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Tigers Acquire Brewer Hicklen From Brewers

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The Tigers announced that they have acquired outfielder Brewer Hicklen from the Brewers in exchange for cash considerations. He was designated for assignment by Milwaukee yesterday as that club set its Opening Day roster. The Tigers have optioned him to Triple-A Toledo and transferred right-hander Ty Madden to the 60-day injured list to open a 40-man spot.

Hicklen, 29, has a tiny major league track record. The Brewers sent him to the plate five times last year and he also got four plate appearances with the 2022 Royals. He struck out in eight of those nine appearances without a hit.

The Tigers are surely more interested in his minor league work, which is greater in quality and quantity. He has a combined .244/.352/.469 batting line over the past four minor league seasons. That production leads to a 114 wRC+, indicating he’s been about 14% above league average. His 30.7% strikeout rate in that time is quite high but he also drew walks at a strong 11.7% clip and stole 140 bases.

The Detroit outfield has taken a number of hits in recent weeks, particularly in center field. Each of Parker Meadows, Wenceel Pérez and Matt Vierling started the season on the injured list due to various ailments suffered during the spring.

That left Riley Greene as the last man standing from what their projected outfield would have been a few months ago. Kerry Carpenter was once projected as the regular designated hitter but could perhaps move to the grass. That would open the DH spot for Spencer Torkelson, who was pushed off first base when the club signed Gleyber Torres to play second and moved Colt Keith to first. To bolster the group around Greene and Carpenter, the Tigers signed Manuel Margot, who had been released by the Brewers. They also recalled utility player Ryan Kreidler.

Hicklen will give the club a bit of optionable outfield depth, alongside Justyn-Henry Malloy. Given his speed, perhaps Hicklen could carve out a role as a fourth outfielder who gets thrown in for pinch-running and defensive replacement opportunities. Until then, he will presumably get regular reps in the minors.

As for Madden, he was diagnosed with a rotator cuff strain in his throwing shoulder three weeks ago. His current timeline is unclear but this transfer means he can’t be reinstated until late May at the earliest.

Photo courtesy of Rick Scuteri, USA TODAY Sports

White Sox Outright Oscar Colás

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The White Sox announced that outfielder Oscar Colás has cleared waivers and been sent outright to Triple-A Charlotte. He had been designated for assignment a couple of days ago when the club was making its final roster moves ahead of Opening Day.

Seeing this transaction would have been surprising a few years ago but is far more understandable given the way things have played out recently. Colás was a high-profile player even before joining the affiliated ranks. A native of Cuba, he had played both in that country and in Japan, building a reputation with his strong offensive stats. He also dabbled in pitching, leading to some “Cuban Shohei Ohtani” chatter, but his official track record on the mound consists of just 3 1/3 innings in Cuba.

He eventually signed with the White Sox early in 2022, getting a relatively high $2.7MM signing bonus. His first season in affiliated ball went quite well. In that 2022 season, he went from High-A to Double-A and Triple-A. Across those three levels, he hit 23 home runs in 117 games, producing a combined .314/.371/.524 batting line and 137 wRC+.

Going into 2023, he was considered one of the top 100 prospects in the league, but his stock has been falling since then. He has 301 big league plate appearances thus far with a 5.3% walk rate and 26.9% strikeout rate. His .223/.271/.309 line translates to a wRC+ of just 58. His minor league production has also fallen off. His .255/.336/.423 line at Triple-A over the past two years is better than his major league work but amounts to a wRC+ of 93, or 7% below league average. His defense hasn’t been well regarded, making that declining offense all the more troubling.

Coming into 2025, the Sox didn’t seem keen on keeping a job open for him. They already had Luis Robert Jr. and Andrew Benintendi in the outfield mix and then added Austin Slater, Michael A. Taylor, Mike Tauchman and Travis Jankowski. Injuries to Tauchman and Benintendi in spring perhaps opened a path for Colás but he struck out in 38.9% of his plate appearances in Cactus League action.

He has an option remaining, so the Sox could have simply sent him to the minors. But they bumped him off the 40-man and put him on the wire, taking the risk that they would lose him completely. Any of the other 29 clubs could have grabbed him and stashed him in Triple-A but none of them were willing to give him a roster spot, an indication of where his value is right now.

Since he has less than three years of service time and this is his first career outright, he does not have the right to elect free agency. He’ll stick with the White Sox as a depth piece but without taking up a roster spot. The Sox won’t be competing this year and it seems likely that outfield playing time will be open in the second half. Robert should be one of the top trade candidates of the coming months as long as he stays healthy and the other outfielders should be on the block as well. If Colás can turn things around in Charlotte, he could perhaps get another shot at the majors later in the summer.

Photo courtesy of Jayne Kamin-Oncea, Imagn Images

Sam Bachman Diagnosed With Thoracic Outlet Syndrome

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The Angels placed right-hander Sam Bachman on the 15-day injured list today due to thoracic outlet syndrome, per Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register. The righty himself said he doesn’t need surgery and is hoping to avoid the 60-day IL, per Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com.

Thoracic outlet syndrome is a potentially ominous diagnosis but it’s also one that comes with a wide range of outcomes. In some of the more infamous cases, pitchers like Matt Harvey, Chris Archer and Stephen Strasburg were severely set back by the condition and never able to recover, though each of those pitchers did require surgery.

On the other end of the spectrum, Merrill Kelly underwent surgery towards the end of the 2020 season. He has since gone on to have the best seasons of his MLB career, tossing 609 2/3 innings with a 3.71 earned run average from 2021 to 2024. For those interested in a medical explanation about why the results can be so divergent, Jesse Dougherty of The Washington Post took a look a couple of years ago.

At this point, it can only be guessed what the future holds for Bachman. The fact that he isn’t currently undergoing surgery is perhaps a good sign, though it will be a situation for the Angels and their fans to monitor.

Bachman, now 25, was the ninth overall pick of the 2021 draft. The Halos gave him a $3,847,500 bonus to put pen to paper. Despite some injuries in the minors, he was up in the majors by May of 2023 but hasn’t been able to build much of a track record due to further health troubles. In July of 2023, shortly after his promotion, he landed on the IL due to right shoulder inflammation and stayed on the shelf for the rest of the year. He underwent arthroscopic surgery in the fall and started 2024 on the IL as well. He was reinstated in the summer but sent to the minors.

It’s now been almost four years since Bachman was drafted but he hasn’t been healthy very often since then. He has just 146 minor league innings and only 17 major league innings under his belt to this point. He now has another serious diagnosis to deal with.

Photo courtesy of Rick Scuteri, Imagn Images

Athletics Select Max Muncy

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The Athletics announced today that they have selected the contract of infielder Max Muncy. It was previously reported that he would be breaking camp with the A’s. To open a 40-man roster spot, left-hander Ken Waldichuk was placed on the 60-day injured list. The southpaw is recovering from Tommy John surgery performed last May. They also placed pitchers Brady Basso and Michel Otañez on the 15-day IL and infielders Zack Gelof and Brett Harris on the 10-day IL. Basso has a strained left shoulder, Otañez a right shoulder sprain, Gelof hamate surgery and Harris a strained left oblique.

Muncy, 22, is somehow not related to the other Max Muncy. In addition to having the same first and last name and both being A’s draftees, they also both have August 25th as a birthday, though the Muncy who is now on the Dodgers was born 12 years earlier.

The younger Muncy was a first-round pick in 2021. He has hit .255 /.346/.427 in the minors since then, climbing his way up to make his major league debut. His 10.4% walk rate in that time is quite strong but his 28.5% strikeout rate is certainly on the high side.

The injuries to Gelof and Harris cleared out a path for him and it seems like Muncy will open the season as the club’s regular second baseman, though veteran Luis Urías is around if Muncy struggles. Muncy is considered capable of being a solid defender at shortstop but the A’s have Jacob Wilson lined up to take regular playing time there.

As for the IL stints, none of those comes as a surprise. Each of those ailments were reported prior to today.

Mariners Re-Sign Drew Pomeranz To Minor League Deal

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The Mariners and left-hander Drew Pomeranz have reunited on a fresh minor league deal, reports Jon Heyman of The New York Post. He and Seattle signed a minor pact in the winter but he didn’t make the Opening Day roster and asked to be released. After presumably assessing his offers over the past few days, he has returned to the M’s on a new deal.

Pomeranz, 36, has been on the comeback trail for quite a while. He hasn’t pitched in the majors since 2021 due to various injuries, but he did just have a decent showing in camp. He tossed 7 2/3 innings of Cactus League action, allowing four earned runs. He gave out four walks but struck out ten opponents.

The southpaw had previously been one of the better relievers in the league. The Brewers acquired him from the Giants in 2019 and moved him from the rotation to the bullpen. He tossed 26 1/3 innings for Milwaukee after that deal with a 2.39 earned run average, 45% strikeout rate, 8% walk rate and 46.8% ground ball rate.

He hit free agency then and the Padres gave him a four-year, $34MM deal, making a large wager that he could continue that strong form. That worked well for a while. Pomeranz tossed 44 1/3 innings for the Friars over 2020 and 2021 with a 1.62 ERA, 33.7% strikeout rate, 11.4% walk rate and 45.8% ground ball rate.

But he’s been in the wilderness since then. He underwent flexor tendon surgery in August of 2021. After that, he hit various speed bumps in his attempts to get back on the mound, struggling to get back to 100% health. He pitched less than ten innings in each of the past three minor league seasons.

For the Mariners, there’s no harm in keeping him around as non-roster depth to see if things click back into place. Their two lefty relievers at the moment are Tayler Saucedo and Gabe Speier. Saucedo has an ERA of 4.00 over his 114 2/3 career innings, with Speier at 4.18 over 118 1/3. Pomeranz getting back somewhere near his peak would be a great find but perhaps a tall ask given his age and track record. But over a long season, injuries are fairly inevitable, so the Mariners may be able to use him at some point even if he’s not quite his previous elite self.

Photo courtesy of Mark J. Rebilas, Imagn Images

Yankees Select Pablo Reyes

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The Yankees announced that they have selected infielder/outfielder Pablo Reyes to their 40-man roster. Chris Kirschner of The Athletic previously relayed that Reyes had a locker at Yankee Stadium. In a corresponding move, they placed right-hander Jake Cousins on the 60-day injured list. Cousins has a right elbow flexor strain and apparently isn’t expected back in the first two months of the season.

Reyes, 31, is a journeyman part-time utility guy. He has appeared in six big league seasons, suiting up for four different teams, but without eclipsing 71 games played in any one season. He has a .248/.309/.349 career batting line while playing every position except catcher.

He signed a minor league deal with the Yankees this winter and put up a strong .311/.418/.467 line in Grapefruit League play. That performance, as well as some notable Yankee injuries, will get him back to the big leagues. DJ LeMahieu and Giancarlo Stanton are both starting the season on the injured list. LeMahieu has a calf strain while Stanton has been battling injuries to both elbows. The Yankees listed his injury as elbow epicondylitis when placing him on the 10-day IL yesterday.

With LeMahieu out, Oswaldo Cabrera and Oswald Peraza will seemingly be battling for regular playing time at third base. Stanton’s DH job might go to a rotation of players, with Ben Rice perhaps the favorite for the most time there.

On the bench, J.C. Escarra will be the backup catcher. Trent Grisham will be the fourth outfielder, perhaps allowing Aaron Judge to DH with some frequency. Reyes will provide infield depth alongside the Cabrera/Peraza duo. Reyes is out of options and will have to be removed from the 40-man if he gets nudged off the active roster when LeMahieu is healthy.

Photo courtesy of Kim Klement Neitzel, Imagn Images

Orioles Designate Roansy Contreras, Outright Matt Bowman

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The Orioles announced their Opening Day roster today, noting that right-handers Roansy Contreras and Matt Bowman are no longer on the 40-man. Contreras has been designated for assignment. Bowman has already cleared waivers and accepted an outright assignment to Triple-A.

Both pitchers are out of options. That meant they needed to stick on the active roster or else be removed from the 40-man entirely. In both cases, they didn’t make the Opening Day squad and have subsequently lost their 40-man spots.

Bowman, 34 in May, signed a minor league deal with the O’s in the winter. They selected his contract a few days ago, perhaps to stop him from triggering an opt-out in his contract. They’ve now quickly run him through waivers. He has at least three years of service time but less than five. That means he has the right to reject an outright assignment and elect free agency, but in so doing would forfeit the money still owed to him on his contract.

It’s not known how much Bowman is owed but is seems he preferred to stick with his current deal, as opposed to looking for a new one. He’ll provide the O’s with some non-roster depth. In 216 career innings, he has a 4.17 earned run average, 19% strikeout rate, 8.3% walk rate and 54.6% ground ball rate.

Contreras, 25, has been bouncing around the league for a long time. That’s due to some enticing numbers and his out-of-options status. Dating back to May of last year, he has gone from the Pirates to the Angels, Rangers, Reds, Orioles, Yankees and then Orioles again via small trades or waiver claims. He has a 4.72 ERA, 19.7% strikeout rate, 10.1% walk rate and 39.3% ground ball rate in his 234 2/3 career innings.

He has less than three years of service time and doesn’t have a previous career outright, which means he would not have the right to elect free agency if he passes through waivers. The O’s will have a maximum of one week of DFA limbo time to figure out what’s next for Contreras. The waiver process can take 48 hours, so any trade talks would need to develop in the next five days.

Photo courtesy of Kim Klement Neitzel, Imagn Images

Brewers Designate Brewer Hicklen For Assignment

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The Brewers have designated outfielder Brewer Hicklen for assignment, per Adam McCalvy of MLB.com. That’s the corresponding move to add first baseman Jake Bauers, a move that was previously reported.

Hicklen, 29, has a brief major league résumé. He got five plate appearances with Milwaukee last year and four with the Royals in 2022. He struck out in eight of those and is still looking for his first major league hit. He will now start the 2025 season in DFA limbo, which can last as long as a week. The waiver process can take 48 hours, so they could take five days to assess trade interest.

With that brief and awful major league track record, any interest would be based on his minor league work. Over the past four years, he has a .244/.352/.469 battling line on the farm. That production translates to a 114 wRC+. He struck out in 30.7% of his plate appearances but drew walks at an 11.7% pace. He also stole 14o bases in that stretch.

He has two minor league options remaining and only a handful of service days, so he could perhaps intrigue a club looking for an affordable and controllable outfield depth piece with some intriguing tools.

Photo courtesy of Rick Scuteri, Imagn Images

Rockies To Designate Sam Hilliard For Assignment

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The Rockies are going to designate outfielder Sam Hilliard for assignment, reports Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post. That will be the corresponding move to sign fellow outfielder Mickey Moniak, a move which was reported yesterday.

Hilliard, 31, was previously lined up a bench outfielder for Colorado. However, when the Angels released Moniak, they pounced to grab him, which nudged Hilliard down the depth chart by one peg. The regular outfield playing time figures to be split between Brenton Doyle, Jordan Beck, Nick Martini and Sean Bouchard, with Moniak perhaps having a chance to force his way in there as well.

That will squeeze out Hilliard, who has longstanding ties to the Rockies. Drafted by Colorado in 2015, he got to the big leagues in 2019 and was with the club through the 2022 season. He was traded to Atlanta prior to 2023. Ahead of 2024, he bounced around the waiver wire but wound up back with the Rockies.

Overall, he has shown some pop and some speed but has undercut those assets with too many strikeouts. In 875 career plate appearances, he has 42 home runs and 24 stolen bases but has been punched out at a huge 34.1% clip. His .219/.296/.438 batting line translates to an 84 wRC+.

Though Hilliard is out of options, the Rockies tendered him a contract for 2025. The two sides agreed to a $1MM salary for this year. He has at least three years of service time, meaning he has the right to reject an outright assignment and elect free agency. However, since he has less than five years of service, doing so would mean forfeiting the money that is still owed to him. If he clears waivers, he would like stick with the Rockies as non-roster depth.

Photo courtesy of Mark J. Rebilas, Imagn Images

Blue Jays Make New Contract Offer To Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

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The Blue Jays have made another contract offer to Vladimir Guerrero Jr., reports Buster Olney of ESPN. No specifics of the offer have been publicly reported but Olney says a gap remains between the two sides.

The will-they-won’t-they between the Jays and Guerrero has been playing out for years now, but with a special focus on the drama this winter. Guerrero is now slated for free agency after the 2025 season, which begins today for the Jays. It’s common for players to set Opening Day as a deadline in contract talks, to avoid distractions during the season. Guerrero initially went a step further and set a deadline of February 18, the opening of Spring Training.

That day came and went without a deal getting done, though Guerrero subsequently said he would keep the door open if the Jays wanted to come back to the table. Reportedly, Guerrero’s asking price was a deal of at least 14 years and worth $500MM. The Jays reportedly did make him an offer in February with a sticker price of $500MM, but with deferrals that would knock the net present value down to the $400-450MM range. Guerrero is said to be open to deferrals generally but would still like the NPV to get to that $500MM line.

In a sense, that $50-100MM gap is not large. For a deal of that length, that’s about $3.5MM to $7MM annually. In an annual baseball budget, that’s what clubs spend on a veteran reliever or a backup catcher. That would appear to be a bridgeable gap. That’s perhaps especially true when looking at the broader picture. Guerrero has been the face of the franchise for many years now. The Jays have tried to sign other marquee players like Shohei Ohtani, Juan Soto and Roki Sasaki but without success.

The regime of president Mark Shapiro and general manager Ross Atkins has seemingly left a large segment of the fanbase discontent. There has been a lot of regular season success in recent years but the Jays have been swept in all of their most recent playoff appearances. Many things went wrong in 2024, which exacerbated the frustration.

Letting Guerrero walk for a relatively small financial gap would likely be unwelcome from a public relations perspective, whereas getting a deal done on Opening Day could theoretically provide a nice boost to fan morale.

The front office seems to view the situation as one that can be resolved. Shapiro recently expressed confidence that a deal would get done, either an extension or later in free agency. That was an unusual bit of candor, since front office types usually duck questions about ongoing negotiations. Atkins made somewhat similar comments yesterday, per Hazel Mae of Sportsnet and Keegan Matheson of MLB.com.

Presumably, this new offer from the Jays has moved closer to Guerrero’s asking price. Though as mentioned, no details have been publicly reported. A deal in this range would be fairly unprecedented, for the Jays or any other club.

As of a few months ago, no player had received a contract with an NPV at $500MM or higher. At the start of the 2024-25 offseason, the largest deal on record was Ohtani’s ten-year, $700MM pact with the Dodgers. Thanks to the heavy deferrals in that deal, Major League Baseball calculated the AAV as $46.06MM with the MLBPA at $43.78MM, meaning the NPV on the deal was roughly $437-460MM. Even those reduced numbers were all records, in terms of largest guarantee and largest AAV ever.

Each of those numbers is now a distant second, thanks to Soto’s deal. He got $765MM over 15 years with no deferrals, meaning his net present value shattered Ohtani’s. The AAV on that is $51MM, which also went notably beyond Ohtani’s deferral-adjusted AAV.

A hypothetical deal worth $500MM over 14 years would be a $35.7MM AAV. That would be well below Soto and Ohtani but still put Guerrero in the top 15 of all contracts by AAV, ahead of players like Carlos Correa, Francisco Lindor and Mookie Betts. The total guarantee would be second all-time, when adjusting Ohtani’s down.

Guerrero hasn’t been quite as elite as Ohtani or Soto but still has a strong track record for a player his age. Many top prospects don’t reach the majors until their mid-20s but Guerrero just turned 26 earlier this month, which is a huge part of his earning power. He already has 819 games under his belt with 160 home runs, a .288/.363/.500 batting line and 137 wRC+. He was even better than that in both 2021 and 2024. Though he dipped a bit in the two seasons in between, he hit .323/.396/.544 for a 165 wRC+ last year. He’s not an especially strong defender at first but he has accomplished a lot with the bat already. If he and the Jays can’t work out a new deal, he will be one of the top free agents of next year’s class.

Photo courtesy of Nathan Ray Seebeck, Imagn Images

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