The Braves designated swingman Osvaldo Bido for assignment. That’s the corresponding 40-man roster move for the Ha-Seong Kim signing, which the club has officially announced.
More to come.
Braves Re-Sign Ha-Seong Kim
The Braves are bringing back Ha-Seong Kim on a $20MM contract, reports Jon Heyman of The New York Post. It’s a one-year deal, according to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. Kim had declined a $16MM player option and earns a $4MM raise to return as Atlanta’s starting shortstop.
Kim spent the final month of the 2025 season with the Braves. They claimed him off waivers from the Rays, who were happy to get out from under the $16MM player option. Atlanta was long since buried in the playoff picture. The move was solely about building a relationship with Kim in the hope that he’d return next year. They hoped it’d be on the player option but felt that a few weeks within the clubhouse might give them an edge in re-signing him even if he opted out.
The righty-hitting Kim made a solid impression on his new club. He reeled off a 10-game hitting streak in the middle of September and recorded at least one knock in 15 of his first 19 contests. Kim finished in a 1-19 skid over his final five games, dropping him to a middling .253/.316/.368 line in 98 plate appearances in an Atlanta uniform. That was still quite a bit better than the .214/.290/.321 mark he’d put up in a similar amount of playing time over an injury-riddled few months in Tampa Bay.
Overall, Kim is coming off a .234/.304/.345 slash in 48 games. The Braves certainly feel that’s not representative of his true talent. Kim had been an above-average everyday player with the Padres between 2022-24. He was a slightly above-average hitter who played plus defense throughout the infield. Kim’s time in San Diego ended when he tore the labrum in his right shoulder diving into first base on a pickoff attempt in August. He required surgery that led the Padres to opt against issuing him a qualifying offer.
The Rays surprisingly won the bidding for Kim last offseason, signing him to a two-year, $29MM deal with an opt-out. It was always a baffling move for a low-payroll club. The Rays signed Kim to a $13MM salary for the first season despite knowing he was unlikely to be a factor until a few months into the year. He didn’t make his season debut until shortly before the All-Star Break. Calf and back issues resulted in subsequent minimal injured list stays. While the Rays managed to offload the final few weeks of Kim’s salaries thanks to the waiver claim, they still paid a little more than $11MM for 24 games of replacement level production.
More to come.
Red Sox, Nationals Swap Pitching Prospects
In a rare type of transaction, the Nationals and Red Sox have agreed to swap pitching prospects. The clubs announced a one-for-one deal that sends righty Luis Perales to Washington and southpaw Jake Bennett to Boston. Neither player has made his MLB debut but both are on the 40-man roster.
It’s the kind of trade that fans often like to project but which almost never happens in practice. Neither Bennett nor Perales is a top-tier prospect, but they each ranked among the top 10 talents in their respective organizations at Baseball America. Teams tend to value their own prospects more highly than those in other systems. That’s only natural, as they liked the player enough to acquire them in the first place and have been instrumental in their development.
That makes it difficult for teams to align on straight prospect for prospect deals — at least ones that aren’t largely motivated by roster considerations. This one was driven by a regime change in Washington. The Nationals hired former Red Sox assistant general manager Paul Toboni as their president of baseball operations. He has hired a handful of former Boston staffers in front office and player development roles. They evidently liked Perales enough to make him a priority.
Perales is a 22-year-old who signed with the Sox out of Venezuela. He has shown huge strikeout stuff with very concerning command. The Sox added him to their 40-man roster over the 2023-24 offseason to keep him out of the Rule 5 draft. Perales blew out seven starts into the following season and underwent Tommy John surgery. He missed almost all of 2025 rehabbing, only returning for three short relief appearances in the final week. Those included his first two appearances in Triple-A, where he was back to pumping a 99 MPH fastball with a low-90s cutter and a mid-80s changeup.
Baseball America’s scouting report understandably lauds the fastball. They also grade the cutter as a plus pitch but note that he’ll need to develop an offspeed pitch and dramatically improve his control if he’s to stick as a starter. While there’s a decent chance he ends up in short relief down the line, the Nationals don’t need to hurry that. They can option him to Double-A or Triple-A as a starter or multi-inning reliever as they monitor his innings in his first full season back from the surgery.
Bennett, 25, is a 6’6″ lefty who was added to Washington’s 40-man roster last month. They needed to keep him out of this winter’s Rule 5 draft. As with Perales, he has been set back by a Tommy John procedure. His surgery came after the 2023 campaign and wiped out his entire ’24 season. The Oklahoma University product got back on the mound this past May. He combined for 19 appearances between three levels up to Double-A. Bennett turned in a 2.27 earned run average across 75 1/3 innings. He recorded a slightly below-average 21.5% strikeout rate but kept his walks to a tidy 6.4% clip.
BA credits Bennett with a plus changeup as the only standout offering in a six-pitch arsenal. He has plus control and the size to generate good extension. Bennett’s fastball only sits around 92-93 MPH on average. He’s unlikely to miss a ton of bats unless the Sox can coax more velocity out of him, but he’s a much safer bet than Perales to stick in a rotation. Bennett should reach Triple-A at some point next season and has a chance to debut before the end of the year, though that’d probably take a number of injuries to starters ahead of him on the depth chart.
The Red Sox opt for the more stable back-end starter profile while the Nationals shoot for the risk-reward play. Bennett has a trio of minor league option years. Perales is headed into his third option year but is likely to be eligible for a fourth option in 2027 because of his limited professional workload.
Jeff Passan of ESPN first reported the trade. Respective images courtesy of Nathan Ray Seebeck, Jaylynn Nash, Imagn Images.
Rangers Sign Danny Jansen
December 15: Texas officially announced the signing, also revealing the presence of a mutual option for the 2028 season. The Rangers have confirmed the Jansen and Alexander deals and are up to 37 players on the roster, pending the finalization of Díaz’s contract.
December 12: The Rangers are reportedly in agreement with free agent catcher Danny Jansen on a two-year, $14.5MM deal. 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.
Robert Murray of FanSided first reported the agreement on a two-year, $14.5MM deal. Image courtesy of Imagn Images.
Subscribers On The Benefits Of Trade Rumors Front Office
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Blue Jays Designate Justin Bruihl For Assignment
The Blue Jays announced that they have designated left-hander Justin Bruihl for assignment. That’s the corresponding move to open a 40-man spot for righty Tyler Rogers, whose signing is now official.
Bruihl, 29 in June, signed a minor league deal with the Jays last offseason. He was added to the big league roster in June and spent the rest of the season getting repeatedly shuttled between Toronto and Triple-A Buffalo.
He made 15 appearances for the Jays, logging 13 2/3 innings. His 5.27 earned run average doesn’t look pretty but he likely deserved better, as his .459 batting average on balls in play was way above the .291 league average. His 27.7% strikeout rate and 46.2% ground ball rate were actually quite strong. His 10.8% walk rate was high but not egregiously so.
He also tossed 42 Triple-A innings on the year, with a much better 3.43 ERA despite somewhat comparable rate stats. He certainly got more grounders in the minors, a 58.4% clip, but his 27.8% strikeout rate and 9.1% walk rate were both very close to what he did in the majors. His .274 BABIP was much closer to par, which helped the ERA even out to a more acceptable level.
Despite the high ERA in the majors, the Jays trusted Bruihl enough to have him pitch in some important games. He was even on the roster for the ALDS matchup against the Yankees, though he allowed two earned runs in his lone appearance against that club and was left off the ALCS roster.
Though there were some things to like about Bruihl’s 2025 campaign, he exhausted his final option season. That means he will be out of options going forward and will find it tougher to hold a roster spot. That’s especially true for a team like the Blue Jays, who have been aggressively adding to the roster as they look to compete again in 2026. Toronto also has three other lefty relievers on the roster in Brendon Little, Mason Fluharty and long reliever Eric Lauer. Prospect Ricky Tiedemann might also factor into the bullpen plans after missing 2025 while recovering from Tommy John surgery.
It might be a bit easier for Bruihl to stick with a rebuilding club with a roster that isn’t quite so packed. He’ll be in DFA limbo for a week at most. The waiver process takes 48 hours, so the Jays could take five days to field trade interest. If Bruihl lands somewhere else, he has between one and two years of service time. That means he hasn’t yet qualified for arbitration and can potentially be controlled for five full seasons.
Photo courtesy of Dennis Lee, Imagn Images
Blue Jays Sign Tyler Rogers To Three-Year Deal
December 15th: The signing is now official. Lefty Justin Bruihl has been designated for assignment as the corresponding move.
December 13th: Rogers’ 2029 option will vest for a $12MM guarantee if he pitches in either 110 games over the 2027-28 seasons, or 60 games in 2028, Rosenthal reports.
December 12th: 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.
Latest On Evan Phillips
The Dodgers non-tendered former closer Evan Phillips in November, as the right-hander is recovering from Tommy John surgery and was heading into his final season of club control. Phillips’ projected $6.1MM salary would’ve cost the Dodgers more than double due to taxes, and given that he underwent surgery in early June, there’s no guarantee he’ll be back on a mound this season at all.
On the surface, Phillips makes for an interesting free agent target for clubs looking at bullpen help both in 2026 and in 2027. It’s become increasingly common for pitchers rehabbing from UCL surgeries to sign two-year deals, with the first year ticketed largely for rehab and the second intended to be a full season on the mound. Phillips, however, prefers to sign a straight one-year deal and return to the market next offseason, reports Tim Healey of the Boston Globe. Phillips isn’t planning to sign until at least January, when he’s cleared to resume throwing, and may delay signing until July, when he’s effectively game-ready.
The Red Sox are among the teams that have expressed interest in Phillips, per Healey, though they’re surely just one of many. Phillips’ one-year target and pre-injury track record make him a plausible fit for nearly any team. He’s not going to be prohibitively expensive for most clubs, and the 31-year-old righty has been terrific in four-plus seasons with Los Angeles.
Originally landing with the Dodgers by way of a waiver claim from the Rays, Phillips pitched decently in the final few weeks of the 2021 season. However, it was the 2022 season that saw the right-hander truly break out. In 63 innings that season, he turned in a superhuman 1.14 ERA with a 33% strikeout rate and 6.4% walk rate.
Dating back to that 2022 breakout, Phillips has pitched 184 2/3 innings with a 2.14 earned run average, a 29.6% strikeout rate, a 6.6% walk rate, a 43.3% ground-ball rate, 45 saves and 36 holds. He’s allowed an average of just 0.68 homers per nine innings pitched while sitting better than 96 mph with his four-seamer, just under 95.8 mph with his sinker, 93.1 mph with his cutter and 85.1 mph with his slider.
There are advantages both to waiting into late in the offseason and waiting until midseason to sign. If Phillips waits until January or later, he’ll be able to more tangibly show the progress he’s made in his surgery rehab. Scouts won’t be getting a glimpse of him at 100%, of course, but it’ll show he’s well into the rehab process and give them some empirical data to compare to other pitchers when they were at the same point in their own rehab process. That could improve his earning power. Waiting until spring training could create some new suitors and/or new urgency among interested teams, too, as it’s inevitable that a handful of relievers around the game will go down with injuries this spring (as is the case every spring).
Waiting until midseason would mean going through the first several months of the year rehabbing on his own rather than with a team, but Phillips could more accurately see which clubs are postseason contenders. It’d also rule out any possibility of a qualifying offer — however slight it would be. (Had Phillips not been injured and continued on his prior trajectory, he’d have been a QO candidate; obviously, doing that over 20-30 innings post-surgery would make the chances of receiving one far smaller.) That wouldn’t be an option if he signs a one-year deal in late June or early July, as players need to spend the whole season on a major league roster/injured list in order to receive a QO.
It’s fairly rare for a reliever to receive a QO but it does happen. As shown on MLBTR’s Contract Tracker, in the past five years, three relievers have received and rejected QOs. They are Raisel Iglesias, Josh Hader and Edwin Díaz, who were all top closers when those deals were signed.
Phillips was arguably near that tier not too long ago but he would have to really dominate late in 2026 for a QO to become a real consideration after an extended surgery layoff. Still, from his perspective, he might prefer to wait to sign until the season has begun. Since he’s going to be missing the first half of the season regardless, he might as well close off the chance of a QO, even if it’s already a small one. A QO has a negative impact on a free agent’s earning power, so it’s always preferable to avoid it, if possible.
The midseason signing path would also give him more time to get fully healthy. As the season rolls along, it would also create a clearer picture of which teams need him the most due to injuries, competitiveness, and so on.
Last winter, David Robertson was a free agent but was reportedly looking for a deal with an average annual value of $10MM. When he didn’t find what he was looking for, he decided not to sign until the Phillies inked him in July, barely a week before the trade deadline. That was technically a prorated $16MM deal. Robertson only received about $6MM of that but that got him pretty close to his asking price for just a few months of work and he got to pick a club clearly in contention after the All-Star break.
That situation wasn’t exactly the same since Robertson was healthy whereas Phillips is not. However, it’s possible it plays out in a somewhat similar fashion. If Phillips doesn’t find offers to his liking in the coming months, he could just keep building strength. Presumably, interest from clubs would ramp up in kind. On the other hand, all this is contingent on Phillips avoiding setbacks. If he receives a somewhat fair offer in the coming months, he’ll have to weigh the pros and cons of turning it down to potentially try for more in the summer.
Photo courtesy of Jerome Miron, Imagn Images
Blue Jays Sign Michael Plassmeyer To Minor League Deal
The Blue Jays have signed left-hander Michael Plassmeyer to a minor league deal, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com. He has been assigned to Triple-A Buffalo for now but will presumably be invited to big league camp in spring training.
Plassmeyer, 29, has a very small major league résumé. He made two appearances for the Phillies in 2022 and one more the following year. In total, he has 11 innings in the show. Unfortunately, he allowed 12 earned runs in that time, so he currently sports an unsightly 9.82 ERA.
That’s obviously a tiny sample of work and the Jays are presumably looking past that to the larger sample size of his minor league history. Over the past five years, he has appeared in 125 minor league games, including 89 starts. In 489 1/3 innings, he struck out 24.7% of batters faced while only giving out walks 7% of the time, both of those figures being slightly better than average. However, a tendency to give up home runs push his ERA to 4.97 in that span.
The Jays have been loading up on pitching so far this offseason. They have added Dylan Cease and Cody Ponce to a rotation that already featured Kevin Gausman, Shane Bieber, Trey Yesavage, José Berríos, Eric Lauer and others. They have also bolstered the bullpen by agreeing to a deal with Tyler Rogers, acquiring Chase Lee from the Tigers and selecting Spencer Miles from the Giants in the Rule 5 draft.
It’s a crowded picture right now but a big league team needs dozens of arms over the course of a long season. If Plassmeyer is added to the 40-man at any point, he still has an option, meaning he could be sent between Buffalo and Toronto as needed. He also has just five days of big league service time, meaning he’s affordable and still years away from qualifying from free agency.
Photo courtesy of Brad Penner, Imagn Images
Rangers To Sign José Herrera To Minor League Deal
The Rangers have signed catcher José Herrera to a minor league deal, reports Daniel Álvarez-Montes of El Extrabase. The Octagon client will also receive an invite to big league camp in spring training.
Herrera, 29 in February, will change organizations for the first time in his career. The Diamondbacks signed him as an international amateur out of Venezuela back in 2013. He was with the Snakes for more than a decade, having just become a free agent in October.
For most of the past four years, he’s been on the 40-man as an up-and-down depth catcher. Arizona has given most of the time behind the plate to Gabriel Moreno recently, with Herrera one of several names who have backed him up. Over those four seasons, he took 562 plate appearances with a .200/.280/.259 line. He’s a switch-hitter but hasn’t been great against pitchers of either handedness. Defensively, outlets like Baseball Prospectus and Statcast have credited him as being solid in terms of blocking and controlling the running game, but his framing has been subpar.
Arizona sent Herrera to Triple-A and back throughout the 2022 to 2024 seasons, exhausting his three option years. He came into 2025 out of options and held a roster spot for a while. While Moreno was injured, the Snakes signed James McCann. Once Moreno was ready to come off the injured list in August, they decided to go with a Moreno/McCann combo behind the plate. Herrera was designated for assignment and outrighted to Triple-A, then qualified for free agency at season’s end.
The Rangers have already made a few notable moves in the catching department this offseason. They non-tendered Jonah Heim and then agreed to a two-year deal with Danny Jansen last week. Jansen and Kyle Higashioka will share the big league duties. Willie MacIver is currently on the 40-man as optionable depth but he has only appeared behind the plate in 31 big league games. If either Jansen or Higashioka suffer an injury, Herrera is an experienced backstop who currently gives the club depth without taking up a roster spot.
Photo courtesy of Isaiah J. Downing, Imagn Images
