Yankees Outright Braden Shewmake, Dom Hamel
The Yankees announced Monday that infielder Braden Shewmake and right-hander Dom Hamel, both of whom were designated for assignment last week, went unclaimed on waivers and were assigned outright to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Both will be in big league camp as non-roster invitees.
Shewmake’s outright comes nearly a year to the date after the Yankees claimed him off waivers from the White Sox. He spent the 2025 season in Scranton, where he hit .244/.318/.362 with four homers and 15 stolen bases in 315 plate appearances. The former first-round pick (Braves, 2019) has played in parts of four Triple-A seasons, hitting .241/.304/.386 in 1181 plate appearances.
Offense has never been Shewmake’s calling card. He’s a glove-first infielder whose best attribute has long been his ability to play good defense at multiple positions. He’s spent the bulk of his 2025 season at shortstop, which has been his primary position in pro ball, but also logged a handful of appearances at both second base and third base. Shewmake has over 2800 innings at short since being drafted, in addition to 765 at second base and 118 at the hot corner. He’ll stick with the Yankees as a depth option who could be called upon if they need a defensive-minded option to take a spot on the bench as injuries arise.
Originally a third-round pick by the Mets in 2021, Hamel made his major league debut this past September. He faced six batters and tossed one scoreless inning. Hamel has been hit hard in a pair of seasons at the Triple-A level, with a 6.27 ERA in 192 1/3 frames. He’s fanned 22.6% of his opponents in Triple-A but has also been plagued by an 11.2% walk rate, although those rate stats improved in 2025 (25.2%, 7.4%) relative to their 2024 levels (21.3%, 13.2%).
Hamel sits 92-93 mph with his four-seamer, pairing the pitch with an upper-80s cutter and low-80s slider. He posted a strong 13.2% swinging-strike rate in Triple-A this year and generally fared better on the mound after moving from the rotation into what was primarily a relief role. As with Shewmake, he’ll stick around as a depth option and could get a look at some point this season if the Yankees incur some injuries in the bullpen.
A’s Trade Max Schuemann To Yankees
The Athletics have traded infielder Max Schuemann to the Yankees in exchange for minor league right-hander Luis Burgos, according to announcements from both teams. Schuemann, who was designated for assignment last week, will take the roster spot of outfielder Yanquiel Fernandez, whose previously reported DFA was announced as the corresponding move for this trade.
Schuemann was bumped off the roster after the A’s claimed Andy Ibáñez. The 28-year-old infielder delivered subpar offensive numbers over parts of the past two seasons with the club. Schuemann has a career 78 wRC+ across 672 big-league plate appearances. He did contribute on the base paths with 21 steals in 23 attempts. Schuemann was a consistent base stealer in the minors, including a 52-theft season across three levels in 2021.
Schuemann’s main intrigue during his time with the A’s was defensive versatility. While the majority of his starts came at shortstop, Schuemann saw time at second base, third base, and all three outfield spots. He ranked in the 95th percentile in Outs Above Average last season.
The swap will give New York a glove-first option to serve as infield depth. Second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. has dealt with his fair share of injuries. Shortstop Anthony Volpe is currently recovering from offseason shoulder surgery and isn’t expected to be ready by Opening Day.
The Athletics net a 20-year-old right-hander with minimal professional experience. The Yankees signed Burgos as an international free agent in 2024. The entirety of his brief pro career has been spent at the Dominican Summer League. Burgos has a 3.39 ERA across 79 2/3 innings with the DSL Bombers. The solid run prevention results have come with subpar strikeout numbers (8.0 K/9) and control concerns. Burgos has walked 4.7 batters per nine innings. The 20-year-old is likely headed to the lowest levels of the A’s minor league system for more seasoning.
D-backs’ Andrew Saalfrank Undergoes Shoulder Surgery, Will Miss 2026 Season
Diamondbacks left-hander Andrew Saalfrank underwent shoulder surgery this morning and will miss the entire 2026 season, reports Steve Gilbert of MLB.com. The team has not yet announced the injury or provided further details but should do so in the near future. Presumably, Saalfrank sustained an injury late in his offseason program. Whatever the case, his subtraction from the bullpen is a tough break for a D-backs club that was already facing plenty of questions about its relief corps and has been working to bring some arms into the fold.
Saalfrank, 28, pitched 29 big league innings this past season and notched a pristine 1.24 earned run average in that time. That mark seems ripe for regression, as it was propped up by a .217 average on balls in play and 87% strand rate — neither of which seemed sustainable. Saalfrank fanned only 16.8% of his opponents, although his 12.2% swinging-strike rate suggests there could be more punchouts in the tank.
The left-handed Saalfrank issued walks at a respectable 8.8% clip and induced grounders at a solid 44.7% rate. Even if another sub-2.00 ERA wasn’t going to be in the cards, he still looked the part of a viable middle reliever at least — though Arizona used him in plenty of high-leverage spots last year after losing Justin Martinez and A.J. Puk to season-ending elbow surgeries.
Saalfrank has pitched 40 1/3 innings in the majors across the past three seasons, working to a 1.79 ERA in that time despite worse-than-average strikeout and walk rates of 15.4% and 11.1%, respectively. He works primarily off a sinker that sits just over 89 mph and a curveball that sits just shy of 80 mph.
Saalfrank would likely have more big league innings under his belt were it not for a yearlong ban he received from June 2024 to June 2025, after the league found that he bet on major league games during his time as a prospect in the D-backs’ system from 2020-21. Saalfrank bet a total of $445 and did not place any bets on D-backs games specifically, but his actions still violated the league’s stated policies and resulted in a lengthy punishment.
With Saalfrank out for the season, the D-backs’ options late in games thin even further. They’ll hope for summer returns from Martinez and Puk, but they’re obvious 60-day IL candidates when camp formally opens. Arizona’s top options in the ‘pen right now include Ryan Thompson, Kevin Ginkel and trade acquisition Kade Strowd. They’ll be banking on some in-house arms stepping up and claiming key roles, but losing another arm that looked locked into a spot in manager Torey Lovullo’s bullpen could spur the front office to act with greater urgency to bring in another reliever of some note, whether via free agency or trade.
Angels Outright Kaleb Ort
The Angels announced Monday that right-handed reliever Kaleb Ort passed through waivers unclaimed following his recent DFA. He’s been assigned outright to Triple-A Salt Lake. He’s never been outrighted before and has fewer than three years of major league service time (2.108), so he’ll remain with the Angels as a depth option in Salt Lake.
The 34-year-old Ort made his big league debut with the Red Sox back in 2021 and has logged time in each of the five seasons since. He’s spent the past two as a member of the division-rival Astros. Ort pitched well for the ‘Stros in 2024 and was shakier in 2025, but his overall numbers with Houston are respectable: combined 4.08 ERA, 26.1% strikeout rate, 10.8% walk rate and 38.2% ground-ball rate in 70 2/3 frames.
The hard-throwing Ort has averaged 96.8 mph on his four-seamer in that time and notched a strong 12.6% swinging-strike rate, generating plenty of whiffs with his slider, in particular. In addition to a walk rate that’s a bit heavy, Ort has been far too homer-prone. Opponents have tagged him for 25 homers in just 122 1/3 career innings in the majors (1.84 HR.9), including 15 dingers across the past two seasons in Houston (1.91 HR/9).
Ort is out of minor league options, which likely contributed to him going unclaimed on waivers. If the Angels select him back to the 40-man roster at any point, he’ll need to stay in the majors or else be designated for assignment and placed on waivers once again. At that point, even if Ort were to clear, he’d have the right to reject an outright assignment to a minor league affiliate in favor of free agency, thanks to being outrighted this morning.
Red Sox Notes: Infield, Gonzalez, Abreu
This morning’s surprise acquisition of Caleb Durbin in a six-player trade with the Brewers gave the Red Sox the additional infielder they’ve been coveting but also created questions about the infield alignment. Durbin can play both second base and third base. Both positions are generally unsettled for the Red Sox.
Manager Alex Cora touched on the matter in his first media session of spring, indicating that for the time being, the team isn’t going to commit to one defensive setup just yet (link via Alex Speier of the Boston Globe). Each of Durbin, touted prospect Marcelo Mayer and veteran utilityman Isiah Kiner-Falefa can play either second base or third base.
The situation is further muddied by the fact that infielder Romy Gonzalez is behind schedule due to a shoulder issue that bothered him throughout the offseason (links via MassLive.com’s Chris Cotillo and the Globe’s Tim Healey). Gonzalez suffered the injury in Boston’s 160th game of the season. He rested it and rehabbed it throughout the winter and believed the issue to be behind him but instead aggravated it when starting a hitting program last month. He’s since received a platelet-rich plasma injection and is aiming to be ready for Opening Day, but that’ll depend on how his shoulder progresses (or does not progress) during the Grapefruit League schedule.
Whether at second base or third base, Durbin figures to be in the lineup every day. He’s a fine defender at either position and had relatively neutral platoon splits in 2025. Neither he nor Mayer will work at shortstop, per Cora. Trevor Story was always going to get the majority of reps there, but it seems Kiner-Falefa is the primary backup at the moment. If both Story and Kiner-Falefa were to go down with an injury, perhaps the Sox would rethink utilizing Mayer and/or Durbin there, but that’s not in the cards for the time being.
Ideally, Gonzalez would be healthy enough to take regular at-bats against left-handed pitching. He decimated southpaws at a .331/.378/.600 clip in 2025 and owns a lifetime .302/.345/.527 slash against them. Against lefties, the Sox could theoretically go with Gonzalez at second base and Durbin at third base, then switch to a combination of Mayer and Durbin against right-handed opponents. Mayer hit .260/.333/.462 against righties in 2025 (majors and minors combined) but just .230/.260/.378 against left-handers.
Utilitymen Andruw Monasterio and Anthony Seigler, both acquired alongside Durbin, could both factor into the mix as well. Monasterio swings from the right side of the plate and can play all four infield positions. Seigler is a lefty-swinging catcher/infielder who’s played far more second base than catcher in recent seasons. It’s a long shot that either would claim a starting role, but both will be in the mix for bench jobs.
There are still questions in the outfield as well. Much has been made of Boston’s outfield group, which consists of Jarren Duran, Ceddanne Rafaela, Roman Anthony, Wilyer Abreu and, to a lesser extent, Masataka Yoshida. There are more bodies than at-bats to go around. Cora plainly said today that the Red Sox view Abreu as an everyday player and plan to get him at-bats against both lefties and righties (via MassLive.com’s Christopher Smith). They want to keep Rafaela in the outfield as often as possible, too, due to his superlative center field defense.
That’s a departure from the manner in which Abreu has been deployed in the past. The 26-year-old has logged just 145 of his 849 major league plate appearances against lefties (17%) and turned in a bleak .205/.271/.318 slash in that time. A poor spring showing could always change that plan, but it’d be a notable role change for Abreu. If he can improve to even passable but below-average output against southpaws with more exposure, it’d be a boon for the Sox on the defensive side of things, given that Abreu grades out as one of the better right fielders in the game.
If both Rafaela and Abreu are in the outfield most days, that leaves Duran, Anthony and Yoshida in the mix for left field and DH work. Presumably, the bulk of that time will go to Duran and Anthony. Both are superior defenders to Yoshida, and both have performed better at the plate as well.
Yoshida remains a square peg for the Sox’ roster, but he’s owed $36MM over the next two seasons and no team is taking on that sum (or even a notable portion of it). The former NPB star hit .266 last year but with a paltry .307 on-base percentage and just a .388 slugging percentage. By measure of wRC+, he was 12% worse than average at the plate. The Sox could still try to find him some occasional at-bats against right-handed pitching. He’s a career .295/.345/.451 hitter in those spots but has hit lefties at only a .237/.310/.340 pace since coming to MLB. In 755 innings in left field, he’s been dinged for negative marks by both Defensive Runs Saved (-4) and Outs Above Average (-8).
Yankees To Designate Yanquiel Fernandez For Assignment
The Yankees are designating outfielder Yanquiel Fernandez for assignment just five days after claiming him off waivers from the Rockies, reports Francys Romero of BeisbolFR.com. The team hasn’t announced the move or a corresponding transaction, but they still need to open a roster spot to make their reported re-signing of first baseman Paul Goldschmidt official, and this DFA would accomplish that.
Fernandez turned 23 on New Year’s Day but has already exhausted two of his three minor league option years. He made his major league debut with the Rockies this past season but hit just .225/.265/.348 with a 30% strikeout rate in 147 trips to the batter’s box. Fernandez has struggled in parts of two Triple-A seasons as well, hitting a combined .259/.320/.437 through 409 plate appearances despite very hitter-friendly environments.
In the 2023-24 offseason, Fernandez landed on the back end of top-100 lists at Baseball America, MLB.com and Baseball Prospectus. At the time, he was coming off a .265/.313/.486 showing with 25 home runs in 521 plate appearances across three levels, topping out as a 20-year-old in Double-A. Given that power output and his youth relative to the competition he was facing at the time, Fernandez was seen as a potential power-over-hit corner outfielder with a plus-plus throwing arm. A future as an everyday right fielder seemed attainable, but his aggressive approach and lack of plate discipline have hindered the final stages of his offensive development.
The Yankees will surely hope to pass Fernandez through waivers and retain him as depth. The majority of MLB clearly already passed on claiming Fernandez once, given that the Yankees are 27th in offseason waiver priority (which is based on the reverse order of the prior season’s standings). However, with pitchers and catchers now beginning to report to camp and the 60-day IL becoming available to other clubs, it wouldn’t be a huge surprise if another club used some of that newfound roster flexibility to place a claim and take what’d basically be a free spring training look at the former top prospect. The Yankees can place Fernandez on waivers or trade him at any point in the next five days.
Twins, Gio Urshela Agree To Minor League Deal
The Twins are bringing back old friend Gio Urshela on a minor league deal, reports Daniel Alvarez Montes of El Extra Base. Urshela, a client of Premier Talent Sports, will be in camp as non-roster invitee and compete for a spot in a crowded infield mix.
Urshela spent the 2022 season in Minnesota after coming over alongside Gary Sánchez in the trade that saw the Twins dump Josh Donaldson‘s contract on the Yankees. He enjoyed one of his best seasons with the Twins, hitting .285/.338/.429 (118 wRC+) with 13 home runs, 27 doubles and three triples. It proved to be just a one-year pairing, however, as the Twins flipped Urshela to the Angels that offseason (receiving minor league pitcher Alejandro Hidalgo) in order to open some playing time for their bevy of young infielders.
It’s been a rocky ride for the now-34-year-old Urshela since leaving Minnesota. He hit for a high average but with no power in two months with the Angels (.299/.329/.374) before suffering a fracture in his pelvis that required season-ending surgery. In parts of two seasons since that uncommon injury, he’s batted .246/.287/.351 (77 wRC+) in 658 trips to the batter’s box.
Now back with the Twins, Urshela provides some depth around an infield that’s full of question marks. Third baseman Royce Lewis has flashed superstar potential at various points in his career, but the former No. 1 overall draft pick has been beset by injuries and is coming off an ugly .237/.283/.388 showing in a career-high 403 plate appearances.
That’s the primary spot at which Urshela could hope to factor in. He has experience at shortstop, first base and second base as well, but it’s hard to imagine him returning to short for any meaningful amount of time at age 34 and with that pelvic injury now in his history. He logged two games at first base for the A’s in 2025 and would, at best, be fourth on the depth chart there for the Twins. Urshela has only 28 career innings at second base — five of them coming in 2023 and the other 23 coming way back in 2017.
There’s little harm bringing back a well-liked veteran for the Twins, but Urshela appears to face an uphill battle to grab a roster spot. He doesn’t have the defensive versatility he once did, and his bat has never gotten back on track following that 2023 injury. Still, given the frequency with which Lewis has been injured, there’s some sense in stashing a respected veteran backup.
D-backs Notes: Lawlar, Bullpen, Bench
The D-backs have already been getting top prospect Jordan Lawlar some reps in center field, and general manager Mike Hazen confirmed to D-backs host Jody Jackson that Lawlar will see the bulk of his playing time in the outfield rather than on the infield in 2026.
Lawlar, drafted as a shortstop, was pushed to third base early in his big league tenure after Geraldo Perdomo‘s breakout at shortstop. Defensive metrics and a glut of errors quickly made clear that he wasn’t going to be a quality option at the hot corner, and the team seemingly acknowledged that with last month’s acquisition of Nolan Arenado. With Arenado at third base, Perdomo at shortstop and star Ketel Marte entrenched at second base, Arizona’s infield doesn’t look to have much room for the former No. 6 overall pick.
The outfield, however, provides more opportunity. Corbin Carroll is locked into right field, but the other spots are largely up for grabs. Alek Thomas is a solid defender in center but hasn’t hit at all in parts of four major league seasons. Jake McCarthy was traded to the Rockies earlier this winter. Pavin Smith has some outfield experience but will probably see the lion’s share of time at first base with switch-hitting veteran Carlos Santana providing a righty complement to Smith’s left-handed bat. Yesterday’s trade of Blaze Alexander to the Orioles removed another occasional option from the equation; Alexander played seven games in the outfield last season.
Lawlar has only taken 108 plate appearances in the majors, and he’s posted a bleak .165/.241/.237 slash in that time while striking out at a dismal 34.3% clip. However, he’s still just 23 years old (24 in July) and has absolutely torched Triple-A pitching in parts of three seasons: .328/.414/.576 with 18 homers, 25 doubles, seven triples, 24 steals, an 11.9% walk rate and a 22.6% strikeout rate. Based on that production alone, the D-backs are going to do their best to find a spot in the lineup for his bat.
The trade of Alexander opens a clearer path for Lawlar to get at-bats in the outfield, and it also helped fortify Arizona’s bullpen. The Diamondbacks picked up righty Kade Strowd in that deal, who posted a 1.71 ERA in his first 26 1/3 innings of big league work in 2025. The 28-year-old’s 22.9% strikeout rate and 12.4% walk rate don’t support that level of run prevention, but Hazen told reporters after the trade that the D-backs felt Strowd took a step forward late in the year and is someone who’ll “compete in the bullpen for us right away” in 2026 (link via Steve Gilbert of MLB.com).
Strowd indeed seemed to find another gear in the season’s final month. He walked 11 of the first 71 batters he faced in 2025, but over his final nine innings he issued only two free passes to 34 hitters while punching out 15 (44.1%). His swinging-strike rate in that time nearly doubled, from 8.9% to 16.2%. It’s always dangerous to read too much into small samples, but in this instance, that drastic shift coincided with a huge uptick in Strowd’s four-seam fastball usage and a significant downturn in his curveball and sinker usage. Time will tell whether he can sustain those gains in a larger sample, but it’s a understandable that Hazen & Co. are intrigued to see what he can do with more four-seamers, cutters and sliders with fewer sinkers and hooks.
Gilbert notes that the D-backs are still on the lookout for more pitching help, which is only natural — particularly in the bullpen. Arizona has added Strowd and signed Taylor Clarke and Jonathan Loaisiga as free agents (the latter on a minor league deal), but that won’t be enough to make up for the losses of Justin Martinez and A.J. Puk, who’ll open the season on the injured list after undergoing elbow surgery last summer.
The D-backs, Gilbert adds, are also poking around for bench help in the outfield and the infield. Losing Alexander subtracted from that mix, of course, though they acquired six years of Strowd (and a pair of prospects) to offset that loss. At present, backup catcher James McCann is the only true lock for the bench. Infielder/outfielder Tim Tawa offers versatility but didn’t hit at all in his first taste of the majors last year (.201/.274/.347, 225 plate appearances). Switch-hitting outfielder Jorge Barrosa is out of minor league options but is a .148/.170/.239 hitter in 95 MLB plate appearances.
The Diamondbacks’ 40-man roster is extremely pitcher-heavy, with catcher Adrian Del Castillo and 22-year-old infielder Jose Fernandez (who hasn’t played above Double-A) standing as the only other position players on the 40-man roster. It’s only natural that the Snakes will look for some insurance around the infield and outfield, given the thin depth they have at present.
Marlins Trade Victor Mesa Jr. To Rays
Major League Baseball’s two Florida clubs made a small trade Friday, with Miami sending outfielder Victor Mesa Jr. to Tampa Bay in exchange for minor league infielder Angel Brachi. The Marlins had designated Mesa for assignment earlier in the week. Both teams have announced the swap.
Mesa and his older brother, Victor Victor Mesa, are the sons of Cuban baseball legend Victor Mesa, who had a 19-year career in Cuba’s top league and who has previously managed Team Cuba in the World Baseball Classic. Both, particularly the older Mesa brother, were high-profile international prospects back in the 2018-19 offseason, but neither panned out after signing together with Miami. Victor Victor never reached the majors, and Mesa Jr. was designated for assignment after just 38 plate appearances in The Show.
All of those plate appearances for the younger Mesa brother came in 2025. He appeared in 16 games and hit .188/.297/.344 with a homer, two doubles and as many walks as strikeouts (five apiece). He had a nice showing in 171 Triple-A plate appearances (.286/.352/.460), but that was the first time Mesa Jr. has hit at even an average level in the minors.
The 24-year-old Mesa Jr. is regarded as a solid defensive outfielder and has shown more pop than some expected him to at the time of his signing. He ripped 18 homers in 123 games during the 2023 season, popped 13 round-trippers in just 83 games in ’24 and added another seven in 42 Triple-A contests last season (plus the one home run in 38 MLB plate appearances).
Mesa Jr. still has a minor league option remaining. He’ll give the Rays another candidate to take some at-bats in a somewhat patchwork outfield. The Rays signed Cedric Mullins and Jake Fraley to one-year deals this winter and figure to plug them into center field and right field, respectively, at least against right-handed pitching. Left fielder Chandler Simpson is baseball’s fastest player and most prominent base-stealing threat, but he’s not a good defender, rarely walks and has no power of which to speak. Jonny DeLuca, Justyn-Henry Malloy, Richie Palacios, Ryan Vilade and top prospect Jacob Melton are the other outfield options on the 40-man roster.
Brachi is something of a lottery ticket — a 19-year-old former high-profile international signee who has spent the past two seasons in the Dominican Summer League. He did not rank among Tampa Bay’s top 30 prospects on Baseball America’s recent update on their sytem.
The Rays signed Brachi for an $800K bonus out of his native Dominican Republic. He struggled badly there as a 17-year-old in ’24 (.247/.348/.276 with no homers, three doubles and one triple in 206 plate appearances). Brachi had a breakout at the plate repeating that level in 2025, however, erupting for a .337/.453/.408 batting line in a larger sample of 228 turns at the plate.
Brachi has virtually no power at the moment and isn’t projected to grow into much. His immense Summer League OBP is a bit misleading, as he’s only walked in 8.7% of his plate appearances but has somewhat incredibly been plunked 30 times in 434 overall plate appearances. Brachi is a plus runner who’s still a bit inefficient on the basepaths (35 steals in 48 tries) but could develop into a big running threat. He’s played shortstop, second base and third base in pro ball.
Francys Romero first reported that Mesa was headed to Tampa Bay. Kevin Barral of Fish On First reported that it was a trade (not a waiver claim) and that Miami was receiving one prospect in return.
Red Sox Claim Tsung-Che Cheng
The Red Sox have claimed infielder Tsung-Che Cheng off waivers from the Nationals, the team announced. The Sox had a vacancy on their 40-man roster, which is now full. They’ll need to open a spot to finalize this week’s reported agreement with infielder Isiah Kiner-Falefa.
Cheng, 24, made his big league debut with the Pirates in 2025 but went hitless in seven plate appearances. He didn’t fare all that well in Triple-A last year either, hitting just .207/.305/.267 with one homer, 12 doubles and three triples in 410 turns at the plate. However, Cheng is a plus runner who swiped 20 bags despite that paltry OBP, and he’s also a capable defender at shortstop, second base and third base. The 5’8″ lefty swinger also has an excellent eye at the plate, evidenced by a career 12.5% walk rate in the minors.
Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow has been vocal about his desire to improve the club’s infield defense. Cheng isn’t going to secure a starting spot in the infield and may not even crack the Opening Day roster if he sticks with the Sox that long, as he has a minor league option remaining and can be sent to Triple-A without needing to be exposed to waivers. He’s a viable backup at any of shortstop, second base or third base who can work counts and run well, which makes him a potential bench option if he can improve his offense to some degree.
Then again, it’s far from certain Cheng will even be with the Red Sox at the end of camp. He’s been one of the most frequent riders of this offseason’s DFA carousel, bouncing from the Pirates, to the Rays, to the Mets, to the Nationals and now the Red Sox — all in the past month alone. The Red Sox are on the lookout for both a righty-swinging outfielder and another infielder (even after agreeing to terms with Kiner-Falefa), and if they bring in a veteran at either spot, Cheng could again find himself jettisoned into DFA limbo.