Which Top Prospects Could Be On 2026 Opening Day Rosters?
In the not-too-distant past, it was relatively rare for organizations to break camp with their very best prospects on the roster. It still happened at times, but MLB's service time structure was set up such that keeping a top prospect in the minors for even two weeks to begin the season effectively ensured that he'd be controllable for seven years rather than the standard six. There were obvious exceptions to this thinking -- Atlanta fans surely remember Jason Heyward breaking camp as a 20-year-old and belting a three-run homer on Opening Day -- but there were far more cases of keeping a player in the minors to buy the extra year. Kris Bryant, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., George Springer and others were all called to the majors just when they'd spent enough time in the minors to give their clubs an extra year of control. There was nothing inherently nefarious about the gambit; teams were operating within the collectively bargained rules and making business decisions.
The 2022-26 collective bargaining agreement sought to implement some real incentives for teams to bring their best players north to begin the season, however, and by and large they've been effective. With the Prospect Promotion Incentives (PPI), any prospect who appears on two recognized top-100 lists and is called up early enough to earn a full service year can net his team a bonus draft pick, either in that season's Rookie of the Year voting or in MVP/Cy Young voting over the next three seasons.
There's also a disincentive to holding a player down. For those same qualified top prospects, a top-two finish in either league's Rookie of the Year voting will net a full year of major league service time, regardless of when they were called up. Said prospects still have around 90% of a season in such instances, which is more than enough time to turn in a ROY-worthy performance.
Teams now know that holding a player down for 15 days or so might lead to him getting a full year of service anyhow and comes with the disadvantage of rendering that player ineligible for future PPI picks. As such, it's become increasingly common for touted prospects to break camp on their teams' rosters.
With that in mind, and with fewer than two weeks to go until Opening Day, it seems worth running through a slate of top prospects who could factor into their teams' Opening Day plans.
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José Berríos Visiting Specialist Due To Elbow Inflammation
Blue Jays righty José Berríos was slated to join Puerto Rico for the quarterfinal round of the World Baseball Classic, but those plans were called off when his tournament physical revealed a bout of elbow inflammation (via MLB.com’s Keegan Matheson). An MRI did not reveal any structural damage, but the inflammation was still curious, given that Berríos hasn’t experienced any discomfort. Still, in light of the unexpected diagnosis, he’s headed for an in-person visit with Dr. Keith Meister to take a closer look, per Arden Zwelling of Sportsnet. That visit will come next Tuesday. Berríos will not throw in the interim.
At present, there’s no indication that Berríos is dealing with a major injury — or even a minor one of all that much note. The 31-year-old veteran (32 in May) ostensibly hasn’t experienced any pain, and it’s possible a clean bill of health will have him back on the mound in short order.
Toronto’s offseason dealings have left the veteran Berríos in an uncertain state. He’s been a starter every year of his major league career — one of the most durable and consistent of the past decade. Dating back to 2018, he leads Major League Baseball in both games started (234) and innings pitched (1367 2/3). Berrios started a full slate of 12 games during the shortened 2020 season and has started 30 or more games in each other season dating back to 2018.
Despite that durability, Berríos has largely been pushed out of the Jays’ rotation. Shane Bieber exercised his $16MM player option to begin the offseason. Toronto then signed Dylan Cease to a seven-year contract and KBO returnee Cody Ponce to a three-year deal. Max Scherzer signed a one-year deal earlier this month.
Toronto’s rotation mix entering the season includes Cease, Kevin Gausman, Trey Yesavage, Bieber, Berríos, Ponce, Scherzer and Eric Lauer. They’re eight deep in terms of quality big leaguers, with only last year’s breakout rookie and postseason hero, Yesavage, able to be optioned. Clearly, he’s not going to be sent down anytime soon.
Injuries tend to alleviate this sort of crunch in the short-term, but that isn’t necessarily the case here. Bieber is behind schedule due to forearm fatigue but has been throwing recently. A season-opening stint on the 15-day IL still seems likely, but it probably won’t keep him out long. Each of Cease, Gausman, Yesavage, Ponce, Lauer and Scherzer appears healthy. The Jays had suggested they’d be deliberate in building Scherzer up slowly, but he tossed four sharp innings in his first spring start.
However it shakes out, Berríos is in an odd spot. Barring a major injury, he’ll be on a crowded pitching staff that doesn’t have a clear rotation spot for him. He’s coming off one of his weaker seasons but was still plenty serviceable last year. In 166 innings, he posted a 4.17 ERA, 19.8% strikeout rate and 8% walk rate. The right-hander’s 93 mph average four-seamer was a career-low, and his 92.2 mph average sinker was the second-lowest of his career. That walk rate, while solid, was the second-highest of his career in a full season and a notable step up from the 6.7% he’d logged from 2017-24.
There was some thought that perhaps the Jays would look to trade Berríos this winter, but that’s not an easy undertaking. He’s entering the fifth season of a seven-year extension. Berríos is still owed $66MM over the next three years, which is surely more than he’d have received in free agency this winter. His contract also contains an opt-out clause after the 2026 campaign, so even if a team believed Berrios to be a prominent bounceback candidate and was proven right with a vintage 2026 showing, he’d likely then trigger the out clause and head back into free agency.
Berríos’ $131MM contract also includes a limited, eight-team no-trade clause. That clause will be rendered moot 128 days into the season, when he reaches 10 years of major league service and receives 10-and-5 rights. The 10-and-5 provision — 10 years of major league service, the past five with the same team — grants any player full veto power over trade scenarios.
For now, Berríos’ status is in limbo because of his own health. If he requires an IL stint to begin the season, he’ll (likely) join Bieber there. Toronto could open with a rotation headed by Cease, Gausman, Yesavage, Ponce and Scherzer, with Lauer in a swing role. It’s possible that the Jays simply won’t simultaneously have all eight starters healthy at any point this season. In that scenario, they’d be glad to have the depth. But if Berríos and Bieber are cleared to return in early-to-mid April, Toronto is going to have some tougher choices ahead.
Lauer has taken a team-first approach, praising the tightknit group of rotation options and saying he’ll pitch in whatever role he’s asked — but he’s also conceded that he’d prefer to start, all else being equal. He’s a free agent at season’s end, after all, and working as a starter is his best path to maximizing his earning power. That situation, combined with forthcoming updates on Berríos and Bieber, make the Jays’ rotation group a particularly interesting one to watch in the final couple weeks of camp.
Rangers Designate Alexis Díaz For Assignment
The Rangers announced Friday that right-hander Alexis Díaz has been designated for assignment. His spot on the roster goes to veteran lefty Jalen Beeks, whose previously reported one-year contract with Texas is now official.
Díaz, 29, signed a major league contract of his own with the Rangers earlier in the winter. The former Reds All-Star is being paid $1MM this year but has struggled immensely in spring training after a discouraging 2025 showing. Díaz has appeared in three official spring games and walked four of the 13 hitters he’s faced. He’s plunked another. Considering he walked 14.1% of his opponents in the majors last year and more than 16% of his Triple-A opponents, continued command problems of this magnitude stand as a notable red flag.
It’s possible that for the Rangers, attempting to pass Díaz through waivers at some point was the plan all along. It’s become increasingly common for teams to sign free agents who have fewer than five years of service time to major league contracts with modest salaries and then pass them through waivers. (Díaz has 3.088 years of service.) Those players aren’t able to retain the remainder of their guaranteed salary upon rejecting an outright assignment. If Díaz goes unclaimed — which seems likely given last year’s struggles and his poor command this spring — he’ll very likely accept an outright assignment and give the Rangers some depth and a reclamation project with which to work at the Triple-A level.
Early in his career, Díaz looked to be following in the footsteps of older brother Edwin Díaz in a march to stardom. He finished fifth in 2022 NL Rookie of the Year voting after pitching 63 2/3 innings with a 3.07 ERA, 10 saves, 13 holds and a gaudy 32.5% strikeout rate. His 12.9% walk rate was an eyesore, but Díaz offset the free passes with a glut of strikeouts. His velocity and strikeout rate have dipped in each subsequent season, however, and Díaz’s struggles reached a tipping point last year.
The Reds optioned Díaz to Triple-A on May 1 after he was rocked for eight runs in his first six innings (during which he walked five men and hit another two). Four weeks later, he was traded to the Dodgers. Los Angeles called him up mid-July and gave him nine innings, during which he was tagged for five more runs. Díaz was designated for assignment in early September and claimed by the Braves, who gave him another 2 2/3 innings during which he served up three more runs. Díaz finished the season with an 8.15 ERA in 17 2/3 big league innings. He logged a 5.61 ERA in 25 1/3 Triple-A frames.
Díaz is a recognizable name with plenty of track record, but at this point he’s more than two full years removed from his last campaign as a high-end reliever (2023). The Rangers can spend the next five days trying to trade him before he has to be put on waivers, though he can be waived at any point in the interim as well. Any team that claims Díaz would be on the hook for that $1MM salary. As previously noted, if Díaz passes through waivers unclaimed, he’ll surely remain in the organization by accepting an outright assignment, as rejecting would mean forfeiting that $1MM guarantee.
A’s Notes: Muncy, Gelof, Hoglund
The A’s entered spring training without a set option at third base, but 23-year-old Max Muncy has begun to separate himself from the pack, writes Martin Gallegos of MLB.com. There’s no shortage of coincidence in the A’s finding themselves with a hit-over-glove prospect named Max Muncy at third base for the second time in the past decade, but the hope now is that the younger Muncy (no relation to the older) can solidify the hot corner.
A first-round pick back in 2021, the now-23-year-old Muncy hit .325/.397/.504 in Triple-A last season. He struggled badly in 220 major league plate appearances but had a productive stint in the Arizona Fall League and is absolutely mashing this spring: .419/.526/.839 with three homers and as many walks as strikeouts (seven) in 38 plate appearances. The question surrounding Muncy isn’t hit bat but whether he can handle third base from a defensive standpoint.
“Our biggest focus right now is on the defense,” manager Mark Kotsay tells Gallegos. “We’ve been working really hard with him in those areas, and we’ve seen some improvement. We’re going to continue to follow that progress.” Readers will want to check out Gallegos’ piece in full, as he also chats with Muncy extensively about some of the swing/approach changes he implemented in the Fall League and about the challenges of transitioning from shortstop to third base (a move that’s often taken for granted).
Meanwhile, another formerly touted young Athletics infielder, Zack Gelof, made his Cactus League debut this week, writes Courtney Hollmon of MLB.com. Gelof went 2-for-4 with a double in his first game action since suffering a dislocated shoulder on a diving play at second base last year. That injury ended his season, but Gelof’s 2025 campaign never really got off the ground thanks to a hamate fracture and a stress fracture in his ribcage. He played in only 30 games with 101 plate appearances last season, slashing just .174/.230/.272.
It’s easy to write off the 2025 campaign as one ruined by injury, but Gelof already faced some questions this time last year. Was he the dynamic rookie we saw in 2023, when he hit .267/.337/.504 with 14 homers and 14 steals in only 60 games, or was he the lesser version of that player we saw in 2024, when he hit .211/.270/.362 with 17 homers, 25 steals and a sky-high 34.4% strikeout rate?
Gelof, still just 26 years old, is hoping to get back to that 2023 form but now has a less certain role on the club. The A’s acquired Jeff McNeil from the Mets this offseason and are plugging him in at second base. Muncy is the front-runner over at third base, a position Gelof hasn’t played since 2022. The former second-round pick tells Hollomon that he’s been working out both in the infield and in the outfield as he hopes to improve his versatility and win a spot back on the roster. Gelof still has a pair of minor league option years remaining, so he could open the season in Triple-A if the A’s want to get him more exposure at multiple positions in the upper minors.
Elsewhere in A’s camp, there’s more unwelcome news on oft-injured righty Gunnar Hoglund. The 26-year-old righty, who headlined the Athletics’ return in the trade sending Matt Chapman to Toronto, made his big league debut last season but pitched just 12 games between Triple-A and the majors. He was recovering from Tommy John surgery at the time of the trade and missed the final three months last year due to a hip impingement.
This spring, Hoglund has been dogged by a knee injury early in camp. He’s now also dealing with a back issue, per Gallegos. Hoglund hasn’t gotten into a spring game yet and doesn’t appear likely to do so before the season opens. He was likely bound for Triple-A even if healthy, but another pair of injuries is disheartening for the 2021 first-rounder (selected six picks ahead of Muncy and 41 ahead of Gelof).
Hoglund pitched well in Triple-A last season and enjoyed two terrific starts to begin his MLB career (11 1/3 innings with three runs on 11 hits and one walk alongside 10 strikeouts). He was rocked for 20 runs over his next 21 frames, however, including an eight-run drubbing at the hands of the Blue Jays before landing on the injured list for the remainder of the season.
Cubs Notes: Boyd, Outfield, Shaw
Left-hander Matthew Boyd returned to the Cubs after his stint with Team USA in the World Baseball Classic and was promptly named the team’s Opening Day starter by manager Craig Counsell. He’ll take the ball and be followed by Cade Horton, Edward Cabrera, Jameson Taillon and Shota Imanaga in some order. Righties Javier Assad and Ben Brown are potential 40-man alternatives, and veteran Colin Rea will open the season in a swingman role in the bullpen.
Boyd, who turned 35 last month, tossed a career-high 179 1/3 innings with the Cubs last season. He worked to a strong 3.21 ERA with a slightly below-average 21.4% strikeout rate but a terrific 5.8% walk rate. Boyd is entering the second season of a two-year, $29MM contract. He already unlocked $500K of incentives last year based on his workload, and he’ll be paid $14.5MM in 2026 with the opportunity to earn another $500K via incentives (reaching 120 innings). He’s also owed a $2MM buyout on a 2027 mutual option that won’t be picked up by both parties.
In other Cubs news, the team announced its latest wave of cuts this morning. Lefties Luke Little and Ryan Rolison were optioned to Triple-A, as was fleet-footed outfielder Justin Dean. The Cubs also reassigned a handful of non-roster players to minor league camp — Vince Velasquez most notable among them.
By sending Dean to Triple-A to begin the season, the Cubs made it quite likely that they’ll open the season with a current non-roster veteran holding a bench spot as a reserve outfielder. Former top prospect Kevin Alcántara remains in big league camp and is on the 40-man roster, but he has an option year left and is currently 4-for-21 with nine strikeouts in 23 official spring plate appearances. The team would presumably prefer him to be playing every day in Iowa rather than sitting on the bench and grabbing a start or two per week anyhow.
The most notable non-roster outfielders in camp are Dylan Carlson, Michael Conforto and Chas McCormick. Carlson has been the most productive of the bunch and offers the bonus of being a switch-hitter who can handle all three outfield spots. Conforto is a pure lefty who’s not an option in center field, though he has the most prominent major league track record of this group (albeit not in the past couple seasons). McCormick is a righty-hitting center fielder who can handle all three spots and has crushed lefties in the past (but struggled against all opponents in 2025).
One player who clearly seems ticketed for a heavily used role off the bench: former top prospect Matt Shaw. The 24-year-old hit just .226/.295/.394 as a rookie but did have a nice showing over the season’s final three months. The Cubs’ signing of Alex Bregman displaced Shaw from last year’s home at third base, and he’s now moving into more of a utility role.
We’ve already seen Shaw get some reps in the outfield and at second base, but The Athletic’s Sahadev Sharma writes that he’s now working first base into his repertoire as well. Shaw tells Sharma that he worked out at first base for about three days before making his debut at the position there during yesterday’s Cactus League game.
Getting some work in at first base is all the more important in the event of Tyler Austin‘s knee surgery, which will keep him sidelined for several months. Austin returned from Japan’s NPB this year, signing a one-year deal with the Cubs to serve as a righty-swinging complement to Michael Busch at first base and the provide some pop off the bench.
That role is obviously on hold for the time being, and with no clear option to step up and take it — right-handed-hitting corner infield prospect Jonathon Long has been slowed in camp by an elbow issue — Austin’s injury could create some additional at-bats for Shaw in the early portion of the season. Busch batted .207/.274/.368 against lefties last season and is a career .230/.295/.356 hitter in left-on-left settings. Shaw hit .250/.318/.490 versus left-handers last year and finished as a Gold Glove finalist at the hot corner, so he should have the athleticism and defensive acumen to handle a multi-position role.
Latest On Athletics’ Rotation
The A’s optioned righty Joey Estes to Triple-A yesterday, thinning the field of pitchers vying for spots on the big league staff. Estes seemed like a long shot to make the club after being summoned to the majors for only 11 innings last year and otherwise pitching to a 5.51 ERA in 15 Triple-A starts (and two relief appearances). He tossed only 2 2/3 innings in formal Cactus League play.
Estes, 24, came to the A’s alongside Shea Langeliers, Cristian Pache and Ryan Cusick in the trade sending Matt Olson to Atlanta. Estes has now pitched in parts of three major league seasons but been tagged for a 5.51 ERA (matching last year’s Triple-A mark) with just a 16.3% strikeout rate in 148 1/3 big league innings. He has good command (career 5.4% walk rate), but he’s an extreme fly-ball pitcher who doesn’t throw hard or miss bats. As such, he’s been far too susceptible to home runs. Estes has been used primarily as a starter to this point in his career, but he’s entering his final minor league option year, so perhaps the A’s will want to see what he’d look like in a bullpen role.
Entering camp, there were two spots up for grabs in manager Mark Kotsay’s rotation. Kotsay acknowledged back when pitchers and catchers reported that Luis Severino, Jeffrey Springs and free agent signee Aaron Civale had spots locked down, while the other spots would be sorted out in camp. Hard-throwing righty Luis Morales hasn’t exactly dominated this spring (eight runs in 16 hits and seven walks with 10 strikeouts in 12 innings), but Martin Gallegos of MLB.com writes that Morales is more or less a lock to open the season in the rotation.
Morales’ middling spring showing hasn’t emphatically earned that spot, but he’s coming off a rookie showing in which he tossed 48 2/3 innings with a 3.14 ERA. He averaged 97.3 mph with his four-seamer, struck out a respectable (albeit slightly below average) 21.6% of his opponents and issued walks at a 9% clip. Prior to that solid debut, he’d pitched in 23 games (14 starts) between Double-A and Triple-A and notched a combined 3.73 ERA, 29.2% strikeout rate and 9.6% walk rate.
Morales still has a full slate of three minor league option years remaining, so if he struggles badly in the final weeks of camp or is hit hard early in the season, he can be sent down without first needing to pass through waivers. The A’s can control him for at least six full seasons.
Gallegos writes that lefty Jacob Lopez might be the favorite for the fifth and final starting gig on Kotsay’s staff. The 28-year-old southpaw was acquired in the same trade that brought Springs to the A’s. He pitched 92 2/3 innings of 4.08 ERA ball with a strong 28.3% strikeout rate and a 9.3% walk rate last year. Seventeen of his 21 appearances were starts.
Lopez was slowed by a forearm issue early in camp but made his spring debut a few days ago. It didn’t go especially well (three runs in two innings), but he’ll have two more weeks to show that he can be trusted with a rotation spot to begin the season. Lopez still has one minor league option year remaining, though the A’s presumably prefer not to burn that unless his performance makes it absolutely necessary.
One name not to sleep on entirely: top prospect Gage Jump. The 22-year-old lefty hasn’t yet pitched in Triple-A, but Baseball America’s Ian Cundall writes that Jump has already seen his average fastball climb 1.6 mph this spring. He’s sitting 96 mph and topping out around 98.5 mph — up from last year’s average of 94.4 mph and max of 97 mph.
Jump, 23 next month, was the No. 73 pick in the 2024 draft. He dominated in High-A and Double-A last season, combining for 112 2/3 frames with a 3.28 ERA, 28.4% strikeout rate, 7.4% walk rate, 41.8% ground-ball rate and just 0.56 homers per nine frames. He’s widely regarded as one of the game’s 100 best overall prospects and is more specifically one of the very best left-handed pitching prospects in the sport.
Though Jump isn’t yet on the 40-man roster, he doesn’t necessarily face fierce competition. His ceiling is as high or higher than anyone else in the Athletics’ rotation at the moment, and the final two spots haven’t been claimed in convincing fashion. Jump has pitched 6 2/3 spring innings and allowed a pair of runs on five hits and three walks with four punchouts. The A’s technically don’t have to add him to the 40-man roster until the 2027-28 offseason (when he’d need to be selected to be protected from the Rule 5 Draft), but a 2026 debut seems likely, so long as Jump can remain healthy and pick up where he left off last season. It’d be a modest surprise if he broke camp with the club, but doing so would position the A’s to potentially pick up a future draft pick through MLB’s prospect promotion incentive program.
Orioles Notes: Mountcastle, Mayo
Orioles first baseman/designated hitter Ryan Mountcastle was lifted from the eighth inning of today’s Grapefruit League contest after being plunked on the right hand, but the team has already announced that initial x-rays came back negative. Mountcastle will presumably be considered day-to-day for the time being.
A fracture or any sort of notable injury would only have piled on to what’s been an injury-marred camp for the Orioles this spring in Sarasota. Baltimore has already lost Jordan Westburg (partial UCL tear), Jackson Holliday (hamate fracture) and Andrew Kittredge (shoulder inflammation).
The offseason signing of Pete Alonso pushed Mountcastle out of an everyday role in Baltimore, but he’s still in the mix for DH reps and occasional time at first base. Injuries to Westburg and Holliday have thrust Coby Mayo (third base) and trade acquisition Blaze Alexander (second base) into likely starting jobs. Those injuries create more opportunity for both Mountcastle and catcher/first baseman Samuel Basallo at the DH spot.
Of course, that assumes Mountcastle breaks camp with the club at all. He didn’t seem like a lock to be tendered a contract coming off an injury-ruined season in 2025, but the O’s passed on their chance to cut him loose. After tendering him a contract, they agreed to a one-year deal worth $6.72MM — a contract that includes a 2027 club option that gave the O’s control over what would’ve been Mountcastle’s first free agent season.
The O’s shopped Mountcastle throughout the offseason and have continued to discuss him during spring trade scenarios. The injuries elsewhere on the roster perhaps make a Mountcastle trade a bit less likely, but an injury of his own would have all but eliminated the possibility. With today’s clean bill of health, it seems like an eventual move could at least plausibly be on the table. MLBTR’s Anthony Franco took a look at some logical landing spots for Mountcastle just last week.
The early spate of injuries has already prompted the Orioles to pump the brakes on a potential trade of the aforementioned Mayo. He’s seen his name kicked around the rumor circuit for the better part of 18 months, but Mayo now appears poised to open the season at the hot corner. Kyle Goon of the Baltimore Banner takes a look at the wild ride Mayo has been on over the past year, being asked to change positions multiple times and slowly feeling as though his standing in the organization was slipping.
Mayo played shortstop prior to being drafted, was quickly moved to third base, and was told following the 2025 season that he should prepare strictly as a first baseman — the position he played down the stretch with regularity last year. He then watched the Orioles sign Alonso to a five-year contract, retain Mountcastle in arbitration and effectively ensure that Basallo would be on the roster moving forward by signing him to an eight-year extension.
“I think you just have to remember that there’s a plan out there for you, no matter if it was with the Orioles or with another team,” Mayo said of the tumultuous run he’s had over the past year-plus. “I’m gonna always do what I can to help myself out and get better. There’s nothing to gain out of sulking and being upset about moves a team has made. Going into the spring, who knew that we were gonna have two guys go down in a weeklong span? Like, we had no idea.”
New O’s skipper Craig Albernaz tells Goon that he’s “more than comfortable” opening the year with Mayo as his primary third baseman. In all likelihood, that’ll be the plan. Mayo has made three errors back at the hot corner but has hit well enough to overshadow those concerns for the time being. He was out of the lineup today, but Mayo is 13-for-26 with three doubles, a homer and only one strikeout in 28 spring plate appearances. He also hasn’t taken a walk, leading to an oddball line with his OBP checking in south of his batting average: .500/.464/.731. (Mayo has two sacrifice flies on the spring, hence the OBP discrepancy.)
Kyle Teel Out Four To Six Weeks With Hamstring Strain
White Sox catcher Kyle Teel has been diagnosed with a Grade 2 right hamstring strain and could be out anywhere between four and six weeks, per Scott Merkin of MLB.com. He’ll open the season on the 10-day injured list.
Teel, 24, suffered the injury last night when legging out a double in Italy’s upset win over the United States in the World Baseball Classic. He ran hard out of the box and pulled up limping shortly after rounding the first base bag (video link). Teel was visibly frustrated when standing on second base, clearly aware that he’d an injury of some note. He left the field with the training staff, albeit under his own power.
It’s a sour note on which to end Teel’s WBC run and on which to begin his 2026 season. The 2023 first-rounder headlined the prospect package the White Sox received when trading Garrett Crochet to the Red Sox last offseason and quickly broke out as what looks like Chicago’s catcher of the future. Teel played in 78 games last year, tallied 297 plate appearances and batted .273/.375/.411 with eight homers, 11 doubles and a huge 12.5% walk rate. His defense could use some improvement, but the lefty-swinging Teel looks the part of a big league catcher with strong offense for the position.
With Teel sidelined, the South Siders will open the season with Edgar Quero and Korey Lee as their catching tandem. Quero, like Teel, is a trade acquisition and former top prospect, coming to the Sox by way of the 2023 Lucas Giolito/Reynaldo Lopez trade with the Angels. The Cuban-born Quero is a switch-hitter who logged a respectable .268/.333/.356 slash (95 wRC+) in 403 plate appearances last year, though his glovework drew particularly poor grades; he caught only 15.8% of attempted thieves on the basepaths and graded as one of the worst pitch framers in the game.
Teel’s injury means Quero will open the season in a starting role and look to improve on both his power output and his defensive acumen behind the plate. Lee is another former first-round pick whom the Astros added in a trade (Kendall Graveman, 2023). He profiles strictly as a backup at this point, having slashed .195/.237/.325 with 14 homers in 504 plate appearances with the Sox — but only a 5.2% walk rate and a gaudy 29.6% strikeout rate. Lee has nabbed nearly one-quarter of runners who’ve attempted to steal against him since being traded to Chicago, but he’s drawn below-average grades for his framing and his efforts to block balls in the dirt.
The injury to Teel allows the White Sox to kick the can down the road a bit when it comes to a decision on their catching corps. Teel and Quero seem like the clear long-term candidates at the position, while the 27-year-old Lee (28 in July) is out of minor league options. He’ll now have at least a bit of runway to make a case that he deserves to stay on the roster once Teel is healthy, but Lee’s hold on a roster spot alongside a healthy Teel and Quero looks tenuous at best. Drew Romo, a former top prospect with the Rockies, is also in camp as non-roster depth if the Sox incur further injuries among their catching group.
Yankees’ Brock Selvidge Undergoes UCL Surgery
Yankees prospect Brock Selvidge underwent an internal brace procedure on his left elbow and will miss the 2026 season as a result, Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com reports.
Selected by the Yankees with their third-round pick back in 2021, the now-23-year-old Selvidge isn’t on the team’s 40-man roster and went unclaimed in December’s Rule 5 Draft. He was still a candidate to make his big league debut at some point in 2026, having gone through a second stint at Double-A in 2025, where he logged a 4.68 ERA, an 18.9% strikeout rate and a 12.2% walk rate. He tossed two scoreless spring innings with a 4-to-1 K/BB ratio.
Baseball America ranked Selvidge 12th among Yankees farmhands heading into the 2026 season, labeling him a potential fourth or fifth starter who sports a five-pitch arsenal that includes an average or better four-seamer, cutter and sweeper.
Injuries aren’t necessarily new for Selvidge. He was named to the 2024 roster for the Futures Game, held annually during the MLB All-Star break, but had to pull out of the event due to a pinched nerve in his left biceps. He’d worked to a 3.25 ERA with a 24.6% strikeout rate in his first dozen starts that year but was rocked for 17 runs over his final 21 innings (7.29 ERA) before landing on the injured list in early July. He wound up requiring surgery in Sept. 2024 and was out until late May last season while recovering.
The 2026 season will be Selvidge’s third straight year in which an arm injury has limited his workload. By the time he’s cleared to throw off a mound in 2027, he’ll be facing a three-year period where he’s thrown 167 2/3 innings despite regularly working as a starting pitcher.
Selvidge isn’t on the major league roster, so he won’t land on the 60-day IL and accrue big league service or pay. He wasn’t likely to be an early-season option anyhow, but he’s now out of the running for a look later this summer
The Yankees already have Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodón and Clarke Schmidt opening the season on the injured list. Veterans Ryan Yarbrough and Paul Blackburn give the Yankees a pair of swing options behind Max Fried, Cam Schlittler, Ryan Weathers, Luis Gil and Will Warren, and out-of-options DFA pickup Osvaldo Bido gives them a third candidate for such a role. Young righties Elmer Rodriguez and Carlos Lagrange are among the top pitching prospects in the sport and could debut in 2026 as well.
Marlins’ Adam Mazur Undergoes UCL Surgery
12:05pm: Mazur underwent a UCL reconstruction (Tommy John surgery) and had an internal brace installed, reports De Nicola. The estimated timetable for his return from that hybrid procedure is 13 to 14 months.
9:00am: Marlins righty Adam Mazur will undergo elbow surgery today and miss the entire 2026 season as a result, MLB.com’s Christina De Nicola reports. Mazur wasn’t locked into Miami’s rotation but was among the top depth options in the event of an injury to one of Sandy Alcantara, Eury Pérez, Chris Paddack or likely fourth and fifth starters Max Meyer and Braxton Garrett. It’s not yet clear which type of procedure he’ll require. Mazur recently reported elbow discomfort to the team and was quickly sent for an evaluation with renowned surgeon Keith Meister.
Mazur, 24, came to the Marlins alongside infielder Graham Pauley, top pitching prospect Robby Snelling and minor league infielder Jay Beshears in the 2024 trade that sent lefty Tanner Scott and righty Bryan Hoeing to the Padres. He’s a 2022 second-rounder who posted big numbers up through the Double-A level but has run into some trouble at both the Triple-A level (5.03 ERA, 168 1/3 innings) and in more limited major league work (6.22 ERA, 63 2/3 innings).
In 2025, Mazur split the season between Triple-A Jacksonville and Miami, tossing 107 1/3 innings with a 4.36 ERA at the former and 30 innings with a 4.80 ERA with the latter. He turned in solid strikeout and walk rates in Jacksonville but was far too homer-prone to keep his ERA down. Homers were less of an issue in his six big league starts, but he recorded a bottom-of-the-barrel 13.7% strikeout rate in his 30 MLB frames.
Having traded Edward Cabrera to the Cubs and Ryan Weathers to the Yankees, the Marlins entered camp with Alcantara, Pérez and free agent signee Paddack locked into rotation spots. Meyer and Garrett have both pitched only four official spring innings, but they’re both former top-10 picks and top prospects who have experienced success in the majors previously.
Garrett notched a 3.63 ERA in 247 2/3 innings from 2022-23 before a 2024 UCL surgery wiped out his entire 2025 season. Meyer has a 5.29 ERA in 25 career starts but has had big starts to his season in both 2024 and 2025. Miami optioned him in 2024 despite that big start, keeping him down for months and leaving Meyer six days shy of the service time he’d have needed to be a free agent following the 2028 season instead of the 2029 season. In 2025, a hip injury surfaced and eventually required season-ending surgery.
Depth options on the 40-man roster include swingman Janson Junk (4.17 ERA, 110 innings in 2025), Ryan Gusto (acquired from the Astros in last summer’s Jesús Sánchez trade), Bradley Blalock (acquired from the Rockies in January) and 2020 second-rounder Dax Fulton (healthy again after multiple injuries, including a June 2023 internal brace procedure). The aforementioned Snelling and fellow left-hander Thomas White are the two most notable rotation arms in waiting; both rank among baseball’s top 100 prospects, but neither has needed to be added to the 40-man roster just yet. That’ll very likely change in ’26, as both are considered nearly MLB-ready. White is the more touted of the two but has a bit less experience in the upper minors, given his status as a 2024 draftee compared to Snelling, a 2023 draftee.
Since Mazur is on the 40-man roster, has big league experience and was in major league camp at the time of injury, he’ll be placed on the major league injured list. If and when Miami needs an additional 40-man roster spot, he’ll be placed on the 60-day IL. Mazur will accrue a full year of service time and retain the lone minor league option year he has remaining. Miami will be able to control him via arbitration through at least the 2031 season.