Martin Maldonado Announces Retirement
After 15 Major League seasons, Martin Maldonado is retiring from baseball. The 39-year-old catcher made the official announcement today via his Instagram page, thanking his family, the fans, teammates, coaches, and many others who helped him live his dream.
“Baseball, I was just four years old when I fell in love with you,” Maldonado said in his statement. “From the moment I first put on that catcher’s gear, I knew this game would be part of me forever. Every inning, every pitch, every moment behind the plate has been a blessing. For 34 years, I’ve had the honor of wearing that gear — and for the last 15, doing it at the highest level. Today, it’s time to hang them up and officially call it a career.”
The epitome of a glove-first catcher, Maldonado will retire with a career .203/.277/.343 slash line and 119 home runs over 4028 plate appearances and 1230 games in the majors. Despite the modest offensive output, Maldonado carved out a long career due to his defense and game-calling ability. Maldonado was renowned for his ability to work with pitchers, whether it was young arms just arriving in the big leagues or veteran hurlers who were set in their routines.
This ability earned Maldonado regular work on one of baseball’s most successful teams of recent years, as he played with the Astros for parts of the 2018-23 seasons. Initially a deadline pickup for Houston in 2018, Maldonado left for a free agent deal with the Royals that winter, but was re-acquired again by the Astros at the 2019 trade deadline. The Astros then locked Maldonado up on a two-year contract that winter, with another extension in April 2021 that ultimately added two more years to Maldonado’s time in Houston once he played enough in 2021 to trigger a vesting option.
With plenty of pop elsewhere in the lineup, the Astros were happy to focus on defense in the catcher’s position, with such other backstops as Jason Castro, Garrett Stubbs, Christian Vazquez, and eventual heir apparent Yainer Diaz all sharing time with Maldonado behind the plate. Maldonado’s tenure in Houston was highlighted by a championship ring in 2022 when the Astros captured the World Series.
A 27th-round pick for the Angels way back in the 2004 draft, Maldonado didn’t make his MLB debut until he appeared in three games with the Brewers in 2011. That cup of coffee marked the first of six seasons for Maldonado in a Milwaukee uniform, acting as a complement to regular catcher Jonathan Lucroy. The Brewers dealt Maldonado to the Angels in December 2016, and the 2017 season saw Maldonado earn starting catcher duties and win the only Gold Glove of his career.
Maldonado went from the highs of the Astros’ perpetual contention to the low of playing with the 121-loss White Sox in 2024, though Maldonado was released by the Sox in July of that year as the team was moving on to younger options. He signed a minor league contract with the Padres last winter and hit .204/.245/.327 in 161 PA and 64 Major League games in what ended up being his final season in the Show. The Padres designated Maldonado for assignment and released him in August, but re-signed him to a minor league deal in September. Maldonado even got one more taste of the playoffs when the Padres activated him for backup duty in their Wild Card Series against the Cubs, though Maldonado didn’t play during the three-game series.
Maldonado’s defensive metrics tended to swing from year to year, yet at various points in his career, he was one of baseball’s best at framing pitchers, blocking pitches in the dirt, and throwing out baserunners. In the latter category, Maldonado tossed out 188 of 663 runners (28.36%) attempting to steal. Maldonado finishes his career as a +17 in Fielding Run Value and with +57 Defensive Runs Saved.
We at MLB Trade Rumors congratulate Maldonado on a fine career, and we wish him the best in his post-playing endeavors.
Nine Players Elect Free Agency
Now that the season is over, we’ll start seeing several players choose to become minor league free agents. Major League free agents (i.e. players with six-plus years of big league service time) will hit the open market five days after the end of the World Series, but eligible minor leaguers can already start electing free agency.
To qualify, these players must have been all outrighted off their team’s 40-man rosters during the 2025 season without being added back. These players also must have multiple career outrights on their resume, and/or at least three years of Major League service time.
We’ll offer periodic updates over the coming weeks about many other players hitting the market in this fashion. Unless otherwise credited, these free agent decisions are all listed on the official MLB.com or MILB.com transactions pages, for further reference.
Catchers
- Eric Haase (Brewers)
- Chad Wallach (Angels)
Outfielders
- Akil Baddoo (Tigers)
- Dominic Fletcher (White Sox) (per Scott Merkin of MLB.com)
- Corey Julks (White Sox) (per Merkin)
Pitchers
- Carl Edwards Jr. (Rangers)
- Trevor Richards (Diamondbacks)
- Keegan Thompson (Cubs)
- Randy Wynne (Reds)
Photo courtesy of Jonathan Hui, Imagn Images
Tobias Myers, Ben Casparius Added To NLCS Rosters
The Brewers and Dodgers kick off the National League Championship Series in less than an hour. Each team made one change to the rosters from their respective Division Series.
Milwaukee made a move in the bullpen, swapping out Nick Mears for Tobias Myers. General manager Matt Arnold told reporters the decision was mostly about adding length to the pitching staff (link via MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy). Mears has only once completed two innings in a game this season. All but five of his 63 appearances have been a single inning or less. Myers has been a starter for much of his career and was working a handful of 2-3 inning stints in long relief down the stretch. The Brewers will lean heavily on their relievers, especially in games not started by Freddy Peralta, and have Aaron Ashby kicking off a bullpen game tonight.
Still, it comes as a moderate surprise that the hard-throwing Mears gets left off the roster entirely. Over the course of the season, only Trevor Megill entered the game in higher-leverage spots on average for skipper Pat Murphy. Mears was third on the team with 16 holds. He’d also pitched three times in the five-game Division Series win over the Cubs, tossing 1 2/3 scoreless frames while striking out three of seven batters faced. Mears missed a couple weeks in September with back tightness, but Arnold suggested the decision was less a health question and more about the need for multi-inning arms in a seven-game set.
The Dodgers also made a change, adding a 12th pure pitcher after carrying 11 pitchers (not including Shohei Ohtani) and 15 position players for their series against the Phillies. Right-hander Ben Casparius draws in while the team subs out third catcher Dalton Rushing. That’s most notable as a positive sign for Will Smith. The Dodgers were apprehensive about having Smith catch early in the Philly series. The star backstop came off the bench as a pinch-hitter for the first two games as he plays through a finger fracture.
Smith caught the last two games in full and apparently showed enough that the Dodgers no longer feel they need to keep Rushing active behind Smith and Ben Rortvedt. The 24-year-old Rushing struck out in a pinch-hit at-bat in his only appearance during the Division Series. Casparius adds a mop-up option to the bullpen after pitching to a 4.64 earned run average across 77 2/3 innings during the regular season. He pitched very well for the first two months but posted a 6.31 ERA in 27 appearances after June 1.
The full rosters break down as follows:
Brewers
Catchers: William Contreras, Danny Jansen
Infielders: Jake Bauers, Caleb Durbin, Andruw Monasterio, Joey Ortiz, Brice Turang, Andrew Vaughn
Outfielders: Jackson Chourio, Isaac Collins, Sal Frelick, Brandon Lockridge, Blake Perkins, Christian Yelich
Right-Handers: Grant Anderson, Trevor Megill, Jacob Misiorowski, Tobias Myers, Chad Patrick, Freddy Peralta (Game 2 starter), Quinn Priester, Abner Uribe
Left-Handers: Aaron Ashby (Game 1 opener), Robert Gasser, Jared Koenig, José Quintana
Dodgers
Catchers: Ben Rortvedt, Will Smith
Infielders: Mookie Betts, Tommy Edman, Freddie Freeman, Hyeseong Kim, Max Muncy, Miguel Rojas
Outfielders: Alex Call, Justin Dean, Kiké Hernández, Teoscar Hernández, Andy Pages
Two-Way Player: Shohei Ohtani
Right-Handers: Ben Casparius, Tyler Glasnow, Roki Sasaki, Emmet Sheehan, Blake Treinen, Yoshinobu Yamamoto (Game 2 starter)
Left-Handers: Anthony Banda, Jack Dreyer, Clayton Kershaw, Blake Snell (Game 1 starter), Alex Vesia, Justin Wrobleski
Brandon Woodruff Won’t Be On Brewers’ NLCS Roster
Brandon Woodruff has yet to take part in the Brewers’ postseason run, as the lat strain the veteran righty suffered in September kept him off Milwaukee’s NLDS roster. That absence will now stretch into the NL Championship Series, as MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy writes that Woodruff has yet to start even playing catch, so he naturally won’t be ready in time for the start of the NLDS on Monday.
With his throwing work still not underway, Woodruff would have to make a lot of progress in a pretty short window of time to receive consideration for a possible World Series roster slot. If the Brewers defeat the Dodgers in the NLCS, Game 1 of the World Series falls on October 24, giving Woodruff just 12 days to get ramped up enough to pitch even in a relief capacity.
Asked if a return was possible, Woodruff said “I’m not ready to answer that question yet. I’ve been trying to get ready. Each day is better and better for me. I don’t know what tomorrow looks like, but these past 2-3 weeks have been good for me and we’ll see what happens. It’s too early to make a call on anything.”
Woodruff last pitched on September 17, when he threw a strong start (five IP, one earned run on two hits and no walks with nine strikeouts) in the Brewers’ 9-2 win over the Angels. The performance continued Woodruff’s quality results in his comeback season, as the right-hander recorded a 3.20 ERA, 32.3% strikeout rate, and 5.4% walk rate across 12 starts and 64 2/3 innings.
These would be outstanding numbers for any pitcher, but it was a particular triumph for Woodruff considering his many injury battles. Shoulder surgery cost him the entirety of the 2024 season and an ankle issue delayed the start of his 2025 campaign, but Woodruff returned not just healthy, but displaying the kind of form that made him a two-time All-Star. Unfortunately, Woodruff’s dream return and a surefire role in Milwaukee’ s postseason rotation was spoiled by his lat strain.
With Woodruff still out, Freddy Peralta may be the only Brewers pitcher guaranteed to work as a traditional starter in the NLCS. Quinn Priester, Jose Quintana, and Chad Patrick could all get starts, or potentially be pseudo-starters in a bulk pitcher capacity, if the Brew Crew again deploy a high-leverage reliever as an opener against Los Angeles.
Poll: Who Will Win The League Championship Series?
The postseason field has been narrowed down to four teams, in mostly chalk fashion. Each member of the final four is a division winner, and three of the clubs received first-round byes. The Dodgers were the only club who had to advance through the wild card round, and the reigning World Series champs aren’t exactly underdogs. In fact, all of the Brewers, Mariners, and Blue Jays had a lot more questions to answer about their playoff readiness given a recent lack of postseason success, yet all three teams were up to the task in winning their League Championship Series matchups.
Only the Yankees have reached the World Series more times than the Dodgers, who are vying for the franchise’s 23rd trip to the Fall Classic. Los Angeles is the defending champion aiming for its third ring in six seasons, against three teams with much less of a postseason resume. The Blue Jays are a perfect 2-0 in the club’s only two World Series appearances, but they last reached the Series in 1993. The Brewers’ lone Series appearance was so long ago (in 1982) that the club was still in the American League, and Milwaukee fell to the Cardinals in a seven-game nail-biter. The Mariners can get a big albatross off their backs just by winning the AL pennant, as Seattle is the only team in Major League Baseball to have never reached a World Series.
The ALCS between the Mariners and Blue Jays carries some added historical import since the two teams both joined MLB in 1977. The only previous playoff series between the two expansion cousins took place in 2022, when Seattle swept Toronto in two games in the best-of-three wild card series, and made an epic comeback from an 8-1 run deficit to capture a 10-9 win in Game 2. That crushing loss was part of the 0-6 playoff record the Jays carried during the Vladimir Guerrero Jr. era, before Toronto broke out with a dominant win over the Yankees in this year’s ALDS.
Blue Jays hitters erupted for 34 runs and a collective .338/.373/.601 slash line over the four games against New York. While that level of an explosion came as a surprise, Toronto led the league in both batting average and OBP this season, while also finishing near the top of the table in runs and OPS. Seattle’s season-long numbers weren’t quite as impressive, yet the club has been one of baseball’s best offensive teams since Josh Naylor and Eugenio Suarez were acquired at the trade deadline. Led by these two big bats, Julio Rodriguez, Jorge Polanco, and the all-around brilliance of MVP candidate Cal Raleigh, the Mariners’ powerful lineup will provide the Jays’ pitching staff with a huge challenge.
In terms of run prevention, the Blue Jays have a significant edge on defense. Toronto had a collective +51 Defensive Runs Saves and +14 Outs Above Average in the regular season, in comparison to Seattle’s +9 DRS and -30 OAA. This could potentially help the Jays counter the Mariners’ deeper rotation, as with Bryan Woo expected to return from injury in the ALCS, all five of the M’s regular starters will be available in some capacity. How exactly those starters will be deployed is still a matter of debate, as George Kirby, Logan Gilbert, and Luis Castillo all had to pitch during Seattle’s 15-inning marathon with the Tigers in Game 5 of the ALDS.
The Blue Jays held a 4-2 edge in the season series with the Mariners this year, and have the homefield advantage as the AL’s top seed. That is a significant point for a Jays team that is 56-27 at Rogers Centre during the regular season and playoffs, plus the Mariners’ road record is only 40-43. Turning to the National League, the Brewers and Dodgers each had identical 52-29 home records in the regular season, and Milwaukee was an impressive 45-36 away from home, while the Dodgers were only 41-40 on the road.
The other eye-opening statistic is Milwaukee’s perfect 6-0 record in head-to-head play against Los Angeles this season. As daunting as the Dodgers‘ star-studded roster may be, the Brewers have had their number in 2025, and will now have to try and do it again in the postseason. L.A. has won the only two prior postseason series between the two franchises, including a seven-game win in the 2018 NLCS.
That 2018 season marked the last time the Brew Crew won a playoff series until their five-game win over the Cubs in this year’s NLDS. The series as a whole was a demonstration of the kind of quality pitching and timely hitting that the Brewers have enjoyed all season. A relative lack of power is basically the only flaw for a lineup that posted tremendous numbers, but Andrew Vaughn‘s career turn-around since being acquired by the Brewers in June has added a new dimension to the offense.
A pair of shaky starts from Freddy Peralta and Quinn Priester at Wrigley Field could be red flags for the Brewers against L.A. Peralta pitched well enough in Game 1 that his Game 4 performance might just be a hiccup, yet if Priester can’t get on track, the Brewers will have to lean even harder on a bullpen that has already logged a lot of innings in the NLDS. Milwaukee is as creative as any team in getting the most out of its pitching staff, so expect plenty of unconventional pitcher usage as the Brewers will try to keep the Dodgers at bay.
After a somewhat underwhelming regular season by their high standards, the Dodgers may have flipped the switch for October, sweeping the Reds in the wild card series and then dispatching the Phillies in a four-game NLDS. Even with several stars (Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, and an injury-diminished Will Smith) yet to get rolling at the plate, the Dodgers have been aided by a red-hot Mookie Betts and contributions from up and down their seasoned lineup.
Roki Sasaki‘s emergence as the club’s seeming first choice at closer has been huge for Los Angeles, and perhaps addresses the team’s biggest weakness. If Sasaki is now a high-leverage option late in games and the excellent L.A. starting rotation remains in form, the Brewers have a pretty narrow window to strike against the rest of the struggling Dodger bullpen.
Who will win the ALCS?
-
Blue Jays 51% (5,019)
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Mariners 49% (4,834)
Total votes: 9,853
Who will win the NLCS?
-
Dodgers 53% (5,177)
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Brewers 47% (4,609)
Total votes: 9,786
Brewers Notes: NLDS, Chourio, Hoskins
The Brewers couldn’t capitalize on their first chance to close out the Cubs, as they dropped a 4-3 contest at Wrigley Field this evening. Chicago put up a four spot against Quinn Priester in the first inning, building a 4-1 cushion from which the Milwaukee bats couldn’t recover.
Priester didn’t make it out of the first. Manager Pat Murphy used five pitchers — Nick Mears, Jose Quintana, Grant Anderson, Jared Koenig and Chad Patrick — to combine for 7 1/3 scoreless frames out of the bullpen. The damage had been done, however, and the Brewers will need to try to close things out again tomorrow.
Neither Milwaukee nor the Cubs have announced a starter for tomorrow’s game, though ESPN’s Jesse Rogers reports that Chicago will give the ball back to Matthew Boyd. The Brewers pummeled Boyd for six runs in the first inning in Game 1 and cruised to a victory behind Freddy Peralta. Milwaukee could turn back to Peralta on four days rest for the same matchup, though Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel notes that they’ve worked to provide their starters with an extra rest day when possible during the season.
Saving Peralta for a potential Game 5 on Saturday would probably mean the Brewers go back to a bullpen game, which they did in Game 2. Aaron Ashby opened that contest and surrendered a three-run homer to Seiya Suzuki, but the Brewers blanked the Cubs from then on and won 7-3. Running a bullpen game one day after their starter failed to escape the first inning isn’t ideal, but Murphy mostly relied on lower-leverage arms tonight. The Brewers stayed away from Ashby, Jacob Misiorowski, Abner Uribe and Trevor Megill entirely. Koenig only threw seven pitches and is surely still in the mix for tomorrow.
On the position player side, Jackson Chourio played the full eight innings in left field tonight. He went 1-4 with a strikeout. Chourio has battled a nagging right hamstring injury and made early exits in favor of defensive substitute Brandon Lockridge in Games 1 and 2. Those were mostly precautionary absences with Milwaukee holding decent leads.
Meanwhile, Rhys Hoskins is watching the NLDS from the dugout, a difficult outcome for a player who had a solid season. Even though he didn’t make the postseason roster, Hoskins has remained involved as a teammate. “You got to play the hand that you’re dealt and try to help these guys accomplish the goal we set out to do,” the first baseman told Hogg in a separate column at the Journal Sentinel.
With Andrew Vaughn and Jake Bauers handling first base duties, the Brewers opted for Lockridge to add a speed element and provide cover for Chourio with their final roster spot. While Hoskins admitted to being frustrated, he accepted the role of supportive teammate after Murphy pushed to keep him in the mix. “He’s a great voice for these young players,” Murphy told Hogg. “He’s also well-respected and being genuine really adds to our whole unit.”
The NLDS exclusion wasn’t the first time Hoskins was pushed aside this season. After the veteran went down with a thumb injury in early July, Vaughn emerged as a key cog in the middle of Milwaukee’s lineup. Hoskins was limited to bench duties once he rejoined the team in September. The lefty-hitting Bauers provides more balance in a platoon with the right-handed Vaughn.
Hoskins was hitting .242/.340/.428 across 318 plate appearances when he suffered the injury. That opened the door for Vaughn, who cemented himself in the lineup with a monster performance as soon as he was recalled from Triple-A. Hoskins was limited to pinch-hitting when he returned, going 1-10 in eight games.
There’s a decent chance he’s made his final appearance with the Brewers. The team will buy him out for $4MM in lieu of an $18MM mutual option. He’ll be a free agent and almost certainly will head to a team that has more at-bats available at first base. Milwaukee could still swap Hoskins onto the roster for future playoff rounds should they advance, but they’re already carrying 14 position players. While Lockridge would probably be the player they might swap out, they’ll be reluctant to subtract outfield depth while Chourio is at less than full strength.
10 Players Elect Free Agency
Now that the season is over, we’ll start seeing several players choose to become minor league free agents. Major League free agents (i.e. players with six-plus years of big league service time) will hit the open market five days after the end of the World Series, but eligible minor leaguers can already start electing free agency.
To qualify, these players must have been all outrighted off their team’s 40-man rosters during the 2025 season without being added back. These players also must have multiple career outrights on their resume, and/or at least three years of Major League service time.
We’ll offer periodic updates over the coming weeks about many other players hitting the market in this fashion. These free agent decisions are all listed on the official MLB.com or MILB.com transactions pages, for further reference.
Catchers
- David Bañuelos (Orioles)
- Sandy León (Braves)
- Ali Sánchez (Red Sox)
Infielder
- Emmanuel Rivera (Orioles)
Outfielder
- Joshua Palacios (White Sox)
Pitchers
- Nabil Crismatt (Diamondbacks)
- Angel Perdomo (Athletics)
- Tayler Scott (Astros)
- Wander Suero (Mets)
- Bruce Zimmermann (Brewers)
N.L. Notes: Horton, Chourio, Bader
Cubs right-hander Cade Horton is potentially making some progress. According to Patrick Mooney of The Athletic, he will throw off a mound this week as the club decides whether or not to include him on the NLCS roster, if they advance that far.
Horton debuted this year and hit the ground running. He logged 118 innings for the Cubs with a 2.67 earned run average. Unfortunately, his season ended on a sour note. Horton suffered a rib fracture in September and it was immediately apparent that he would miss at least one playoff series. The Cubs survived the Wild Card round without him but he still wasn’t on the roster for their NLDS matchup against the Brewers.
The Chicago rotation is feeling thin at the moment, composed of Matthew Boyd, Shota Imanaga and Jameson Taillon. Boyd just got rocked by the Brewers on Saturday. He was charged with six runs, only two of them being earned, as he failed to get out of the first inning. The Cubs went on to lose 9-3. Imanaga and Taillon were both decent this year but both had subpar strikeout rates. If the Cubs can hang on for a best-of-seven NLCS, getting Horton in there to take some pressure of those guys could be a difference maker.
Mooney also adds that the Cubs expect Horton to earn a full year of service time, which is understandable. As a top prospect who was promoted late enough that he wasn’t slated to get a full service year, he can earn that full year retroactively by finishing top two in N.L. Rookie of the Year voting. Horton and Atlanta catcher Drake Baldwin are considered the frontrunners for that award, so Horton will likely get that full service year. That would put him on track to reach free agency after 2030 instead of 2031.
Some other injury updates from around the league…
- Brewers outfielder Jackson Chourio is in tonight’s lineup, batting leadoff against the Cubs. Chourio left the first game due to some right hamstring tightness. A subsequent MRI led to results which Pat Murphy described as “inconclusive,” adding that it’s “not a serious hamstring strain.” That implied that Chourio did indeed strain his hamstring, though the club is apparently comfortable running him out there tonight. Murphy said today, per Todd Rosiak of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, that Chourio is not 100% and they’ll take him out of the game if it appears necessary.
- Phillies outfielder Harrison Bader was removed from his club’s first NLDS game against the Dodgers due to a groin injury. He’s not in tonight’s Game Two lineup but he could be available to pinch hit. Manager Rob Thomson passed the new on to reporters, including Lochlahn March of the Philadelphia Inquirer. Bader is an excellent defender and he hit .305/.361/.463 after being acquired from the Twins at the deadline, so the Phillies will obviously want him back in there as soon as possible. The Phils have Otto Kemp, Brandon Marsh and Nick Castellanos in the lineup tonight from left to right. Max Kepler is also in the mix, though he’s probably not starting tonight since lefty Blake Snell is on the bump for the Dodgers.
Photo courtesy of Isaiah J. Downing, Imagn Images
Brett Phillips Retires
Outfielder Brett Phillips has announced his retirement after seven Major League seasons. In an Instagram reel released today, Phillips credited his career to his family, his faith, and to many people in and out of baseball that helped him achieve his success. Beyond those named in his speech, the 31-year-old Phillips also had a whiteboard full of names of many former teammates and executives who played key roles in his career.
Phillips hit .187/.272/.347 with 31 homers over 971 plate appearances and 393 games during his MLB career, while playing for five different clubs at the big league level. Phillips’ speed was his chief offensive weapon, as he stole 39 bases on 45 career attempts. That speed also helped him deliver outstanding defense at all three outfield positions — over his 2321 1/3 innings as a big league outfielder, Phillips amassed +41 Defensive Runs Saved, +31 Outs Above Average, and a +13.0 UZR/150.
The Astros made Phillips a sixth-round pick in the 2012 draft, though before he could make his debut in the Show, Houston dealt Phillips as part of the huge trade at the 2015 deadline that brought Carlos Gomez and Mike Fiers from Milwaukee. Phillips was one of four pieces of the very prominent trade package acquired by the Brew Crew, as Josh Hader, Adrian Houser, and Domingo Santana were the other members of the haul. Not to be overshadowed at the time of the trade, Phillips was drawing top-100 prospect attention heading into the 2016 season and for a couple of years afterwards.
Phillips got his first taste of the majors in 2017, and he appeared in 52 games for the Brewers over the next two seasons before the outfielder was moved to the Royals in another notable deadline deal that saw Mike Moustakas shipped from K.C. to Milwaukee. This tenure in Kansas City stretched over parts of three seasons before Phillips was dealt again to the Rays partway through the abbreviated 2020 season, which set the stage for the most memorable moments of Phillips’ career.
Tampa Bay won the AL pennant that year, with Phillips chipping in as a defensive specialist during the rest of the regular season and then as a defensive sub and pinch-runner throughout the playoffs. He had just three plate appearances during the postseason, and his one hit during that stretch couldn’t have been bigger. With the Dodgers holding a 7-6 lead over the Rays with two outs in the bottom of the ninth of Game 4, Phillips lined a single that tied the game, and ended up as the walkoff hit when Randy Arozarena also scored on the play due to a Will Smith catching error. Beyond the hit itself, Rays fans will always remember the image of Phillips’ celebratory airplane-style sprint around the outfield.
The following season saw Phillips deliver his best year at the plate, as he hit .206/.300/.427 with 13 homers and 14 steals (out of 17 attempts) in 292 PA while playing in a part-time outfield role in Tampa Bay. His numbers dropped off sharply in 2022, however, and the Rays designated him for assignment and then dealt Phillips to the Orioles.
Phillips moved on to play 39 games with the 2023 Angels in what proved to be his last MLB campaign, as subsequent minor league deals with the White Sox and Yankees didn’t result in any more calls to the Show. His stint with the Yankees saw the start of a new career path for Phillips, as he attempted to convert to pitching. Phillips’ final stop of his career came with Kane County of the independent American Association this year.
Beyond his energy and contributions on the field, Phillips became a fan favorite and social media darling due to his outgoing personality. “Baseball Is Fun” became Phillips’ unofficial catchphrase, and he finished his retirement announcement by repeating his mantra one more time. We at MLB Trade Rumors congratulate Phillips on a fine career and we wish him plenty of more fun in his post-playing endeavors.
Jackson Chourio Day-To-Day After “Inconclusive” MRI
Right hamstring tightness forced Jackson Chourio out of Game 1 of the NLDS in the second inning, though Chourio had already logged three hits by that point in the Brewers 9-3 win over the Cubs. In the aftermath, Chourio told reporters “I feel good, and I feel I’m in a position where I’m ready to keep going and ready to keep competing,” though he underwent an MRI to check for any sort of serious injury.
That MRI didn’t come back entirely clean, as Brewers manager Pat Murphy told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Curt Hogg and other media that the MRI was “inconclusive. It’s not a serious hamstring strain, but it’s not necessarily something that won’t limit him. We’re going to kind of see how he feels. He’s going to go through some testing, and if he feels anything, we’re going to shut it down.”
As Hogg describes it, Chourio’s work today was limited to some runs from home plate to first base, with the outfielder moving “at roughly 50 percent.” Chourio “appeared to move gingerly but did not seem to be in any pain during or after the running,” Hogg writes.
The off-day between Game 1 and Game 2 of the series gave Chourio and the Brewers extra time to monitor the situation, and kept alive the chance that Chourio might yet be able to play in the next contest. There is also an off-day between Game 2 and Wednesday’s Game 3, so the Brewers could conceivably rest Chourio for Monday and then not make a final determination on his status until prior to Wednesday’s game.
Isaac Collins took over for Chourio in Game 1, and Murphy said Collins will remain as the Brewers’ left fielder if Chourio indeed can’t play. As Hogg noted, Collins cooled off drastically over the last six weeks of the season, bringing a quiet end to an otherwise strong rookie season that saw Collins finish with a .263/.368/.411 slash line and nine homers over 441 plate appearances (122 wRC+).
If Chourio has to be removed from the NLDS roster for injury purposes, the Brewers would get to add a replacement to their roster, but Chourio wouldn’t be eligible to return to action until the World Series (if Milwaukee advanced through both the NLDS and NLCS). Outfielders Blake Perkins and Brandon Lockridge are already on the 26-man roster, so the Brew Crew wouldn’t necessarily summon another outfielder in Chourio’s place.