The Braves announced that they have hired Jeremy Hefner as pitching coach and Antoan Richardson as first base coach. Henfer replaces Rick Kranitz while Richardson replaces Tom Goodwin. Mark Bowman of MLB.com reports that third base coach Fredi Gonzalez won’t be returning to Atlanta next year either.
More to come.
Infielder Jorge Polanco is now a free agent, reports Jon Heyman of The New York Post. Heyman says Polanco is turning down an $8MM mutual option but Polanco actually converted that to a $6MM player option during the season. Regardless of the details, the larger point is that Polanco is heading back to the open market, collecting a $750K buyout on his way out the door.
The decision is not a surprise. Polanco is coming off a tremendous bounceback season. He stepped to the plate 524 times and hit 26 home runs. His .265/.326/.495 batting line translated to a 132 wRC+, his best offensive performance over a full season in his career.
It wasn’t a perfect season. Ongoing knee problems kept him mostly in the designated hitter spot, though he appeared to get healthier as the year wore on. He made just 34 starts at second base but most of those were after the All-Star break, including 15 in September.
He undoubtedly has more earning power now than he did a year ago, despite being a year older. The aforementioned knee problems limited him to just 118 games with a rough .213/.296/.355 slash line and 93 wRC+. He underwent knee surgery in October. Despite that poor showing and uncertain health status, the Mariners still re-signed him to a one-year deal with a $7.75MM guarantee. That came in the form of a $7MM salary plus a $750K buyout on an $8MM mutual option. Polanco could convert that to a $6MM player option with 450 plate appearances, which he easily topped.
His better platform season and improved health outlook should line him up for a better deal, likely with multiple years, so turning down one year and $6MM is an easy call. The Mariners have interest in bringing him back but he will have other suitors as well and Seattle may be prioritizing a Josh Naylor reunion.
Photo courtesy of Jordan Godfree, Imagn Images
The Cubs are going to need to overhaul their bullpen this winter after trading Andrew Kittredge to the Orioles yesterday while Brad Keller, Drew Pomeranz, and Caleb Thielbar are all ticketed for free agency. Despite those four departures draining their entire high-leverage relief mix outside of Daniel Palenica, however, Sahadev Sharma of The Athletic reports that Chicago’s front office is not expected to be involved in the market’s of this winter’s top free agent relief arms.
That’s not especially surprising, as the Cubs have generally eschewed high-dollar multi-year deals for relievers over the years. There have been some rare exceptions to that rule, such as the three-year deal the Cubs signed Craig Kimbrel to in 2019 while Theo Epstein was in charge and the team’s pursuit of southpaw Tanner Scott in free agency under Jed Hoyer last offseason, but the Cubs have long preferred to build their bullpen on a budget. That includes last year’s group. Keller was a non-roster invitee to Spring Training, Pomeranz was acquired from the Mariners in a minor trade back in April, and Thielbar’s big league deal guaranteed him just $2.75MM total. Those three pitchers posted ERAs of 2.07, 2.17, and 2.64 respectively while combining for 177 1/3 innings across 192 appearances.
Sharma suggests that trying to find value on the margins of the market with minor league deals and reclamation projects figures to be the club’s goal once again this winter, though he does leave the door open for the possibility that the Cubs could jump into the market on a bigger name relief arm if their expected market doesn’t materialize and they linger into January and February. Otherwise, it seems as though the Cubs won’t be adding a top tier closer this winter. Sharma specifically names Edwin Diaz, Robert Suarez, and Devin Williams as players who aren’t likely to be in the cards for Chicago at this point.
That doesn’t mean they won’t add any veterans who can offer some more certainty towards the back of the bullpen, of course. Sharma notes that the club brought in Ryan Pressly via trade this past offseason in an effort to provide that sort of certainty. Pressly was on the last year of is deal, and it seems likely that if the Cubs do add a bullpen veteran on a notable deal, it would be a similar one-to-two year arrangement. That could come via either free agency or trade; perhaps the Rays would make Pete Fairbanks available on the trade market ahead of his final year under club control, or the team could try and pursue a one-year deal with a veteran closer like Kenley Jansen.
Its possible the club could be banking on some internal improvements to their relief corps, as well. Any number of young arms might be able to take a step forward similar to the one Palencia made this past season, and with the Cubs seemingly like to pursue starting pitching additions this winter, that could make converting a young rotation arm like Ben Brown into relief full-time a viable option. Brown is held back as a starter by a lack of a quality third pitch, but he did strike out 28.6% of his opponents with a 2.97 FIP after moving into a bullpen role to open the month of August. Porter Hodge and Luke Little are among the other arms in the club’s relief corps who have shown flashes of dominance at the big league level but have yet to put it all together consistently.
The latest episode of the MLB Trade Rumors Podcast is now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts! Make sure you subscribe as well! You can also use the player at this link to listen, if you don’t use Spotify or Apple for podcasts.
This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Steve Adams and Anthony Franco of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss…
Check out our past episodes!
The podcast intro and outro song “So Long” is provided courtesy of the band Showoff. Check out their Facebook page here!
Photo courtesy of Jeff Curry, Imagn Images
On Sunday November 2nd, Rawlings announced the winners of their Gold Glove Award.
Recognized as the best defensive players at their respective positions, this year’s class of honorees includes 12 previous winners of the Rawlings Gold Glove Award and 8 first-time winners. Max Fried, Steven Kwan and Ian Happ have each earned their fourth Gold Glove, the most amongst this year’s winners. Several teams had multiple winners: the Kansas City Royals and Boston Red Sox in the American League; and the San Francisco Giants and Chicago Cubs in the National League.
How the Award is Selected:
To determine the winners of the 18 defensive position awards, each team’s manager and up to six coaches on his staff voted from a pool of qualified players in their league and could not vote for players from their own team. Additionally, Rawlings includes the SABR Defensive Index™ (SDI) as part of the Rawlings Gold Glove Award selection process, which influences approximately 25 percent of the overall selection total, with the managers’ and coaches’ votes continuing to carry the majority.
To identify the utility award winners, Rawlings collaborated with SABR to create a specialized defensive formula separate from the traditional selection process for the Rawlings Gold Glove Award position winners. Utilizing the SABR formula and additional defensive statistics, Rawlings selected one utility winner from each league.
Below is the complete listing of the 2025 Rawlings Gold Glove Award winners from each league and the number of Rawlings Gold Glove Awards each player has won in his career:
AMERICAN LEAGUE:
NATIONAL LEAGUE:
About the Rawlings Gold Glove Award®:
The Rawlings Gold Glove Award® is a registered trademark owned by Rawlings Sporting Goods Company, Inc. The award is correctly identified as the Rawlings Gold Glove Award. The name should not be shortened, abbreviated, or otherwise misused. Proper identification of this service mark using the registration symbol and the Rawlings name is important to protect the integrity of the program and perpetuate this worthy tradition. For more information including how players qualify for the Award, please visit www.Rawlings.com.
About Rawlings®
Established in 1887, Rawlings is an innovative leading global brand and manufacturer of premium baseball and softball equipment, including gloves, balls, and protective headwear. Rawlings’ unparalleled quality, innovative engineering and expert craftsmanship are the fundamental reasons why more professional athletes, national governing bodies and sports leagues choose Rawlings.
Rawlings is the official glove, baseball, helmet and faceguard, and base of Major League Baseball, the official baseball of Minor League Baseball and the official baseball and softball of the NCAA and NAIA, and the official softball of the NJCAA. For more information, please visit www.Rawlings.com.
This is a sponsored post from Rawlings.
The Braves are exercising their club option on left-hander Chris Sale, according to a report from Jon Heyman of The New York Post. Sale will make $18MM in 2026.
The call to pick up Sale’s option for the 2026 campaign is surely one of the easiest option decisions any team will make this offseason. Sale, 36, is one of the best pitchers of his generation and won the NL Cy Young award in 2024. He was on track to compete for the away again this year, with a 2.52 ERA and 2.71 FIP through 15 starts, but he found himself sidelined for ten weeks over the summer due to a ribcage fracture. He looked just as dominant as ever when he returned, however, with a 2.72 ERA and 2.58 FIP across six starts in August and September. His stuff looked just as good as ever down the stretch, and he struck out an eye-popping 36.4% of his opponents in his 36 1/3 innings of work.
That Sale is pitching well is hardly a surprise, as he’s put together a Hall of Fame-caliber resume over the years. A nine-time All-Star who placed in the top five for AL Cy Young award voting six times before winning the NL award last year, Sale’s career 3.01 ERA, 2.88 FIP, and 30.8% strikeout rate know few equals throughout the game. He’s seventh all-time in strikeout rate among starting pitchers, and his run prevention and peripheral numbers match up well with titans of the sport like Clayton Kershaw and Pedro Martinez despite some of his counting numbers being held back by a relative lack of volume.
Fortunately, that relative lack of volume also means a relative lack of mileage on his arm, as compared to other players in his age range. Even with his 37th birthday on the horizon in March, Sale figures to serve as the club’s ace once again in 2026. He’ll be at the front of an Atlanta rotation with a lot of exciting upside but precious little certainty. Spencer Strider has shown the capacity to be a Cy Young caliber arm in the past, but had a disappointing 4.45 ERA in 2025. Spencer Schwellenbach has a career 3.23 ERA but was sidelined after just 17 starts this past season. Reynaldo Lopez had a 1.99 ERA in 2024 but didn’t appear in a game after March 28th this year.
Adding at least one proven, reliable rotation arm to this group figures to be a priority for the Braves this offseason, though it’s possible they could look to do more than that given the group’s collective injury history and questions about Lopez’s ability to handle the workload of a starter long-term. Even with additions likely on the horizon, though, there’s little doubt that Sale will be making his seventh career Opening Day start (and second for the Braves) in 2026 as long as he completes Spring Training with a clean bill of health.
The Yankees are exercising their club option on Tim Hill, according to a report from ESPN’s Jorge Castillo. Hill will return to New York on a $3MM salary in 2026. Castillo also reports that the Yankees are not picking up their club option on right-hander Jonathan Loaisiga. Loaisiga will head into free agency rather than collecting what would have been a $5MM salary next year.
Neither of these decisions are especially surprising. Hill, 36 in February, has turned in excellent production for the Yankees over the past two seasons with a 2.68 ERA in 111 innings since being acquired from the White Sox midway through the 2024 season. His peripheral numbers took a big step back in 2025 thanks to eight home runs surrendered that coincided with the highest barrel rate of his career (7.9%). That jump wasn’t helped by the fact that Hill has never been a strikeout artist, and his 13.9% punch out rate this year was actually his best since 2021.
Even so, Hill continues to generate ground balls at some of the highest rates in the league. That makes keeping him in the bullpen at a $3MM price tag something of a no-brainer, and he’ll enter the year as the club’s top left-handed relief option barring an external addition that supplants him on the depth chart. That could leave him in the mix for some high leverage opportunities next year, while David Bednar and Camilo Doval shut things down from the right side.
As for Loaisiga, the right-hander’s eighth year with the Yankees looks likely to be his final one. At one point in his career, the hard-throwing righty looked like a future closer as he posted a 2.50 ERA with a 3.03 FIP between the 2020 and ’21 seasons. Things have unraveled for Loaisiga since, however. He was only pedestrian in 2022 and then missed nearly two full seasons due to injuries. He did manage to make 30 appearances for the Yankees this year, but his 97 ERA+ was just below average and a 5.83 FIP suggested even that figure was aided by some good fortune. His season was cut short by a flexor strain, and he appears likely to enter the market this winter on the hunt for a minor league deal.
With Bendar, Doval, Fernando Cruz, Jake Bird, Ian Hamilton, and Mark Leiter Jr. all in the mix for next year, the Yankees look to be reasonably well set up in the bullpen on the right side. An addition beyond that group can’t necessarily be ruled out, however, as the departures of both Devin Williams and Luke Weaver in conjunction with shaky performances down the stretch from both Bednar and Doval could create a desire to bring in a more surefire closing option.
On the heels of an early morning posting announcement from Nippon Professional Baseball, here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world throughout the day today:
1. Blue Jays get to keep Bieber:
Right-hander Shane Bieber made the surprising call to exercise his $16MM player option with the Blue Jays rather than take a $4MM buyout and head into free agency yesterday. It’s a move that leaves the Toronto rotation in much better shape than previously anticipated headed into free agency, as Bieber will now join Kevin Gausman, Trey Yesavage, and Jose Berrios in the club’s 2026 rotation. With Bieber under contract for 2026 at a bargain rate, could the Jays be more aggressive in their pursuit of a reunion with star infielder Bo Bichette or pursue another top arm to join Bieber, Yesavage, and Gausman in the team’s projected playoff rotation for next year? Yesterday’s news creates an opportunity for the Blue Jays to potentially get creative in free agency as they’ve preemptively filled out a need in their rotation without using up much of their budget.
2. Imanaga heads to free agency:
The Cubs and left-hander Shota Imanaga both declined their sides of a complex option structure that could’ve kept Imanaga in Chicago through either 2026 or 2028. Now, the southpaw is a free agent coming off an uneven season where he posted mid-rotation results with lackluster peripherals and struggled badly in the final months of the year. While the rest of the league will get the opportunity to evaluate a starting pitching option who was not expected to be available as recently as a few months ago, this may not necessarily be the end of the story between the Cubs and Imanaga. Chicago’s front office will now need to decide whether to extend the 2024 All-Star a Qualifying Offer or let him walk away into free agency unencumbered without a chance at draft pick compensation.
3. Option Decisions continue to pour in:
A number of option decisions, including the two highlighted above, have already been made. But more contracts will still need to be decided on before tomorrow’s deadline. Most of those decisions will be straightforward, with a player or club either exercising or declining their option. Some, however, could lead to some creativity. The Royals signed Salvador Perez to an extension yesterday rather than exercising his club option, while the Cubs traded Andrew Kittredge to the Orioles instead of declining his club option and paying the subsequent buyout on that option. Could any other creative moves in a similar vein emerge today?
Nippon Professional Baseball’s Seibu Lions announced overnight that they will post Kona Takahashi for MLB clubs this offseason. The news isn’t necessarily shocking, as it was reported back in August that the Lions were likely to post Takahashi this winter.
Takahashi, 29 in February, pitched to a solid 3.04 ERA in 24 starts for the Lions this past season. He struck out only 14.3% of his opponents in 148 innings of work, however, and his 2024 season was limited to just 15 starts at the highest level of NPB play when he posted a 3.87 ERA in 81 1/3 innings of work last year and saw his velocity dip below his previous career norms. Takahashi’s numbers in his platform season aren’t too dissimilar from those of southpaw Shinnosuke Ogasawara last season, who posted a 3.12 ERA in 24 starts with a 13.6% strikeout rate in his final NPB season before he landed a two-year, $3.5MM guarantee with the Nationals this past offseason.
Ogasawara spent much of his season at the Triple-A level and struggled when he did pitch in the majors, with a 6.98 ERA in 38 2/3 innings of work. While Ogasawara hasn’t worked out in the majors at this point, that doesn’t necessarily mean Takahashi will follow in his footsteps. After all, Takahashi did enjoy back-to-back dominant seasons with the Lions in 2022 and ’23. Those years, he posted a combined ERA of 2.20 while striking batters out at a higher clip, though even those elevated numbers capped out at 19.2% in 2023.
It’s not unheard of for NPB players to see their strikeout rate tick upward when they reach the majors, which is less contact-oriented than NPB. Yoshinobu Yamamoto, for example, struck out 26.6% of his opponents in his final NPB season and has a career 29.1% strikeout rate in the majors to this point. With that being said, there were just 11 qualified starters in the majors this year who punched out less than 20% of their opponents. Among them, only Michael Wacha and Zack Littell mustered an ERA below 4.00.
That reality casts Takahashi as more of a back-end starter or swing man at the big league level, and while it’s possible there’s an organization that thinks they can help him take a step forward it seems likely he’ll be relegated to a relatively small multi-year deal or perhaps even a non-guaranteed deal. Even with that likely deflated price tag, the process by which he’ll come to the majors is the same as it is for any other NPB pitcher who hasn’t yet reached free agency. Once he’s been officially posted for MLB clubs, which likely won’t happen until later this month or early December, he’ll have 45 days to reach a deal in the majors.
If a deal isn’t reached, he’ll remain in Japan and won’t be eligible to be posted again until next offseason. If Takahashi does work out a deal, the acquiring club will have to pay a posting fee to the Lions depending on the size of Takahashi’s contract. For contracts worth $25MM or less, that translates to a fee worth 20% of the total guarantee. A minor league contract, meanwhile, would see the Lions recoup 25% of the value of Takahashi’s signing bonus and an additional fee if Takahashi were to be added to his new club’s MLB roster.
MLBTR's annual Top 50 Free Agents list comes out Thursday evening! We'll also be launching our free agent prediction contest at that time.
This week's subscriber mailbag covers possible Freddy Peralta and Sonny Gray trades, how the 2026-27 lockout might affect free agency this winter, where Bo Bichette will sign if not Toronto, the chances the Dodgers land Kyle Tucker, and how the Cubs will approach the loss of Tucker as well as a rotation upgrade.
Morris asks:
What would a realistic trade with Milwaukee for Freddy Peralta look like for the Braves? While I would love to see Cease in a Braves' uni, I think he may get a much better deal elsewhere with Atlanta's seeming insistence on being "logical" with every free agent (cue Friedman's famous quote). Milwaukee has a penchant for really getting something extra out of pitchers, and Peralta is a finished product who will be too expensive for them to keep much longer. Would something like Bryce Elder (Milwaukee could absolutely figure out how to make him better), a top-15 pitching prospect, and a top-30 position-player-prospect get the deal done?
At one point in our free agent deliberations, we had Dylan Cease signing a three-year, $93MM deal with two opt-outs. We were having a bit of a hard time giving Cease the long-term contract he's likely seeking, mostly because of his 4.55 ERA. For the most part, we've gotten past those reservations and expect Cease to sign for perhaps seven years, as Aaron Nola did coming off a 4.46 regular season mark.
It should be noted that the Braves were competitive in the bidding for Nola, so we can't completely rule out Alex Anthopoulos going long for the Georgia-native Cease. But it's also true that in eight years atop the Braves' front office, Anthopoulos' biggest free agent deal in both years and dollars was Marcell Ozuna's four-year, $65MM pact in February 2021. I agree that Cease feels unlikely in Atlanta.
On September 30th, Gabriel Burns of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote, "The Braves could use another reliable veteran — someone in the mold of Charlie Morton as a pitcher who can provide steadiness, leadership and consistent innings." The thinking is that with Chris Sale, Spencer Schwellenbach, and Spencer Strider locked in, the Braves need reliability more than they need a front of the rotation guy. In my Top 50 picks, I've got the Braves signing Chris Bassitt. I also find the idea of a paid-down Sonny Gray acquisition to be plausible.
But there's nothing that precludes Anthopoulos from thinking bigger and renting Peralta for a year, regardless of whether they can eventually extend him.
MLB Trade Rumors is not affiliated with Major League Baseball, MLB or MLB.com
Do not Sell or Share My Personal Information
scroll to top
