The Padres have signed right-hander Griffin Canning, as initially reported overnight by the Divine Sports Gospel. Canning’s deal will be official once he passes a physical, according to FanSided’s Robert Murray. San Diego has a full 40-man roster in the wake of the Nick Castellanos signing, so the Padres will have to make another move to open up 40-man space for Canning, who is represented by Wasserman.
More to come…
The Padres and outfielder Nick Castellanos have agreed to a Major League deal, according to Jon Heyman of the New York Post (multiple links). Castellanos will earn $780K on the contract, which is the MLB minimum salary for the 2026 season. The Padres have an open spot on their 40-man roster, so no corresponding move will be required once the deal is finalized by Castellanos passing a physical. Castellanos is represented by Mato Sports Management.
After signing Miguel Andujar to a one-year, $4MM guarantee a few days ago, San Diego has now added another veteran right-handed bat to its list of DH or bench candidates. Castellanos will also be in the first base mix, as per The Athletic’s Dennis Lin, which is noteworthy since Castellanos has never played the position during his pro career. Given how Castellanos has struggled badly in the field as a third baseman and corner outfielder over his career, a move to first base is seemingly long overdue, though Castellanos has been blocked at the position throughout pretty much the entirety of his 13-year MLB tenure.
The left-handed hitting Gavin Sheets is lined up as the Padres’ top choice at first base, so Castellanos makes sense as a platoon partner. Ramon Laureano figures to get most of the time in left field, so Andujar will be used primarily as a DH, providing competition for Castellanos at another spot. Castellanos’ old position of right field is filled by Fernando Tatis Jr., so Castellanos probably won’t be getting much or any time in right unless Tatis is hurt or is getting a DH day.
Given the Padres’ stated need for hitting depth, they were seen as a potential candidate to acquire Castellanos during the Phillies’ winter-long attempts to find a trade partner. Any trade would’ve seen the Phillies cover the vast majority of the $20MM owed to Castellanos in the final year of his contract, and it was no surprise that the Phils just released Castellanos two days ago after not finding any takers. The Padres’ $780K commitment will be subtracted from the $20MM figure, leaving the Phillies on the hook for $19.22MM.
More to come…
The Twins signed left-hander Andrew Chafin to a minor league deal, according to multiple team beat writers. Chafin’s contract includes an invitation to attend Minnesota’s big league Spring Training camp.
As Chafin prepares for his 13th Major League season, the Twins will become the ninth team the southpaw has pitched for at the MLB level if Chafin can win a spot on the active roster. The 35-year-old added two more clubs to his list by appearing for the Nationals and Angels in 2025, posting a 2.41 ERA and a solid 25.2% strikeout rate over 33 2/3 innings, but also with a 13.3% walk rate.
Between the inflated walk rate and an 81.9% strand rate, Chafin’s SIERA was 4.11 — far higher than his real-world ERA. Most of his other underlying metrics were quite good, though Chafin’s biggest issue last season was staying healthy. He had a pair of stints on the injured list due to a right hamstring strain and then left triceps inflammation, resulting in a little over five weeks’ worth of missed time.
This is the second straight winter that Chafin has had to settle for a minor league deal, as he also inked a non-guaranteed contract with the Tigers last February. He opted out of that deal at the end of April and quickly landed a MLB contract with Washington, then pitched in 26 games for the Nats before the Angels acquired Chafin at the trade deadline.
Chafin’s lack of control continues to be a concern and his strikeout rate dropped from 28.5% in 2024, though his other numbers suggest he still has something left in the tank even at this later stage in his career. Chafin is the latest relief addition for a Twins team that has brought Taylor Rogers, Anthony Banda, and Eric Orze into the fold, not to mention a long list of NRIs with experience on big league pitching staffs. Rogers, Banda, and Kody Funderburk are all left-handers, so Chafin provides some more depth in that area as well.
The Blue Jays announced that right-hander Jesse Hahn has been signed to a minor league contract. The deal includes an invitation for Hahn to attend Toronto’s big league Spring Training camp.
While Hahn is a veteran of eight Major League seasons, 286 of his 316 1/3 career innings came during the 2014-17 seasons. Since that four-year stretch with the Padres and Athletics, Hahn has a 4.75 ERA across 30 1/3 innings, and he didn’t see any MLB action at all in three seasons (2018, 2022, and 2023) due to arm injuries, plus he spent the 2024 campaign entirely in the minors.
Hahn finally made his return to the Show last year in the form of three games and five innings with the Mariners, and he was twice designated for assignment and then outrighted off Seattle’s 40-man roster. Pitching primarily with Triple-A Tacoma, Hahn’s minor league numbers in 2025 included a 5.85 ERA, 22.4% strikeout rate, and 10.5% walk rate. The righty also posted a big 61.8% grounder rate, though a .361 BABIP offset Hahn’s ability to keep the ball on the ground.
A grounder-heavy approach is Hahn’s biggest plus at this stage of his career, as the 36-year-old been beset by control problems (at times quite extreme) over the last several seasons at both the MLB and minor league levels. Hahn’s return to the big leagues after a three-year absence saw him retain his 95mph sinker as his primary pitch, and his slider replaced his change as his secondary pitch.
Toronto’s bullpen is more or less set heading into Opening Day, so Hahn is likely just a depth arm the Jays are looking to stash at Triple-A. The right-hander does bring experience and some innings-eating ability, which is a plus on a Blue Jays team that put a lot of extra miles on its relief corps during last season’s run to the World Series.
The Diamondbacks are re-signing Zac Gallen on a one-year deal, pending a physical. The Boras Corporation client technically receives a $22.025MM guarantee that matches the value of the qualifying offer which he declined in November. However, a reported $14MM will be deferred via five $2.8MM installments paid between 2031-35. That means the D-Backs will only pay a little over $8MM, one-third of the contract, this year. They’ll need to open 40-man roster spots for Gallen and Paul Sewald once those deals are official but have no shortage of candidates to go on the 60-day injured list.
Gallen is coming off a down year that clearly sapped a lot of his appeal on the open market. He entered the season as a strong candidate to command upwards of $100MM once he hit free agency. Gallen stayed healthy and took all 33 turns through the rotation, but he had the worst rate stats of his career. He turned in a personal-high 4.83 earned run average with a career-worst 21.5% strikeout rate.
The season started especially poorly, as Gallen allowed at least five earned runs per nine innings in each of the first four months. He took a 5.40 ERA into the All-Star Break and had a 5.60 mark across 127 innings at the trade deadline. The D-Backs were aggressive sellers, moving Josh Naylor, Eugenio Suárez, Merrill Kelly and Shelby Miller. They didn’t find an offer they liked on Gallen more than the draft pick they’d collect if he signed elsewhere after rejecting the qualifying offer.
Arizona reportedly was concerned about overworking young pitchers down the stretch, so they got some benefit out of holding Gallen for the innings alone. He performed better after the deadline, tossing quality starts in eight of his last 11 outings. The 30-year-old turned in a 3.32 ERA over his final 65 innings. The Diamondbacks went 7-4 in those games, part of the reason they were able to hang in the Wild Card picture until the final weekend despite the July selloff.
While it was an encouraging last couple months, it wasn’t exactly a return to peak form. Gallen only struck out 20% of opponents during that stretch. He was helped a lot by a .232 average on balls in play. Gallen had struck out between 25-29% of opponents in each of his first five-plus MLB seasons. The swing-and-miss drop wasn’t quite so extreme on a per-pitch basis, but last year’s 9.5% swinging strike rate was the second-lowest mark of his career.
There weren’t any dramatic changes to Gallen’s raw stuff. His fastball averaged 93.5 mph, right in line with his career mark. That’s essentially league average for a right-handed starting pitcher. Opponents have had increasing success against Gallen’s heater over the past couple seasons. He managed decent results on his knuckle-curve and changeup, his top two secondary offerings. He sporadically mixed a cutter, slider and sinker — all of which were hit hard.
It remains to be seen if they’ll make any changes to his arsenal going into 2026. Gallen began to scale back his four-seam fastball usage in the final few months last season, largely in favor of more changeups. In any case, the team probably feels he deserved a little better than a near-5.00 ERA would suggest. Statcast’s “expected” ERA, which is based on his strikeout/walk profile and the batted balls he allows, landed at 4.28. His 4.24 SIERA was in a similar range. A positive regression toward those metrics would make him a league average starter.
This is an ideal outcome for the Diamondbacks. They were willing to pay an upfront $22.025MM salary to retain Gallen in November. His decision to decline the QO may very well have opened the payroll room to bring Kelly back on a two-year, $40MM free agent deal. Team personnel maintained throughout the offseason that they’d like to retain Gallen if they could make it work financially.
Owner Ken Kendrick raved about Gallen as far back as September. “He’s a special young man who spent nearly seven years as a D-Back. He definitely had an up-and-down season — performed better in the later part of the year, certainly, than earlier in the year. … He’s loved being a Diamondback,” Kendrick said at the time. “I don’t want to say it’s out of the touch of reality that we’d work out an arrangement to bring him back. He’s been a great D-Back. Last I recall, he was the guy who pitched seven or eight innings of no-hit ball in a World Series game for the Arizona Diamondbacks. … He’s the guy you want to root for.”
Just this week, manager Torey Lovullo said the clubhouse would “would welcome him with open arms, certainly” if they could get a deal done. Now that it has come to pass, he’ll slot alongside Kelly, Ryne Nelson, Eduardo Rodriguez and Brandon Pfaadt in the projected rotation. That could push free agent pickup Michael Soroka into a long relief role unless they decide to run a six-man rotation. They’re without a true ace until Corbin Burnes makes it back from Tommy John surgery; he’s aiming for some time around the All-Star Break. There’s far more stability than they had at the beginning of the winter, allowing them to take their time in deciding when to bring up prospects like Mitch Bratt and Kohl Drake, both of whom they acquired from Texas in the Kelly trade.
Penciling in a $22.025MM salary for Gallen would bring Arizona’s payroll projection to roughly $194MM, as calculated by RosterResource. That’d technically be right in line with last year’s $195MM season-opening mark, which Kendrick said at the beginning of the winter that the team wouldn’t match. However, they’re reportedly only on the hook for around $8MM in salary payments this year, so the D-Backs didn’t need to dramatically stretch the budget after waiting out the offseason.
The Diamondbacks don’t forfeit any of their existing draft choices to re-sign their own qualified free agent. Any other team would have punted at least one draft choice and potentially international signing bonus pool space to sign him. They are indirectly losing a pick by forfeiting the right to compensation.
That selection would have come after the first round in 2026 if Gallen had signed elsewhere for at least $50MM. That seemed a distinct possibility early in the offseason but almost certainly wasn’t happening in the middle of February. It’s more likely that they’re passing on a compensation pick that would have landed 73rd or 74th overall, which they receive if he’d walked for less than $50MM. That’s not a huge cost compared to bringing back a potential mid-rotation starter on a favorable deal.
Although the team must be happy with the outcome, it’s undoubtedly not what Gallen envisioned for his first trip to free agency. Jon Heyman of The New York Post suggests he declined multi-year offers from other teams because he preferred to remain with the Diamondbacks. That doesn’t mean that the market didn’t materialize as hoped. MLBTR predicted a four-year, $80MM deal at the beginning of the offseason. It seems clear in retrospect that teams weren’t willing to go to those lengths given Gallen’s disappointing platform year.
Even if staying in Arizona was his first choice all along, he’s coming out quite a bit worse than if he’d accepted the qualifying offer. He’ll receive the same amount of money in the long run, but the true value of the deferred money is worth less than if he’d collected it all in 2026. John Gambadoro of Arizona Sports reports that the net present value will land in the $12-13MM range for competitive balance tax purposes. That probably doesn’t mean much for the team — they would’ve been more than $20MM away from the CBT threshold in either case — but illustrates that there’s a significant gap between the QO and this contract.
Gallen did at least agree to terms within a couple days of camps opening. Assuming he takes his physical at some point during the weekend, he’ll report to the team by the beginning of full squad workouts and should have plenty of time to be ready for Opening Day. One can imagine he didn’t want to wait until close to the regular season, as former teammate Jordan Montgomery did in 2024. Montgomery was very critical of how Boras had managed negotiations and switched agencies within two weeks of signing with the D-Backs. The lefty pitched poorly in ’24, then underwent Tommy John surgery last spring. He signed a $1.25MM deal with Texas this week and wound up making $48.75MM over three seasons from 2024-26.
There’s certainly a world where things work out well for Gallen in the long run. He’ll return to the open market at age 31 without being weighed down by draft compensation. A player can only receive the qualifying offer once in his career. A four- or five-year deal could be on the table if he rebounds to the form he showed in 2022-24: a 3.20 ERA and 26% strikeout rate over 93 starts. Blake Snell, Cody Bellinger, Pete Alonso and Matt Chapman are all Boras clients who found disappointing markets in one offseason and went on to much more lucrative contracts after bounce back performances.
Time will tell if Gallen can follow the same path. His immediate focus will be on trying to get Arizona to a playoff berth in an annually difficult NL West. Gallen was the last unsigned qualified free agent and arguably the last potential impact player available. Lucas Giolito, Max Scherzer, Zack Littell and Griffin Canning headline a dwindling free agent class.
Steve Gilbert of MLB.com first reported the D-Backs were nearing a deal with Gallen. Nick Piecoro of The Arizona Republic reported it was a one-year contract. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported it was a $22.025MM guarantee with roughly $14MM in deferrals. John Gambadoro of Arizona Sports added details on the deferral payouts.
Image courtesy of Rick Scuteri, Imagn Images.
Much of the focus in Mariners camp will be on the infield. Seattle’s biggest offseason moves — re-signing Josh Naylor and trading for Brendan Donovan — addressed two spots. They lost a couple infielders, Jorge Polanco and Eugenio Suárez, to free agency. It’s the biggest area of turnover on what might be the American League’s best roster.
Naylor and J.P. Crawford are locked into first base and shortstop, respectively. Donovan will be an everyday player. He’s a solid defender at second base and can handle the corner outfield as well, though his below-average speed means he fits better on the infield. Ryan Divish of The Seattle Times writes that Donovan’s early work with infield coach Perry Hill has come at third base.
That’s the simplest solution in the short term. Suárez and Ben Williamson, who was traded to Tampa Bay in the three-team Donovan deal, took the majority of the playing time last season. Of the five players who started games at third base in 2025, only Miles Mastrobuoni remains in the organization. Donovan didn’t get any work at the hot corner last year but logged 269 2/3 innings there between 2022-24. Although defensive grades aren’t especially meaningful in that small a sample, he has above-average marks from Defensive Runs Saved and Outs Above Average.
Donovan’s primary role will largely be determined by the progress of younger players around him. Cole Young had a brutal finish to his rookie season, but he remains the favorite to start at second base. Young is a former first-round pick who hit .279/.388/.432 in the minors and is entering his age-22 season. He remains a very promising young player even though he’s not technically a prospect anymore.
20-year-old shortstop Colt Emerson is even more highly regarded. The 2023 first-round pick combined for a .285/.383/.458 batting line with 16 homers and 14 steals over 600 plate appearances across three minor league levels. Emerson walked at a near-12% clip while striking out less than 18% of the time. He spent the majority of the season in High-A but ripped through Double-A to earn a late-season cameo at Triple-A Tacoma. He played six games there in the final week of the regular season.
Emerson is a consensus top 10 overall prospect at Baseball America, The Athletic, ESPN and MLB Pipeline. The likeliest outcome is that he opens the season at Tacoma with an eye towards a midseason promotion. It’d be a surprise if Emerson breaks camp, but the Mariners aren’t completely closing the door on that as Spring Training opens. “It’s not out of the question that he earns a spot on the team,” president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto told reporters on Thursday (link via Daniel Kramer of MLB.com). Dipoto praised Emerson’s well-rounded skillset and maturity.
The probable Opening Day infield lines up as Naylor, Young, Crawford and Donovan from right to left. Emerson could get consistent reps against Triple-A pitching while building reps at third base, where he has 111 1/3 innings of professional experience. He’s the heir apparent at shortstop when Crawford hits free agency next winter but presumably wouldn’t push the veteran off the position this year. If Emerson has a monster Spring Training that forces the club’s hand, Donovan could kick back to second base and potentially move Young to Triple-A. That shouldn’t be an issue even if Donovan doesn’t play any second base during Spring Training given his ample work at the position.
Last year’s season-opening second baseman, Ryan Bliss, hasn’t gotten as much public attention. Bliss is older and not nearly as highly regarded as Young and Emerson, so that’s natural, but he’s a former second-round pick who hit .269/.377/.456 with 12 homers and 50 stolen bases in Triple-A in 2024. He unfortunately didn’t get much of an opportunity to solidify himself at the MLB level.
Bliss ruptured his left biceps on a swing two weeks into the regular season. He underwent surgery that came with a 4-5 month rehab timeline. Bliss returned to minor league game action in September and had an impressive week in Triple-A. He may well have reclaimed the second base job from Young to close the regular season had he not sustained a meniscus tear in his right knee that required season-ending surgery. Kramer writes that Bliss is back to full health this spring.
It’s a deep infield that’ll only become more crowded whenever Emerson earns the call. Bliss has a couple minor league options remaining. Leo Rivas also has an option but reached base at a .387 clip in 111 plate appearances last season and made the team’s playoff rosters. They flip-flopped Mastrobuoni and Luke Raley as the last hitter off the bench in October.
They’re both out of options, and it’s difficult to see Seattle carrying both players into the season if all their hitters get through camp healthy. They’ll need bench spots for backup catcher Andrew Knizner and righty platoon bat Rob Refsnyder. Keeping Mastrobuoni and Raley would require them to option both Bliss and Rivas before even considering an Emerson promotion. Dipoto acknowledged the likelihood that someone gets squeezed out at the end of Spring Training, conceding the front office may “have to make some uncomfortable short-term decisions.”
The Twins brought back reliever Cody Laweryson after he was released by the Angels last week. Matthew Leach of MLB.com first noted that the right-hander had a locker in Minnesota’s Spring Training complex. Bobby Nightengale of The Minnesota Star-Tribune confirms the sides have a minor league deal with an invite to big league camp.
Laweryson returns to the only organization he’d known until November. Minnesota selected him in the 14th round in 2019 out of the University of Maine. They called him up for the first time last September. The 6’4″ righty made five appearances, allowing two runs (one earned) across 7 2/3 innings. He struck out seven without issuing a walk. Laweryson also pitched well in Triple-A, turning in a 2.86 earned run average while striking out a quarter of opposing hitters.
The 27-year-old (28 in May) has a strong statistical track record. Laweryson owns a 3.39 ERA with a 27% strikeout percentage over 327 minor league innings. Teams evidently remain skeptical about how it’ll translate over a larger sample against big league hitters. Laweryson’s 93.2 mph average fastball isn’t especially imposing. He doesn’t have a power breaking ball either, sitting 85-86 mph with a cutter while mixing in a low-80s changeup.
Minnesota dropped him from the 40-man roster at the beginning of the offseason despite having one of the league’s weakest bullpens. The Halos claimed him but cut him loose to make room on the roster when they re-signed Yoán Moncada. The Twins also have former big leaguers Liam Hendriks, Julian Merryweather, Dan Altavilla, Matt Bowman and Grant Hartwig battling for spots in a wide open middle relief group.
The White Sox have a minor league agreement with right-hander Austin Voth, reports James Fegan of Sox Machine. The Wasserman client will be in camp as a non-roster invitee.
Voth is back in affiliated ball after one season with the Chiba Lotte Marines in Japan. The 33-year-old tossed 125 innings of 3.96 ERA ball with a modest 17.4% strikeout rate. He attacked the strike zone but didn’t miss many bats or get a lot of ground-balls. That was Voth’s first season in Asia after a decade in the affiliated ranks. He has pitched parts of seven seasons in the big leagues, spending the majority of his career in the DMV area between the Nationals and Orioles.
A former fifth-round pick by Washington, Voth worked out of the rotation for his first couple seasons. He moved to the bullpen in 2021 but made a return to the rotation in Baltimore the following season. Voth was a full-time reliever between 2023-24. He spent the first of those seasons in Baltimore and the latter with his hometown Mariners. Voth managed 61 innings of 3.69 ERA ball for the M’s but had a rough September and was non-tendered at year’s end.
The White Sox have taken a handful of fliers on former big leaguers coming back from Asia under general manager Chris Getz. They hit on the Erick Fedde signing a couple years ago and added former Mets first-rounder Anthony Kay for two years and $12MM this winter. Unlike those pitchers, Voth isn’t guaranteed a major league roster spot. He’ll presumably battle for a long relief role but has the ability to build up as a starter if necessary.
The Royals have an agreement in place with lefty John Means, the team announced. It’s a two-year minor league contract. Means tore his Achilles tendon in December and is likely to miss the 2026 season. The Wasserman client last pitched in the big leagues with the Orioles in 2024.
Injuries have derailed what began as a promising career for Means. He earned an All-Star selection as a rookie back in 2019. Means was a mainstay in Baltimore’s rotation through 2021. Health issues have capped the lefty at 10 big-league appearances over the past four years. Tommy John surgery cost him most of 2022 and 2023. Means made it through four starts in 2024 before needing another elbow procedure.
Kansas City adds Means with the hope he’ll contribute down the line. Cleveland attempted to do the same thing, but it didn’t pan out. The Guardians grabbed Means on a one-year, $1MM pact last offseason. The lefty was pushing to return to the majors by the end of the year following his second Tommy John procedure. He managed seven minor league starts with the club, failing to make the MLB roster. Cleveland declined its $6MM option on Means in November.
Means entered the league with a low-90s fastball supplemented by a strong changeup and a decent slider. He didn’t miss many bats as a rookie, but kept the ball in the yard and limited hard contact. Means ranked in the 89th percentile for hard-hit rate in his first full season.
The shortened 2020 campaign saw Means’ fastball jump by 2 mph. The improved velocity didn’t produce better results, but the lefty’s mid-4.00s ERA in a small sample could be explained away by a 21.8% home run to fly ball ratio.
The heater lost a tick in 2021, but Means still delivered a 3.62 ERA across 26 starts. He was off to an excellent start through May, but a shoulder strain cost him six weeks. Means closed the year with an ERA up near 5.00 once he returned. He allowed 17 home runs over his final 14 appearances.
The real shame of Means’ persistent injuries to close his time with Baltimore is that he never got to fully experience the adjusted stadium dimensions. The Orioles moved the fences back and introduced “Walltimore” in left field ahead of the 2022 season. The new-look Camden Yards would’ve fit Means’ approach perfectly, as a fly ball pitcher who generally limited hard contact. He was available for just five home starts after the changes were put in place.
Photos courtesy of Jeff Curry, Imagn Images
Feb 13: Baltimore has officially announced the Bassitt signing. No corresponding move was needed, as the club had room on the 40-man for the veteran righty. The Orioles’ 40-man roster is now full.
Feb. 12: The Orioles are reportedly in agreement with starter Chris Bassitt on a one-year, $18.5MM contract, pending a physical. Bassitt, a client of Meister Sports Management, receives a $3MM signing bonus and would unlock another $500K if he reaches 27 starts. Baltimore has an opening on the 40-man roster after losing infielder Bryan Ramos on waivers to St. Louis.
President of baseball operations Mike Elias has made a habit of signing veteran starters to one-year deals over the past few years. They found some success with Kyle Gibson in 2023. Last winter’s reunion with Gibson and additions of Charlie Morton and Tomoyuki Sugano did not go as planned. Bassitt is in a similar stage of his career as he nears his 37th birthday, but he should have a higher floor than those previous additions.
Bassitt didn’t reach 100 MLB innings in a season until his age-30 campaign in 2019. He has been a consistent mid-rotation presence over the last seven years. Only once did his earned run average climb north of 4.00. His 2.29 mark during the shortened season was a small sample outlier, but he has otherwise been a safe bet to allow between three and four earned runs per nine while logging a heavy workload. Bassitt has surpassed 150 innings in each of the last five seasons, one of just six pitchers to do that. He’s eighth in total innings over that stretch.
The veteran righty has paired the bulk with mid-rotation quality. He’s coming off a 3.96 ERA with slightly better than average underlying marks. Bassitt fanned 22.6% of batters faced against a 7.1% walk rate across 170 1/3 innings a year ago. His per-pitch whiff rate is a little below average, but he has managed to strike out between 22-23% of opponents in each of the past four seasons.
Bassitt’s velocity has ticked down slightly as he has gotten into his mid-30s. His sinker averaged 91.6 mph last season, narrowly a career low. That’s still not far off the 92-93 mph range in which he had worked throughout his career. The sinker is Bassitt’s primary offering, but Statcast identified eight distinct pitches that he used at least occasionally during his final season in Toronto. He mostly works with a sinker, cutter and curveball and generally does well to limit hard contact.
The biggest concern may be Bassitt’s issues against left-handed hitters. While he held them in check earlier in his career, Bassitt has seen his platoon splits widen over the past few seasons. Since the start of 2023, lefties have gotten to him at a .284/.360/.483 clip in more than 1200 plate appearances. He has held same-handed opponents to a punchless .224/.286/.323 line in a similar number of at-bats over that stretch.
Bassitt is coming off a three-year, $63MM contract with the division rival Blue Jays. He provided Toronto with 541 1/3 innings of 3.89 ERA ball during the regular season. Bassitt only once missed a start, as a minor bout of back inflammation sent him to the injured list last September. He missed the Division Series win over the Yankees but returned for the AL Championship Series. Bassitt pitched out of relief and emerged as one of John Schneider’s most trusted leverage arms in October. He fired 8 2/3 innings of one-run ball with 10 strikeouts during Toronto’s pennant run.
One year after helping the Jays go worst to first in the AL East, Bassitt will hope to accomplish the same feat with Baltimore. The Orioles have had a big offseason after stumbling to a 75-87 showing. They signed Pete Alonso (a former teammate of Bassitt’s in New York) to a monster five-year, $155MM deal. The O’s swapped oft-injured starter Grayson Rodriguez for another righty power bat, Taylor Ward, while dealing four prospects and a draft choice to the Rays for Shane Baz. They signed Ryan Helsley to a two-year deal to replace injured closer Félix Bautista and reunited with Zach Eflin on a $10MM contract.
The Orioles again shied away from the top of the free agent starting pitching market, preferring to make a splash in the middle of the lineup. They’ll hope to unlock another gear from Baz, a former top prospect who has shown flashes but been inconsistent over his first couple seasons. Trevor Rogers will look to build off last year’s fantastic final few months, while Kyle Bradish has a chance to be an upper mid-rotation starter now that he’s recovered from Tommy John surgery.
Bassitt slots behind Rogers, Bradish and Baz as locks to open the year in Craig Albernaz’s rotation. Eflin will be assured of the fifth starter role as long as he’s fully recovered from last August’s back surgery. He’s expected to be a full participant in Spring Training, so that should be the case. That could push Dean Kremer and/or Tyler Wells back to Triple-A Norfolk to open the season. Both pitchers still have an option remaining, though they’re each approaching the five-year service cutoff at which they’d earn the right to refuse any minor league assignments. Wells needs another 40 days on an MLB roster to get there, while Kremer is 60 days away.
The O’s could use Wells in long relief and start the year with Kremer rounding out a six-man rotation if they want both pitchers in the majors. A rotation surplus usually works itself out before long. The Braves, Blue Jays and Tigers have all announced significant injury losses within the first two days of camp. Even if all of Baltimore’s starters are currently healthy, they’d be fortunate if that’s the case by Opening Day.
Bassitt may not be the top-of-the-rotation type that O’s fans had coveted, but he’s a sensible pickup for a team that’ll keep an eye on Bradish’s and Eflin’s innings after lost seasons. MLBTR had predicted a two-year, $38MM contract at the beginning of the offseason. Baltimore was able to avoid committing that second season in an offseason when Merrill Kelly commanded $20MM annually over two years from the Diamondbacks at the same age.
The O’s payroll projection climbs to $166MM, as calculated by RosterResource. Despite the handful of significant offseason pickups, they’re only about $6MM above where they opened last season. This will probably wrap their significant offseason dealings, but they shouldn’t have an issue taking on some money midseason if they’re positioned to buy. Bassitt’s removal from the market leaves Zac Gallen, Lucas Giolito and Max Scherzer as the best free agents available for teams still looking to add.
Jeff Passan of ESPN first reported the agreement and terms. Image courtesy of John E. Sokolowski, Imagn Images.
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