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Dustin May

Dustin May “Fully Back To Normal” After Elbow Injury

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Free agent right-hander Dustin May is “fully back to normal” and says that his elbow feels great, according to Christopher Smith of MassLive. May went on the injured list on September 9 with right elbow neuritis and did not pitch for the rest of the regular season or during the Wild Card Series.

May split the year between the Dodgers and the Red Sox, with a 4.96 ERA in 132 1/3 innings across 25 appearances (23 starts) along with a 21.1% strikeout rate and a 9.6% walk rate. He made 19 appearances (18 starts) with the Dodgers through July 31, recording a 4.85 ERA in 104 innings, although he did post a slightly above average groundball rate at 43.8%. That production declined after he was traded to the Red Sox. In six appearances (five starts) in Boston, May posted a 5.40 ERA in 28 1/3 innings and saw a slight uptick in walks while striking out just 19.5% of hitters. His expected metrics, including a 6.26 xERA and a 5.39 FIP following the trade, were in line with that performance.

Injuries have unfortunately been a theme of May’s career. He underwent Tommy John surgery in 2021 and only made six starts upon his return in 2022. He then made just nine starts in 2023 while he dealt with a right forearm strain, although he did post a solid 2.63 ERA in 48 innings in those starts. The next year, he suffered an injury to his esophagus which required surgery, causing him to miss the entire season. His 132 1/3 innings in 2025 were actually a career high. Before that, May had maxed out at 56 innings in 2020. Though the esophagus tear was obviously not baseball-related, it’s clear the injuries have taken a toll on May’s raw stuff. His sinker, which he used 33.6% of the time in 2025, fell to 94.5 mph after sitting at 96.6 mph in 2023. His four-seamer and cutter saw similar declines in velocity. While his sweeper was a plus pitch with above-average break, all three of his fastballs were negatives according to Statcast’s run value metric.

Still, May has enough of a big-league track record to garner interest as a free agent this offseason. He has a 3.86 ERA in 324 career innings along with a 46.6% groundball rate, a 21.9% strikeout rate, and an 8.3% walk rate. The groundball rate will be intriguing for teams in need of back-end depth, while the strikeout and walk rates are serviceable. He earned $2.135MM in his final year of arbitration in 2025 and will pitch most of next year at age 28.

Photo courtesy of Paul Rutherford, Imagn Images

Red Sox Promote Connelly Early, Place Dustin May On Injured List

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5:50pm: Early’s promotion is official. May lands on the 15-day IL, retroactive to September 6, with elbow neuritis. Boston created the necessary 40-man spot by recalling infielder Vaughn Grissom from Triple-A and placing him on the 60-day injured list. Grissom’s season is over due to plantar fasciitis.

10:46 am: The Red Sox will promote pitching prospect Connelly Early to make his major league debut tonight versus the A’s, as first reported by Foul Territory. Katie Morrison-O’Day of MassLive.com noted earlier in this week that Early, a 2023 fifth-round pick, was scratched from his start at Triple-A Worcester because the Sox wanted him to be ready if the big league club had a need this week. MassLive’s Chris Cotillo wrote yesterday that Early was “very much in play” to make his MLB debut within the next couple of days.

Early isn’t on the 40-man roster, so Boston will need to make corresponding transactions to open space on both the active and 40-man rosters. Righty Dustin May will head to the injured list to open an active roster spot, per Foul Territory and Cotillo.

The 23-year-old Early has thrived in both Double-A and Triple-A this season, combining for 100 1/3 innings with a 2.60 earned run average, a huge 31.9% strikeout rate and a 9.7% walk rate. The 6’3″, 195-pound lefty is sitting 93.4 mph on his four-seamer, complementing the pitch with a deep variety of secondary offerings including a slider, changeup, sinker, cutter and curveball (listed in descending order of usage rate). He’s kept the ball on the ground at a strong 50% clip and has thus far posted an excellent 14.3% swinging-strike between Double-A and Triple-A.

Early entered the season ranked tenth among Boston prospects at Baseball America but has climbed to sixth, even after the draft added several new entrants to the top tiers of every system in the sport. Scouting reports at BA, FanGraphs and MLB.com tout Early’s changeup as a plus offering. There’s a wider range of opinions on his slider, but the general consensus is that it at least has the potential to be an above-average, if not plus offering. The Virginia product will join fellow rookie Payton Tolle as a fairly high-profile September addition who could not only help into and throughout the postseason but could very well be auditioning for a 2026 rotation spot.

Although Early wasn’t on the 40-man roster on Sept. 1, he’ll still be eligible for postseason play. Players only need to be in the organization to have eligibility. The Sox will technically need to petition to have Early added to their postseason roster as an injury replacement, but teams do that every year. Depending on May’s timetable, he could simply be added as a replacement for the same pitcher he’s replacing on the active roster today.

There was at least one scenario where the Red Sox wouldn’t have had Early as an option to call up. When speaking with the Diamondbacks about Merrill Kelly and Zac Gallen prior to the trade deadline, Early was of interest to Arizona’s front office, Alex Speier and Tim Healey of the Boston Globe report. The Sox were willing to discuss lefty Brandon Clarke but deemed Early too steep a price to pay in those talks, per the Globe duo. Kelly went to the Rangers for a package of three pitching prospects. Gallen stayed in Arizona and will likely receive a qualifying offer.

As for May, it’s not yet clear exactly what type of injury he’s facing. Boston acquired him from the Dodgers at the trade deadline, sending 2024 first-round pick James Tibbs III (whom they’d acquired from the Giants for Rafael Devers) back to Los Angeles in return.

That trade hasn’t gone at all as the Red Sox hoped. May has made six appearances, five of them starts, and pitched to an ugly 5.40 ERA with a lower strikeout rate (19.5%) and higher walk rate (9.8%) than he’d logged in what was already a shaky season with Los Angeles (4.85 ERA). He’s a free agent at season’s end and doesn’t necessarily have a spot on the postseason roster set in stone, so if May needs even three weeks on the injured list, it’s at least feasible that his Red Sox tenure is effectively over. Certainly, both he and the organization will hope he can get back in minimal time and pitch his way into postseason consideration, but time will tell whether that’s plausible.

MLBTR Podcast: Sifting Through The Trade Deadline Deals

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The latest episode of the MLB Trade Rumors Podcast is now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts! Make sure you subscribe as well! You can also use the player at this link to listen, if you don’t use Spotify or Apple for podcasts.

This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Steve Adams and Anthony Franco of MLB Trade Rumors to go over the various deadline dealings, including…

Check out our past episodes!

The podcast intro and outro song “So Long” is provided courtesy of the band Showoff.  Check out their Facebook page here!

Photo courtesy of Chadd Cady, Imagn Images

Red Sox Acquire Dustin May

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The Red Sox announced the acquisition of right-hander Dustin May from the Dodgers for minor league outfielders James Tibbs and Zach Ehrhard. May will step into the back of Boston’s rotation after the Sox optioned Richard Fitts earlier in the week.

May, 27, has had a middling season. He carries a 4.85 earned run average across 19 appearances. His 21.5% strikeout rate and 9.5% walk percentage are right around league average. May hasn’t missed as many bats or gotten as many ground balls as he did earlier in his career. The former top prospect once looked like a potential top-of-the-rotation starter, but he’s unfortunately never been able to stay healthy. He underwent Tommy John surgery in 2021 and missed most of that season and the next. He suffered another forearm strain upon his return in ’23, then missed all of last season after requiring emergency surgery after rupturing his esophagus.

This year’s 104 innings are by far the most of his career. May’s velocity has held all season, but he has allowed an ERA of 4.45 or higher in each month since April. The Dodgers seemingly were on the verge of kicking him to the bullpen. GM Brandon Gomes told reporters (including J.P. Hoornstra of Newsweek) that May preferred to start. Gomes stated that May did not demand a trade but suggested the Dodgers were open to accommodating him by dealing him to a team that’d give him a rotation spot if a deal presented itself.

They not only found that team but got a strong return out of it. Tibbs was the Giants’ first-round pick last summer. San Francisco sent him to Boston alongside Kyle Harrison in June’s Rafael Devers blockbuster. His production tanked immediately after the trade, as he hit .205/.321/.268 with only one home run in 29 games for Boston’s Double-A affiliate. Tibbs had put together a much more impressive .246/.379/.478 line in High-A before the trade.

The Red Sox evidently soured on his future extremely quickly. Not only has May not had a particularly good year, he’s an impending free agent. He’s only playing on a $2.135MM salary because the injuries tamped down his arbitration earnings. Still, two months of a fifth/sixth starter isn’t a particularly valuable trade asset. If the Red Sox valued Tibbs anywhere near as highly as they did when they included him in the Devers trade, they would not have made this deal.

Ehrhard was Boston’s fourth-rounder last season. He’s a righty-hitting corner outfielder with a .270/.371/.434 line and 23 steals in 88 games between High-A and Double-A on the year. Baseball America slotted him 29th in the Boston farm system. He has a tweener profile but could be a fourth or fifth outfielder on the strength of his hitting ability.

ESPN’s Jeff Passan first reported the Red Sox were acquiring May. FanSided’s Robert Murray had Tibbs’ inclusion, while Christopher Smith of MassLive reported that Ehrhard was in the deal. Jon Heyman and Joel Sherman of the New York Post previously reported that the two sides were in talks on a deal involving May. Image courtesy of Neville E. Guard, Imagn Images.

Dodgers Notes: Snell, Ohtani, Rotation, Miller, Treinen

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Blake Snell threw 76 pitches in a rehab start with Triple-A Oklahoma City on Saturday, and it would appear as though this fourth rehab outing will also be the left-hander’s last.  Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told reporters (including Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register) that Snell will be activated from the 60-day injured list this week, and the club will move to a six-man rotation.

It has been a long road back for Snell, who appeared in just two games for L.A. before shoulder inflammation put him on the shelf in the first week of April.  Some renewed soreness in the later part of April led to both an injection in Snell’s shoulder and a shutdown from throwing, which led to this lengthy stint on first the 15-day and eventually the 60-day IL.

The lingering shoulder problem is the latest setback in Snell’s checkered injury history, adding to his reputation as something of an all-or-nothing pitcher.  When Snell is healthy and available, there are few (if any) better pitchers in the game, as evidenced by Snell’s two Cy Young Awards and his tendency to catch fire in later in the season.  As we saw just last season with the Giants, Snell battled injuries and ineffectiveness in the first three months of the 2024 campaign before delivering an absurd 1.23 ERA in his final 14 starts and 80 1/3 innings of action.

Time will tell if Snell can deliver anything close to that in his return to the Los Angeles rotation, but his impending return should be a nice boost to a Dodgers pitching staff that has been crushed by injuries all year.  The move to the six-man rotation reflects this improved rotation health, and the club’s desire to manage everyone’s innings in an attempt to preserve the starters’ arms over the rest of the season and through October.  If all goes well, the staff will consist of Snell, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Clayton Kershaw, Tyler Glasnow, Shohei Ohtani, and one of Dustin May or Emmet Sheehan.

This isn’t the first time the Dodgers adopted a six-man rotation, and the ragged nature of the team’s pitching health has already led to a pretty irregular deployment of the starters.  There’s also the Ohtani factor, as the two-way star is still slowly building up his innings.  Ohtani has tossed three frames in each of his last two starts, with May and Sheehan working as piggyback starters in support.

Ohtani is now expected to pitch four innings for his next two starts, Roberts said, so the team will be setting aside the piggyback plan for now.  This doesn’t mean Ohtani is going to be viewed as a regular starter per se, as Roberts explained.  “We’re not going to have the reins off where we’re going to say, ’Hey, you can go 110 pitches.’  I don’t see that happening for quite some time,” the skipper said.  “So I think that staying at four [innings] for a bit, to then build up to five and we’ll see where we go from there.”

Ohtani’s next two starts will come on Wednesday against the Reds, and then on August 6 against the Cardinals.  Notably, the Dodgers don’t play on either of the days following Ohtani’s two scheduled starts, as Roberts said the intent is to give Ohtani some built-in recovery time following his pitching outings before returning to his usual DH duty.

There is still plenty of fluidity in the six-man rotation plan, so Roberts didn’t want to commit to stating which of May or Sheehan could be remaining in the rotation and which might be moved to bullpen duty.  Describing the Dodgers’ pitching depth as a surplus is probably misleading given how more injuries could arise at any time, yet Los Angeles is addressing its number of starters at the Triple-A level by moving Bobby Miller from rotation duty to a relief job.

Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic reported yesterday about Miller’s role change, and Roberts confirmed the plan today.  “I think that this might be something that unlocks him.  Going hard for a shorter period of time, to get some confidence for him, which could help us here,” Roberts said.

Selected 29th overall by the Dodgers in the 2020 draft, Miller posted a 3.76 ERA over 22 starts and 124 1/3 innings in his 2023 rookie season, but that promising beginning gave way to an 8.85 ERA in 61 big league innings since Opening Day 2024.  Shoulder problems cost Miller two months of the 2024 season but his struggles have continued into this year, including a 5.58 ERA at Triple-A Oklahoma City and continued control issues.  Miller’s walk rate (15.4%) is almost as high as his strikeout rate (17.9%) over his rough 69 1/3 Triple-A frames this year.

Returning to the Major League bullpen mix, the Dodgers welcomed Blake Treinen back from the 60-day injured list today.  Left-hander Justin Wrobleski was also called up from Triple-A, while righties Edgardo Henriquez and Will Klein were optioned to Oklahoma City.

Treinen posted a 3.38 ERA over eight relief innings for Los Angeles before right forearm tightness led to almost three and a half months on the sidelines.  While the veteran’s health is still a concern given his significant injury history, Treinen was a major bullpen weapon for the Dodgers as recently as last year, when he posted a 1.93 ERA over 46 2/3 innings in the regular season, and then a 2.19 ERA in 12 1/3 postseason frames.  His return won’t halt the Dodgers’ plan to acquire more high-leverage bullpen help at the deadline, but Treinen could help the club fulfill part of that need from within.

Dodgers Could Make Dustin May Available

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The Dodgers have considered the possibility of trading right-hander Dustin May, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports. His colleague, Fabian Ardaya, hears similarly and reminds that Los Angeles has traded starters from its big league roster at each of the past two deadlines (James Paxton, Noah Syndergaard).

Los Angeles has a bevy of starters on the roster, but many are injured. May’s 99 innings rank second on the team, as do his 17 starts, behind Yoshinobu Yamamoto in both categories. Clayton Kershaw is the only other Dodger with even ten starts on the year. That said, L.A. recently welcomed Tyler Glasnow back from the injured list. Shohei Ohtani has resumed pitching, though he’s yet to top three innings in a start. Emmet Sheehan returned from Tommy John surgery in mid-June and has pitched well. Blake Snell is expected back soon. He’s made three rehab starts, building up to four innings his last time out, and has allowed a total of two runs in nine frames with a 17-to-1 K/BB ratio.

The Dodgers are known to be exploring the market for high-end relievers. May isn’t going to be a key component — or a component at all — in any trade where the Dodgers pry a top reliever like Emmanuel Clase, Ryan Helsley or Jhoan Duran away from their current teams. He’s a free agent at season’s end and thus wouldn’t hold interest to a club that’s gravitating toward the sell side of the deadline spectrum. However, trading May could bring in a reliever in a one-for-one swap with another contender seeking rotation help or could net some additional prospects to help soften the hit to the farm system if the Dodgers make a splash elsewhere.

It’s perhaps telling that the Dodgers don’t simply move May to the ’pen himself, though he’d presumably prefer to avoid such a move. He’s in his final season before free agency and his first year back after a 2024 season lost to flexor surgery rehab and a separate esophageal surgery. There’s no indication at all that May would push back on a more lasting move to relief work, to be clear, but it’s arguably in the 27-year-old righty’s best interest to continue on as a starter and build that workload up in his platform year. May followed Ohtani with 4 2/3 innings of long relief his last time.

May’s 2025 season has brought mixed results. His 99 innings are already a career-high at the MLB level for the frequently injured righty. He got out to a nice start (4.09 ERA, 24.2 K%, 8.5 BB% through June 2) but has hit a rockier stretch lately. Dating back to June 9, May has pitched 37 1/3 innings with a 5.79 ERA, 17.2% strikeout rate and 12.4% walk rate. May’s velocity has held up, but he’s pushing into uncharted waters in terms of big league workload and doing so in his first season back on the mound following a year off. Some struggles are not necessarily surprising.

Because of that, the Dodgers would be selling low on May. However, given his status as an impending free agent who’s unlikely to receive a qualifying offer anyhow, the alternative would be hanging onto him and letting him go for no return at season’s end. If the Dodgers are either concerned about his ability to downshift to a bullpen role or simply want to do right by the player and find him an opportunity to continue working out of a rotation, a trade in the next week would make sense.

Dodgers Option Hyeseong Kim

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The Dodgers optioned infielder Hyeseong Kim and right-hander Bobby Miller this evening. They also reassigned non-roster invitees Giovanny Gallegos, Eddie Rosario, David Bote, Michael Chavis and top prospect Dalton Rushing to minor league camp.

Additionally, Bob Nightengale of USA Today reports that Dustin May will open the season as the fifth starter as Tony Gonsolin is ticketed for an injured list stint. Manager Dave Roberts told Dodgers Territory yesterday that was likely to be the case, as Gonsolin recently tweaked his back while lifting weights.

Kim entered camp as the favorite for the second base job. The Dodgers signed the lefty-hitting infielder to a three-year deal that guaranteed $12.5MM. While that’s a relatively modest investment, L.A. traded Gavin Lux to Cincinnati a few days later. That seemingly opened the path for Kim to step in at the keystone, but the Dodgers evidently have some concerns about how his bat will translate to open the season.

Offensive impact has been the question dating back to Kim’s time in Korea. Evaluators credit him as a good baserunner and plus defender. He hit .304 over eight KBO seasons but was never much of a power threat. Last season’s 11 home runs represented a career high. The 26-year-old infielder struck out 10 times in 31 plate appearances during his first MLB camp. He hit .222 with one homer in 14 spring games.

Starting Kim in the minors provides Roberts some flexibility at second base. The Dodgers could turn to any of Miguel Rojas, Enrique Hernández or Chris Taylor — all of whom would otherwise play utility roles. Alternatively, they could bring Tommy Edman back in from center field to play second. That’d open center field for Andy Pages or James Outman, but neither of them have had especially impressive Spring Trainings.

The Gonsolin injury resolves L.A.’s biggest camp battle: the fifth starter competition between him and May. Both pitchers missed all of last season rehabbing surgeries. Gonsolin underwent a 2023 Tommy John procedure. May required a flexor repair in ’23 and needed to undergo emergency esophageal surgery last summer after suffering a life-threatening throat tear while eating. His season debut will be his first major league appearance in nearly two years.

May rounds out what will be a five-man rotation for the time being. Tyler Glasnow, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Roki Sasaki and Blake Snell will hold the top four rotation spots. Yamamoto and Sasaki are respectively tabbed for Games 1 and 2 during next week’s Tokyo Series matchup against the Cubs.

Poll: The Dodgers’ Rotation

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The Dodgers have long been expected to utilize a six-man rotation this year in order to accommodate Shohei Ohtani, and have accordingly assembled a deep group of arms. Last week, however, president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman revealed that, with Ohtani not expected to debut as a pitcher until sometime in May, the Dodgers intend to open the season with a five-man rotation. Four of those spots will go to Blake Snell, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow, and Roki Sasaki. That fifth spot appears to be up for grabs, with the two leading candidates being a pair of arms that missed the 2024 season entirely due to injury: right-handers Dustin May and Tony Gonsolin.

The duo have been on very similar tracks for much of their respective careers. Drafted in the third and ninth rounds of the 2016 draft respectively, May and Gonsolin were both top-100 prospects for the Dodgers who made their big league debuts in 2019 and looked good in their brief cups of coffee. May posted a 3.63 ERA in 34 2/3 innings, while Gonsolin posted a 2.93 ERA in 40 innings. Both took on larger roles in 2020 and finished top-five in NL Rookie of the Year voting that year.

It was at the outset of the 2021 season where the pair’s careers begin to diverge. May has routinely been brilliant when healthy, but “when healthy” is a key caveat. May has started just 20 games and thrown 101 innings total over the past four seasons. That’s mostly been due to multiple elbow surgeries, and just when his arm looked to be healthy last summer, he suffered an esophageal tear that required surgery and sidelined him for 2024.

Gonsolin has been healthy long enough to build up a more sustained track record, but that playing time has come with ups and downs. In 2021, the righty posted a strong 3.23 ERA but a 4.54 FIP due in no small part to a bloated 14.2% walk rate. Gonsolin was sensational in 2022, logging a 2.14 ERA in 24 starts (130 1/3 innings) as he cut his walk rate by more than half and struck out a solid 23.9% of opponents faced. The success was short-lived. Gonsolin struggled badly across 20 starts in 2023 before undergoing his own Tommy John surgery, which wiped out his entire 2024 season.

May brings excellent rate stats to the table, with a 3.21 ERA (132 ERA+), a 3.59 FIP, and a 24.1% strikeout rate over that aforementioned stretch of 2020 starts between surgeries. He’s also just 27 years old. Between that youth and his limited on-field reps to this point in his career, it’s not outlandish to suggest that May could have a higher ceiling than even his strong career numbers suggest. Gonsolin has more experience pitching in big league games. The 31-year-old’s phenomenal 2022 season is also by far the best work either player has put forward in a given season. May has five-plus seasons of MLB service and can’t be optioned without his consent. Gonsolin will reach that same threshold 20 days into the season but for now has one minor league option left.

There are other candidates for the fifth spot, but none come close to matching the experience of May and Gonsolin. Bobby Miller is a former top prospect who delivered a strong 2023 season, but he was one of the worst pitchers in baseball last year. Landon Knack, Ben Casparius, and Justin Wrobleski are all healthy and available as depth starters after each debuted in 2024. Of the three, only Knack has substantial big league playing time under his belt. The 27-year-old’s 3.65 ERA in 69 innings last year could make him the next man up behind May and Gonsolin, but he still appears to be further down the depth chart than the two returning righties.

It’s worth reminding that franchise legend Clayton Kershaw is slated to start the season on the 60-day IL. Younger arms like Emmet Sheehan, Kyle Hurt and River Ryan are all recovering from Tommy John surgery performed during the 2024 season. Gavin Stone had shoulder surgery in October and isn’t likely to pitch this year. Fellow righty Nick Frasso is a well-regarded arm but isn’t likely to be in the Opening Day rotation mix after missing the 2024 season due to shoulder surgery performed last offseason. That length list of arms is a testament to the organization’s depth and also a good reminder that whoever opens the season as the No. 5 starter is hardly a lock to hold a rotation spot all season. The Dodgers will probably cycle through 12-plus starters this season.

Be that as it may, there’s plenty of intrigue surrounding the Opening Day staff. Assuming everyone remains healthy, how do MLBTR readers think the Dodgers’ fifth starter battle will play out? Will the club go for May’s upside and relative youth? Will they instead turn to Gonsolin’s more substantial MLB track record in hopes he can replicate his All-Star 2022 campaign? Will one of the less-experienced arms break out and claim the role? Have your say in the poll below:

Who will the Dodgers use as their fifth starter to open the season?
Tony Gonsolin 43.83% (3,059 votes)
Dustin May 33.62% (2,346 votes)
Bobby Miller 15.82% (1,104 votes)
Landon Knack 3.38% (236 votes)
Other (specify in comments) 1.40% (98 votes)
Justin Wrobleski 0.99% (69 votes)
Ben Casparius 0.96% (67 votes)
Total Votes: 6,979

Dodgers To Begin Season With Five-Man Rotation

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The Dodgers intend to begin the season with a five-man starting staff, president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman told reporters (links via Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic and Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register). While they still intend to eventually move to a six-man rotation, that’ll wait until May.

L.A. had previously indicated they’d run a six-man staff all year. That’d allow Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki to stay close to the schedule they had in Japan, where starters pitch once per week. It’s also designed to avoid overworking a rotation full of pitchers who have notable injury histories. However, the early-season schedule allows skipper Dave Roberts to keep everyone’s workload in check organically.

The Dodgers and Cubs open the regular season with a two-game set at the Tokyo Dome on March 18-19. Los Angeles is expected to turn to Yamamoto and Sasaki, respectively, to pitch in their home country. They then have a week before their domestic season opener, which’ll be on March 27 against Detroit. The schedule builds in an off day on Monday, March 30, followed by days off for each of the next five Thursdays. They have a few stretches of six consecutive game days but won’t play more than that until running 10 straight from May 2-11.

Sticking with a five-man rotation allows them to carry an eighth reliever. Teams are limited to 13 pitchers. As a two-way player, Shohei Ohtani doesn’t count against the limit. He’s still working back from 2023 elbow surgery and last year’s postseason shoulder injury. He’ll be limited to hitting for the first few weeks of the season. Going with a six-man rotation while Ohtani is not pitching would cap them at a seven-man bullpen.

Ohtani could be ready to make his return to the mound at some point in May. That’d align with when the Dodgers are looking to move back to a six-man rotation and would permit them to keep the eight-man bullpen all year. Friedman unsurprisingly said the Dodgers weren’t going to push Ohtani’s recovery just to meet a specific deadline. It’s better to operate with a seven-man bullpen for a while than risk pushing Ohtani’s arm too quickly. The return timetable might line up anyways with when the schedule becomes more demanding.

In the short term, the five-man staff seemingly introduces a camp battle between Tony Gonsolin and Dustin May for one rotation job. The front four will be filled by Yamamoto, Sasaki, Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow. That’d leave Gonsolin, May, Landon Knack, Bobby Miller, Justin Wrobleski and Ben Casparius as healthy rotation options.

May has more than five years of service, meaning the Dodgers cannot send him to the minors without his approval. The rest of the back-end starters do have options. Gonsolin would reach the five-year service mark after collecting another 20 days on the MLB roster. At that point, he’d be able to refuse a minor league assignment as well.

If everyone stays healthy during Spring Training, that could push one of May or Gonsolin to the bullpen. An Ohtani return coinciding with the move to a six-man rotation could keep it that way, though it’s likely they’ll have encountered some kind of injury trouble by that point. Roberts said the Dodgers view May and Gonsolin as starters but left open the possibility of kicking one into long relief once the season gets started.

Both pitchers missed the 2024 season to injury. Gonsolin underwent an ill-timed Tommy John surgery in August ’23. May underwent a flexor tendon repair the month before that. He was gearing up for a midseason return last summer before a surprising July announcement that he’d undergone season-ending surgery to repair a tear in his esophagus.

May discussed that scary incident with Jack Harris of the Los Angeles Times. The 27-year-old righty said it occurred in a fluke manner while he was having a salad for dinner. A piece of lettuce lodged awkwardly in his throat and ended up piercing his esophagus when he tried to wash it down with a sip of water. May credited his wife Millie with encouraging him to go to the emergency room, where doctors realized the severity of the injury and rushed him into surgery. May told Harris he’s not sure that he would have survived the night had he not had the emergency operation. The column is worth a full read, as May discussed both his offseason trajectory and the perspective he gained from such a harrowing experience.

Players Avoiding Arbitration: 11/22/24

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The deadline for teams to tender contracts to arbitration-eligible players is tonight at 7pm CT. Throughout the day, we’ll surely see a handful of arb-eligible players agree to terms with their clubs to avoid a hearing.

These so-called “pre-tender deals” usually, although not always, involve players who were borderline non-tender candidates. Rather than run the risk of being cut loose, they can look to sign in the lead-up to the deadline. Those salaries often come in a little below projections, since these players tend to have less leverage because of the uncertainty about whether they’ll be offered a contract at all.

Under the 2022-26 collective bargaining agreement, players who sign to avoid an arbitration hearing are guaranteed full termination pay. That’s a change from prior CBAs, when teams could release an arb-eligible player before the season began and would only owe a prorated portion of the contract. This was done to incentivize teams and players to get deals done without going to a hearing.

All salary projections in this post come via MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz. This post will be updated throughout the day/evening as deals are announced and/or reported.

  • The Mets announced that they have agreed to a one-year contract with right-hander Sean Reid-Foley, though salary figures have not yet been reported. He was projected for a $900K salary next year after posting a 1.66 ERA but in just 21 2/3 innings due to injury.
  • The Rangers announced they avoided arbitration with right-hander Josh Sborz, who was projected for a $1.3MM salary next year. He’ll come in just shy of that at $1.1MM, per Jeff Wilson of Rangers Today (X link). He underwent a shoulder debridement procedure recently, per Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News (X link) and will likely miss the first two or three months of 2025.
  • The Tigers and infielder Andy Ibanez have agreed to a salary of $1.4MM next year, per Francys Romero (X link). That’s a shade below his $1.5MM projection. Ibanez hit .241/.295/.357 in 99 games for the Tigers in 2024.
  • The Guardians avoided arbitration with right-hander Ben Lively, per Paul Hoynes of cleveland.com (X link). He’ll make $2.25MM next year, below his $3.2MM projection. Lively had a 3.81 ERA in 151 innings for the Guards this year.
  • The Cubs and right-hander Julian Merryweather have avoided arbitration by agreeing to a salary of $1.225MM, per Jesse Rogers of ESPN (X link). That’s just shy of his $1.3MM projection. Merryweather had a 6.60 ERA in 2024 but was injured most of the time and only made 15 appearances. He had a solid 3.38 ERA the year prior in 72 innings. The Cubs also agreed to terms with catcher Matt Thaiss and righty Keegan Thompson, per Meghan Montemurro of the Chicago Tribune (X link), though salary figures have not yet been reported.
  • The Blue Jays got a deal done with right-hander Erik Swanson, per Shi Davidi of Sportsnet on X. The righty was projected for $3.2MM next year but will make a smidge less than that, with Keegan Matheson of MLB.com (X link) relaying that Swanson will make $3MM. He had a 5.03 ERA in 2024 but was at 2.97 the year prior and also finished this year strong, with a 2.55 ERA in the second half.
  • The Yankees reached agreement with center fielder Trent Grisham on a $5MM salary, reports Jorge Castillo of ESPN (on X). The deal contains another $250K in incentives. The two-time Gold Glove winner had been projected at $5.7MM. Grisham had an underwhelming .190/.290/.385 showing during his first season in the Bronx. The Yankees will nevertheless keep him around for his final year of arbitration, presumably in a fourth outfield capacity. The Yankees also announced that they have a deal with righty JT Brubaker, though figures haven’t been reported. He was projected for a salary of $2.275MM, the same figure he made in 2023 and 2024, two seasons he missed while recovering from Tommy John surgery.
  • The Rockies reached deals with outfielder Sam Hilliard and lefty reliever Lucas Gilbreath, Feinsand reports (on X). Hilliard gets $1MM, while Gilbreath signed for $785K. Both figures come in shy of the respective $1.7MM and $900K projections. Hilliard popped 10 home runs over 58 games as a depth outfielder. Gilbreath only made three appearances after missing the entire ’23 season to Tommy John surgery. He posted a 4.19 ERA across 43 innings two years ago.

Earlier Agreements

  • The Dodgers and right-hander Tony Gonsolin have agreed to a $5.4MM salary for 2025, per Robert Murray of FanSided (X link), an exact match for his projection. He had signed a two-year, $6.65MM deal to cover the 2023 and 2024 seasons. He made 20 starts for the Dodgers in the first year of that pact but he missed all of 2024 recovering from Tommy John surgery.
  • The Guardians and Sam Hentges have agreed to a $1.337MM deal, according to Robert Murray of FanSided. That’s right in line with his projected $1.4MM salary. The left-hander has been an effective reliever for Cleveland over the past three seasons (2.93 ERA, 2.82 SIERA, 138 IP), but he missed the latter half of 2024 with a shoulder injury. After undergoing surgery in September, he will miss the entire 2025 season.
  • The Orioles and infielder Emmanuel Rivera agreed to a $1MM deal, reports Mark Feinsand of MLB.com. He’d been projected at $1.4MM. He hit .238/.312/.343 this year.
  • Right-hander Brock Stewart and the Twins agreed to a one-year deal worth $870K, MLBTR has learned. He’d been projected at $800K. Stewart, who missed much of the season due to injury, can earn another $30K via incentives. He’s been lights-out for the Twins when healthy over the past two seasons (2.28 ERA, 33.5 K%, 10.8 BB%). Minnesota and righty Michael Tonkin also agreed to a $1MM deal, tweets Jon Heyman of the New York Post. He’d been projected at $1.5MM. The Twins later announced that they had reached deals with Stewart, Tonkin and righty Justin Topa. Hewas projected for $1.3MM next year but will come in just shy of that in terms of guarantee. Per Bobby Nightengale of the Star Tribune (Bluesky link), it’s a $1.225MM guarantee in the form of a $1MM salary and then a $225K buyout on a $2MM club option for 2026.
  • The Padres and Tyler Wade agreed to a one-year deal worth $900K, Heyman tweets. There’s a club option for an additional season. Wade, who hit .217/.285/.239 in 2024, was projected for that same $900K figure.
  • Infielder Santiago Espinal and the Reds settled on a one-year deal at $2.4MM, Heyman tweets. That’s well shy of his $4MM projection and actually represents a slight pay cut after Espinal hit .246/.295/.356 for Cincinnati.
  • The Rangers and righty Dane Dunning agreed to a one-year deal worth $2.66MM, Heyman reports. It’s a 19% cut after Dunning struggled to a 5.31 ERA in 95 innings this past season. He was projected at $4.4MM.
  • The Giants and right-hander Austin Warren agreed to terms on a one-year deal, reports Justice de los Santos of the San Jose Mercury News. He missed most of the season recovering from Tommy John surgery but returned late with 10 2/3 innings of two-run ball out of the bullpen.
  • The Brewers announced that they’ve signed catcher/outfielder Eric Haase to a one-year deal for the upcoming season. ESPN’s Jesse Rogers reports that the deal guarantees Haase $1.35MM with the chance to earn more via incentives. He’d been projected for a $1.8MM salary. Haase will fill the backup catcher role in Milwaukee next season. He’s controllable through the 2027 season.
  • The Dodgers and right-hander Dustin May settled at $2.135MM, per Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic (X link). That’s the exact same salary he had in 2024. May will be looking to bounce back after spending all of this year on the injured list.
  • The Phillies and right-hander José Ruiz settled at $1.225MM, per Robert Murray of FanSided (X link). That’s slightly above his $1.2MM projection. The righty can also unlock a $20K bonus for pitching in 30 games and $25K for pitching in 40. He made 52 appearances for the Phils in 2024 with a 3.71 ERA. Philadelphia also announced agreement with backup catcher Garrett Stubbs on a one-year deal. The Phils did not reveal the salary figure. Stubbs hit .207 in 54 games this year.
  • The Tigers and infielder/outfielder Zach McKinstry agreed to a $1.65MM salary for 2025, per Robert Murray of FanSided (hat tip to Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press on X). That’s slightly ahead of his $1.3MM projection. He hit .215/.277/.337 this year while stealing 16 bases and playing each position except or first base and catcher,
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