Headlines

Go To Pro Hockey Rumors
Go To Hoops Rumors

Tigers To Sign Kenley Jansen

By | at

The Tigers have agreed to a one-year contract with veteran closer Kenley Jansen, ESPN’s Jeff Passan reports.  The Athletic’s Cody Stavenhagen adds that the Tigers also hold a club option on Jansen’s services for the 2027 season.  Detroit was first linked to Kenley Jansen’s market earlier this week, and MassLive.com’s Chris Cotillo reported earlier this afternoon that the two sides were “deep in talks” and heading towards the final stages of a deal.  Jansen is represented by the Wasserman Agency.

More to come…

Yankees To Re-Sign Amed Rosario

By | at

The Yankees are re-signing infielder Amed Rosario to a one-year contract, according to Jack Curry of YES Network.  The deal will pay Rosario a $2.5MM salary (as per Jon Heyman of the New York Post), and ESPN’s Jorge Castillo writes that Rosario can also earn up to $225K in additional incentive bonuses.  Rosario is represented by Octagon.

Acquired from the Nationals at the trade deadline, Rosario hit .303/.303/.485 over 33 plate appearances and 16 games for New York, and his playing time was further limited by a 10-day injured list stint due to a left SC joint sprain.  Still, Rosario lived up to expectations by chipping in at second base, third base, and in right field, while providing the Yankees with a productive right-handed hitting bat.

That righty-swinging balance is a plus within a New York lineup that is heavy in left-handed batters, and having Rosario back will give the Yankees some platoon flexibility with either Ryan McMahon at third base or even Jazz Chisholm Jr. at second base.  McMahon is a superb defender but a much lesser hitter than Chisholm, so Rosario will probably get most of his playing time spelling McMahon at least against southpaws.

Once regarded as one of baseball’s top prospects during his time in the Mets’ farm system, Rosario posted some okay offensive numbers as a regular with the Mets and Guardians.  His overall effectiveness was limited by a lack of walks, struggles against right-handed pitching, and subpar defending at the shortstop position.

Though he is only entering his age-30 season, Rosario now looks to have settled into a role as a part-time player who can fill in at multiple positions, though he doesn’t provide much defensive value anywhere.  His biggest plus is his ability to hit southpaws, as Rosario has a career .298/.336/.464 slash line in 1196 PA against left-handed pitching.

The Yankees clearly liked what they saw in Rosario last year, and after bouncing around to six different teams since the start of the 2023 season, Rosario probably appreciates some stability in returning to the Bronx for a full season in the pinstripes.  He receives a slight raise over the $2MM deal he received from Washington last winter.

With Rosario back in the fold, the Yankees have brought some experienced depth back into the infield mix.  Anthony Volpe will miss the start of the season recovering from shoulder surgery, so if Jose Caballero ends up getting a lot of the shortstop time in Volpe’s absence, Rosario’s presence helps fill the utility void on New York’s bench.  Brendan Donovan is another versatile player known to be on the Yankees’ trade radar, plus the club has also been more loosely linked to All-Star Bo Bichette, in what would be an even more seismic shake-up of the Bronx infield.

Royals Exploring CJ Abrams, MacKenzie Gore, Jarren Duran In Trade Talks

By | at

The Royals have had discussions with the Nationals about shortstop CJ Abrams and left-hander MacKenzie Gore, ESPN’s Jeff Passan reports.  Jarren Duran also continues to be a player of interest, as Passan writes that Kansas City is still considering the Red Sox outfielder after first being linked to Duran’s market prior to last summer’s trade deadline.

It is no secret that the Royals are looking to improve what has been arguably baseball’s least-productive outfield over the last couple of years.  Between Boston’s crowded outfield and Kansas City’s numerous rotation options, the two teams seem like natural and logical trade partners, especially given how the Red Sox have continued to pursue starting pitching even after landing both Sonny Gray and Johan Oviedo.  Likewise, the Royals have added Lane Thomas to their outfield mix, yet an everyday starter like Duran would be a much more clearcut upgrade.

Acquiring Gore would represent a fascinating pivot for K.C., and perhaps a step in a somewhat more convoluted path to obtaining outfielders.  Gore would only add to the Royals’ rotation surplus, yet with Gore now in the mix as a front-of-the-rotation arm, Kansas City could be more open to sending a pitcher like Cole Ragans to the Red Sox in a hypothetical Duran deal.  Ragans has been cited as perhaps the most logical fit for Duran, as Michael Wacha and Seth Lugo both recently signed extensions with the Royals, Kris Bubic is only a year removed from free agency, and the Royals’ array of younger arms might not quite move the needle enough to pry Duran (who is team-controlled through the 2028 season) out of Fenway Park.

Perhaps complicating this idea is the fact that the Red Sox almost surely have interest in Gore themselves.  While the Sox haven’t been publicly linked to Gore’s market to date, their desire for frontline pitching and the fact that former Sox executive Paul Toboni is now Washington’s president of baseball operations makes it easy to connect the dots.  The Nationals have gotten so much interest in Gore that Toboni undoubtedly has plenty of creative offers to consider, and there still isn’t any direct urgency to deal Gore since he is under arbitration control through 2027.

Toboni’s hiring represented a fresh start for a rebuild that seemed to have stalled out under former Nationals PBO Mike Rizzo.  Washington hasn’t had a winning season since its 2019 World Series title year, yet even with impatience growing amongst District fans, the sense is that Toboni is more focused on adding more young talent than trying to contend.  That could mean dealing away such top players (and trade chips) like Gore and Abrams, who were supposed to be cornerstones of the rebuild process when acquired in the 2022 Juan Soto trade.

Abrams is controlled through the 2028 season, so the Nationals have even less reason to trade the shortstop immediately than Gore.  The Royals’ younger pitchers or more longer-term minor league prospects would likely have more appeal to the Nats than to a win-now team like the Red Sox, but Kansas City would have to pay a hefty price to extra Abrams given his team control and All-Star ceiling.

With that ceiling, however, comes a low floor.  The last two seasons have seen Abrams excel in the first half only to tail off badly after the All-Star break.  The lack of consistency also extends to Abrams’ splits, as the left-handed batter hasn’t been very productive against left-handed pitching.  Defensively, Abrams is a mixed bag at best — the Outs Above Average metric has long hated his work at shortstop, while the Defensive Runs Saved metric has been more positive in general but graded Abrams as a -6 in 2025.

A move to second base might be in Abrams’ future anyway, and that would work for a Royals team that already has Bobby Witt Jr. entrenched at shortstop.  Jonathan India is the incumbent at second base after K.C. agreed to a one-year, $8MM salary with India for 2026, which came as something of a surprise since India’s unimpressive 2025 season had made him a non-tender candidate.  In the event that Abrams did land in Kansas City, the Royals could look to trade India or just relegate him to bench duty, as inefficient as that would be for a team with a limited payroll.

Mets To Sign Jorge Polanco

By | at

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 and Red Sox 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

By | at

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

By | at

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

By | at

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

By | at

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

By | at

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

By | at

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.

MLB Trade Rumors is not affiliated with Major League Baseball, MLB or MLB.com

Do not Sell or Share My Personal Information

hide arrows scroll to top