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Rangers Sign Adrian Houser To Minors Contract

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The Rangers have signed right-hander Adrian Houser to a minor league deal, according to Just Baseball Media’s Aram Leighton (via X).  The contract contains an invitation to the Rangers’ big league spring camp.

It was just under a year ago that the Mets acquired Houser and Tyrone Taylor from the Brewers, as New York president of baseball operations David Stearns looked to bolster the Mets’ roster with two familiar faces from his old position in Milwaukee.  Taylor delivered respectable production as part of New York’s outfield mix, but Houser had a much rougher time in the Big Apple, posting a 5.84 ERA over 69 1/3 innings.

Injuries to other pitchers opened the door for Houser to begin the season in the Mets’ rotation, and he temporarily moved back to starting pitching when the Mets briefly adopted a six-man rotation.  The splits were pretty stark — Houser had an 8.55 ERA in 33 2/3 innings as a starter and a 3.28 ERA in 35 2/3 innings as a reliever, with those bullpen assignments usually coming in multi-inning form.

While it seemed like Houser had found his groove as a long reliever, the Mets opted to designate him for assignment and then release him in late July.  The Cubs and Orioles each signed Houser to minor league contracts during the season but those deals failed to translate into any more big league playing time for the righty.

Houser has started 104 of his 152 career Major League games, delivering solid-to-passable results as a swingman for the Brewers for much of his career.  A grounder specialist whose career strikeout rate is only 18.5%, Houser’s results in 2024 could somewhat close the door on his usage as a starter, even if the Rangers could see value in having a swingman around as rotation depth.  Beyond just last year’s splits, Houser has a 2.32 ERA in 97 career innings as a reliever, as compared to a much less impressive 4.57 ERA in 511 2/3 frames as a starter.

Relief pitching is also a much more significant need for a Rangers team could lose most of its 2024 bullpen (Kirby Yates, David Robertson, Jose Leclerc, Jose Urena, and Andrew Chafin) to free agency, plus Josh Sborz will be out until at least the start of June due to offseason shoulder surgery.  A multi-inning reliever like Houser could eat some up valuable innings out of the bullpen, while also providing a rotation safety net.  The current Texas pitching staff of Jacob deGrom, Jon Gray, Tyler Mahle, Kumar Rocker, and Jack Leiter is full of health question marks or inexperienced arms, so in addition to depth signings like Houser, the Rangers are also hoping to re-sign at least one of Nathan Eovaldi or Andrew Heaney.

Blue Jays Among Teams Interested In Yoan Moncada

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Yoan Moncada’s eight-season run with the White Sox ended when Chicago bought out its club option on the infielder’s contract in October, sending Moncada into free agency.  Though Moncada’s last three seasons have been defined by injuries, reporter Francys Romero (via X) writes that “Moncada is generating a lot of interest in the market,” and that the Blue Jays are ones of the clubs interested in the 29-year-old’s services.

Only three teams in baseball got more from the hot corner than the cumulative 4.0 bWAR posted by Toronto third basemen in 2024, with a lot of that production on both sides of the ball coming from Isiah Kiner-Falefa before the Jays dealt him at the trade deadline.  Ernie Clement also got a lot of playing time at third base and was very solid with the glove, though he hit only .263/.284/.408 over 452 plate appearances.  Heading into 2025, the Blue Jays have Clement and more inexperienced options like Addison Barger, Orelvis Martinez, Leo Jimenez, all capable of playing third base, even if Clement is the best defensive player of the group.

It therefore isn’t surprising that the Blue Jays have been linked to such big-name infielders as Alex Bregman, Willy Adames, and Ha-Seong Kim as Toronto tries to figure out how to address either third or second base.  Moncada is a much lower-profile type of free agent than that trio, though since the Jays have been broadly in on many players this winter, it isn’t surprising that the club is exploring all levels of the market.  The Juan Soto pursuit has naturally dominated the Jays’ focus to date this winter, and a player like Moncada could be on the radar whether or not Soto is suddenly taking up an outsized chunk of Toronto’s payroll.

In a sense, signing Moncada as a veteran counterpoint to the younger in-house options has some similarity to the Jays’ signing of Kiner-Falefa last winter.  Whereas at least IKF brought defensive versatility to the table, Moncada is much more of a question mark, and not necessarily a clear upgrade over what Toronto already has on the third base depth chart.

Once regarded as one of baseball’s top prospects, Moncada’s blue-chip status made him the centerpiece of the four-player trade package the White Sox received from the Red Sox for Chris Sale back in December 2016.  A seeming breakout year in 2019 inspired the White Sox to ink Moncada to a five-year, $70MM extension prior to the 2020 season, and a solid 2021 campaign on Chicago’s AL Central-winning team looked to cement Moncada’s place as a building block on the South Side.

However, that’s when the injury bug again impacted Moncada’s career.  The infielder has played in only 208 of a possible 486 games since Opening Day 2022, as Moncada has been sidelined by back problems, an oblique strain, injuries to both hamstrings, and an adductor strain that cost him the majority of the 2024 season.  Moncada missed over five months of action last year and played in only 12 games.  Just one of those appearances came after his activation from the 60-day injured list on September 16, as the White Sox opted to give playing time to younger players instead of a player they were already planning to cut ties with after the season.

It isn’t surprising that Moncada’s production nosedived in the wake of all these injuries, as he has hit only .236/.291/.387 in 835 PA over the last three seasons.  He played for Cuba during the Premier12 tournament in November to get some extra playing time in the wake of his lost 2024 season, though he hit just .143 over 14 at-bats.

Despite of the lack of recent results, it makes sense why the Blue Jays and other clubs could view Moncada as an interesting rebound candidate.  Simply staying healthy might help Moncada get on track, and could a change of scenery from a troubled White Sox organization that hit rock bottom with a 121-loss season in 2024.  As a relatively low-cost flier, Moncada has appeal to any team looking for part-time help at third base, or potentially at second given that Moncada played that position earlier in his career.

Roki Sasaki Expected To Be Posted During Winter Meetings

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Roki Sasaki’s official arrival into the free agent market will likely take place during baseball’s Winter Meetings, as ESPN’s Jeff Passan reports that the star right-hander is expected to be posted by the Chiba Lotte Marines on Tuesday.  Once posted, Major League teams have 45 days to negotiate with Sasaki, and he’ll return to the Marines for the 2025 Nippon Professional Baseball season if no deal is reached.

It is seen as a virtual lock that Sasaki will be coming to MLB, given how the 23-year-old is so eager to pitch in the big leagues that he is leaving a fortune on the table by coming to North America so early in his career.  Since Sasaki is an international free agent who is less than 25 years old, he can only be signed using funds from a team’s international bonus pool.

The timing of the posting is noteworthy, as Sasaki’s 45-day negotiating window will stretch beyond January 15 and the opening of the 2025 international signing period.  Since the 2024 period ends on December 15 and teams have already basically spent everything in their budgets, it was widely expected that Sasaki will wait until after January 15 to sign so he could land at least a little more money.  Unofficially, teams have had deals in place with international prospects for years in advance of the 2025 int’l window, yet if necessary, it is expected that some teams will walk away from these under-the-table deals if it means giving their entire 2025 bonus pool over to Sasaki.

However, as Sasaki’s early foray to the big leagues indicates, money is far from his chief motivator.  Pitching in Major League Baseball will help Sasaki on the endorsement front, of course, but the circumstances of his arrival creates one of the more interesting free agent cases in recent years — arguably the most interesting since Shohei Ohtani’s arrival in the 2017-18 offseason, as Ohtani also came to the majors in advance of his age-23 season.

Though the financial playing field is fairly level for all 30 teams to make a play for Sasaki’s services, the big-spending Dodgers have long been seen a favorite to sign the right-hander, to the point that agent Joel Wolfe vehemently denied rumors that Sasaki and the Dodgers had already worked out some kind of unofficial agreement.  There’s obvious appeal for Sasaki in joining a championship team that already has such Japanese stars as Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto on the roster, though it isn’t known what exactly Sasaki is looking for in a Major League destination (geographic preferences, teams with a pre-existing link to Japanese baseball, smaller or larger markets, etc.).  As such, it is easy to imagine Sasaki ending up with the Padres, Mets, Giants, Cubs, or any of the several other teams already known to have some interest in his services.

The Marines’ own financial return from Sasaki’s posting will be limited, as per the terms of the MLB/NPB posting system.  In addition to paying Sasaki, a Major League team will have to pay the Marines an extra fee based on the amount of Sasaki’s contract — 20% of a deal’s first $25MM, 17.5% of the next $25MM, and 15% of further spending.  Since Sasaki’s deal is naturally limited by the size of bonus pools, the Marines stand to gain less than $2MM for one of Japan’s top pitchers.

Over 394 2/3 career innings with the Marines, Sasaki has a 2.10 ERA, 32.73% strikeout rate, and 5.7% walk rate.  His devastating splitter and high-90s (topping 100mph in past seasons) have left NPB batters fooled, most memorably during a perfect game in 2022 that saw Sasaki record 13 straight strikeouts and 19 strikeouts overall.  Sasaki then gained worldwide attention by almost throwing another perfect game in his next start, as he tossed eight perfect innings before being removed due to concerns over his pitch count (102 pitches).

The relative lack of mileage on Sasaki’s arm is both a boon for MLB teams eager to land such a talented pitcher at such a young age, and a bit of a concern about a possible lack of durability.  Sasaki’s 129 1/3 innings in 2022 remains his career high, and his 2024 season was limited to 111 innings due to a torn oblique and some type of injury to his right arm.  That said, these factors have done nothing to limit the hype on Sasaki, and his arrival in Major League Baseball lines up as one of the key stories of the offseason.

Dansby Swanson Not Expected To Miss Time After Surgery For Core Injury

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The Cubs announced that shortstop Dansby Swanson underwent surgery in early October to address an injury to his core. While it is a little surprising that this news is only surfacing two months after the fact, the procedure appears to have been relatively minor, and Swanson is expected to be fully ready for the start of Spring Training in mid-February.

Aside from a knee sprain that sidelined Swanson for a minimal stint on the 10-day injured list back in May, he otherwise had a seemingly healthy season, playing in 149 of Chicago’s 162 games.  Swanson hit .242/.312/.390 with 16 homers over 593 plate appearances, translating to a 99 wRC+ and a diminished .148 Isolated Power number, a step backward from the .176 ISO he posted over his previous six seasons.

A core injury might have been a cause here, though Swanson didn’t seem any worse for wear, and actually hit better as the 2024 campaign went on — Swanson had a .632 OPS in 337 PA in the first half, but a .795 OPS in 256 PA after the All-Star break.  Swanson was one of several Cubs players who had uneven seasons at the plate, and this inconsistency manifested itself in Chicago’s middling 83-79 record.

Since Swanson will be ready to go for all of spring camp, this surgery might just be a footnote in the Cubs’ offseason.  Nico Hoerner’s flexor tendon surgery from October certainly seems like the larger concern, as there still hasn’t been any public word on whether or not Hoerner’s recovery timeline might stretch into Spring Training or the regular season.  This lack of certainty hasn’t stopped Hoerner from being mentioned in trade rumors, but since Hoerner is still on the Cubs’ roster for now, it isn’t great news for Chicago that both starting middle infielders are recovering from surgeries.

Latest On Athletics’ Las Vegas Ballpark Plans

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TODAY: The LVSA board approved the three agreements, Akers writes.  With this hurdle jumped, the Athletics now meet with Clark County officials to hammer out “a separate ballpark development agreement” and other issues before construction can begin.  “We’re at the early stages with Clark County, but we’ve had several meetings and those have been really constructive.  Clark County has been really receptive to wanting to work with us and meet the timelines that are necessary for us to open in April of ’28,” Dean said.

DECEMBER 1: The Las Vegas Stadium Authority Board is set to meet on Thursday, and several important elements of the Athletics’ plans to build a new ballpark in Vegas for the 2028 season will be addressed at the sessions.  Mick Akers of the Las Vegas Review-Journal (two links) has the details of the ballpark-related matters on the agenda, including letters regarding the financing of the project — the four letters are from the A’s themselves, owner John Fisher regarding his family’s investment, U.S. Bank regarding the Fisher family’s finances and ability to meet their agreements, plus a letter from both U.S. Bank and Goldman Sachs in regards to their $300MM loan to the A’s to help fund construction of the new stadium.

Perhaps the biggest takeaway is that the price tag of the project is going up, from $1.5 billion to $1.75 billion.  The increase wasn’t a surprise, and A’s executive Sandy Dean says the extra money is necessary “is due to combination of adding a variety of features to the ballpark along with general increases in construction costs.”  The new features include  upgrades to the suites and general admissions areas, an audio and visual system that can make the venue capable of hosting concerts, and the unique element of seat-cooling system.

The costing breakdown will see up to $380MM covered by Clark County and the state of Nevada, $300MM covered by the U.S. Bank/Goldman Sachs loan, and the rest (including the additional $250MM in new costs) will be paid for by the Fisher family and the Athletics.  The Fishers’ stake could be reduced if minority owners are found, as those new partners would take on part of the construction costs in exchange for a small share in the franchise.  Akers notes that the A’s will be responsible for any further increases in the project’s budget, and Dean said that the Athletics’ outline still accounts for spending only $350MM of the $380MM committed by civic officials.

Three key agreements will be decided at Thursday’s meeting, covering the matters of not just the ballpark’s construction, but also such elements as the length of the first lease (initially set for 30 years) and what would happen if the Athletics tried to leave down by those 30 years were up.  These particular elements make this meeting “the most important to date” in the Athletics’ quest to get the project officially underway, Akers writes.

If all goes to plan, construction will officially begin this spring, with an eye towards the ballpark being ready for Opening Day 2028.  In the interim, the A’s will be playing at Sutter Health Park in West Sacramento for the 2025-27 seasons.

Phillies Interested In Re-Signing Jeff Hoffman

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The Phillies “remain interested in” bringing Jeff Hoffman back, The Athletic’s Matt Gelb writes, seemingly with the idea of keeping Hoffman his familiar relief pitching role rather than using him as a starting pitcher.  Though Hoffman hasn’t worked as a starter since 2021, some clubs have explored the idea of adding the free agent righty to their rotation rather than to their bullpen.

Hoffman’s transition to relief pitching with the Reds in 2021 led to an immediate uptick in production, and his results have only gotten better over the last four seasons.  Despite a solid 3.83 ERA in 44 2/3 innings for Cincinnati in 2022, Hoffman could only find minor league contracts from the Twins and (after a release late in Spring Training) the Phillies, but his two seasons in Philadelphia have seen Hoffman develop into a high-leverage force.  Hoffman has a 2.28 ERA, 33.4% strikeout rate, and 7.4% walk rate over 118 2/3 regular-season innings for Philadelphia in 2023-24, and while he also pitched well in the 2023 playoffs, his 2024 postseason was marred by a pair of meltdowns against the Mets in the NLDS.

Hoffman and his agents at CAA undoubtedly took note of the three-year, $38MM deal that Clay Holmes just signed with the Mets, as New York intends to use Holmes as a rotation arm even though Holmes hasn’t started a big-league game since 2018.  The lure of a bigger payday as a starter might influence Hoffman to look more in that direction, though he was already likely to receive a sizable contract as one of the best relievers in the free agent market.  MLBTR projected Hoffman to land a four-year, $44MM deal with the idea that he would be a reliever, as our top 50 free agents ranking was written before the reports surfaced about the possibility of Hoffman becoming a starter.

Even if starting pitching may bring a larger average annual salary, “the Phillies can make competitive offers that come with a promise of playing for a contender,” Gelb notes.  Hoffman is also on the record about how he liked pitching in Philadelphia, and as he enters his age-32 season, it stands to reason that Hoffman might prefer to stick in the relief role and city that brought him the first sustained success of his nine-year MLB career.

Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski first mentioned his team’s interest in reuniting with Hoffman during his end-of-season press conference, with the caveat that the Phils would bring back just one of Hoffman or Carlos Estevez.  “We like them both.  It’s hard for me to imagine that you end up bringing them both back under the circumstances because I would gather they’re both going to get offered long-term, big-dollar contracts, which they’re going to be looking for,” Dombrowski said. “I don’t see us spending that type of money on two relievers in our bullpen, but I’m just not sure at this time.”

Estevez also remains unsigned, with the Yankees known to be one of the teams linked to the former All-Star closer.  Since the Phillies seem focused on adding to the bullpen, it could be they’ll end up prioritizing Estevez if Hoffman indeed winds up delving more into the starting pitching market.  Gelb’s piece didn’t indicate one way or the other if the Phillies also still had interest in Estevez, or if Philadelphia necessarily had more interest in Hoffman over Estevez all things being equal.

The Best Fits For Willy Adames

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MLBTR has taken a look at the markets for Juan Soto, Corbin Burnes and Alex Bregman in a trio of posts for Trade Rumors Front Office subscribers. We'll continue that with a look at the likely market for one of the top free agent infielders: Willy Adames.

The longtime Brewers shortstop is among the most potent bats in the game at his position. Adames slugged a career-high 32 home runs in 2024, topping his previous highwater mark of 31 round-trippers, set in 2022. Over the past four seasons, he's tied with Corey Seager for the MLB lead in shortstop home runs (112). He's more strikeout-prone than some teams might like, but he's cut his strikeout rate in four consecutive seasons now, fanning in one-quarter of his plate appearances this past year. That's still a fair bit, but it's no longer egregiously north of league average, which sat at 22.6% in 2024.

The Brewers bought low on Adames early in the 2021 season when he was struggling with the Rays, sending a pair of generally unproven relievers to Tampa Bay: J.P. Feyereisen and Drew Rasmussen. It worked out for both parties in the end. Adames became an All-Star shortstop, and both pitchers became key parts of Tampa Bay's staff -- Rasmussen in particular. He's rattled off four straight seasons with a sub-3.00 ERA, much of it out of the rotation.

Adames hit .244/.323/.457 in parts of four seasons in Milwaukee. That overall line is dragged down by a pedestrian 2023 season, but Adames has been at least 9% better than average at the plate in four of the past five years, by measure of wRC+ (and at least 19% better in three of the past five). He's typically graded out as a plus defender, though his defensive metrics took an unexpected dip last year -- due largely to an uncharacteristically error-prone stretch in July where he made eight miscues in just three weeks.

Teams will likely still view Adames as a player with strong defensive tools, and he's willing to move to another position -- third base or second base -- if the right opportunity presents itself. Adames made the no-brainer decision to reject a qualifying offer from Milwaukee. He's surely kept a watchful eye as fellow shortstops Trevor Story ($140MM), Javier Baez ($140MM) and Dansby Swanson ($177MM) all cashed in on major free-agent deals heading into their own age-29 seasons. Adames, whose gregarious personality and reputation as a clubhouse leader only further enhance his appeal to clubs, arguably has as much or even more earning power than any of that bunch.

Let's take a look at which teams could be involved.

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Guardians To Re-Sign Shane Bieber

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Right-hander Shane Bieber is coming back to the Guardians. He and the club have reportedly agreed to a deal with a $10MM salary in 2025, with a $16MM player option for 2026 that comes with a $4MM buyout. That makes it a $26MM guarantee over two years but Bieber can potentially return to free agency after banking $14MM in year one. He reportedly turned down more money with other clubs in order to return to Cleveland. The righty is represented by Rosenhaus Sports Representation.

Bieber, 30 in May, returns to the only organization he’s ever known. The contract is a reflection of his current status, as he underwent Tommy John surgery in April, meaning he will miss at least part of the upcoming season. This deal affords him the chance to return to the mound in 2025 and establish his health. If his performance can return anywhere near his previously elite levels, he can decide to return to the open market. Though if he hits any kind of setback or doesn’t quite bounce back immediately, he can bank the extra $12MM and stick around another year.

Whether he can indeed get back in form is the big question. Bieber’s ceiling is well established, as he won the American League Cy Young award in 2020. He dominated the shortened season, making 12 starts that year with a 1.63 earned run average. He struck out 41.1% of batters faced, walked 7.1% of opponents and got grounders at a 48.4% rate.

But things have mostly gone downhill since then, even before the surgery. In 2021, his numbers dipped, which wasn’t exactly unexpected as maintaining his 2020 stats over a full season would have been almost impossible. His 3.17 ERA and 33.1% strikeout rate were both off of his previous season but still strong numbers. He missed about three months due to a right shoulder subscapularis strain.

In 2022, he stayed healthy enough to make 31 starts and log 200 innings with a 2.88 ERA, but with more concerning signs elsewhere. He averaged just 91.3 miles per hour on his fastball that year, after mostly being in the 93-94 range in prior years. His strikeout rate also dipped to 25%, still a bit above league average but a drop for him personally. In 2023, he missed time due to right elbow inflammation, which seems in hindsight like a precursor to his surgery. He did make 21 starts on the year but with a 3.80 ERA, 20.1% strikeout rate and similar velocity to the year prior.

Going into 2024, his name was in plenty of trade rumors. The Guardians often trade players as their salary grows and they get closer to free agency, doing so with players like Francisco Lindor, Carlos Carrasco and Corey Kluber somewhat recently. In hindsight, perhaps the Guards should have pulled the trigger on a deal, but maybe they didn’t receive substantial offers on the heels of all the red flags in 2022 and 2023.

For a brief moment, hanging onto Bieber seemed like a brilliant move. He made two starts at the beginning of 2024, tossing six shutout innings in each of them and recording 20 strikeouts in those 12 innings. His velocity came back slightly, with his fastball averaging 92.3 mph in his first start of the year. But it dipped to 91.6 mph in the second start and the news of his surgery dropped before he could make a third.

Now he’ll be looking to come back from the lengthy Tommy John recovery process, as well as the concerning seasons that preceded the operation. It’s now been a long time since Bieber had his best stuff over a full season, arguably since 2019. The shortened 2020 season was obviously outside of his control but all but one season since then has seen him miss significant time. In the one season where he stayed on the mound, his stuff was clearly diminished.

All that makes this an interesting gamble for the Guardians, as this is a fairly notable expenditure for them. They don’t generally spend much in free agency, particularly on the pitching side. As shown in MLBTR’s Contract Tracker, in the last 15 years, this is the first time they’ve given a pitcher more than $7MM. That’s partially a testament to their ability to develop their own pitching but they’ve also only given four position players a larger guarantee than this in that time.

Per RosterResource, the Guards are now projected for a payroll of $107MM next year, already more than what they spent in 2024. They could perhaps drop that by trading someone like Josh Naylor or Lane Thomas but this Bieber deal is a decent chunk of the budget either way.

It’s a risky proposition for those parameters. Given that recovery from Tommy John surgery normally takes 14 months or longer, the Guards might only get half a season or so from Bieber in 2025. If he hits a setback of any kind, it could be less than that. Even if he is back on a big league mound by June, it’s no guarantee that he’ll be in good form.

The upside play is that Bieber comes back to something resembling an ace. The Guards install him into their second half rotation and then, ideally, as a key piece of their postseason rotation. At that point, he would decline his player option and they could issue him a qualifying offer, which will probably be in the $22MM range. Assuming he declines that and goes out looking for a major deal, they would recoup draft pick compensation.

On the other end of the spectrum are the scenarios where Bieber isn’t quite fully healthy or simply isn’t as good as he was before, in which case he sticks around for another year at an even higher salary than in 2025.

It’s a risk the Guardians are willing to take, which is perhaps due to the respect that the organization has for him, but it’s also perhaps a reflection of the current rotation situation. The Guardians managed to win the Central in 2024, but the Bieber-less rotation was the weakest part of the roster. They struggled to find viable solutions there for much of the year, finding success on the backs of a decent offense and elite bullpen.

Pitchers like Carlos Carrasco, Triston McKenzie, Gavin Williams and Logan Allen either struggled or were injured or both. Tanner Bibee was the club’s only starter who has consistently healthy and performing well all year long. Matthew Boyd was an excellent midseason addition, coming in after recovering from his own Tommy John surgery, but he became a free agent at season’s end and has a deal in place with the Cubs.

Next year’s Opening Day rotation for Cleveland currently consists of Bibee and many question marks. Guys like Williams, McKenzie and Allen are still in the mix but coming off those aforementioned difficulties. Journeyman Ben Lively is on the roster, as are fairly unproven guys like Joey Cantillo and Doug Nikhazy. The Guards probably have more to do in upgrading that group but they will hope that Bieber can charge in like a proverbial white knight at some point in the middle of 2025 to save the day.

The aforementioned Boyd gives a rough template of what Bieber and the Guards will be hoping for next year. Boyd posted a 2.72 ERA in eight starts down the stretch and then had three more good outings in the postseason. That was enough to get him a two-year, $29MM deal, but Bieber has a path to earning far more than that. Boyd is going into his age-34 season whereas Bieber will be going into his age-31 campaign in 2026. Boyd’s injury track record is also more extensive than Bieber’s and Bieber has the more impressive early career numbers.

As such, with a strong finish in 2025, Bieber could position himself to earn far more than Boyd just did, joining 2025-26 free agent starters such as Dylan Cease,  Zach Eflin, Zac Gallen, Michael King, Seth Lugo, and Framber Valdez. Though that’s just one of many potential scenarios in front of him and the Guardians in the year to come.

Buster Olney of ESPN (X link) first reported that the two sides were in agreement. Robert Murray of FanSided (X link) first relayed that it was a one-year deal plus a player option. Jeff Passan of ESPN (X link) first had the dollar figures. Jon Heyman of The New York Post (X link) first relayed that Bieber had larger offers elsewhere.

Rockies Pursuing Second Base Addition

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The Rockies remain in the market for a second baseman, tweets Thomas Harding of MLB.com. Former division rival Thairo Estrada could be a target, Harding adds.

Colorado moved on from Brendan Rodgers at last month’s non-tender deadline. They immediately followed up by signing Kyle Farmer to a $3.25MM free agent contract. Farmer is the projected starter at the keystone for now, but he’s coming off a .214/.293/.353 season. He’s a better fit for a utility job than everyday second base work going into his age-34 season.

The Rox are hoping that 21-year-old Adael Amador will be the long-term answer. Amador played in 10 MLB games this past season while Rodgers was on the injured list. He otherwise spent the year at Double-A Hartford. He had a middling season, hitting .230/.343/.376 across 455 plate appearances. That probably takes him out of Top 100 consideration, but he still ranks as the #6 prospect in the Colorado system at Baseball America.

Amador needs more reps in the upper minors. Colorado will look for stopgaps at the keystone but isn’t likely to make a long-term commitment. This year’s free agent class isn’t conducive to a long-term signing regardless. Gleyber Torres and the rehabbing Ha-Seong Kim headline the class. Options beyond that include Jorge Polanco, old friend Jose Iglesias, Adam Frazier and Cavan Biggio.

Estrada is a rebound candidate among that group. The 28-year-old (29 in February) slumped to a .217/.247/.343 mark over 96 games. San Francisco outrighted him off the 40-man roster late in the season and let him depart in minor league free agency. Estrada was a solid everyday player between 2021-23. He combined for a .266/.320/.416 slash in a little over 1200 plate appearances during that stretch. Estrada is a strong defender, so something close to league average offense makes him a quality regular.

If the Rockies pursued Estrada, he’d be available on either a minor league contract or an MLB deal with a salary close to Farmer’s. He hasn’t reached five years of service time, so he’d remain eligible for arbitration next offseason.

Padres Finalize Coaching Staff

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The Padres announced their 2025 coaching staff on Friday evening. The most notable development is that Brian Esposito has been named bench coach. San Diego operated without a bench coach during Mike Shildt’s first year at the helm.

Esposito, 45, had already taken some of the traditional bench coach responsibilities. His prior title had been game strategy assistant. He’ll continue to work as one of Shildt’s top lieutenants. A former catcher who appeared in three MLB games amidst a 13-year professional playing career, Esposito has worked in the San Diego organization for the past three years.

The rest of the staff is as follows: pitching coach Ruben Niebla, hitting coach Victor Rodriguez, third base coach/infield instructor Tim Leiper, first base coach/outfield instructor David Macias, assistant hitting coaches Pat O’Sullivan and Mike McCoy, game planning assistant Peter Summerville, bullpen catcher Heberto Andrade, and coaching assistant Morgan Burkhart. Niebla, one of the game’s most respected pitching voices, inked a multi-year extension last month.

Aside from Esposito’s title change, there’s only one adjustment. Former field coordinator Ryan Barba is no longer on the coaching staff. AJ Cassavell of MLB.com writes that Barba is expected to remain with the organization in the player development department.

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