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Ha-Seong Kim Declines Mutual Option With Padres; Wandy Peralta Declines Opt-Out

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Padres shortstop Ha-Seong Kim declined his end of an $8MM mutual option for the 2025 season, and he’ll now take a $2MM buyout and enter free agency, The Athletic’s Dennis Lin reports (X link).  Left-hander Wandy Peralta will be staying in San Diego for at least one more season, as Peralta will pass on his opt-out clause and remain in the four-year, $16.5MM deal he signed with the Padres last winter.

Neither decision registers as a surprise. Kim has hit .250/.336/.385 over the past three years for a wRC+ of 106, indicating he has been 6% above league average at the plate in that time. He also stole 72 bases in that stretch and provided above-average defense at shortstop, second base and third base.

His situation is a bit complicated by the fact that he underwent right labrum surgery not too long ago. His return timetable is a bit unclear but it has been suggested he is likely to miss at least part of the start of the 2025 season.

Even with that injury situation, it’s understandable that he would walk away from his mutual option at a net $6MM price point. Players coming back from injury can often still have notable earning power. Michael Conforto secured a two-year, $36MM deal from the Giants after missing an entire season. Rhys Hoskins got two years and $34MM from the Brewers after his own missed campaign. Both players had the ability to opt out after one season, though neither eventually did so.

The situations aren’t entirely analogous. Both Conforto and Hoskins were expected to be healthy in the first seasons of their deals, which won’t be the case with Kim. Perhaps that puts his earning power a bit below those two, but it still makes it sensible for him to turn down his option today. Whether he can get a two-year deal with an opt-out or a more straightforward one-year pillow deal, he should be able to get past the $6MM he’s leaving on the table today.

For the Padres, they will now have to figure out what to do at shortstop. When Kim was hurt late in the year, they moved Xander Bogaerts from second to short. It’s unclear whether they would want to do that for the long term as they just decided a year ago to have Bogaerts take on the less-demanding second base spot. Jackson Merrill came up as a shortstop before getting moved to center field for 2024. He could switch back but performed so well in center that the club might decide to keep him there.

The free agent market is headlined by Willy Adames but the Padres have some payroll limitations and probably aren’t the most logical landing spot for him. The trade market could feature Bo Bichette but it’s unclear if the Blue Jays will make him available.

As for Peralta, he signed with the Padres last winter on a four-year deal with a $16.5MM guarantee and opt-outs after each season. He went on to have a pretty mediocre season, despite a respectable 3.99 earned run average. His 52.9% ground ball rate was still above league average but his worst in a full season since 2019. His strikeout rate fell to 13.6% this year after being in the 18-23% range in the previous five years.

It it weren’t for a fairly low .233 batting average on balls in play, he would have allowed more runs to score. His 5.46 FIP and 4.57 SIERA disagree on how bad things were under the hood but both suggest the ERA is misleading. After that performance, he’ll stick with the Padres and hope for a better season, with the chance of returning to free agency again a year from now.

Orioles Decline Club Option On Eloy Jiménez

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The Orioles announced that they have declined their club option on outfielder/designated hitter Eloy Jiménez. They could have retained him for 2025 with a salary of $16.5MM but will instead give him a $3MM buyout and send him to free agency. The Sox are covering half of that buyout as part of the trade that sent him to Baltimore this summer.

The decision is an unsurprising one. Jiménez has occasionally been a potent slugger but the injuries have piled up in recent years and he just wrapped up the worst season of his career. The Orioles acquired him from the White Sox at the deadline, hoping to catch lightning in a bottle with a buy-low move but it didn’t pan out. He finished the year with a .238/.289/.336 batting line and 78 wRC+.

Jiménez is one of the slower players in the league and doesn’t provide defensive value. He only spent eight innings in the field this year, none with the Orioles. Given the limited profile, he really needs to be producing at the plate in order to be useful.

That has been the case before. Through the end of 2022, he was sporting a career line of .276/.327/.504 and a 123 wRC+. He was often injured during that time but clearly a productive hitter when on the field. The Sox had given him a $43MM extension before he even made his major league debut and he seemed to be making good on that investment for a while.

In 2023, he stayed healthy enough to get into 120 games, just two shy of his career high. But the results dipped, as his .272/.317/.441 line led to a 105 wRC+. As mentioned, his performance fell even further this year. As the Sox were playing out their historically bad season this year, they flipped him to the O’s at the deadline for minor league reliever Trey McGough, covering most of the money left on the contract in order to get the deal done.

Now a free agent, some club will undoubtedly take a chance on Jiménez based on his past performance. But his poor health track record and recent struggles will limit him to a modest base salary, perhaps with incentives for him to potentially unlock if he’s able to stay healthy and return to form. He is still fairly young, turning 28 later this month, so a bounceback isn’t totally out of the question.

Blake Snell Opts Out Of Deal With Giants

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Left-hander Blake Snell has exercised the opt-out provision in his contract and is now a free agent. Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic was among those to relay the news on X.

The news is not at all surprising. Snell was a free agent a year ago and didn’t find the contract he was seeking, despite the fact that he was coming off a Cy Young campaign in 2023.

He eventually signed with the Giants on a two-year pact with a $62MM guarantee. That came in the form of a $15MM salary and $17MM signing bonus for 2024, with a $30MM salary for 2025 if Snell stayed.

The opt-out after the first year was clearly there to give Snell a chance to take another shot at free agency if he could stay healthy and engineer another strong season in 2024.

For a while, it seemed like that wasn’t going to come to pass. Perhaps due to the fact that he didn’t sign until the middle of March and had a delayed spring training, he stumbled out of the gate in 2024 and also suffered a few injuries. At the end of June, he was on the injured list for the second time, the first one labeled as a left adductor strain and the second as a left groin strain. He had a 9.51 earned run average in the six starts he was able to make.

But he came back shortly after that and was completely dominant the rest of the way. He posted a 1.23 ERA in his final 14 starts of the year. His 10% walk rate was a tad high but he struck out 38.1% of batters faced.

Snell has had a few injury absences over the years but has continually demonstrated himself to be one of the best pitchers on the planet when on the mound. From 2018 until the present day, he has a 3.03 ERA and 32.1% strikeout rate, both of which are top ten numbers among qualified starters for that stretch. Among pitchers with at least 250 innings pitched over the past two years, only Tarik Skubal has a lower ERA than Snell’s 2.57 mark. Snell’s 32.7% strikeout rate in that time is also second best, a hair below Tyler Glasnow’s 32.8% rate.

Given that elite performance, it was widely expected that Snell would return to free agency in the hopes of a finding a more robust market this time around. He will be one of the top starting pitchers available alongside Corbin Burnes, Max Fried and Jack Flaherty. Snell is leaving $30MM on the table but should be able to blow past that with a nine-figure deal of some kind.

Yankees Exercise Club Option On Luke Weaver

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The Yankees announced that they have exercised their club option on right-hander Luke Weaver for the 2025 season. He’ll make a $2.5MM salary in the upcoming campaign.

The decision is not surprising at all. The Yankees showed a lot of faith in Weaver and it paid off in a big way. Though he was once a first-round pick and top prospect, his initial career success led into a real rough patch.

Weaver showed some promise as a starter at the start of his career but posted a 5.95 earned run average over the 2020-2023 period. He was designated for assignment by the Mariners in September of 2023 and landed with the Yankees, making three appearances for the Yanks as they ran out the clock on that season.

They must have seen something they liked in that time, as they re-signed him in January, a one-year deal that included a $2MM salary in 2024, a club option for 2025, as well as incentives and escalators.

The gamble paid out in a huge way, as Weaver just wrapped up an excellent season. He tossed 84 innings out of the Yankee bullpen this year with a 2.89 earned run average. He struck out 31.1% of batters faced while keeping his walk rate to a 7.9% level. He earned 22 holds and took over as closer late in the year, earning four saves. He made another 12 appearances in the postseason with a 1.79 ERA, earning four more saves.

Weaver’s $2.5MM club option came with escalators but they didn’t kick in until 100 innings pitched, presumably allowing him to lock in extra earnings if he eventually returned to the rotation. But since he stayed in relief all year, he wasn’t able to push the value of the option up.

$2.5MM is peanuts for a major league club, especially one like the Yankees that generally runs one of the higher payrolls in the league. For how well Weaver pitched this year, this was one of the most no-brainer decisions of the offseason.

Clayton Kershaw To Undergo Toe And Knee Surgeries

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As the Dodgers celebrate their World Series victory today, left-hander Clayton Kershaw informed reporters that he will be on the surgeon’s table next week, with work to be done on his left toe and left knee.

He missed time this year due to bone spurs in his left big toe, but the problems evidently go beyond that, as he also has a ruptured plantar plate. The knee surgery will be to correct a torn meniscus. Details were relayed by various reporters, including Fabian Ardaya of the Athletic (X links). His return timeline is unclear at this point.

Kershaw, 37 in March, has a legendary career but his most recent seasons have been defined by his health issues. Due to various ailments, he hasn’t tossed 135 innings in a season since 2019.

It was almost exactly a year ago, on November 3 of 2023, that the lefty announced he had undergone shoulder surgery. Since that procedure was going to keep him out until midseason, he and the Dodgers reunited on a deal that reflected his health status.

It was technically a two-year deal, with Kershaw guaranteed $5MM in both 2024 and 2025 but with the second season being a player option. The deal also included a number of incentives that would allow Kershaw to increase both the value of his 2024 salary and 2025 player option based on games started.

As he attempted to return to the club this summer, he was slowed by some shoulder soreness during his rehab, getting reinstated in late July. In just over a month on the roster, Kershaw made seven starts with a 4.50 earned run average before landing on the injured list due to the aforementioned bone spurs in his toe.

He attempted to get back into game shape as the season was winding down but wasn’t successful. Today’s news provides a bit more clarity on what exactly Kershaw was up against while trying to get back on the field.

By making seven starts this year, Kershaw unlocked escalators worth $5MM on his 2025 option, bringing the value to $10MM. Though he’s set for another offseason of surgery and rehab, he reiterated today that he plans on coming back next year.

He could do that simply by triggering the $10MM option, or perhaps he and the club will negotiate some new pact. His recent free agent trips have been characterized as him essentially deciding between returning to the Dodgers versus signing with his hometown Texas Rangers. During today’s celebrations, Kershaw seemed to erase any mystery about which jersey he would be wearing next year. He declared himself a “Dodger for life,” per Ardaya on X.

Whenever he returns, he will slot into a Dodger rotation that currently projects to include Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow, Tony Gonsolin, Dustin May, Landon Knack and others.. Guys like Emmet Sheehan, River Ryan or Kyle Hurt could factor in once they recover from their Tommy John surgeries. The Dodgers will also likely make offseason moves that alter their rotation picture, either via free agency or trade.

Rays Exercise Club Option On Brandon Lowe

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The Rays announced that they have exercised their club option on infielder Brandon Lowe. Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times relayed the news on X prior to the official announcement. The club could have given Lowe a $1MM buyout and sent him to free agency but have instead locked in his $10.5MM salary for the upcoming season.

There wasn’t much suspense with this decision. Lowe has hit .245/.330/.482 in his career for a 126 wRC+. That includes a .244/.311/.473 line in 2024 for a 123 wRC+.

He has mostly played second base in his career but has also spent some time at first base and in the outfield corners. He’s not considered especially strong at any of those spots but the versatility is still useful. He has missed plenty of time due to injuries in his career, only once getting into 110 games in a season, but his production has been strong whenever he’s been out there.

Back in March of 2019, when Lowe had just 43 MLB games on his ledger, he and the Rays agreed to a six-year, $24MM contract extension. The Rays are undoubtedly happy with their return on that investment, given Lowe’s performance.

They have triggered the club option to keep Lowe around for 2025 and his contract has another club option for 2026. He can be retained for that season at a rate of $11.5MM with a $500K buyout.

The question now is if the Rays will hold him or trade him. The franchise often trades players as they get more expensive and closer to free agency, which applies to Lowe.

According to RosterResource, the projected 2025 payroll is fairly similar to what they paid in 2024. A few non-tenders of their arbitration-eligible players could give them some breathing space but they are also facing the uncertainty of their stadium situation. With Tropicana Field badly damaged by Hurricane Milton, it’s possible that the club has to spend the upcoming season or seasons as nomads. That could have financial implications in terms of ticket sales, refunds, repairs and so on.

Even if that situation is largely resolved by insurance or other means, the Rays normally keep payroll down by trading players in this situation for younger, cheaper and more controllable alternatives. As such, it wouldn’t be a surprise if Lowe’s name pops up in trade rumors this winter.

Royals Select Evan Sisk

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The Royals announced that they have selected the contract of left-hander Evan Sisk. He was set to become a minor league free agent but the Royals will keep him in the organization by giving him a 40-man spot.

Sisk, 28 in April, was drafted by the Cardinals back in 2018. The 16th-rounder has since been a part of two notable trades. He went to the Twins as part of the July 2021 deal that sent J.A. Happ to the Cardinals and then to the Royals as part of the January 2023 trade that sent Michael A. Taylor to Minnesota.

A sidearming lefty, Sisk’s minor league career has thus far been defined by decent numbers of strikeouts and grounders but also a high number of walks. Over the past four years, he has thrown 234 1/3 innings, allowing 3.34 earned runs per nine. He has walked 12.6% of batters faced in that time but also punched out 27.9% of them while getting grounders about half the time that batters do put the ball in play.

Despite the apparent control issues, the Royals are intrigued by the overall package. Players with seven years in the minors, including 2020, are eligible for minor league free agency. The Royals clearly didn’t want that to happen, so they’ve added Sisk to their roster and into their relief mix.

Cardinals Claim Roddery Muñoz

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The Cardinals announced that they have claimed right-hander Roddery Muñoz from the Marlins. The Fish evidently put him on waivers in recent days with St. Louis grabbing him off the wire.

Muñoz, 24, just made his major league debut with the Marlins this year. As they suffered a large number of injuries to their rotation, they had to reach into their depth, with Muñoz getting a shot in the big leagues.

The numbers weren’t especially impressive, as Muñoz posted a 6.53 earned run average in 82 2/3 innings this year. His 18.5% strikeout rate, 11.1% walk rate and 34% ground ball rate were all below league average.

Despite the uninspiring debut, Muñoz has a bit of prospect pedigree and some decent minor league results. Since the start of 2021, he has struck out 24.3% of batters faced on the farm. His 11.4% walk rate in that time was high and his 5.18 ERA unimpressive. However, a low strand rate of 64.8% could be a factor there, leading his 4.83 FIP to be a bit more palatable.

The Cardinals are set to engage in a reset year where they cut payroll and overhaul their player development apparatus. They just declined club options on Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn. They could look into trading pricey vets Sonny Gray, Erick Fedde, Miles Mikolas or Steven Matz this winter.

Those moves could be accompanied by others that bring in younger, cheaper and more affordable arms, but going with less-proven guys could mean depth arms become more important. Claiming Muñoz is the first of what could be many transactions that impact their rotation picture this winter.

Athletics Outright Kyle Muller, Tyler Nevin

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The Athletics announced that left-hander Kyle Muller and infielder Tyler Nevin have each been passed through waivers unclaimed and outrighted off the 40-man roster.

Muller, 27, was a second-round pick of Atlanta and a notable prospect with that club. He came to the A’s in the December 2022 trade that sent catcher Sean Murphy the other way.

Unfortunately, he hasn’t done much to impress the A’s since coming over. He has tossed 126 1/3 innings as an Athletic over the past two years, allowing 6.20 earned runs per nine. His 8.5% walk rate and 42.5% ground ball rate are both around average but his 16% strikeout rate is well below par. He also has a 6.48 ERA in the minors since the start of 2023.

He exhausted his final option year in 2023 and was out of options in 2024. The A’s outrighted him off the roster midseason, with Muller clearing waivers and sticking in the organization. He was selected back to the roster but has now been waived once again.

Since this is his second career outright, he has the right to elect free agency. If he does so, it will be another development in making the Murphy trade look quite poor in hindsight. Royber Salinas, another player in that deal, was claimed back by Atlanta just today. Freddy Tarnok and Manny Piña departed the organization long ago. That leaves Esteury Ruiz as the only of the five players they received that’s still with the club. He is a big base stealer but has hit just .243/.297/.343 in his big league career thus far.

Nevin, 27, has bounced around the league and is settling in as a Quad-A type. He has continued to put up strong numbers in Triple-A but has flailed in the majors. At this point, he has a .204/.299/.315 batting line and 81 wRC+ in his big league career but a .313/.391/.536 line and 135 wRC+ at Triple-A over the past three years.

He exhausted his final option year in 2023 and has since bounced around. Since the start of 2024, he went from the Tigers to the Orioles and then the A’s. He was outrighted by Oakland midseason and added back to the roster. Since this is his second career outright, he has the right to elect free agency.

Marlins Claim Christian Roa

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The Marlins announced that they have claimed right-hander Christian Roa off waivers from the Reds. Christina De Nicola of MLB.com relayed the claim on X prior to the official announcement. The Fish also announced that right-handers Shaun Anderson, Darren McCaughan and Adam Oller as well as infielder/outfielder David Hensley have been outrighted to Triple-A Jacksonville. Oller is expected to elect free agency and pursue opportunities in Asia, per Ari Alexander of KPRC 2 on X.

Roa, 25, was on Cincinnati’s 60-day injured list but the IL goes away five days after the World Series. Rather than reinstating him to the 40-man roster, the Reds evidently tried to pass him through waivers but the Marlins grabbed him.

The righty was a second-round pick of the Reds and has been a notable prospect in the club’s system since then. He has racked up a fair number of strikeouts as a minor leaguer but also given out a large number of walks. He has thrown 318 2/3 innings in his minor league career with a 4.46 ERA, 27.4% strikeout rate and 14.3% walk rate.

He was added to Cincinnati’s 40-man roster a year ago to keep him out of the Rule 5 draft. He spent this year pitching in Triple-A with a 5.55 ERA. His walk rate was still high at 13.5% and his strikeouts dropped to a rate of 21.2%. In August, the Reds recalled him to the majors and added him to their 60-day IL with a right shoulder sprain in order to open up a 40-man roster spot.

The Marlins will take a shot on him and see if they can help him rein in that control a bit. Roa still has two more option seasons and less than a year of service time. For a rebuilding club like the Marlins, they can take their time and see if the Roa project can bear some fruit for them down the line.

The four outrighted players were all fairly recent additions to the Miami roster. The club suffered a high number of injuries in 2024 and was often grabbing players from everywhere in order to keep the roster filled as they played out the string on the campaign.

Anderson was designated for assignment by the Rangers at the end of May and got flipped to the Marlins for cash. He posted an 8.27 ERA in 16 1/3 innings for the Fish after that. McCaughan was claimed off waivers from the Guardians in July and went on to throw 36 innings for Miami with a 5.75 ERA. Oller signed a minor league deal with the club in July, later having his contract selected to throw 42 1/3 innings with a 5.31 ERA. Hensley was claimed off waivers from the Astros at the end of July and then hit .212/.293/.288 in 23 games as a Marlin.

The three pitchers have previous career outrights and therefore have the right to elect free agency. This is Hensley’s first outright but she should have the right to elect minor league free agency as a player with seven years on the farm.

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