasn’t been an issue for Rogers. He has held lefties to a .235/.289/.336 line in 776 career plate appearances. Right-handed hitters haven’t fared much better, turning in .246/.282/.350 mark in nearly 1000 trips to the plate.

Rogers has spent the bulk of his career in San Francisco, including a two-year stretch where he overlapped with twin brother Taylor Rogers. The Giants fell out of contention shortly before the trade deadline and flipped the impending free agent to the Mets for middle reliever José Buttó and prospects Blade Tidwell and Drew Gilbert. Rogers continued churning out results in his new home, pitching 27 1/3 innings of 2.30 ERA ball. He finished the season with a career-best 1.98 earned run average behind a 62.1% grounder rate while leading MLB with 81 appearances.

The Mets unsurprisingly wanted Rogers back, but they balked at what turned out to be a surprisingly lucrative contract. He more than doubled MLBTR’s prediction of a two-year, $18MM deal. New York has also seen Edwin Díaz, Gregory Soto and Ryan Helsley sign elsewhere. They’ve added Devin Williams to close but will need to find multiple setup arms from the right side.

That’s the role Rogers should continue to fill with the Jays. Toronto was open to supplanting Jeff Hoffman in the ninth inning, but they didn’t come away with any of Díaz, Raisel Iglesias or Robert Suarez. Rogers had a brief run as San Francisco’s closer in 2021 but has otherwise been a setup man. He was fourth in MLB with 32 holds this past season and handily leads the majors in that category over the last six years. Rogers joins Louis Varland as the top leverage arms in front of Hoffman.

The Jays could still look to add a better left-hander than Brendon Little, but Rogers becomes the fifth member of their projected bullpen who cannot be optioned to the minor leagues. Hoffman, Yimi García and Eric Lauer all have the five-plus years of service time to refuse any minor league assignment. Tommy Nance is out of options. Varland can be optioned but certainly isn’t in jeopardy of being sent down. If the Jays have all six starters healthy going into the season, that’d leave only one spot for Little or another left-handed acquisition. That’s to say nothing of the out-of-options Justin Bruihl and Rule 5 picks Angel Bastardo and Spencer Miles — all of whom have an uphill battle to stick on the roster.

Those are secondary considerations for an all-in Toronto team. The $12.333MM average annual value pushes their estimated luxury tax number to $294MM, as calculated by RosterResource. That’s already easily a franchise high before considering the possibility that they add Kyle Tucker or bring back Bo Bichette.

That’ll be their second straight season paying the competitive balance tax. They’re hit with a 42% tax on spending between $264MM and $284MM and taxed at a 75% rate from $284MM to $304MM. Any spending above the final threshold comes with a 90% penalty. The Rogers deal will come with an approximate $8-9MM tax bill. It also firmly pushes them beyond the $284MM mark at which their top pick in the 2027 draft is moved back by 10 spots (though that was basically inevitable after the Dylan Cease and Cody Ponce signings).

It’s a significant investment in a 35-year-old reliever. The Braves also went to three years, at $15MM annually, to sign Suarez on Thursday. That was the first three-year contract for a reliever that age since 2020. There hadn’t been a three-year term at more than $10MM per season for a 35-year-old bullpen arm since Mariano Rivera almost two decades ago. A closer who sits around 99 MPH, Suarez breaking that precedent wasn’t as surprising. The Jays are betting on Rogers’ unconventional style to age equally well.

Image courtesy of Kyle Ross, Imagn Images.

Rockies Hire Brett Pill As Hitting Coach

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The Rockies announced the hiring of former MLB first baseman Brett Pill as their hitting coach. The 41-year-old joins Warren Schaeffer’s staff after six seasons with the Dodgers. Pill had spent three years as a Double-A hitting coach in the L.A. system before getting a promotion to minor league hitting coordinator in 2023.

Pill is best known for his three-year stint playing in MLB for the Giants. He appeared in 111 games between 2011-13. Pill spent parts of four seasons in Triple-A and finished his playing career with a three-year stint for the Kia Tigers between 2014-16. He remained in Korea for three years after that, working for his former KBO team as a scout before taking the Dodgers job.

This is Pill’s first major league coaching role. He’ll hopefully provide some stability in a position that was in flux in 2025. Colorado opened the season with Hensley Meulens as hitting coach. He was fired a couple weeks into the year. Clint Hurdle stepped in from the front office to take over, but he moved to bench coach once Bud Black and Mike Redmond were fired in May. Jordan Pacheco and Nic Wilson divided the hitting coach responsibilities for the rest of the season.

There should be nowhere to go but up after a 43-119 season. Colorado was by far the worst offensive team in MLB. They were ahead of only the Pirates in scoring despite playing half their games at Coors Field. They had an MLB-worst .293 on-base percentage thanks to the league’s lowest walk rate (6.7%). Only the Angels struck out more often. Colorado hitters have their work cut out for them in road games because of the difference in pitch movements at altitude. Even with that caveat, their .203/.259/.330 team batting line outside of Denver was abysmal.

It’s obviously not going to be fixed in one offseason. They’re not going to have a good lineup in 2026, but they can hope for process improvements from the likes of Ezequiel Tovar, Jordan Beck and (if he’s not traded) Brenton Doyle. They’ll hope for a repeat performance from 26-year-old catcher Hunter Goodman, one of the few bright spots from the ’25 team. Goodman popped 31 homers with a .278/.323/.520 batting line, tying Shea Langeliers for second among catchers in home runs.

Royals Sign Kevin Newman, Jose Cuas To Minor League Deals

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The Royals announced the signing of infielder Kevin Newman and reliever Jose Cuas to minor league contracts. The team only officially announced a non-roster invite to Spring Training for Newman.

Newman, 32, was a regular shortstop for the Pirates early in his career. He has played on different teams in each of the past four seasons, settling in as a light-hitting utility player. Newman batted .278 over 111 games with the Diamondbacks in 2024. That earned him a major league contract from the Angels last offseason, but he mustered only a .202/.209/.272 showing over 116 trips to the plate. The Halos designated him for assignment when they took a flier on former top prospect Oswald Peraza at the trade deadline.

The right-handed hitting Newman finished the season in Triple-A with the Tigers. He hit .296 with a .377 on-base percentage over 15 games but didn’t get an MLB look with Detroit. Newman puts the ball in play but rarely with any authority. He doesn’t walk very often and grades as a slightly below-average defender around the infield. He’ll try to win a bench spot in Spring Training behind Jonathan India, Bobby Witt Jr. and the newly-extended Maikel Garcia.

Cuas returns to Kansas City, where he first reached the majors in 2022. The righty turned in a 3.58 ERA across 37 2/3 innings as a rookie. An early-season spike in strikeout rate the following year caught the attention of the Cubs. The Royals dealt him to Chicago in a swap for young outfielder Nelson Velazquez. It didn’t work for either team, as both players struggled in their new environment. The Cubs waived Cuas less than a year after the trade, and he spent the 2025 season in the minors. He divided his time between the Phillies’ top affiliate and Atlanta’s Double-A club, posting a combined 5.20 ERA over 27 2/3 innings.

Rangers To Sign Danny Jansen

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The Rangers are in agreement with free agent catcher Danny Jansen on a two-year, $14.5MM deal, reports Robert Murray of FanSided. The contract includes another $1MM in bonuses for the ISE Baseball client. Texas entered the night with 35 players on their roster and will not need to make any corresponding moves to accommodate this evening’s flurry of free agent activity.

It’s the second straight offseason in which the Rangers added a free agent catcher on a two-year contract. They signed Kyle Higashioka to a $13.5MM deal last winter. Jansen gets a nearly identical contract to split the playing time in 2026. Texas needed a catcher after non-tendering Jonah Heim on the heels of a second straight down year.

Jansen and Higashioka won’t match up in a strict platoon. They both hit from the right side. Neither player has huge platoon splits over the course of their careers. That’ll allow Skip Schumaker to divide the playing time based on comfort with each day’s starting pitcher. Higashioka and Jansen are similar players overall, though the latter is the more patient hitter. That provides a slightly higher floor from an on-base perspective even if neither player is likely to hit for a high average.

The 30-year-old Jansen (31 in April) was an underrated all-around catcher early in his career with the Blue Jays. He generally performed well in limited playing time but struggled to stay healthy for a full season. Jansen has avoided injuries over the past two years except for a small wrist fracture that cost him the first couple weeks of the 2024 campaign. His production on both sides of the ball dropped that year, though, leaving him to take an $8.5MM pillow contract with the Rays.

Jansen’s numbers rebounded to an extent in Tampa Bay. He hit .204/.314/.389 with 11 home runs across 259 plate appearances. It was at least a jump from a power perspective, as he connected on two more homers in that half-season than he had over 94 games in 2024. His defensive performance was mixed. Jansen is among the league’s best at blocking balls in the dirt, but his pitch framing numbers have declined over the past couple years. He doesn’t have great pure arm strength yet managed to throw out a solid 24% of baserunners after struggling in that regard in 2024.

Tampa Bay dealt him to the Brewers at the deadline. While it was surely a nice return home for the Appleton, Wisconsin native, that wasn’t an ideal landing spot a couple months before free agency. William Contreras plays as much as any catcher. Jansen only got 16 starts and tallied 78 plate appearances with the Brew Crew. He made the most of the sporadic playing time, adding another three homers and doubles apiece. He hit .254/.346/.433 in that limited look. While Jansen isn’t a high-end #1 option, he’s overqualified for a backup role behind one of the five best catchers in the game.

It was always going to be a brief stint in Milwaukee. They made the easy call to decline a $12MM option and look for a much cheaper backup catcher. Jansen finds a better landing spot in Arlington. He benefitted from a weak free agent class. The Rangers weren’t willing to spend what it’d take to add J.T. Realmuto. That left Jansen and Victor Caratini as the only real possibilities if they were going to sign a catcher. Everyone else in the class is a backup or organizational depth type.

RosterResource estimated the Rangers’ payroll around $167MM heading into the evening. Evenly distributing Jansen’s salaries would push that close to $174MM. Texas also agreed to one-year deals with Alexis Díaz and Tyler Alexander. Contract terms for the two pitchers are unreported, though it’s unlikely they cost more than a couple million dollars between the two of them.

The Rangers opened the 2025 season with a player payroll around $218MM. They’ve been clear that number is coming down, though it’s not known to what extent ownership is willing to go. It appears the front office will do its heavy lifting either in the lower rungs of free agency or via trade. They could use a mid-rotation starter and still need to add multiple relievers. Upgrading at least one of first or third base would also be ideal, though that’s a lot to accomplish on what appears to be a tight budget.

Image courtesy of Imagn Images.

Rangers To Sign Tyler Alexander

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The Rangers are signing left-hander Tyler Alexander to a one-year contract, reports Jeff Passan of ESPN. Salary figures for the SSG Baseball client haven’t been reported. Texas entered the night with 35 players on their roster. That’ll jump to 38 once they finalize their contracts with Alexander, Danny Jansen (covered here) and Alexis Díaz (covered here).

Alexander will provide a multi-inning arm out of Skip Schumaker’s bullpen. The 31-year-old logged 97 2/3 innings across 52 appearances between the Brewers and White Sox this year. He started five games, all but one coming with Milwaukee in the beginning of the season, but spent the bulk of the year pitching 3-4 inning stints in relief. While the Rangers could theoretically give him a look in the rotation, it’s more likely they’d view Jacob Latz as a true swing option while pitching Alexander in low-leverage relief.

The southpaw was hit hard over his few months in Milwaukee. He carried a 6.19 ERA in 36 1/3 frames when they designated him for assignment in June. Alexander cleared waivers but found an immediate MLB opportunity in Chicago once he hit free agency. He pitched well enough as a veteran bullpen piece to stick on the roster for the reminder of the season. Alexander worked to a 4.26 earned run average over 61 1/3 innings in a White Sox uniform. He had a modest 20.1% strikeout rate but limited the walks and hard contact reasonably well.

That was enough to earn another big league contract. It comes with the added bonus of being with his hometown club. Alexander is a Southlake, Texas native who played collegiately at TCU. He was a second-round pick by the Tigers in 2015 and has spent the majority of his career in Detroit. Alexander owns a 4.63 ERA over parts of seven seasons. He sits in the 90-91 MPH range but mixes five pitches and did a decent job staying off barrels this year.

The Rangers constructed their 2025 bullpen mostly with a series of cheap one-year free agent pickups. It worked as well as they could’ve hoped, as the relief corps turned in a 3.62 ERA despite ranking 20th in strikeout rate and finishing third from the bottom in average fastball velocity. It’s not going to be easy to replicate. They’re likely in for a similar effort this offseason.

RosterResource estimated the Rangers’ payroll around $167MM heading into the evening. Evenly distributing Jansen’s salaries would push that close to $174MM. Contract terms for the two pitchers are unreported, though it’s unlikely they cost more than a couple million dollars between the two of them. Texas opened the 2025 season with a player payroll around $218MM. They’ve been clear that number is coming down.

Image courtesy of Patrick Gorski, Imagn Images.

Rangers To Sign Alexis Diaz

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The Rangers are in agreement with reliever Alexis Díaz on a one-year deal, reports ESPN’s Jeff Passan. Evan Grant of The Dallas Morning News first suggested that the sides were closing in on a deal, and has suggested the contract will be on the cheaper side.

With Phil Maton, Chris Martin, Jacob Webb, Hoby Milner, and Danny Coulombe all reaching free agency after the season, Rangers president of baseball operations Chris Young has to assemble a new bullpen once again.  He made a pair of relief additions within minutes of each other Friday night with the signings of Diaz and Tyler Alexander.

Diaz, 29, was a 12th round pick of the Reds out of a Puerto Rico high school a decade ago.  He skipped Triple-A to make the Reds’ Opening Day roster in 2022, making good on the promotion by posting a 1.84 ERA and earning a fifth place Rookie of the Year finish despite a bout with biceps tendinitis.  With a strong start to the 2023 season, Diaz earned an All-Star nod.  He finished third in the NL with 37 saves that year.  Diaz punched out 31.2% of batters faced during his first two seasons, 14th in baseball among relievers with at least 100 innings.  However, he also had the fourth-worst walk rate in that group at 12.8%.

Diaz was able to save another 28 games with a 3.99 ERA for the Reds in 2024, but his strikeout rate plummeted to 22.7% with the walks remaining a problem.  On the strength of his saves totals and early success, he landed a $4.5MM salary for 2025 as he entered the arbitration system.

The righty started 2025 on the IL with a hamstring injury, and things only went downhill from there.  Diaz was still under consideration for the Reds’ closing job when he made his mid-April season debut, but after a disastrous three-homer outing against the Cardinals on April 30th, he was sent back to Triple-A.

Diaz’s control issues continued at Triple-A, and by the end of May the Reds sent him to the Dodgers in a trade for minor league pitcher Mike Villani.  Diaz served in a low-leverage, up-and-down capacity for the Dodgers, who eventually designated him for assignment on September 4th.  He then joined the Braves in a waiver claim and made three appearances before being sent down.  Diaz elected free agency in early October.

Diaz’s nine-game stint with the Dodgers was easy to forget, but it ending up playing a role in the club signing his older brother Edwin a few days ago to a three-year, $69MM deal.  According to Edwin, “He told me the Dodgers are a really good organization. He made it easy for me.”

Alexis may be on the opposite end of the relief salary spectrum as compared to his older brother, but Chris Young had success last winter with bargain-basement relievers.  He let Kirby Yates and David Robertson depart for greener pastures, signing Armstrong, Webb, Milner, Martin, and Luke Jackson to one-year deals topping out with Martin’s $5.5MM.  All but Jackson had solid years.  Milner and trade deadline pickup Maton signed with the Cubs this offseason.  Southpaw Robert Garcia serves as the main holdover.

Mike Maddux departed for the Angels after three years as the Rangers’ pitching coach, leading the club to elevate Jordan Tiegs to the role under new manager Skip Schumaker.  According to Shawn McFarland of the Dallas Morning News, “Tiegs, 38, ran the team’s bullpen last season in his first on-field role with the big league club, helped stabilize a group that was largely pieced together the previous winter and drew positive reviews from veteran relievers and organizational higher-ups.”

Tiegs will have his work cut out for him with Diaz.  The righty’s average fastball velocity slipped from 95.8 miles per hour as a rookie to 93.6 with his three teams this year, though it plays up with some of the best extension in the game.  It’s been two years since Diaz missed bats with a high spin rate fastball and one of the best sliders featured by any reliever.  His control is worse than ever.  Diaz has been able to dodge longballs until this year, but doesn’t really keep the ball on the ground.

Young’s active Friday evening included the signings of Diaz, Alexander, and catcher Danny Jansen in rapid succession.  He previously swapped Marcus Semien for Brandon Nimmo for an OBP boost.  With limited payroll flexibility, Young figures to continue adding to the pitching staff.

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