Will The Royals Trade A Starter?
Early in the offseason, Royals president of baseball operations J.J. Picollo said the team was open to trading a starting pitcher for offense. That would have been focused on the outfield, which has been a problem for the club for years.
Kansas City has acquired a pair of outfielders in the month since Picollo’s comments. They signed Lane Thomas to a reclamation $5.5MM free agent deal, then swapped lefty reliever Angel Zerpa to Milwaukee for Isaac Collins and middle reliever Nick Mears. Those moves raised the floor relative to where the outfield stood at the end of the 2025 season, yet it remains one of the weaker on-paper groups in MLB.
Kyle Isbel is a low-end regular in center field. Collins had a strong season but was a 27-year-old rookie whose results outpaced mediocre batted ball metrics. The Royals probably don’t expect him to be more than an average regular in left field. Jac Caglianone has the highest ceiling of the group, but MLB pitchers exploited his aggressive plate approach in his first 62 games. Caglianone so thoroughly dominated the minor leagues that the Royals might feel he has little to learn by going back to Triple-A. Still, there are sure to be peaks and valleys even if he takes a step forward in his first full MLB season. Thomas battled injuries and was mostly unproductive after being traded from the Nationals to the Guardians at the ’24 deadline.
Depth options John Rave, Dairon Blanco, Drew Waters and Kameron Misner (acquired in a DFA trade with Tampa Bay) have shown very little at the big league level. That makes it unsurprising that the Royals continue to monitor the outfield market after the Collins/Thomas deals. Working with seemingly limited payroll space and a weak farm system, trading a starter could still be on the table — even if it seems less likely than it did a month ago.
Picollo has strongly downplayed the chance of moving Cole Ragans. He’s controllable for three seasons and has shown ace upside but is coming off a significant rotator cuff injury. They extended Michael Wacha last offseason and Seth Lugo before the trade deadline. It’s hard to see either veteran righty going anywhere.
Left-hander Kris Bubic is headed into his final season of arbitration control. He pitched at a top-of-the-rotation level but suffered a season-ending rotator cuff strain not long after the All-Star Break. Southpaw Noah Cameron had a sub-3.00 ERA over his first 24 career starts despite a below-average 20.5% strikeout rate. Controllable depth arms Ryan Bergert and Stephen Kolek have drawn interest but have minor league options and could be key injury insurance in Triple-A. They’re presumably open to moving Bailey Falter, but he’d have minimal trade value. Alec Marsh has gotten interest in the past but underwent labrum surgery in November and will likely miss the entire season.
Will anyone from that group be on the move before Opening Day?
Will The Royals Trade A Starter This Offseason?
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Yes. They'll trade Bubic. 35% (1,467)
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No, they'll hold their rotation depth. 32% (1,357)
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Yes. They'll trade one of Cameron, Bergert, or Kolek. 18% (771)
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Yes. They'll trade one of Ragans, Lugo, Wacha. 14% (597)
Total votes: 4,192
The Rays’ Second Base Options
The Rays made a pair of significant trades last month, shipping Shane Baz to Baltimore and Brandon Lowe to Pittsburgh on the same day. The Baz move probably means they’re going to dip back into free agency for a cheap back-end starter after signing Steven Matz to a two-year deal. It’s less clear what they have planned at second base, a position that Lowe has locked down (when healthy) for the past seven years.
Free agency doesn’t offer much excitement. It seems safe to assume the Rays aren’t signing Bo Bichette. The open market options beyond that include Willi Castro, Ramón Urías and Luis Rengifo. The biggest swings they could take are on the trade market.
Tampa Bay hasn’t been prominently tied to Brendan Donovan. They’ve had conversations with the Diamondbacks about Ketel Marte going back to the Winter Meetings. Those preliminary talks involved both Baz and Ryan Pepiot. That framework is obviously no longer an option, and while the Rays could make a compelling package involving Pepiot and controllable relief help, Arizona GM Mike Hazen indicated earlier this week that they could soon cut off talks regarding Marte altogether. Each of Jake Cronenworth, Nico Hoerner and Jazz Chisholm Jr. feel like long shot trade candidates.
If the Rays don’t find a clear answer outside the organization, where could they turn at the keystone?
Marc Topkin of The Tampa Bay Times wrote last month that Palacios was likely to be the top internal option. Acquired from the Cardinals over the 2023-24 offseason, the left-handed hitter turned in a .223/.346/.318 line over 316 plate appearances in his first season with the club. He batted .333 with a .396 on-base percentage last year but was limited to 17 games. Palacios fractured his right ring finger during Spring Training and began the season on the injured list. He returned in April but quickly suffered a right knee sprain that kept him out until September.
Palacios had missed two months late in the ’24 campaign with a sprain of the same knee. He has played in barely more than a third of the team’s games over the past two seasons. “(He’s) a player we really appreciate, but he’s got to prove healthy,” president of baseball operations Erik Neander told Topkin in December. “He’s certainly a candidate internally, but we’re going to give ourselves a little bit of time to sort through it.”
At his best, Palacios shows the makings of a potential high-OBP bat. He takes a lot of pitches and has good contact skills with solid line drive rates. Palacios doesn’t have huge power but has a .370 on-base percentage over five Triple-A seasons. While the Rays haven’t given him much of a look against lefty pitching in the big leagues, he has more than held his own in his limited opportunities.
Walls is a more well-known commodity. He’s a 29-year-old who owns a .195/.286/.298 career batting line in more than 1500 plate appearances. He’s not going to produce at the plate. The Rays love Walls as an up-the-middle defensive player. Public metrics have been bizarrely divided on his work. Statcast’s Outs Above Average grades him below average, yet Defensive Runs Saved annually rates him as a Gold Glove caliber infielder.
The Rays’ internal evaluation must align much more closely to the DRS view. They wouldn’t continue bringing Walls back via arbitration if they didn’t consider him a defensive asset. He’ll play next season on a $2.45MM salary and is controlled for 2027 via $3.1MM team option. Walls will get a lot of action in the middle infield, but he’s likely to begin the season on the left side of the bag.
Tampa Bay waived Ha-Seong Kim in August and used rookie Carson Williams as their shortstop for the final month of the 2025 season. The 22-year-old was overmatched, striking out 44 times and batting .172 in 32 games. Williams also struck out in more than 34% of his Triple-A plate appearances. He has power and is a plus defensive shortstop but is likely to head back to Triple-A to continue working on getting his contact rate to a manageable level.
That’d leave Walls as the only real choice to play shortstop in the early going. Free agency and the trade market are even thinner there than they are at second base. Walls could kick over to second base midseason if Williams plays his way back to the majors.
Position Change Hypotheticals
While the Rays generally have a stockpile of multi-positional players, that’s not so much a strength of the current roster. Jonathan Aranda came up as a second baseman but moved off the position for defensive reasons. He has only played 141 innings there in the big leagues and was a full-time first baseman last year. Aranda is a below-average athlete and runner who probably isn’t moving back up the defensive spectrum.
Chandler Simpson was a middle infielder in college but has been a full-time outfielder since being drafted in 2022. Topkin notes that the 25-year-old took some pregame infield drills late in the season, though it’s not clear if the Rays will continue that next year. Despite being one of the fastest players in the sport, Simpson isn’t an especially gifted defensive outfielder. Maybe that’ll lead the coaching staff to give serious consideration to testing him on the dirt in 2026. Simpson stole 44 bases while batting .295/.326/.345 with zero home runs in 109 games as a rookie.
Cubs Notes: Imai, Okamoto
Tatsuya Imai came off the board this afternoon. He agreed to terms with the Astros on a three-year, $54MM guarantee with opt-outs after the first two seasons. It was both a surprise landing spot and contract, as the NPB right-hander had generally been expected to pull a nine-figure deal that probably would have priced him out of Houston.
The Cubs were among the teams most commonly speculated as a fit for Imai over his 45-day posting window. Sahadev Sharma and Patrick Mooney of The Athletic wrote last month that Chicago was involved but reluctant to make a long-term commitment that valued him as a top-of-the-rotation arm. The rest of the market evidently shared that trepidation.
Mark Feinsand of MLB.com writes that the Cubs appear to have been the top competition to Houston by the end of the signing period. Both Feinsand and Jon Heyman of The New York Post suggest that neither the Yankees nor Mets were heavily involved. The Yankees may be more focused on the lineup — they reportedly have an offer out to Cody Bellinger — while previous reporting has indicated the Mets aren’t eager to make a long-term investment in a free agent starter. Imai apparently was not going to be an exception, as Feinsand writes that the Mets weren’t convinced he’d be a top-of-the-rotation starter.
An upper mid-rotation starter has been the Cubs’ biggest need all offseason. They’ve yet to make any moves in the rotation aside from declining their option on and then retaining Shota Imanaga via the qualifying offer. They’re still lacking a high-end complement to Cade Horton at the top of the staff, at least until Justin Steele returns from April’s elbow surgery.
Imanaga had a terrible final few weeks as his home run rate spiked. Matthew Boyd was excellent in the first half but appeared to wear down as the season went along. His 179 2/3 innings pitched were 101 more than he’d thrown in any MLB season since 2019. Boyd took a 2.34 earned run average into the All-Star Break but allowed a 4.63 mark over his final 12 appearances. His strikeout rate dropped more than four percentage points in the second half. He’s headed into his age-35 season. Jameson Taillon, Colin Rea and Javier Assad profile as back-end or swing options.
The Cubs could still pursue any of Framber Valdez, Ranger Suárez or Zac Gallen if they want to add a starter via free agency. Teams have set significant asking prices in talks involving starting pitching, though the likes of MacKenzie Gore or Kris Bubic remain trade candidates.
RosterResource calculates Chicago’s luxury tax projection around $210MM. That leaves them almost $35MM below the base threshold and $21MM shy of their season-ending mark from 2025. They should have some payroll flexibility. If they don’t like the value on any available starting pitchers, they could potentially turn their attention to the offense as a way to replace some of the production lost from Kyle Tucker (whom they’re not expected to re-sign).
The Cubs have been loosely linked to third basemen, in particular. Reports have tied them to Alex Bregman and Eugenio Suárez, though president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer gave a firm vote of confidence to in-house third baseman Matt Shaw. This evening, Heyman listed the Cubs among a number of teams that have shown some interest in NPB star Kazuma Okamoto. The right-handed hitting corner infielder has until Sunday afternoon to sign.
Okamoto has been also been tied to the Padres, Pirates, Blue Jays, Red Sox and Angels this offseason. Most of those teams make more sense as landing spots than the Cubs, who have Shaw and Michael Busch at the corners. Plugging Okamoto in at designated hitter would block the path to at-bats for young hitters Moisés Ballesteros and Owen Caissie. Okamoto could take at-bats against lefty pitching from Busch but would have a cleaner path to everyday playing time with a team like Pittsburgh (at third base) or San Diego (at first base).
Yankees Have Reportedly Made Offer To Cody Bellinger
The Yankees made a formal contract offer to Cody Bellinger this week, reports Jon Heyman of The New York Post. Specifics of the proposal aren’t known.
General manager Brian Cashman has made no secret of the team’s desire to keep Bellinger. The former MVP’s first year in the Bronx was excellent. He hit .272/.334/.480 with 29 home runs, his most in a season since 2019. Bellinger’s bat played very well at Yankee Stadium, where he put up a .302/.365/.544 line with 18 longballs.
New York acquired Bellinger from the Cubs last winter in what amounted to a salary dump. They parted with journeyman righty Cody Poteet while assuming all but $5MM of the remaining two years and $52.5MM on Bellinger’s contract. As he ended up opting out, the Yankees paid $27.5MM for that excellent year. It might require a five- or six-year commitment to bring him back as he enters his age-30 season.
The Yankees have had a quiet first couple months of the offseason. Their only move of significance was issuing the qualifying offer to Trent Grisham. He surprisingly accepted and is back in center field on a one-year deal at $22.025MM. Bellinger was ineligible to receive the QO after getting one from the Cubs over the 2023-24 offseason.
Grisham’s salary accounts for the majority of the $29.025MM they’ve spent in free agency so far. The remaining $7MM has been divided among a trio of one-year deals to bring back Paul Blackburn, Amed Rosario and Ryan Yarbrough. Their only MLB acquisition from outside the organization has been Rule 5 pick Cade Winquest.
That certainly won’t be the Yankees’ entire offseason. They presumably expected Bellinger’s free agency to carry well into the winter. The top two free agent hitters, Kyle Tucker and Bo Bichette, each make sense on paper if Bellinger heads elsewhere. Signing one of Tucker or Bellinger would allow them to rotate their outfielders through the designated hitter spot if Giancarlo Stanton spends any time on the injured list. Bellinger could spell Ben Rice at first base and/or take playing time in left field from Jasson Domínguez, who still has a pair of options remaining.
An outfielder isn’t an absolute necessity, but it’s probably the cleanest path to adding an impact position player. Shortstop would be the primary alternative. Bichette is the only real solution there and faces questions about his defensive fit. He could be an option to handle shortstop for a season and move over to second base once Jazz Chisholm Jr. hits free agency a year from now. The Yankees have reportedly made Chisholm available in trade conversations, but that’d swap out one of their better all-around position players in the process.
The other option would be to make a rotation splash with Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodón and Clarke Schmidt opening the season on the injured list. Framber Valdez, Ranger Suárez and Zac Gallen are the best remaining free agent starters now that NPB righty Tatsuya Imai is off the board on a three-year deal with Houston. The Yankees were one of the teams linked to Imai when he was a free agent, but both Heyman and Mark Feinsand of MLB.com wrote after the signing that the Yanks were not seriously involved in the bidding.
RosterResource projects the Yankees for a $286MM luxury tax number. Owner Hal Steinbrenner has spoken generally about a desire to stay below the $300MM mark in the past, though Cashman suggested in November that’s not a firm limit this offseason. The Yankees had a $320MM luxury tax payroll at the end of the 2025 season.
The Best Fits For Tatsuya Imai
Decision time nears for Japanese right-hander Tatsuya Imai. He needs to finalize a contract with an MLB team by Friday at 4:00 pm Central if he's to make the move stateside this year. There's no indication that he's considering sticking with the Seibu Lions, meaning an agreement should be imminent. While there's a little over 48 hours to make the deal official, Imai must agree to terms with enough margin to complete a standard physical.
The 27-year-old (28 in May) is conducting in-person meetings with interested teams in Los Angeles this week. The 5’11” righty has been one of Japan’s best pitchers over the past two seasons. He’s coming off a 1.92 ERA showing with 178 strikeouts across 163 2/3 innings. Imai has an NPB-best 27% strikeout rate since the start of 2024. He sits in the mid-90s with a promising slider. Command was an issue earlier in his career, but his strike-throwing has progressed as he has gained experience. This past season’s 7% walk rate was a personal low and better than the MLB average.
Whichever team that signs Imai will owe a release fee to the Lions. That’s proportional to the contract value: 20% of the first $25MM, 17.5% of the next $25MM, and 15% of all further spending. Imai isn't expected to come close to the $325MM deal that Yoshinobu Yamamoto commanded two offseasons ago. He's a few years older and simply not as good. Yet it's generally believed that he'll command a nine-figure guarantee, perhaps into the $150MM range, from a team that feels he's a mid-rotation arm.
Which clubs are best positioned to make that investment? Salary projections are courtesy of RosterResource.
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Each Team’s Free Agent Activity So Far
The New Year serves as a symbolic halfway point of the offseason. It has been just under two months since the Dodgers came back in Toronto to repeat as World Series champions. We’re exactly six weeks away from pitchers and catchers beginning to report to Spring Training.
Twenty eight of MLBTR’s top 50 free agents have come off the board, though most of the marquee names remain. Seven of the top 10 are unsigned. We’re less than two days away from resolution on #7 free agent Tatsuya Imai, whose posting window closes on Friday afternoon. The overall volume of free agent activity is similar to last offseason, when 26 of our top 50 players were off the board on New Year’s Eve. However, a lot of last winter’s early activity was concentrated at the top of the market, as five of our top six free agents had signed before the close of December. Dylan Cease and Munetaka Murakami are the only two of our top eight who have signed so far this offseason.
Using MLBTR’s Contract Tracker (a tool available to Front Office subscribers), we can find every team’s free agent activity thus far. Players who accepted the $22.025MM qualifying offer are treated as free agent signings. Four contracts negotiated between the end of the regular season and November 6 — the Guardians’ deal with Austin Hedges, Baltimore’s signing of Dietrich Enns, the Royals’ deal with Salvador Perez, and the Cubs’ contract with Colin Rea — are excluded. Those all came before those players were permitted to speak with other teams and are thus extensions rather than free agent contracts.
As always, this is not meant as an exhaustive look at a team’s offseason activity. The Royals (Maikel Garcia) and Athletics (Tyler Soderstrom) have each signed a significant contract extension. The Red Sox are one of two teams that has yet to sign an MLB free agent contract, but they’ve taken on nearly $40MM in 2026 salary via trades for Sonny Gray, Willson Contreras and Johan Oviedo. This is strictly a look at what teams have so far accomplished through free agency.
For this exercise, we’ll take the total amount even if the contract includes deferred money. Teams are ordered by overall spending.
1. Toronto Blue Jays
Total guarantees: $277MM
- RHP Dylan Cease: Seven years, $210MM
- RHP Tyler Rogers: Three years, $37MM
- RHP Cody Ponce: Three years, $30MM
2. Baltimore Orioles
Total guarantees: $195.1MM
- 1B Pete Alonso: Five years, $155MM
- RHP Ryan Helsley: Two years, $28MM
- RHP Zach Eflin: One year, $10MM
- OF Leody Taveras: One year, $2.1MM
3. Philadelphia Phillies
Total guarantees: $182MM
- DH Kyle Schwarber: Five years, $150MM
- RHP Brad Keller: Two years, $22MM
- OF Adolis García: One year, $10MM
- RHP Zach Pop: One year deal, salary unreported
4. New York Mets
Total guarantees: $113MM
- RHP Devin Williams: Three years, $51MM
- INF Jorge Polanco: Two years, $40MM
- RHP Luke Weaver: Two years, $22MM
5. Atlanta Braves
Total guarantees: $106.25MM
- RHP Robert Suarez: Three years, $45MM
- OF Mike Yastrzemski: Two years, $23MM
- SS Ha-Seong Kim: One year, $20MM
- RHP Raisel Iglesias: One year, $16MM
- RHP Joel Payamps: One year, $2.25MM
- LHP Danny Young: One year split contract
- RHP Ian Hamilton: One year non-guaranteed deal
6. Seattle Mariners
Total guarantees: $99.75MM
- 1B Josh Naylor: Five years, $92.5MM
- OF Rob Refsnyder: One year, $6.25MM
- C Andrew Knizner: One year, $1MM
7. San Diego Padres
Total guarantees: $91.2MM
- RHP Michael King: Three years, $75MM
- INF Sung-mun Song: Four years, $15MM
- LHP Kyle Hart: One year, $1.2MM
- RHP Ty Adcock: One year deal
- RHP Daison Acosta: One year deal
8. Los Angeles Dodgers
Total guarantees: $74.5MM
9. Detroit Tigers
Total guarantees: $59.025MM
- 2B Gleyber Torres: One year, $22.025MM qualifying offer
- RHP Kyle Finnegan: Two years, $19MM
- RHP Kenley Jansen: One year, $11MM
- RHP Drew Anderson: One year, $7MM
10. Chicago Cubs
Total guarantees: $53.525MM
- LHP Shota Imanaga: One year, $22.025MM qualifying offer
- RHP Phil Maton: Two years, $14.5MM
- RHP Hunter Harvey: One year, $6MM
- LHP Caleb Thielbar: One year, $4.5MM
- LHP Hoby Milner: One year, $3.75MM
- RHP Jacob Webb: One year, $1.5MM
- 1B Tyler Austin: One year, $1.25MM
11. Chicago White Sox
Total guarantees: $50.5MM
- 1B Munetaka Murakami: Two years, $34MM (plus $6.575MM posting fee to NPB’s Yakult Swallows)
- LHP Anthony Kay: Two years, $12MM
- LHP Sean Newcomb: One year, $4.5MM
12. Arizona Diamondbacks
Total guarantees: $50.25MM
- RHP Merrill Kelly: Two years, $40MM
- RHP Michael Soroka: One year, $7.5MM
- C James McCann: One year, $2.75MM
13. Pittsburgh Pirates
Total guarantees: $36.75MM
14. San Francisco Giants
Note: Salary terms on San Francisco’s one-year deal with Tyler Mahle remain unreported. Once finalized, that’ll likely push them into the mid-$30MM range. Their placement above the Yankees assumes Mahle’s guarantee is north of $4MM.
Total guarantees: More than $25.4MM
- RHP Adrian Houser: Two years, $22MM
- RHP Jason Foley: One year, $2MM
- LHP Sam Hentges: One year, $1.4MM
15. New York Yankees
Total guarantees: $29.025MM
- OF Trent Grisham: One year, $22.025MM qualifying offer
- LHP Ryan Yarbrough: One year, $2.5MM
- INF Amed Rosario: One year, $2.5MM
- RHP Paul Blackburn: One year, $2MM
16. Cincinnati Reds
Total guarantees: $25.9MM
- RHP Emilio Pagán: Two years, $20MM
- LHP Caleb Ferguson: One year, $4.5MM
- OF JJ Bleday: One year, $1.4MM
- RHP Keegan Thompson: One year split deal
17. Tampa Bay Rays
Total guarantees: $25MM
18. Milwaukee Brewers
Total guarantees: $22.025MM
19. Texas Rangers
Total guarantees: $20.625MM
- C Danny Jansen: Two years, $14.5MM
- RHP Chris Martin: One year, $4MM
- LHP Tyler Alexander: One year, $1.125MM
- RHP Alexis Díaz: One year, $1MM
20. Miami Marlins
Total guarantees: $15MM
21. Los Angeles Angels
Total guarantees: $12.95MM
- RHP Kirby Yates: One year, $5MM
- LHP Drew Pomeranz: One year, $4MM
- RHP Jordan Romano: One year, $2MM
- RHP Alek Manoah: One year, $1.95MM
22. St. Louis Cardinals
Total guarantees: $12.5MM
23. Cleveland Guardians
Total guarantees: $7.9MM
- RHP Shawn Armstrong: One year, $5.5MM
- RHP Colin Holderman: One year, $1.5MM
- RHP Connor Brogdon: One year, $900K
- RHP Pedro Avila: One year split contract
24. Minnesota Twins
Total guarantees: $7MM
25. Kansas City Royals
Total guarantees: $6.15MM
26. Washinton Nationals
Total guarantees: $5.5MM
27. Houston Astros
Total guarantees: $3.95MM
28. Athletics
Total guarantees: $2.85MM
T-29. Boston Red Sox/Colorado Rockies
Total guarantees: $0
- Boston and Colorado have yet to sign a free agent to a major league deal this offseason.
Kona Takahashi’s Posting Window Nearing Conclusion
Most of the focus this week has been on the concluding posting windows for NPB stars Tatsuya Imai and Kazuma Okamoto. They’re not the only two Japanese free agents whose situations will be resolved within the next few days. Right-hander Kona Takahashi will also need to sign this week if he’s going to make the jump to MLB this offseason.
As MLB.com’s Brian Murphy noted at the time, Takahashi was formally posted by the Seibu Lions on November 21. That’s the same date as Okamoto’s posting. Both players have until Sunday, January 4 at 4:00 pm Central to sign. Imai was posted two days earlier, so his 45-day window closes on Friday afternoon.
Imai and Okamoto are reportedly meeting with clubs in Los Angeles this week. There’s little doubt that both players are going to sign before the end of their posting deadlines. That’s less clear with Takahashi, who doesn’t have nearly the same swing-and-miss upside that Imai brings to the table. Takahashi struck out only 14.3% of batters faced across 24 starts in 2025. He has never recorded a strikeout rate higher than 20% in an NPB season.
Takahashi is headed into his age-29 season. He has been an effective control artist in Japan, walking fewer than 7% of batters faced in consecutive seasons. He posted a 3.04 earned run average over 148 innings last year and owns a 3.39 mark over parts of 11 NPB campaigns. James Fegan and Eric Longenhagen of FanGraphs wrote in October that Takahashi projected as a fifth starter in MLB. FanGraphs grouped him alongside Anthony Kay and Foster Griffin in that tier. Kay went on to sign a two-year, $12MM deal with the White Sox. Griffin signed a one-year deal at $5.5MM with Washington.
A Japanese-language report from Sanspo in the middle of December indicated that Takahashi’s camp was in contact with three unnamed teams. It’s not known if he has received any MLB offers, nor is it clear that Takahashi would make the move to affiliated ball if teams are only willing to put minor league proposals on the table. If he doesn’t sign with an MLB club, he’d remain with the Lions.
Alexander Canario Signs With NPB’s Seibu Lions
The Seibu Lions of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball announced the signing of outfielder Alexander Canario earlier this month. He had been non-tendered by the Pirates at the end of the season.
Canario, 25, heads overseas for the first time in his career. A notable prospect during his time in the Cubs system, he plateaued in the upper minors because of increasing strikeout concerns. Canario never got much of a big league look in Chicago and bounced around a bit last winter. The Cubs traded him to the Mets in February. New York designated him for assignment on Opening Day and flipped him to Pittsburgh for cash considerations.
The Bucs kept the out-of-options Canario on their roster all season. He played in a little over half their games and tallied a career-high 234 plate appearances. Canario struggled to a .218/.274/.338 slash while striking out 80 times (34.2%). Among hitters with 200+ trips to the dish, only Luke Raley, Gabriel Arias, Michael A. Taylor and Christopher Morel swung and missed more frequently. Canario graded well defensively in his 521 innings split between the three outfield spots, but the lack of offense and roster flexibility led the Bucs to drop him.
Canario takes a career .252/.345/.521 Triple-A batting line to NPB. He has connected on 32 home runs in 120 games at the top minor league level. He’s an above-average runner with a plus arm and significant raw power. It’s the kind of profile that generally plays better in foreign leagues, where the average velocity and strikeout rate is lower than it is MLB. Canario would have been limited to minor league offers had he remained in affiliated ball, and his out-of-options status meant he’d likely have bounced around the waiver wire even if he hit his way back onto a team’s 40-man roster.
A’s Have “Ongoing Conversations” On More Potential Extensions
The Athletics announced their seven-year, $86MM extension with left fielder Tyler Soderstrom from their future home site in Las Vegas. That franchise-record deal followed last winter’s significant investments in DH Brent Rooker and outfielder Lawrence Butler.
Katie Woo and Will Sammon of The Athletic wrote this week that the A’s were interested in exploring extension talks with other players. General manager David Forst confirmed as much at yesterday’s presser, revealing without specifics that the team has opened some discussions.
“The idea of taking this group of young players and locking them up into a new ballpark has been something we’ve talked about for a long time,” Forst said (link via Mark Anderson of The Associated Press). “We were able to get Brent Rooker and Lawrence Butler signed last year, Tyler now, and there are ongoing conversations with others. So this is kind of the blueprint for how we want to do this and how we want to open the ballpark in ’28.”
While Forst didn’t identify which players the A’s were trying to extend, there are a few obvious targets. Shea Langeliers has three seasons of arbitration eligibility. Respective Rookie of the Year winner and runner-up Nick Kurtz and Jacob Wilson have five years of club control. Langeliers is one of the best offensive catchers in MLB. Kurtz and Wilson look like franchise cornerstones at first base and shortstop, respectively.
MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projects Langeliers for a $5.1MM salary. His power production should pay well in the arbitration process, and he’d make between $20-25MM over the next three years if he continues at his recent pace. Langeliers is controlled through his age-30 season. Sean Murphy (six years, $73MM) and Cal Raleigh (five years, $99.4MM) have signed recent extensions in the same service bracket.
Langeliers wouldn’t match Raleigh even though that deal was signed before the Seattle backstop’s record-setting 2025 season. His camp could look to beat the Murphy contract, though. The former Athletic was a superior defender but didn’t match Langeliers’ power ceiling. Murphy was accordingly starting from a lower projected base in arbitration than Langeliers will be.
Extending Wilson and certainly making a run at Kurtz would require new franchise records. Wilson is well beyond the $65MM range for which Ezequiel Tovar and Butler signed with one-plus service year. He doesn’t have the same power potential that Jackson Merrill and Roman Anthony showed to command early-career deals of at least $130MM. That said, he’s an up-the-middle defender with elite contact ability who was 21 percentage points better than a league average hitter in his first full season. He’s arguably closer to Merrill/Anthony than he is to Soderstrom, and a nine-figure asking price wouldn’t be outlandish.
Kurtz would be the most difficult of the group to lock up. On a rate basis, only Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani were better hitters this year. Kurtz has already banked a $7MM signing bonus out of the draft and collected nearly $1.3MM from the pre-arbitration bonus pool. He’s also a client of Excel Sports Management, an agency which has almost no history of signing pre-arbitration extensions. It’d likely require the A’s to offer more than double the Soderstrom contract just to get talks underway if they want to buy out multiple free agent years.
The A’s extension candidates beyond that trio would all be much cheaper but completely speculative fliers. Defensive stalwart center fielder Denzel Clarke and young starter Luis Morales showed promise but have very limited big league résumés. None of their top prospects — infielder Leo De Vries nor lefties Gage Jump and Jamie Arnold — have even reached Triple-A, and there has never been a pre-debut extension for a pitcher.
Reds, Yunior Marte Agree To Minor League Deal
The Reds are in agreement with reliever Yunior Marte on a minor league contract with an invite to big league Spring Training, reports Francys Romero. The righty would lock in a $1.05MM base salary if he breaks camp.
Marte is back in affiliated ball after spending the 2025 season in Japan. The Dominican-born hurler signed with NPB’s Chunichi Dragons last winter. He divided his time between the top level and their minor league club. Marte managed a 1.95 earned run average with a pair of saves and 11 holds over 32 1/3 innings for the NPB team. That came with a modest 19.1% strikeout rate and was heavily reliant on a .213 average on balls in play against him.
The 30-year-old (31 in February) pitched in the big leagues each year from 2022-24. Marte made 39 appearances for the Giants as a rookie and spent the next two seasons as an up-and-down middle reliever for the Phillies. He has a big arm, sitting in the 96-98 MPH range with his sinker. Marte missed a decent number of bats in the minors but has a below-average 20.1% strikeout percentage over 102 big league appearances. He owns a 5.64 ERA in 113 1/3 career frames.
Cincinnati has a solid late-inning group led by re-signed closer Emilio Pagán, Tony Santillan, Graham Ashcraft, Connor Phillips and Caleb Ferguson. They have a few openings in the middle innings and don’t have a ton of minor league depth. Tejay Antone is their only other currently healthy non-roster invitee who has MLB experience, though they’ll presumably try to get Keegan Thompson through waivers after he was designated for assignment last week.