Padres To Spend “At A Similar Level To” 2025 Payroll
Since former owner Peter Seidler passed away in November 2023, the Padres have cut back on the sky-high spending the team became known for during Seidler’s quest to bring a World Series to San Diego. After finishing the 2023 season with a 40-man payroll of roughly $257.2MM, that number was reduced to just under $172MM in 2024, before bouncing back up to roughly $221MM in 2025. (All numbers via Cot’s Baseball Contracts, though RosterResource had the Padres’ 2025 payroll at around $211.1MM.)
The question going into next season, naturally, is just how much the team has available to spend, and the answer appears to be that same $211MM-$221MM range. “We anticipate payroll will remain at a similar level to last year….We’re operating the club as we have for the last five or six years,” Padres chairman John Seidler told the San Diego Union-Tribune’s Kevin Acee and other reporters on Monday at the Winter Meetings.
This latest update from Seidler himself essentially restates the approach that Acee reported as the Padres’ direction back in November, when the Seidler family announced they were exploring a potential sale of the team. That doesn’t mean the Padres won’t still be looking to shed or re-allocate some payroll space, as evidenced by reports that the club is open to moving Nick Pivetta or Jake Cronenworth.
Cot’s projects that the Padres have about $196.2MM allotted to its 2026 payroll, with a $233.2MM luxury tax number. RosterResource’s calculations are a bit higher on both fronts, with a $201.3MM payroll and a $234.5MM tax number. That leaves A.J. Preller’s front office with only a little bit of payroll room before hitting the 2025 figure, and a similarly low level of breathing room to keep San Diego under the $244MM tax threshold. The Padres got under the tax line in 2024 to reset themselves to first-timer status, so they’ll pay a reduced penalty for crossing the secondary threshold again in 2025. Presumably ownership would be okay with another tax bill in 2026 as a cost to keeping the team in contention.
Dylan Cease has already left in free agency to sign with the Blue Jays, and Michael King, Robert Suarez, and Luis Arraez are the most prominent of San Diego’s other free agents. Yu Darvish will also miss the 2026 season in the aftermath of an internal brace procedure, so starting pitching is therefore clearly the biggest need for the team. A seemingly counter-productive move like a Pivetta trade would therefore be geared towards getting some salary off the books, perhaps adding multiple arms back in the return, and maybe getting out from under the uncertainty of Pivetta’s player opt-out following the 2026 campaign.
Intriguingly, Acee also hears from a pair of sources that Preller is working on at least one blockbuster-type deal. No specific players were named as being involved, and Acee notes that it isn’t certain if these talks will lead to a trade any time soon, or if the talks are anything more than speculative. Preller is no stranger to swinging huge trades, so it isn’t surprising that the president of baseball operations is again exploring a headline-making move as he looks to make the final touches necessary to finally get San Diego back to the World Series.
Preller also said Monday that some flexibility could be built into the Padres’ spending, once the team has a better idea of what kind of moves — big or small — could be realistic.
“We’ll have an idea about where we’re at from a payroll number and then see what’s out there in terms of conversation coming out of this week. And then that could be a higher number [or a] lower number. I think it really just depends a little bit on the conversations about who’s out there and what we think we can do,” Preller said.
Rays Sign Logan Davidson To Minor League Contract
The Rays have agreed to a minor league deal with infielder Logan Davidson, 7News Boston’s Ari Alexander reports. The contract contains an invitation for Davidson to attend Tampa Bay’s big league spring camp.
Selected 29th overall by the Athletics in the 2019 draft, Davidson didn’t make his debut in the Show until this past May at age 27, and he ended up hitting .167/.222/.286 over 47 plate appearances with the A’s and Angels. The A’s designated the infielder for assignment in July and he was claimed off waivers by the Astros, only to be DFA’ed again and claimed off waivers by Los Angeles in September. The Angels then outrighted Davidson off their 40-man roster at the end of October, and he entered into minor league free agency.
Tampa is always on the lookout for multi-positional players, and Davidson fits the bill with a lot of experience at all four infield positions, plus at least some work in all three outfield slots. Shortstop has been Davidson’s most frequent position over his minor league career, though he has mostly been utilized as a corner infielder in recent years.
Between this defensive versatility and his switch-hitting bat, Davidson brings some pluses to the table as he’ll look to compete for a bench job in Spring Training. Davidson has a respectable .271/.367/.441 slash line and 27 home runs over 1002 plate appearances at the Triple-A level, with the caveat that his Triple-A career has been spent entirely in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League.
Mets Notes: King, Senga, Scott, Minter, Alonso
The Mets were linked to Michael King‘s market earlier this week, and the team’s interest is developed enough that the two sides had a video meeting, the New York Post’s Joel Sherman reports. Sherman adds that King’s past experience pitching in New York with the Yankees is a plus for the Mets, and the likelihood that King will sign a somewhat shorter-term contract matches the Amazins’ preference to avoid long-term commitments to pitchers.
MLB Trade Rumors did project King for a four-year, $80MM deal, while ranking the right-hander 14th on our list of the winter’s top 50 free agents. At least eight other teams besides the Mets have been connected to King, so it’s possible there’s enough interest for King to lock in a four-year guarantee just because frontline pitching is such a valued asset. That said, the 2024 season represents King’s only full season as a starter, as he was limited to 15 starts and 73 1/3 innings with the Padres last season due primarily to a pinched nerve in his shoulder, and then a bout of knee inflammation.
King felt confident enough in his market to reject San Diego’s qualifying offer, and so any team that signs the righty will have to cough up some kind of draft compensation. For a luxury tax-paying team like the Mets, the penalty for signing a qualified free agent is particularly steep, as New York would have to surrender $1MM in international bonus pool money as well as their second- and fifth-highest picks in the 2026 draft.
There has been speculation that King might be open to accepting a shorter-term contract with an opt-out clause or two, perhaps so he could re-enter the market as soon as next winter on the heels of a healthy and productive season. Giving up two picks for just one year of King carries some risk for the Mets even if that would fit their short-term window, and if King has a good enough year that he’s willing to opt out, that’s also a boost to the pitching staff. Given how New York’s rotation was beset by injuries in 2025, the Mets would probably prefer to add a pitcher with more of a proven track record of durability, but acquiring such a player could come with a higher price tag of years or money.
Speaking of the Mets’ injury-plagued rotation, president of baseball operations David Stearns gave a few updates on the staff while speaking with SNY’s Ben Krimmel, MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo (multiple links), and other reporters at the Winter Meetings. Perhaps the most noteworthy update focused on Kodai Senga, who Stearns said is feeling “as good physically as he has since that 2023 season.” The executive called this “the most encouraging development we’ve had in terms of our offseason player progression,” and said Senga was planning to return to the U.S. from Japan to throw around the end of December.
After bursting onto the MLB scene with a fantastic 2023 campaign, Senga pitched in just one game in 2024, and then more injuries and a downturn in form led to the righty tossing just 113 1/3 frames for the Mets this past season. Senga got off to a terrific start in 2025 but never seemed the same after a month-long stint on the IL due to a hamstring strain. After posting a 5.90 ERA over what ended up being his final 39 2/3 MLB innings of the season, Senga agreed to be optioned to Triple-A in September, and he allowed five earned runs over two starts and 9 2/3 innings with Syracuse.
Reports indicate that the Mets are open to trading Senga, and moving on from the last two years and $28MM of his contract. For his part, Senga wants to stay with the Mets, and his 10-team no-trade clause gives him some degree of control over his fate. Considering how the Amazins need pitching themselves, simply keeping Senga is also certainly an option, especially if the club is encouraged that he’ll be able to stay healthy. Then again, Stearns’ comments may also be read as an executive perhaps trying to calm any doubts about Senga’s health in order to help facilitate a trade.
In other rotation news, Stearns said Christian Scott will be fully ready for the start of Spring Training. Scott underwent a Tommy John/internal brace hybrid procedure in September 2024 that kept the right-hander sidelined for the entirety of the 2025 campaign. This absence made Scott a bit of a forgotten man behind other highly-touted Mets pitching prospects, yet it wasn’t long ago that Scott was himself a well-regarded arm who made a rapid climb up the minor league ladder. Scott made his MLB debut in 2024, posting a 4.56 ERA over nine starts and 47 1/3 innings before being sidelined by injury.
A.J. Minter is also returning from a season-ending surgery, as the reliever’s 2025 campaign was cut short by a torn lat muscle in May. The lengthy rehab process could extend into the 2026 season, as Stearns said it isn’t a guarantee that Minter will be ready by Opening Day, though Minter isn’t expected to miss much time if he does need to begin the year on the injured list.
The Mets have gotten little return on last offseason’s two-year, $22MM investment in Minter, and it isn’t great that there’s still a question mark hanging over his immediate availability for 2026. The veteran southpaw’s 2024 campaign was also hampered by hip problems that eventually required a season-ending surgery, so it has been some time since Minter was fully healthy. Between Minter’s status and the free agency of Edwin Diaz and several other members of the 2025 relief corps, it is no wonder that New York continues to be focused on more bullpen additions, beyond their three-year deal with Devin Williams.
Stearns also addressed Pete Alonso‘s upcoming visit to the Winter Meetings, as Alonso (who lives in Tampa) is expected to head to Orlando to conduct in-person meetings with the Orioles, Red Sox, and any other teams interested in his services. While the Mets remain interested in re-signing the Polar Bear, Stearns said “I think Pete knows us really well, and I think we know Pete really well. I think he’ll take the time here to perhaps meet with organizations he doesn’t know quite as well, and I’m sure we’ll be in touch.”
Padres Make Three New Hires To Coaching Staff
The Padres are expected to hire Bob Henley, Ryan Goins, and Kevin Plawecki to the team’s revamped coaching staff under new manager Craig Stammen, The Athletic’s Dennis Lin reports. Henley will coach third base, Goins will be an infield coach, and Plawecki will move from being a minor league catching instructor for the Padres to a new role as the big league catching coach. First base coach David Macias will return in his role, and Nick Punto will also return for a second year on San Diego’s staff in an unspecified role.
Henley (who turns 53 in January) has spent almost his entire baseball career in the Expos/Nationals organization, save for a single game with the Pirates’ A-level affiliate in 2002. Selected by Montreal in the 26th round of 1991 draft, Henley spent his first seven pro seasons as a player in the Expos’ farm system, and his only 41 career MLB games came in a Montreal uniform in 1998. Elbow problems then essentially ended his career, and Henley then spent 11 years as a manager and field coordinator at the minor league level for the organization, bridging the Expos’ move to Washington.
Promoted to the third base coach job for the start of the 2014 season, Henley spent the next eight seasons in the role, before moving into a player development job at the conclusion of the 2021 campaign. Henley made a brief return to the coaching staff as a Major League field coordinator last July, as the Nationals had to make some alterations to the staff once Davey Martinez was fired as manager.
Stammen pitched with the Nationals from 2009-15, so there’s plenty of familiarity between the Padres skipper and his new third base coach. Plawecki is also a known quantity to Stammen from their shared time working in San Diego, and Plawecki’s brief time as a player in the Padres’ minor league system. Goins has no past ties to Stammen or the Padres, but he is no stranger to SoCal, after working on the Angels’ coaching staff for the last two seasons.
Goins is a veteran of eight Major League seasons (2013-20), spent primarily with the Blue Jays. Despite a lack of hitting, Goins’ solid glove helped him carve out a niche for himself as a part-time player, and he’ll now look to impart his defensive wisdom onto the Padres’ infielders. Goins worked as the Angels’ infield coach in 2024 and 2025, though he was promoted to a bench coach role last June in the wake of Ron Washington’s medical leave. Bench coach Ray Montgomery became the Halos’ interim manager, thus creating a vacancy in the bench coach job.
Plawecki also played in the majors for eight seasons (2015-22), with the bulk of that time spent in a backup and part-time catcher role with the Mets and Red Sox. He played in the minors for two more seasons, and after spending 2024 with the Padres’ Triple-A team in El Paso, he retired to step into a new job as instructor for San Diego’s Arizona Complex League club.
Angels, Tigers Interested In Kenley Jansen
The Angels and Tigers have each shown interest in free agent reliever Kenley Jansen, according to Ari Alexander of 7News Boston. Both teams are known to be looking for high-leverage relievers, and Jansen is naturally a known quantity to the Halos after his strong results as the team’s closer in 2025.
Signed to a one-year, $10MM contract last February, Jansen recorded 29 saves in 30 chances for the Angels, while posting a 2.59 ERA over 59 innings. His SIERA, however, was 3.94, as Jansen received quite a bit of good fortune in the form of a .195 BABIP and an 85.2% strand rate. This batted-ball luck helped him avoid a lot of serious damage despite a very high 44.6% hard-hit ball rate and a below-average 8.1% walk rate.
While Jansen’s 24.4% strikeout rate was decent, it was also the lowest K% of his 16 MLB seasons, and a significant dropoff even from the 28.4% rate he delivered for the Red Sox in 2024. Jansen’s signature cutter remains a deadly pitch, yet he has become increasingly reliant on the cutter in recent years, and threw it 81.4% of the time in 2025. Obviously hitters are still having trouble fully capitalizing on this cutter-heavy arsenal, yet Jansen isn’t having a lot of success when mixing it up with his sinker or sweeper.
Between Jansen’s age (he turned 38 last September) and his shaky peripherals, it is fair to wonder if the right-hander might finally be slowing down after 16 Major League seasons. It creates an interesting dilemma for teams in pursuit of back-end bullpen help, as nobody wants to be the club on the hook when or if Jansen’s production finally craters. That said, Jansen is also one of the more accomplished closers in MLB history, and he got better as the 2025 season went on, with a sparkling 1.02 ERA over his last 35 1/3 innings of work.
Jansen said last summer that his hope is to pitch “at least” through the 2029 season, though obviously a short-term deal is in the cards for him this winter. Before Jansen’s one-year pact with Los Angeles, his previous two trips to free agency yielded a two-year, $32MM deal with the Red Sox, and a one-year, $16MM deal with the Braves. Assuming that he signs another one-year contract this winter, teams might feel the limited risk is worth it to see if Jansen can hold off Father Time for another season.
The Angels don’t have any obvious closer candidates waiting in the wings. Injuries have limited Robert Stephenson to 10 innings over his two seasons with the Angels, while Ben Joyce missed almost all of the 2025 season due to shoulder surgery. Reid Detmers is getting another shot as a starting pitcher, so while he might resurface as a bullpen candidate at some point, it might be asking a lot to insert Detmers into a closing role. It would appear there might be some mutual interest in a reunion, as GM Perry Minasian is on record praising Jansen’s clubhouse leadership, and Jansen said he enjoyed his time pitching in Anaheim.
Then again, Jansen might also appreciate pitching for a team that has a better chance of competing for the postseason in 2026. Whereas the Angels haven’t had a winning season since 2015, the Tigers have reached the ALDS in consecutive years, and upgrading a middling bullpen would be a step in the right direction. As much as Detroit has relied on its “pitching chaos” strategy, having a clear-cut closer might help solidify things.
Will Vest performed quite well as the Tigers’ primary closer last year, but the Tigers’ interest in such pitchers as Pete Fairbanks, Kyle Finnegan, and (before he joined the Mets) Devin Williams indicates that the club wants to either augment its list of ninth-inning choices, or Vest could be moved into a fireman role. Jansen’s decline in strikeouts could be a red flag, however, as Detroit is particularly eager to add more swing-and-miss to its relief mix. Tigers relievers combined for just a 20.1% strikeout rate in 2025, the second-lowest bullpen K% in all of baseball.
Jeff Kent Elected To Baseball Hall Of Fame
Jeff Kent was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, as revealed by the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee tonight. Kent received 14 of a possible 16 votes from the Era Committee, easily topping the 75% (12 of 16) threshold needed for induction to Cooperstown. Of the other seven candidates under consideration, Carlos Delgado was the next-closest candidate with nine votes, and Dale Murphy and Don Mattingly each received six votes. Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Gary Sheffield, and Fernando Valenzuela all received less than five votes.
A veteran of 17 Major League seasons with the Blue Jays, Mets, Indians, Giants, Astros, and Dodgers from 1992-2008, Kent hit more homers as a second baseman than any other player in history, going yard 351 times from the position. His resume includes four Silver Slugger awards and five All-Star nods, as well as the 2000 NL MVP Award when Kent was a member of the Giants.
Kent is primarily remembered for his six seasons in San Francisco and five seasons with the Mets. Beginning his career as a well-regarded prospect in the Blue Jays’ farm system, Roberto Alomar’s presence in Toronto made Kent expendable, and the Jays dealt Kent for David Cone in August 1992. Cone’s presence helped the Blue Jays capture the 1992 World Series, while Kent went onto establish himself as a solid regular during his time in New York.
The 1996 trade deadline saw Kent again on the move, this time to Cleveland. During the 1996-97 offseason, the Tribe flipped Kent to San Francisco, where he truly rose to stardom. Kent hit .297/.368/.535 with 175 homers over 3903 plate appearances and an even 900 games with the Giants from 1997-2002, teaming with Bonds to form a devastating one-two punch in the lineup. The 2002 Giants reached the World Series for Kent’s only appearance in the Fall Classic, as the team fell just short in a seven-game loss to the Angels. For his career in the postseason, Kent hit a solid .276/.340/.500 over 189 PA.
Kent spent his final six seasons with the Astros (2003-04) and Dodgers (05-08), and remained an offensive force at the plate until his production finally trailed off in his 17th and final MLB season. Over 2298 career games and 9537 PA, Kent hit .290/.356/.500 with 377 home runs, 1518 RBI, and 1320 runs scored.
Despite his impressive career numbers, Kent didn’t gain much traction during his 10 years on the writers’ ballot, as he never received more than 46.5% of the vote. A crowded ballot during Kent’s era didn’t help, yet his subpar defense and surly reputation probably also didn’t help curry much favor with voters. Clubhouse controversy followed Kent during his time with the Mets and Giants, and his stint in San Francisco included a well-publicized feud with Bonds. There is some irony, therefore, in the fact that Kent is finally making it into Cooperstown while on the same Era Committee ballot as his former Giants teammate.
Formerly known as the Veterans Committee, the Era Committee is the latest incarnation of the process that for decades has given some fresh evaluation and a second chance to players initially overlooked on the writers’ ballot. This year’s version of the Era Committee focused on players whose greatest contributions came during the “Contemporary Baseball” (1980-present) era. Next year’s ballot will focus on managers, executives, and umpires from the Contemporary Baseball era, and the 2027 ballot will consider candidates from the “Classic Baseball” era (prior to 1980) before Contemporary Players are again considered in 2028.
A rule change introduced this year added an extra layer of intrigue (or even controversy) to this year’s proceedings. Because they received less than five votes on this year’s ballot, Bonds, Clemens, Sheffield, and Valenzuela must be omitted from the next voting cycle, and can’t return to the Contemporary Players ballot until at least 2031. If any of these four players then don’t receive at least five votes in 2031 or on any future ballot, they are no longer eligible for inclusion on any Contemporary Players ballot.
The aim of this new rule is to allow more candidates to be included on Era Committee ballots on a regular basis. The concept of permanent disqualification from ballots, however, has been viewed by some as a way for the Hall of Fame to sidestep the ongoing controversy about Bonds, Clemens, Sheffield, or other prominent superstars (i.e. Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro) who were linked to PEDs. While obviously Era Committee rules could again be altered down the road, for now, the path to Cooperstown has gotten even narrower for Bonds, Clemens, or Sheffield.
The results of the writers’ ballot will be announced on January 20, with such players as Carlos Beltran and Andruw Jones seen as strong candidates to finally get over the 75% threshold after multiple years on the ballot (nine years for Jones, four years for Beltran). Any players elected on January 20 will join Kent in being officially inducted into the Hall of Fame on July 26 in Cooperstown.
The 16 members of this year’s Era Committee could vote for as many as three players, and as few as zero players. This year’s Era Committee was comprised of seven Hall of Famers (Ferguson Jenkins, Jim Kaat, Juan Marichal, Tony Perez, Ozzie Smith, Alan Trammell, Robin Yount), four former MLB general managers (Doug Melvin, Kim Ng, Tony Reagins, Terry Ryan), two current MLB owners (the Brewers’ Mark Attansio and the Angels’ Arte Moreno), two media members (the Athletic’s Tyler Kepner and Jayson Stark), and historian Steve Hirdt.
Giants Have Interest In Harrison Bader
Harrison Bader is coming off the best offensive season of his career, and this well-timed surge at the plate set up the former Gold Glover nicely as he enters free agency. The Phillies are known to be open to reuniting with Bader after he performed so well for Philadelphia following a deadline trade from the Twins, and the San Francisco Chronicle’s Susan Slusser writes that Bader also “piques the Giants’ interest” as the team explores the outfield market.
Bader’s chief calling card is his glove, as public defensive metrics indicate consistently good-to-great numbers for Bader over his nine big league seasons. 2025 was no exception, as he received +6 Defensive Runs Saved and +3 Outs Above Average over 568 2/3 innings as a center fielder, and +7 DRS and +3 OAA for 496 innings as a left fielder. Last season marked the first time that Bader saw any work in the corner outfield slots since 2018, as he probably would’ve gotten more looks up the middle in Minnesota if Byron Buxton hadn’t stayed healthy.
The offensive production has been much more of a roller-coaster for Bader, as while he posted some above-average numbers with the Cardinals earlier in his career, he had just an 80 wRC+ over 1094 plate appearances across the 2022-24 seasons. It seemed as though Bader was destined for a fourth-outfielder role for the remainder of his career, but his bat came to life in 2025. Bader hit .277/.347/.449 with 17 homers over 501 PA for the Twins and Phillies, for a personal best of 122 wRC+.
It’s a fair question to wonder if this production can carry over into 2026 and beyond, as Bader had a .359 BABIP and a host of subpar Statcast metrics undermining last season’s numbers. MLB Trade Rumors still ranked Bader 31st on our list of the winter’s top 50 free agents, but with a fairly modest projection of a two-year, $26MM contract. Bader is helped by the fact that the pickings are quite slim in this year’s center field market, and the list has been further thinned since Trent Grisham accepted the Yankees’ qualifying offer, Cedric Mullins signed with the Rays, and the Twins don’t appear to have any interest in dealing Buxton.
At the very least, a team signing Bader can count on superb defense, and that has natural appeal for the Giants at spacious Oracle Park. Jung Hoo Lee has posted brutal defensive numbers (-20 DRS, -6 OAA) over his two Major League seasons as San Francisco’s center fielder, and Lee’s strong throwing arm perhaps makes right field a better fit. Since left fielder Heliot Ramos is also a below-average defender, adding a defensive ace like Bader into the mix is a clear and obvious way for the Giants to upgrade their glovework on the grass.
Mets, Giants Met With Framber Valdez In November
The Orioles are the only team publicly linked to Framber Valdez‘s market this winter, and MLB Network’s Jon Morosi reports that Valdez and his reps indeed met with officials from the O’s at the GM Meetings in November. Around that same time, however, the Giants and Mets also spoke with Valdez’s camp, which fits given how both teams are known to be looking for starting pitching help.
Valdez ranked sixth on MLBTR’s list of the offseason’s top 50 free agents, with a predicted contract of five years and $150MM. This projection makes San Francisco’s interest all the more intriguing, since both GM Zack Minasian and team chairman Greg Johnson have each stated since the GM Meetings that the Giants prefer to add pitchers on shorter-term contracts. Valdez is entering his age-32 season, which may raise the risk level even further about making a big commitment to the left-hander now that he is past what are generally considered a player’s prime years.
The Giants’ stance doesn’t technically preclude a pursuit of Valdez, if the team perhaps offered the southpaw a short-term contract with a higher average annual value. That said, Valdez’s age might make such a consideration unlikely on his end, as surely he wants to strike as lengthy and lucrative a deal as possible now that he has reached the open market. Despite his age, Valdez is a workhorse who has tossed 767 2/3 innings over the last four seasons, and he has 85 more innings under his belt on his career postseason resume.
Valdez is a grounder specialist who doesn’t miss many bats, but that skillset would work just fine with Matt Chapman and Willy Adames backing him up in the San Francisco infield. More pressingly, Valdez’s ability to eat up innings with quality work is a nice fit in a Giants rotation that has plenty of question marks beyond ace Logan Webb.
Robbie Ray and Landen Roupp project as the next two starters, and Ray is a free agent next winter while Roupp had a solid 2025 season but is an overall unproven commodity over the long term. A collection of other younger and unproven arms (Hayden Birdsong, Trevor McDonald, Blade Tidwell, Carson Whisenhunt, Kai-Wei Teng, Keaton Winn) are currently in the mix for the fourth and fifth spots. Signing Valdez would do a ton to solidify this group, as the Giants would have a very strong top three of Webb-Ray-Valdez that could easily line up as a playoff rotation, and Valdez would be the replacement for Ray if the former Cy Young Award winner went elsewhere after the 2026 campaign.
That said, it could all be a moot point if the Giants aren’t willing to splurge on a long-term pitching contract. It could be that the Giants checked in with Valdez and other pitchers to get an early gauge on their expectations, and without much hope of finding a bargain, the team is now being open about its preference to stick with smaller (and presumably less-expensive) contracts.
Mets president of baseball David Stearns shares a similar view on starting pitching contracts, yet New York’s decision to stick to such deals with the likes of Sean Manaea, Frankie Montas, and Clay Holmes last winter backfired badly on the team. These three pitchers and the other members of the rotation simply seemed to break down last season, leading to the team’s collapse in the second half as an influx of pitching prospects couldn’t stop the downward spiral.
Between the veterans (Manaea, Holmes, Kodai Senga, David Peterson) and the youngsters (Nolan McLean, Jonah Tong, Brandon Sproat, Christian Scott), the Mets have plenty of pitchers on hand, yet adding a durable frontline starter like Valdez would be a huge boost to this group. In the wake of last year’s collapse, Stearns expressed regret over not doing more to reinforce the pitching staff, and owner Steve Cohen surely couldn’t have been pleased with how things played out.
The Amazins’ interest in upgrading their rotation has been evident by the many big names on their radar this winter. Valdez joins the likes of Tatsuya Imai, Michael King, Ranger Suarez, Joe Ryan, and Tarik Skubal as free agents and trade candidates who have been liked to the Mets in some fashion. It might be safe to guess at this point that the Mets will head into Opening Day with at least one big new arm at the front of their rotation, and it’s just a matter of whether the club will obtain their rotation help via trades or pricey signings.
MLBTR Chat Transcript
Mark P
- The Winter Meetings are about to begin, so there’s plenty to discuss! Let’s take a minute for the questions to pile up, and then launch the Weekend Chat…
Tim
- We going to see alot more signings and trades the next few days?
Mark P
- Oh heck yeah. While the Winter Meetings aren’t the epicenter of offseason activity, it will be very busy over the next few days
Zach
- If the Rangers were to trade Jung and a couple of lower level prospects to the pirates could they get Joey Bart and some RP?
Mark P
- I don’t think the asking price for Bart would be all that high, but a Jung/Bart swap would be interesting given their shared history as top prospects.
Every fan in Cincinnati
- We are all dying to know what the Reds will realistically do this week. Any clues? Is Schwarber going to shock everyone and come hit 60 plus bombs each year?
Mark P
- As fun as it would be to see Schwarber return to his hometown team, it would be stunning to see him leave Philadelphia.
I do think the Reds will add at least one reliable, everyday-ish type of hitter to the lineup. Whether that add comes in the next week or two months from now, who knows, but some kind of an upgrade would be immensely helpful.
- For teams like the Reds and Pirates who might be willing to stretch the budget for Schwarber, they should still be willing to spend that money but spread around over multiple players (assuming Schwarber goes elsewhere).
Dave
- Now that the Mariners traded Harry Ford, who is the backup catcher? Would they consider a reunion with Garver and/or Murphy, and if so, who is more likely to come back?
Mark P
- Either of these guys or another clear-cut backup type is possible. Frankly, a backup catcher in Seattle is likely to play infrequently enough that it might not be a priority for the team right now.
Cardinals Notes: Nootbaar, Cameron, Pitching
As one of the few teams in baseball in true rebuild mode, the Cardinals are open to offers on most players on their roster, yet some of the Cards’ most-cited trade candidates may be a little more available than others. Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch hears from sources on rival teams that the Cardinals don’t seem to be “actively seeking to trade” outfielder Lars Nootbaar. This doesn’t necessarily mean that Nootbaar won’t be dealt, of course, but there are also some obvious reasons why the Cardinals might want to wait until beyond this offseason to move the 28-year-old.
Injuries have been a subplot of Nootbaar’s career, and while he hit new career highs in games played (135) and plate appearances (583) in 2025, he underwent surgery in October on both of his heels. The surgery was meant to address Haglund’s deformities, which are bone spurs that develop on the heel bone near the base of the Achilles tendon. It seems likely that playing through this discomfort led to Nootbaar’s underwhelming numbers in 2025, and it isn’t yet known if the recovery from the procedure will allow Nootbaar to be ready for Opening Day.
Between the health question mark and Nootbaar’s 96 wRC+ (from 13 homers and a .234/.325/.361 slash line), St. Louis would probably be selling low if Nootbaar was traded this winter. As such, it makes sense that the Cardinals would hang onto Nootbaar for now and see if he’s able to bounce back in the first half of the 2026 season, so a trade deadline move might be more realistic.
Trading Sonny Gray to the Red Sox cleared $20MM off of the Cardinals’ payroll ledger for 2026, and the team would also save a lot of money if Nolan Arenado or Willson Contreras were traded. There isn’t any similar financial pressure involved with a potential Nootbaar trade, as he is projected to earn $5.7MM this winter in the second of three trips through the arbitration process. That extra year of control gives the Cards more flexibility in allowing Nootbaar to get fully healthy before more properly shopping him to any interested teams.
President of baseball operations Chaim Bloom has been open about his team’s desire to add starting pitching, whether it’s younger arms or (likely on short-term deals) more experienced hurlers. The Gray trade brought Richard Fitts and prospect Brandon Clarke into the fold, and St. Louis is expected to seek out more pitchers in other trades or in free agency. Whether or not the Cards explore free agent pitchers will hinge on what they can land on the trade front, Goold writes, so it may be yet be a while before the Cardinals look too deeply at signings given how much interest they’re getting in their various trade chips.
Other teams’ trade endeavors could also delay matters. For instance, Goold notes that some teams interested in Brendan Donovan for their second base vacancy also have interest in the Rays’ Brandon Lowe or even the Diamondbacks’ Ketel Marte. If one of those players is dealt elsewhere, that eliminates one Donovan suitor, but also puts more pressure on other interested teams to up their offers to St. Louis in order to land a second baseman (though Donovan’s versatility also doesn’t limit his market just to keystone-needy teams).
Perhaps related to both the Cardinals’ pitching search and the Royals’ known interest in Donovan, Goold reports that the Cards “have had interest before in” Kansas City’s Noah Cameron. The 26-year-old southpaw is coming off an impressive debut season that saw Cameron finish fourth in AL Rookie of the Year voting after posting a 2.99 ERA over 138 1/3 innings.
Between Cameron’s ability and multiple remaining years of team control, it would take a whole lot to pry the left-hander away from the Royals. While K.C. president of baseball operations J.J. Picollo has discussed his team’s openness to trading from its pitching depth for much-needed outfield help, Cameron would likely be one of the last arms the Royals would prefer to move. That said, adding a real impact bat to the lineup might require an impact pitcher in return, and Donovan’s market has been so crowded that the Royals might make to make a special offer to break away from the pack.