Brewers’ Thomas Pannone Shut Down Due To Torn Flexor Tendon
Left-hander Thomas Pannone suffered a torn flexor tendon during the Brewers’ Cactus League game against the Guardians last Sunday. MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy writes that Pannone won’t throw for at least a month while recovering, though surgery isn’t being considered at this time.
While it appears as though Pannone may have avoided the worst with his injury, it still erases whatever chance the southpaw had of making the Brewers’ Opening Day roster. Pannone is out of minor league options, so his inevitable placement on the injured list will at least allow him to stick in Milwaukee’s organization without being exposed to the waiver wire, even if a claim might be unlikely given Pannone’s current health concerns.
Pannone (who turns 31 in April) signed a minor league deal with the Brew Crew back in November, returning to the organization after previously pitching for Milwaukee during the 2023 campaign. Working mostly with Triple-A Nashville, Pannone had a 2.70 ERA in 53 1/3 innings in the minors, and he also tossed 2 2/2 innings in a single MLB game for the Brewers. That marked Pannone’s only big league appearance since 2019 when he was a member of the Blue Jays.
The Brewers released Pannone that July so he could sign with the Kia Tigers of the Korea Baseball Organization (also his second KBO stint). Returning to North American baseball last winter, Pannone spent the 2024 season pitching with the Cubs’ and Yankees’ Triple-A affiliates. With a 3.54 ERA over 152 1/3 combined innings at the Triple-A level last season, Pannone made a good accounting of himself, but he didn’t receive another call to the Show.
Even if Pannone was probably ticketed for a depth role in Nashville, his flexor tendon problem adds to the increasingly long list of injuries hitting Brewers starters this spring. Aaron Ashby will miss a couple of weeks recovering from an oblique strain, and a lat strain sent DL Hall to the 60-day injured list. Since Milwaukee is taking it easy with Brandon Woodruff as he returns from a season-long injury absence, the Brewers addressed the lack of starting depth by signing Jose Quintana to a one-year, $4.25MM guarantee earlier this week.
Aaron Ashby Shut Down For Two Weeks, Expects To Build Back Up As Starter
Brewers southpaw Aaron Ashby has been sidelined by an oblique strain that’s likely to keep him on the shelf to begin the season, but the lefty did get some good news on his latest wave of imaging. Per Adam McCalvy of MLB.com, the second opinion on Ashby’s most recent MRI was more favorable than the first. He’ll be shut down for two weeks and then anticipates that he’ll resume building up as a starter.
That the plan for him is to continue stretching out as a starter isn’t a huge surprise, given Milwaukee’s need for rotation depth. The Brewers just inked Jose Quintana on a one-year deal, but they also lost lefty DL Hall to the 60-day injured list and will be without Brandon Woodruff for the beginning of the season as he continues a slow build back from a significant 2023 shoulder surgery.
At present, the Milwaukee rotation includes Freddy Peralta, Aaron Civale, Nestor Cortes, Tobias Myers and Quintana. The Brewers also signed veteran swingman Tyler Alexander to a one-year deal last month, but the Quintana signing likely pushed him to the bullpen.
Depth options beyond that group are inexperienced. Righties Logan Henderson and Chad Patrick are on the 40-man roster but have yet to make their MLB debuts. Young righty Carlos Rodriguez has a dozen MLB frames to his credit. Fellow right-hander Elvin Rodriguez, who signed after a nice showing as a reliever in Japan, has all of 33 MLB innings. Non-roster options include Bruce Zimmermann and Thomas Pannone, neither of whom has had a sustained run of success in the majors. Top prospect Jacob Misiorowski will probably get a look in 2025, but he’s a 2022 second-rounder with only 170 pro innings to his name — just 17 of them coming in Triple-A.
It seems as though Ashby could be throwing before the end of spring training and thus could head out on a Triple-A rehab assignment early in the season. A mid- or late-April return seems plausible, barring setbacks. Ashby himself hasn’t quite solidified a spot in the majors, though he pitched quite well in 28 1/3 innings last year — mostly in relief. He’s oscillated between the rotation and the bullpen in Milwaukee through parts of three MLB seasons over a four-year span.
Entering the 2021 season, Ashby was among the Brewers’ top-ranked prospects. He showed promise in his rookie campaign, posting a pedestrian 4.55 ERA in 31 2/3 innings but punching out better than 29% of his opponents against a serviceable 9% walk rate. For a 23-year-old who’d just set down a gaudy 36% of his Triple-A opponents on strikes, it was a solid debut.
Ashby continued down a similar track in 2022. Though he was sporting a mid-4.00s ERA in July, he’d turned in excellent strikeout numbers and moved into the Milwaukee rotation. The Brewers and Ashby agreed to a five-year, $20.5MM extension that summer, which looked to lock the southpaw in as a foundational piece of the pitching staff.
As is too often the case for young pitchers, injuries intervened. Ashby hit the injured list with shoulder inflammation just one month after signing his contract. He returned for the final couple weeks of the season and pitched quite well. Further shoulder woes surfaced in 2023, however, and he missed most of the season with an impingement and a tear in his labrum.
Despite debuting in 2021, Ashby has only 167 1/3 big league innings. Though he’s yet to claim a long-term spot in the rotation, the fact that he’ll build back up as a starter once his oblique injury calms down suggests that he could get that opportunity this year. Presumably, a healthy Ashby would be one of the first names called if the Brewers incur an injury elsewhere following his return (depending on Woodruff’s status at that time). Ashby is still under contract through 2027, and the team holds a pair of club options on him for 2028 and 2029.
MLBTR Podcast: Jose Quintana, Luis Gil’s Injury, The Nats’ TV Situation, Salary Floor Talk, And More!
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 Anthony Franco of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss…
- The Brewers having an agreement with Jose Quintana (1:20)
- Luis Gil of the Yankees to be shut down for at least six weeks (5:15)
Plus, we answer your questions, including…
- With MASN now solved and stadium naming rights and jersey patches on the way do you see the Nationals making the leap into big spenders sooner than later? (12:30)
- Do you see the MLBPA pushing for a salary floor? (22:05)
- Will the White Sox trade Luis Robert Jr. before the start of the regular season? (25:20)
- While neither is particularly likely, is it more probable that the Pirates extend Paul Skenes or the Reds extend Elly De La Cruz? (27:40)
- What is your opinion of the White Sox upper management and will they lose 100 games this year? (30:45)
- The Mets are loaded with infield prospects. Do they trade Jeff McNeil to make room? (37:30)
- With the Tigers’ outfield injuries, do they go get a right-handed bat? And who is available? (42:00)
- With the Mariners bringing back most of their position players, what are the chances they get better production from them in 2025? (44:30)
- Does David Bote have a legitimate shot to make the Dodgers’ roster? (50:35)
- Why doesn’t MLB expand to 36 teams instead of just 32? (51:35)
Check out our past episodes!
- Atlanta’s Pitching Depth, Iglesias, Jobe, Castillo, And More! – listen here
- Alex Bregman, The Padres Add Players, And No Extension For Vlad Jr. – listen here
- Pete Alonso’s Deal, And Potential Landing Spots For Bregman and Arenado – listen here
The podcast intro and outro song “So Long” is provided courtesy of the band Showoff. Check out their Facebook page here!
Brewers Sign Jose Quintana
March 5: The Brewers made it official today, announcing that they have signed Quintana to a one-year deal with a mutual option for 2026. DL Hall was placed on the 60-day IL to open a roster spot. Per Jon Heyman of The New York Post, it’s a $2MM salary in 2025 with a deferred $2MM buyout on a $15MM mutual option for 2026 and a $250K roster bonus. The incentives are $125K each for 16, 18, 20, 22 and 24 games started, as well as $100K for 110, 120, 130 and 140 innings pitched.
March 3: The Brewers are making a veteran addition to their rotation. Milwaukee is reportedly in agreement with Jose Quintana on a one-year, $4.25MM deal. That takes the form of a $250K roster bonus and a $4MM base salary for the ACES client. The signing, which has not been made official by the team, also includes incentives. The Brewers have a full 40-man roster and will need to make a corresponding move once the deal is finalized.
Quintana, 36, is one of the top unsigned free agents as the regular season is just over three weeks away at this point. He just finished a two-year, $26MM deal with the Mets that saw him post solid surface-level results, though with the numbers under the hood a bit less impressive.
In 2023, a left rib fracture put him on the injured list at the start of the season and kept him there until the middle of July. He returned in time to make 13 starts down the stretch, allowing 3.57 earned runs per nine innings, though his strikeout rate fell to 18.8%. Last year, he stayed healthy enough to take the ball 31 times for the Mets and logged 170 1/3 innings with a 3.75 ERA. But his strikeout was again a tepid 18.8% and he benefited from .263 batting average on balls in play. His 4.56 FIP and 4.57 SIERA on the year both pointed to him deserving worse results than he actually posted.
Prior to signing with the Mets, Quintana had engineered a strong bounceback season. After struggling with injuries and underperformance in 2020 and 2021, the lefty posted a 2.93 ERA over 32 starts in 2022. In that bounceback year, he had a 20.2% strikeout rate, 6.9% walk rate and 46.4% ground ball rate. Since then, he has a 3.70 ERA over 246 innings but with his 18.8% strikeout rate, 8.4% walk rate and 45.6% ground ball rate each moving slightly in the wrong direction.
Quintana’s isn’t the most exciting profile, but even getting some boring back-of-the-rotation innings could be good for the Brewers, especially for the price. At the start of the winter, MLBTR predicted the lefty to secure a two-year, $20MM contract, alongside other mid-rotation or back-end guys like Frankie Montas, Andrew Heaney or Matthew Boyd.
The pitching market was very aggressive early on, with Montas able to get a two-year, $34MM guarantee plus an opt-out from the Mets. Boyd got two years and $29MM from the Cubs. But the heat died down more recently, which seems to have squeezed out certain guys. Heaney had to settle for a $5.25MM guarantee from the Pirates on a one-year deal. Quintana reportedly turned down a better offer than that Heaney deal from the Bucs but is now joining Milwaukee on a fairly similar arrangement.
The Brewers have clearly been operating with no financial wiggle room this winter. Prior to signing Quintana, their biggest free agent signing was giving a $1MM guarantee to Tyler Alexander. They did add Nestor Cortes in a trade with the Yankees, but that deal was fairly revenue-neutral, with Devin Williams going the other way.
Their rotation mix has a few question marks in it. Robert Gasser required Tommy John surgery in June of last year and will be out of action until the second half of 2025. Brandon Woodruff is working his way back from shoulder surgery which wiped out his 2024 campaign and it’s unclear when he will be a viable option. DL Hall suffered a lat strain a few weeks ago and will start the season on the injured list.
As of now, Freddy Peralta and Cortes have spots alongside Aaron Civale and Tobias Myers. Civale tossed 161 innings last year but that was a personal best for him, having never hit 125 frames in a big league season before. Myers posted an ERA of 3.00 in his first big league action but was a nomadic former prospect prior to that, so it remains to be seen if he can maintain his results or if his 2024 was a fluke.
Other options in the mix include Alexander and Aaron Ashby. Alexander has a 4.55 ERA in his career but mostly in a swing role, oscillating between starting and relieving. This Quintana deal should push him more firmly into that position again. Ashby, who left today’s Spring Training appearance with an oblique injury, has some starting experience but struggled through much of 2024 before finishing strong in a relief role. He is still a starting candidate but he could eventually end up back in the bullpen and also has an option year remaining, which could push him to the Triple-A rotation.
Even if Quintana’s results in 2024 were a bit of a mirage and he ends up with an ERA in the mid-4.00s this year, a steady veteran presence at this price is a logical add for a club with so many rotation question marks and little spending capacity.
For clubs still looking to add starting pitching at this late stage of the offseason, there are still a few unsigned options, including Kyle Gibson, Lance Lynn and Spencer Turnbull. The trade market could feature Jordan Montgomery and Taijuan Walker, though their salaries are much larger than what free agents have been settling for in recent weeks.
Robert Murray of FanSided first reported that the Brewers were signing Quintana to a one-year deal. Francys Romero reported that the salary would land in the $4-5MM range and the presence of incentives. Mark Feinsand of MLB.com had the specific $4.25MM guarantee and salary structure.
Brewers Place DL Hall On 60-Day Injured List
The Brewers announced that left-hander DL Hall has been placed on the 60-day injured list. Adam McCalvy of MLB.com was among those to relay the news. That means Hall has been officially ruled out until late May at the earliest. That’s the corresponding move to open a roster spot for lefty Jose Quintana, who has now been officially signed.
Back on February 12th, it was reported that Hall had a lat strain and was going to be shut down for at least the next two weeks. It has now been three weeks since that reporting with little information coming out about his progress. About a week ago, McCalvy relayed that Hall had not even been cleared to start playing catch. Manager Pat Murphy tells McCalvy today that Hall is expected to resume playing catch at the end of this week.
Given the sluggish progress and this transaction, it seems the Brewers don’t expect Hall to return anytime soon. Players can be placed on the 60-day IL once pitchers and catchers report to camp but the clock doesn’t start ticking until Opening Day, so Hall won’t be eligible for reinstatement until late May even in a best-case scenario.
It’s an unfortunate development for Hall, who hasn’t been able to build a decent workload. He still doesn’t have a 100-inning season on his track record as a professional. With the Orioles in 2022 and 2023, they shuttled him between the majors and minors as well as the rotation and the bullpen. He was traded to the Brewers as part of the Corbin Burnes deal ahead of the 2024 season and Milwaukee mostly deployed him as a starter last year, but a knee sprain capped him at 84 frames, majors and minors combined.
The Brewers still have hope of Hall becoming a viable starter one day, given that he’s a former top 100 prospect and was a key part of the Burnes deal. He could still have a nice season in 2025 but starting it with a lengthy IL stint isn’t ideal.
For the Brewers, they will have some rotation question marks to start the season, though the Quintana signing helps to solidify the group. Alongside Quintana will be Freddy Peralta, Tobias Myers, Aaron Civale and Nestor Cortes. They will add Brandon Woodruff in there at some point, though his timeline is unclear after he spent 2024 recovering from shoulder surgery. Aaron Ashby has an oblique strain and is still getting tested, per Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, but seems likely to start the season on the IL. Robert Gasser is already on the 60-day IL as he recovers from last year’s Tommy John surgery.
Behind the front five, the Brewers currently have Logan Henderson, Carlos Rodríguez, Chad Patrick and Elvin Rodríguez as healthy options on the 40-man roster. However, Henderson and Patrick have no major league experience while the Rodríguezes have just 45 1/3 big league innings combined. Jacob Misiorowski is one of the top prospects in baseball but isn’t on the 40-man and walked 14.4% of batters faced last year.
Aaron Ashby Headed For Imaging On Oblique Strain
Brewers left-hander Aaron Ashby departed today’s Spring Training start in the second inning due to injury. After the game, manager Pat Murphy told Todd Rosiak of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel that the southpaw suffered an oblique strain. Murphy indicated that early tests suggest the injury will not necessitate a months-long absence. However, a firm timetable won’t be known until Ashby goes for further testing tomorrow.
It’s a setback in the 26-year-old’s efforts to secure a rotation spot. Ashby was probably ticketed for the bullpen following the team’s agreement with Jose Quintana on a $4.25MM free agent deal. Quintana can slot behind Freddy Peralta and alongside Nestor Cortes, Tobias Myers and Aaron Civale in the Opening Day rotation. Ashby may have been the top depth arm in the event that anyone else suffered a Spring Training injury. The Brewers don’t expect Brandon Woodruff to be ready for Opening Day after he lost the 2024 season to shoulder surgery. DL Hall suffered a lat strain last month and will be down for several weeks.
Any kind of significant oblique issue would ensure Ashby begins the season on the injured list as well. That’d leave swingman Tyler Alexander as the only healthy depth starter on the 40-man roster who has more than a few weeks of major league service. Inexperienced pitchers Carlos Rodriguez, Chad Patrick, Logan Henderson and Elvin Rodriguez are on the 40-man. Bruce Zimmermann and Thomas Pannone are in camp as non-roster invitees.
Even if he didn’t crack the rotation, a healthy Ashby would probably begin the season in the bullpen. He impressed in a multi-inning relief role last year. Ashby turned in a 2.86 earned run average across 28 1/3 innings. He fanned 27.7% of opponents while getting ground-balls at a massive 58.6% clip. His lone playoff appearance was a disaster — he allowed all five baserunners to reach in his outing in the Wild Card Series against the Mets — but his MLB regular season numbers were strong. Few pitchers have the ability to get both whiffs and grounders at the rates that he can.
That upside convinced the Brewers to sign the former fourth-round pick to a $20.5MM extension three years ago. While he continues to flash a significant ceiling, he has yet to find consistency. That’s mostly on account of injury. Ashby battled shoulder problems almost immediately after signing the extension in July 2022. He underwent an arthroscopic shoulder procedure the following April that cost him the entire ’23 season. He returned to health last season but could not find the strike zone with any kind of regularity while working as a starter in Triple-A.
Ashby was torched for more than eight earned runs per nine across 84 minor league frames, largely because of an untenable 17.4% walk rate. He started 14 of his 25 appearances. His strong finish at the MLB level came in 1-2 inning stints out of the bullpen. Ashby’s long-term future might well be in relief, but Murphy said at the start of the offseason that Milwaukee wasn’t willing to abandon hope of him sticking as a starter.
Mike Moustakas To Retire
The Royals announced that they will have a ceremony on May 31st to honor Mike Moustakas as he retires as a Royal. Presumably, he will sign a ceremonial one-day contract to retire with the club with whom he spent most of his career.
Moustakas, now 36, was selected second overall in the 2007 draft. Taken out of Chatsworth High School, Moustakas was one of several high-profile draft picks that the Royals made as part of an aggressive rebuild. In an era prior to the draft lottery, the Royals had nine straight losing seasons from 2004 to 2012, with at least 100 losses in the first three of those seasons. That allowed them to have an desirable draft position for a long stretch of time, getting guys like Alex Gordon, Eric Hosmer, Moustakas and others in that span.
The hope was that this aggressive rebuild would allow them to build a stockpile of young talent that could eventually slingshot them to future success. Since Moustakas was drafted as an 18-year-old, it took him a few years to get to the majors, debuting in 2011.
He didn’t hit the ground running. By the end of the 2014 campaign, Moustakas had stepped to the plate 1,993 times at the club’s regular third baseman. However, he had hit just .236/.290/.379 in that time for a wRC+ of 82. Though it was taking “Moose” some time to fully acclimate to big league pitching, the club’s fortunes had turned around as hoped. They had made it to the playoffs in 2014 and progressed all the way to the World Series, though they lost a seventh-game heartbreaker to the Giants. Moustakas clubbed five homers in 15 games during that postseason run.
From there, he did find sustained success. Moustakas hit 22 home runs in 2015 and slashed .284/.348/.470 for a wRC+ of 123, easily his best offensive performance to that point. The Royals returned to the postseason and got the job done this time. Moustakas only hit .215/.257/.277 in the 2015 playoffs but the Royals made it back to the World Series, this time defeating the Mets in five games.
Over 2016 and 2017, Moustakas continued to perform as a solid big leaguer. He hit a combined .267/.312/.517 over those two seasons, which translated to a 113 wRC+, though the Royals fell from their heights. They were exactly .500 in 2016 and then finished 80-82 the following year.
Moustakas reached free agency going into 2018 and rejected a $17.4MM qualifying offer with the expectation of finding a robust market. MLBTR predicted he could secure a five-year, $85MM deal that winter. Unfortunately, he didn’t find the interest he was hoping for and lingered on the market unsigned into March. He and the Royals eventually reunited on a one-year, $6.5MM deal, far less than the QO he turned down.
In 2018, he had another solid but not outstanding season, split with the Brewers after a midseason trade. He hit .251/.315/.459 between the two clubs for a 105 wRC+. MLBTR made a far more modest prediction of $16MM over two years going into the next offseason. He returned to the Brewers on a one-year deal but with a slightly better average annual value of $10MM. Milwaukee planned to move Moustakas from third base to second base in deference to Travis Shaw.
With the Brewers that year, his second base defense was graded as close to average, adding some nice versatility to his profile. He hit 35 home runs that year, though his batting average and on-base abilities continued to be less impressive. His .254/.329/.516 batting line translated to a 113 wRC+. MLBTR felt he still had enough juice to get a two-year, $20MM deal but the new position seemed to unlock an extra gear for his earning power. The Reds, who had Joey Votto at first base and Eugenio Suárez at the corners, gave Moustakas a four-year, $64MM deal with the plan to install him at the keystone.
In the shortened 2020 season, Moustakas had another decent campaign. He hit eight home runs and slashed .230/.331/.468 for a wRC+ of 105. That helped the Reds to make the playoffs, their only postseason appearance of the past decade, but they were quickly dispatched without scoring a run in a two-game sweep at the hands of Atlanta.
His production tailed off from there and never really recovered. He put up a line of .227/.291/.372 from 2021 onwards as various injuries limited his ability to take the field. He played less than 80 games in both 2021 and 2022, getting designated for assignment after the latter of those two seasons. He was released and signed with the Rockies. He got into 47 games with them and seemed to be bouncing back, hitting .270/.360/.435, before getting flipped to the Angels. But he then hit just .236/.256/.371 in 65 games for the Halos. Going into 2024, he signed a minor league deal with the White Sox but hit .195/.283/.317 during the spring and was released at the end of camp.
Though he didn’t start or end his career with a bang, he had a strong run for a few years as an above-average player. Overall, he got into 1,427 major league games and stepped to the plate 5,577 times. He hit .247/.307/.431 for a 96 wRC+ and generated 15.1 wins above replacement, per the calculations of FanGraphs. He hit 215 home runs, scored 595 times and drove in 683. From 2015 to 2020, he slashed .262/.326/.490 for a 113 wRC+ and tallied 12.2 fWAR. He made three All-Star clubs in there and won a World Series ring. We at MLB Trade Rumors congratulate Moustakas on his career and wish him the best in whatever comes next.
Brewers Hire Billy Eppler As Special Advisor
The Brewers have hired Billy Eppler as a special advisor, according to a report from Andy Martino of SNY. Eppler’s full title is Special Advisor, Scouting and Baseball Operations.
The role marks Eppler’s return to baseball after being placed on the ineligible list just over a year ago. That placement lasted only through the end of the 2024 World Series, and he’s been eligible to return to an MLB front office in the months since then. Eppler’s suspension was, in the words of MLB at the time of its announcement, for “improper use of Injured List placements, including the deliberate fabrication of injuries; and the associated submission of documentation for the purposes of securing multiple improper Injured List placements during the 2022 and 2023 seasons.”
Eppler’s violation occurred during his tenure as Mets GM, which lasted from shortly after the 2021 season until shortly after the conclusion of the 2023 campaign. Eppler was the club’s head of baseball operations during the vast majority of his tenure, but immediately after the 2023 season concluded the Mets announced the hiring of president of baseball operations David Stearns, who was set to take the reins and push Eppler into a number two role. That arrangement lasted a matter of only days, however, as Eppler almost immediately stepped down from his role with the Mets when news of MLB’s investigation into improper use of the injured list by the Mets first became public.
So-called “phantom IL” stints have been commonplace in the league for decades and have occurred on every team at one point or another, with some players even openly admitting that they aren’t actually injured while on the shelf. More nebulous diagnoses such as soreness or fatigue can be used by a club to offer a struggling player a physical and mental reset while clearing their roster spot for a period of time. The practice is technically illegal, but those rules have not typically been strictly enforced by the league. This made MLB’s investigation into the Mets and subsequent suspension of Eppler a cause for confusion for both many fans and even some within the game.
With Eppler’s suspension now a thing of the past, he’ll join a Brewers front office headed by GM Matt Arnold that was, coincidentally, run by Stearns until he eventually stepped down as the club’s top decision-maker and later took over baseball operations from Eppler. The specific duties of Eppler’s role as special advisor to Arnold are not yet clear, though his title falls in line with his past experience. Prior to serving as Mets GM, Eppler served as GM of the Angels from 2015 to 2020 and as assistant GM and director of pro scouting for the Yankees from 2005 to 2015.
Eppler’s teams have had relatively little success in the past, with his tenure as Angels GM going by without any playoff appearances while his two years with the Mets were split between a 100-win campaign and a missed postseason. Overall, that’s good for a 508-524 record and a .492 winning percentage over his seven seasons leading a baseball operations department. Even with that somewhat middling track record, the 49-year-old sports a long resume of high-level front office work, and his decades of experience figure to be a valuable resource for the Brewers going into the 2025 campaign.
Salary Details For Several Minor League Deals
Every offseason, the primary focus for baseball fans is on trades and free agent activity. Naturally, major league free agent signings garner the majority of the attention and generate the most buzz. Minor league signees come with less fanfare, typically with good reason. They tend to be older veterans who are looking to extend their playing careers or perhaps younger names looking to rebound from an injury or a disappointing showing the prior season (sometimes the prior few seasons).
As spring training progresses, we’re seeing an uptick in minor league signings. Free agents who’ve lingered on the market and felt their leverage in negotiations dry up begin to concede and accept non-guaranteed pacts to get to camp in hopes of winning a roster spot.
Salary details for minor league signees isn’t as prominently reported on as it is for players signing guaranteed big league deals. The Associated Press just published a list of free agent signings throughout the winter, including within salary details for a handful of (mostly) recent minor league signings. Many of the salaries reported by the AP were already known and reflected here at MLBTR, but the report does include more than two dozen previously unreported base salaries for players on minor league deals. Here’s a quick rundown (player salary links point back to prior MLBTR posts detailing that minor league signing):
Blue Jays: Jacob Barnes, RHP, $1.4MM | Ryan Yarbrough, LHP, $2MM
Braves: Curt Casali, C, $1.25MM | Buck Farmer, RHP, $1MM
Brewers: Manuel Margot, OF, $1.3MM | Mark Canha, 1B/OF, $1.4MM
Cubs: Brooks Kriske, RHP, $900K | Travis Jankowski, OF, $1.25MM | Chris Flexen, RHP, $1.5MM
Diamondbacks: Garrett Hampson, INF/OF, $1.5MM | Scott McGough, RHP, $1.25MM
Dodgers: Luis Garcia, RHP, $1.5MM
Giants: Lou Trivino, RHP, $1.5MM
Mariners: Shintaro Fujinami, RHP, $1.3MM | Trevor Gott, RHP, $1.35MM
Padres: Yuli Gurriel, 1B, $1.35MM ($100K higher than initially reported)
Rangers: Nick Ahmed, SS, $1.25MM | Jesse Chavez, RHP, $1.25MM | David Buchanan, RHP, $1.375MM | Kevin Pillar, OF, $1MM
Red Sox: Matt Moore, LHP, $2MM
Royals: Luke Maile, C, $2MM | Ross Stripling, RHP, $1.75MM
White Sox: Brandon Drury, INF/OF, $2MM | Mike Clevinger, RHP, $1.5MM
A few things bear emphasizing. First, this is clearly not a comprehensive list of minor league signings throughout the league — nor is it even a comprehensive list of the listed teams’ non-roster invitees to camp. Secondly, many of these sums are of little consequence to the team. They’re not even guaranteed, after all, and even if a player makes the Opening Day roster and earns the full slate of his minor league salary, most of these salaries aren’t going to carry significant payroll ramifications.
That’s not true across the board, though. For instance, the Rangers are fully intent on remaining under the $241MM luxury tax threshold. At present, RosterResource projects them at $235.7MM of luxury obligations. Opting to select the contract of Buchanan or Chavez rather than allocating those innings to pre-arbitration players who’s being paid at league-minimum levels (or a few thousand dollars north of it) would inch the Rangers’ CBT number forward. They’re not going to hit the tax line even in if they wind up adding multiple NRIs to the actual roster, but selecting their contracts will further narrow the resources president of baseball ops Chris Young will have at his disposal for midseason dealings.
The Red Sox, meanwhile, are effectively seated right at the tax threshold. RosterResource has them with $241.4MM of luxury considerations. Team president Sam Kennedy said after signing Alex Bregman that he expects his team will be a CBT payor in 2025. As things stand, the Sox could duck back under that threshold, but selecting the contract of Moore, Adam Ottavino (also $2MM) or another prominent NRI would further signal ownership’s willingness to return to luxury tax status for the first time since 2022.
There’s probably no getting back under the tax line for the Blue Jays, who currently have a $273.3MM CBT number. However, the front office would presumably like to avoid reaching $281MM in tax obligations, as that’s the point at which Toronto’s top pick in the 2026 draft would be dropped by ten spots. In-season trades will have more of an effect on their tax number than decisions on NRIs like Barnes, Yarbrough, Eric Lauer and others, but it bears mentioning that the Blue Jays are around $8MM shy of what many clubs consider to be the most detrimental impact of straying to deep into CBT waters.
JB Bukauskas To Undergo Season-Ending Lat Surgery
Brewers reliever JB Bukauskas will undergo lat surgery, reports Todd Rosiak of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. The procedure comes with a 9-10 month recovery timeline, so it’ll end his season.
Bukauskas was in camp as a non-roster invitee after Milwaukee outrighted him off the 40-man last month. The 28-year-old righty spent most of last season on the 60-day injured list. He tossed six innings of one-run ball. A lat injury sent him to the IL in the middle of April and wound up being a season ender. That unfortunately flared up yet again in camp and will cost him the entire ’25 campaign.
A 2017 first-round pick, Bukauskas has made 33 major league appearances between three teams. He has a 5.04 earned run average over 30 1/3 innings. He has gotten grounders on an impressive 53.2% of batted balls, but injuries have prevented him from carving out a consistent bullpen role. Within the past few years, Bukauskas has lost time to an elbow strain, a teres major (shoulder) injury, and multiple significant lat issues.
Since he is not on the 40-man roster, Bukauskas will spend the year on the minor league IL. He’ll qualify for minor league free agency next winter, when he’ll hopefully get healthy and look to catch on somewhere with a non-roster Spring Training invite.