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Braves, Astros Swap Mauricio Dubón For Nick Allen

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The Astros and Braves announced a one-for-one swap of middle infielders. Utility player Mauricio Dubón is headed to Atlanta with defensive specialist Nick Allen on his way to Houston. Brian McTaggart of MLB.com reported that Dubón had been traded to the Braves just before the announcements.

Atlanta takes on a few million dollars to upgrade their infield. Dubón, 31, spent nearly four seasons in Houston. The Astros acquired him from the Giants in a minor trade early in 2022. It was a nice pickup, as he developed into a versatile and generally reliable piece off the bench. Dubón won two utility Gold Glove awards while playing all three infield positions to the left of first base and a decent amount of center and left field.

The righty-hitting Dubón was a league average hitter a couple seasons ago, hitting .278/.309/.411 with 10 homers in nearly 500 trips to the dish in 2023. His offense has declined in each of the past two years. He’s coming off a .241/.289/.355 showing with seven longballs through 398 plate appearances and carries a .256/.293/.358 line over the past two seasons. He’s very difficult to strike out but rarely walks and has well below-average power.

Still, that light bat is a significant upgrade over what Allen brings to the table offensively. The 27-year-old Allen didn’t hit a single home run in 416 trips to the dish this year. He turned in a .211/.284/.251 line that made him easily the worst hitter to take 400+ plate appearances. Allen ranked in the bottom 20 hitters in on-base, while his slugging mark was more than .040 points lower than the second-lowest in MLB (.296 by Victor Scott II). Allen owns a .213/.265/.272 slash in nearly 1200 plate appearances over parts of four seasons.

Allen has continued to get playing time because of his superlative glove. He has been touted as an excellent infielder dating back to his high school days. Allen has posted fantastic defensive marks with the glove in every season of his career. Defensive Runs Saved graded him as the third-best shortstop in MLB this year behind Mookie Betts and Zach Neto. Statcast’s Outs Above Average also had him third, albeit behind Bobby Witt Jr. and Masyn Winn instead.

Dubón is unlikely to be that caliber of defender if he were pressed into everyday shortstop work. Statcast has graded him as a plus defender in his 721 career innings at the position, though. Defensive Runs Saved has him right around league average. Dubón should be capable of playing there every day, and he’s not a complete zero offensively. That’s particularly true in favorable platoon matchups, as he’s a .288/.329/.417 hitter versus left-handed pitching over the past three years.

The Braves couldn’t afford to enter next season with Allen atop the shortstop depth chart. Dubón would be a low-end regular but provides a higher floor. This shouldn’t detract from Atlanta’s interest in re-signing Ha-Seong Kim. Dubón has the versatility to provide cover behind Ozzie Albies and Austin Riley at second and third base while complementing lefty-hitting Michael Harris II in center field. Still, he’s at least a reasonable one-year fallback if Kim signs elsewhere in a market devoid of shortstop alternatives in free agency or trade.

Dubón is entering his final season of arbitration eligibility. He’s projected by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz for a $5.8MM salary. Allen is eligible for arbitration for the first time as a Super Two player and under control for four years. He’s projected at $1.5MM. Houston cuts a little more than $4MM from the books while downgrading in the utility role.

Allen isn’t going to play shortstop barring an injury to Jeremy Peña, but he can offer a glove-only option at second base. Jose Altuve is the primary starter there for now, but the Astros hope to continue splitting his playing time between the keystone, left field, and designated hitter. They’ve been tied to Brendan Donovan in trade conversations and could consider other possibilities (e.g. a Brandon Lowe trade, Jorge Polanco in free agency) if the Cardinals deal Donovan elsewhere. They’ll ideally add a left-handed bat to balance a righty-heavy lineup. Allen is out of minor league options, so he’ll need to be on the active roster or designated for assignment.

More to come.

Braves Re-Sign Raisel Iglesias

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The Braves announced they’ve re-signed free agent closer Raisel Iglesias to a one-year, $16MM deal. The PRIME client returns for what’ll be a fifth season in Atlanta on the same salary he made in 2025.

As is often the case with Braves moves, the signing comes out of the blue. President of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos suggested at the GM Meetings the team was more focused on addressing shortstop and upgrading the starting rotation while keeping the bullpen on the back burner. That apparently changed with the opportunity to keep Iglesias, who remains a high-end reliever as he enters his age-36 season.

The 11-year veteran carries a 2.35 earned run average in 218 2/3 innings since the Braves acquired him from the Angels at the 2022 trade deadline. He’s fourth in MLB with 113 saves since the start of that season. Iglesias posted a sub-3.00 ERA each season between 2020-24 as one of the steadier closers in the league.

Things seemed as if they might come off the rails early in 2025. Iglesias gave up an early-season home run barrage, including five longballs in April alone. He surrendered seven round-trippers before the end of May and carried an ugly 5.91 ERA through the first two months. The switch flipped over the summer, as Iglesias was one of the league’s best late-game arms from the beginning of June onward. He reeled off 46 frames of 1.96 ERA ball while striking out 29.3% of opponents over the season’s final four months. Iglesias only gave up one home run in that time despite a massive 54.5% fly-ball rate.

The truth certainly lies somewhere between those two extremes. Iglesias wasn’t going to continue giving up homers on a quarter of fly-balls, as he did early in the year, nor will he maintain the sub-2% homer/fly rate he posted later in the season. That’ll be the main concern moving forward, but his strikeout and walk profile remains strong. Iglesias punched out 27.4% of opponents against a tidy 6% walk rate. He turned in a 3.21 ERA overall while going 29-34 in save chances — coming up just shy of the sixth 30-save showing of his career.

MLBTR ranked Iglesias as our #32 free agent and the #5 reliever in the class in predicting a two-year, $26MM contract. He did not command the second year for what would have been his age-37 campaign. The Braves were apparently one of at least two teams that offered a sizable one-year deal. Francys Romero reports that the Dodgers also made an offer around $16MM but Iglesias declined to remain in Atlanta. L.A. and the Blue Jays were the only other teams publicly linked to Iglesias in what turned out to be a brief stay on the open market.

Toronto and Los Angeles are two of a number of teams that remain in the market for a late-inning reliever. Edwin Díaz is almost certainly going to command the largest contract in the class despite rejecting a qualifying offer from the Mets. Devin Williams has gotten a lot of attention in the first few weeks of the offseason. Robert Suarez should command a multi-year deal at a hefty salary. Ryan Helsley, Kyle Finnegan, Emilio Pagán and Kenley Jansen are among the many other unsigned closers.

Iglesias returns at the back of an Atlanta bullpen that still needs a lot of work. They’re getting Joe Jiménez back after he missed the entire ’25 season recovering from knee surgery. Dylan Lee is a high-end option from the left side. Atlanta dropped right-handed setup arms Pierce Johnson and Tyler Kinley at the beginning of the winter, so another righty alongside Jiménez in the late innings is a must. They’ll balance that against the yet to be addressed starting pitching and shortstop holes.

The Braves now have 13 players on guaranteed contracts that’ll combine for $192.5MM next season. They’re operating with a very light arbitration class that features a number of non-tender candidates. That group is unlikely to add more than $4-8MM to the books. The Braves opened last season with a player payroll around $208MM. They’d likely need to go beyond that mark to address the rotation and shortstop, especially if they fill the latter position by re-signing Ha-Seong Kim. RosterResource projects them for roughly $208MM in luxury tax commitments, putting them well shy of the $244MM base threshold. The Braves are believed to have stayed below the CBT line this year but had paid the tax in 2023 and ’24.

Image courtesy of Dale Zanine, Imagn Images.

2025 Non-Tender Candidates

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The non-tender deadline is Friday evening. Teams need to decide whether they want to offer contracts to their arbitration-eligible (and pre-arbitration) players. Those who are not tendered contracts are sent directly into free agency without exposing them to waivers.

As is the case each winter, MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz has projected salaries for the arbitration class. Some of those players have already been dropped from the roster. A few of the most obvious cuts were dropped within the first five days of the offseason as teams needed to get their offseason roster counts back to 40 without the benefit of the injured list.

Some more were designated for assignment on Tuesday as teams opened space for prospects whom they wanted to keep out of the Rule 5 draft. Those players remain in DFA limbo and are marked below with an asterisk. There’s still a scenario in which they’re tendered a contract. The club that DFA them could trade them before Friday to a team that is fine with the projected arbitration price and keeps them around. While that might happen for a player or two, the vast majority of them will just be non-tendered.

Not everyone who is tendered a contract will know their salary this week. Some players will sign “pre-tender” deals that lock in guaranteed money. Many of them are borderline non-tender candidates who will take salaries below their projection to ensure they stay on the roster at all. (A’s catcher Austin Wynns has already taken this kind of deal.) Those who don’t sign but are tendered a contract could have a few months of uncertainty. They’re free to continue negotiating with their clubs to find a mutually agreeable salary until the date of their arbitration hearing.

The collective bargaining agreement incentivizes borderline roster players to settle without a hearing even if they’re tendered a contract. Arbitration settlements are fully guaranteed. Salaries determined at a hearing (regardless of whether the arbitrator chose the club’s or player’s filing figure) are not locked in until the beginning of the regular season. If a player whose salary was determined at a hearing is released during the offseason or in Spring Training, they’re only entitled to termination pay. That’d be 30 days at their prorated salary if the release occurs more than 15 days before Opening Day and 45 days of termination pay if the release happens within 15 days of the start of the season.

As we do each offseason, we’ll take a look at arb-eligible players we believe have a realistic shot at being let go. To be clear, this is not a list of players we think are likelier than not to be non-tendered. These are players we consider to have at least a 10-20% chance of being cut — a broad group who wouldn’t strike us as completely surprising. We’re only looking at players who are eligible for arbitration. There’ll be plenty of pre-arbitration players from the back of teams’ rosters who are dropped (often to immediately re-sign on minor league deals), but those are outside the scope of this post.

Onto the list, with Matt’s projected salaries:

Catchers

First Basemen

Second Basemen

Third Basemen

Shortstops

Center Fielders

Corner Outfielders

Designated Hitters

Starting Pitchers

Right-Handed Relievers

Left-Handed Relievers

* Indicates player is currently in DFA limbo

Mets Release Frankie Montas, Select Nick Morabito

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November 19th: Montas has now been released, per Anthony DiComo of MLB.com.

November 18th: The Mets announced that they have designated Frankie Montas for assignment, and the team has requested unconditional release waivers on the right-hander.  The transaction removes Montas from the 40-man roster, allowing the team to select the contract of outfield prospect Nick Morabito in advance of today’s Rule 5 deadline.  The Athletic’s Will Sammon reported on Morabito’s selection earlier today.  Reporter Michael Marino was the first to pass on the news that Montas would be designated for assignment, with SNY’s Andy Martino providing the later update that Montas was being released.

The DFA period is essentially irrelevant since no team will claim or make a trade offer for Montas, who is owed $17MM in 2026 and will miss all or most of the season while recovering from a torn UCL.  As such, today’s move closes the book on Montas’ Queens tenure after less than a year, as he signed his two-year, $34MM free agent deal with the Mets last December.

Montas ended up tossing just 38 2/3 innings over nine appearances in a Mets uniform.  Montas suffered a lat strain in Spring Training and didn’t make his Mets debut until June, and he then struggled to a 6.28 ERA and lost his rotation job.  Even worse injury news emerged in late August, as Montas underwent UCL surgery.  It wasn’t known if Montas had a Tommy John surgery or a brace procedure, but either way, 2026 is going to be another lost year for the veteran righty.

Unsurprisingly, Montas didn’t trigger the opt-out clause after the first year of his contract, and thus he remains on the Mets’ books for a $17MM salary in 2026.  Montas probably won’t land his next contract until next winter, and a minor league deal seems like the next step for a pitcher with such a shaky recent track record.  Beyond his disastrous 2025 season, Montas also appeared in just one game in 2023 due to shoulder surgery, stemming from shoulder issues that led to a rough end to his 2022 campaign.

He recovered to toss 150 2/3 innings of 4.84 ERA ball with the Reds and Brewers in 2024, which was enough to convince the Mets that Montas might be close to regaining his early-career form as a staple of the Athletics rotation.  Instead, the signing will go down as a total bust for David Stearns’ front office, and one of several ill-advised pitching moves that contributed to New York’s disappointing 83-win season.

Morabito was a second-round pick for the Mets in the 2022 draft, and his selection to the 40-man roster means that rival teams won’t be able to select the 22-year-old in December’s Rule 5 Draft.  Known for his excellent speed, Morabito has stolen 130 bases in 160 attempts during his pro career, including 49 swipes for Double-A Binghamton in 2025.  This was Morabito’s first time playing Double-A ball and he hit .273/.348/.385 with six homers and 27 doubles to go along with his impressive stolen-base total.

MLB Pipeline ranks Morabito 16th amongst all Mets prospects, and the scouting report notes that Morabito’s offensive potential is held back by his tendency to hit too many grounders.  His speed can turn some of those grounders into singles, of course, but “elevating on contact will be a big goal…if he is going to have a chance to be more than a speedy, high-contact fourth outfielder.”  Defensively, Morabito is seen as a decent outfielder who can handle all three positions, though his modest throwing arm probably makes right field his least-effective spot on the grass.

Orioles Trade Grayson Rodriguez To Angels For Taylor Ward

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The Orioles have traded right-hander Grayson Rodriguez to the Angels for outfielder Taylor Ward. The Angels have also announced the trade. Rodriguez missed the entire 2025 season due to multiple arm injuries. Ward will be a free agent after 2026.

On a day filled with minor deals and roster shuffling, Baltimore and Los Angeles saved the best for last. The Orioles are shipping out one of their most promising arms since the Dylan Bundy/Kevin Gausman era. Rodriguez was electric at times since his 2023 debut, but injuries have marred his career. The 26-year-old was sidelined with shoulder inflammation and a lat strain this past year. A shoulder injury cost him half of the 2024 campaign. Injuries in 2022 limited him to 75 2/3 minor league innings and potentially delayed his big-league debut.

Rodriguez is under team control through 2029. Orioles president of baseball operations Mike Elias told reporters back in September that the righty was expected to be ready for spring training. Last week, Elias told reporters, including Andy Kostka of the Baltimore Banner, that Rodriguez “provides a real wild card for us talent-wise.” Elias will now play that card, turning Rodriguez into a year of a dependable power bat.

Ward hit a career-high 36 home runs last season. Since becoming a regular in 2022, the 31-year-old has launched 98 homers with decent plate discipline and fine run production. Ward’s batting average slipped to .228 last season, but his slugging percentage jumped to a career-high .475. He drove in 100+ runs for the first time as a big leaguer, while scoring a career-best 86 times.

MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projects Ward to earn $13.7MM in his final year of arbitration. He was a first-round pick by the Angels back in 2015. Ward tore up minor-league pitching at each level, reaching Triple-A by 2018. He slashed a robust .352/.442/.537 with Salt Lake, earning a big-league callup at the end of that season. Ward scuffled in 40 games with the Angels and found himself back with the Bees. He bounced between both levels for a couple of seasons before finally cementing his spot with the big-league club in 2022. Ward broke out with 23 home runs over 135 games with the Halos, finishing his first full MLB season with a .281/.360/.473 slash (136 wRC+).

Ward began his career as a catcher but moved to the corner infield spots as he advanced in the Angels’ system. He played mostly third base in his early MLB years before permanently transitioning to the outfield in 2022. Ward spent some time in center and right field, but he’s played exclusively left field since 2023. He’ll enter an unsettled outfield mix that includes Colton Cowser, Tyler O’Neill, and Leody Taveras. Youngsters Dylan Beavers and Heston Kjerstad will also be involved, though the Ward addition will be another roadblock to consistent at-bats for them.

Ward’s departure leaves the Angels with Jo Adell, Jorge Soler, and some question marks in the outfield. With Mike Trout penciled in at DH, the outfield alternatives include Gustavo Campero, Bryce Teodosio, and Matthew Lugo. Top prospect Nelson Rada could also push for a roster spot. The Angels will be on the lookout for some center field help this winter.

The trade marks a surprising end to Rodriguez’s tenure with the club that selected him 11th overall in 2018. He quickly rose through the minors, with massive strikeout numbers propelling him to the top of prospect lists. MLB.com ranked Rodriguez behind only Adley Rutschman in Baltimore’s system back in 2022, while slotting him at sixth among all prospects. He was the top-ranked pitcher on the board.

Rodriguez did not hit the ground running in the big leagues during his debut in 2023, recording an ugly 7.35 ERA over his first 10 starts. He was sent back to Triple-A to regroup, and returned with a vengeance. The right-hander put up a 2.58 ERA across 13 starts after getting recalled. He cleaned up the control issues that had caused problems in his first stint and did so while striking out nearly a batter per inning. Rodriguez was shelled by the Rangers in the ALDS, but the final three months of the regular season suggested Baltimore had their ace of the future.

The 2024 campaign saw Rodriguez push his strikeout rate to 26.5% while trimming his walk rate to 7.3%. He notched his first double-digit strikeout game in May, striking out 10 against Boston. Rodriguez piled up 13 wins through 20 starts and logged a 3.86 ERA before a shoulder issue ended his season in August. A quality start and victory over Toronto on the final day of July would end up being his last start with the team.

Baltimore’s rotation will be headlined by Trevor Rogers and Kyle Bradish heading into 2026. Dean Kremer has been a reliable source of innings, but the options are less stable beyond him. Tyler Wells is expected to return to a starting role after returning late last season from UCL surgery. Cade Povich has made 36 starts over the past two seasons, but his career ERA is over 5.00. Brandon Young and Chayce McDermott have also struggled in their limited big-league opportunities. The Orioles have added veterans like Zach Eflin, Charlie Morton, and Kyle Gibson in the past two seasons to help eat innings. They could be dipping back into that pool of pitchers to fill out the rotation this offseason.

For the Halos, Rodriguez adds an upside arm to a rotation that’s headlined by Yusei Kikuchi and Jose Soriano but otherwise lacks certainty. Former top prospect Reid Detmers will likely get another look in the rotation, where he’s struggled in the past, after an excellent 2025 season in the bullpen. Caden Dana, Mitch Farris and Sam Aldegheri are options in the fifth spot for now, with prospect George Klassen also looming. As with the O’s, it seems likely that the Angels will add another arm from outside the organization between now and spring training.

From a payroll perspective, the swap gives Anaheim $13-14MM of spending power. Their projected $166MM payroll (via RosterResource) sits nearly $40MM shy of last year’s Opening Day mark. Baltimore’s projected $105MM payroll sits nearly $60MM shy of last year’s Opening Day mark, but the O’s now have an even more acute need for rotation help and fewer resources available to address that need.

A’s Designate JJ Bleday For Assignment

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The Athletics are designating outfielder JJ Bleday for assignment, reports Martín Gallegos of MLB.com. The A’s are adding prospects Braden Nett, Junior Perez and Chen Zhong-Ao Zhuang to their 40-man roster to keep them out of the Rule 5 draft.

The A’s are moving on from their Opening Day center fielder of the past two seasons. They acquired Bleday from the Marlins over the 2022-23 offseason in a one-for-one swap sending A.J. Puk to Miami. It was a change-of-scenery deal of former top 10 picks. Both players had brief amounts of success in their new home, but neither quite clicked in the way their acquiring club had hoped. Puk was beset by injuries, while Bleday struggled defensively and was up-and-down at the plate.

Bleday struggled in 2023, batting .195 with 10 home runs over 82 games. He followed up with the best season of his career, popping 20 longballs with a .243/.324/.437 slash while appearing in 159 games. It raised some hope of a late-career breakout, but Bleday’s bat regressed despite the move from Oakland to the much more hitter-friendly Sutter Health Park.

The Vanderbilt product batted .212/.294/.404 in 344 trips to the plate this year. He connected on 14 homers and still walked at a strong 10.5% clip, but his strikeout rate jumped by seven percentage points relative to the prior season. The A’s optioned him twice, but he spent the final two months of the season on the big league roster. He popped six homers and slugged .495 in that stretch, yet he also struck out in more than 30% of his trips to the dish.

Bleday’s overall production has been right around replacement level in two of the past three seasons. The A’s haven’t done him any favors in that regard by pressing him into center field — for which he’s clearly not equipped. He’s a fringe runner who has rated as arguably the game’s worst defensive center fielder over the past couple seasons. Bleday is serviceable but still subpar in the corners despite possessing above-average arm strength.

The 28-year-old surpassed three years of service this season. He’s eligible for arbitration for the first time and projected by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz for a $2.2MM salary. The A’s decided they’d rather move on, potentially turning center field to defensive stalwart Denzel Clarke. They have three days to see if they can drum up any trade interest to flip Bleday for a lottery ticket prospect. He’ll otherwise be non-tendered on Friday and become a free agent.

Nett is the highest profile of the three prospects. The 23-year-old righty came over from the Padres as part of the Mason Miller return. He spent the entire season at Double-A between the two affiliates. Nett started 24 games and combined for 105 2/3 innings of 3.75 ERA ball while striking out nearly a quarter of opponents. He walked 10.3% of batters faced and has struggled to throw strikes consistently throughout his career. Nett has a four-pitch mix that gives him a chance to start, though the command development will determine whether he sticks in the rotation or moves to relief down the line.

Perez, 24, also began his career in the San Diego system. He was traded to the A’s while he was in rookie ball for Jorge Mateo in 2020. A native of the Dominican Republic, he’s a right-handed hitting outfielder who connected on 26 homers between the top two minor league levels. There’s a lot of swing-and-miss to his game, but he has power and takes a lot of walks.

Zhuang is a 25-year-old righty from Taiwan. He signed with the A’s in 2021 and has worked as a minor league starter. He tossed 145 2/3 innings at Double-A Midland in 2025, pitching to a 4.08 ERA with solid underlying numbers. Zhuang fanned 24% of opponents while showing excellent control with a sub-6% walk percentage. Baseball America ranked him 25th in the A’s system coming into the year, crediting him with plus command and an above-average changeup but fringy breaking stuff.

Tampa Bay To Designate Christopher Morel, Jake Fraley For Assignment

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8:20 pm: The team has officially announced the moves.

5:47 pm: The Rays are expected to designate outfielders Christopher Morel and Jake Fraley for assignment, reports Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. Topkin also reported that catcher Dominic Keegan, right-hander Alex Cook, and second baseman Jadher Areinamo are expected to be added to the 40-man roster. The trio will grab the vacated roster spots to protect them from the Rule 5 draft.

Tampa Bay acquired Morel as the headliner of the trade that sent Isaac Paredes to the Cubs ahead of the 2024 trade deadline. He was hitting .199 at the time, but had popped 18 home runs and lowered his strikeout rate to a career-best 24.5%. Morel stumbled to a 59 wRC+ to close the year with the Rays. He hit three homers and saw his strikeout rate jump back up to 29.5%.

Morel played a part-time role for Tampa Bay this past season, logging 305 plate appearances. He flashed the power/speed combo that had made him an intriguing asset, with 11 home runs and seven steals, but continued to strike out at an untenable rate. Morel whiffed a career-high 35.7% of the time in 2025. After spending time at second base, third base, and shortstop in his first three seasons, Morel played almost exclusively outfield and DH last year. He made one appearance at second base, but that was the extent of his time on the dirt.

With a pair of 20-homer seasons under his belt and a bit of defensive versatility in his game, Morel will likely get another look at the big-league level. He’s had stretches of getting the strikeouts in check, and he’s always had a solid walk rate.

Tampa Bay claimed Fraley off waivers from Atlanta in early November. The Braves had scooped him up off waivers from the Reds back in August. He appeared in nine games with the team before going down with an oblique strain that cut his season short.

Fraley debuted with the Mariners in 2019. After a few seasons in a limited role, he was shipped to Cincinnati in the Eugenio Suarez trade. Fraley slashed a solid .259/.344/.468 in his first year with the Reds, though knee issues capped his workload. Injuries would limit his playing time for the duration of his Cincinnati tenure. Wrist and toe injuries cost him time in 2023, and the knee held him back again in 2024. Prior to the season-ending oblique injury this year, Fraley had hit the IL twice with calf and shoulder issues.

Keegan was taken in the fourth round of the 2022 draft. He tore through Tampa Bay’s minor league system before hitting a bit of a roadblock at Triple-A in 2025. MLB.com ranked him 15th among the Rays’ prospects.

Cook was also drafted in 2022, with Tampa Bay landing him in the 12th round. He’s pitched almost exclusively as a reliever since joining the organization. Cook has spent most of his time in the low minors, but did get up to Double-A last year. He tossed 15 2/3 innings with a 2.30 ERA for the Montgomery Biscuits to close the season.

Areinamo came over from the Brewers in the Danny Jansen trade. Baseball America had him 10th in Milwaukee’s system midway through the season. After slashing a strong .297/.355/.463 at High-A prior to the trade, he joined the Biscuits and put up a solid 111 wRC+.

Photo courtesy of John E. Sokolowski, Imagn Images

Astros Designate Ramon Urias For Assignment

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The Astros announced they’ve designated infielder Ramón Urías for assignment. His spot on the 40-man roster goes to pitching prospect Miguel Ullola, who has been selected to keep him out of the Rule 5 draft. Their roster remains at capacity.

Houston acquired Urías from the Orioles at this past summer’s trade deadline. It initially seemed he’d be the fill-in third baseman after the Isaac Paredes injury. The Astros pulled off the shocking Carlos Correa deal a day later, pushing Urías into more of a second/third base hybrid role. He didn’t perform especially well. He hit .223/.267/.372 with 28 strikeouts in 101 trips to the plate after the trade.

That will end up being his only work in an Astros uniform. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projected Urías for a $4.4MM salary in his final year of arbitration. Houston wasn’t going to pay that amount coming off the rough finish. They can technically spend the next three days trying to find a trade partner, but it’s likelier they’ll simply non-tender him on Friday. He’d become a free agent at that point.

While his Astros tenure was a disappointment, Urías had been a capable role player for the Orioles for the past few seasons. He won a Gold Glove at third base in 2022, though his defensive grades in every other season have been right around average. Urías was also essentially an average hitter throughout his time in Baltimore. He batted .259/.324/.404 in a little more than 500 games over parts of six seasons with the Orioles. He’s been serviceable against pitchers of either handedness and can play any non-shortstop position on the dirt.

Urías should be able to command a major league contract if he’s non-tendered. It’d surely be a one-year deal but he could find a $3-4MM guarantee to work as a right-handed infielder off the bench. Houston will ideally find a lefty bat to fit that role, as their lineup already skews very heavily to the right side. They’ll need to decide whether to tender righty-hitting utilityman Mauricio Dubón (projected at $5.8MM) or start from scratch with their infield depth.

Ullola appears to be the only prospect whom the Astros were concerned would get taken in next month’s Rule 5 draft. The 23-year-old righty spent the entire ’25 season working out of the Triple-A rotation. He managed a solid 3.88 earned run average across 113 2/3 innings in the Pacific Coast League. Ullola fanned 27% of opponents but walked nearly 16% of batters faced. He has never thrown strikes at a tenable rate in the minors, which presumably points toward a long-term bullpen future. Ullola’s fastball sits around 94 MPH in his work as a starter, so he could be a solid power arm with significant bat-missing upside if the Astros move him to relief.

Nine Players Reject Qualifying Offer

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The deadline to accept the qualifying offer has passed. Four players — Trent Grisham, Gleyber Torres, Brandon Woodruff, and Shota Imanaga — chose to accept the one-year, $22.025MM deal and remain with their current clubs. The remaining nine players rejected the deal. They are: Cubs outfielder Kyle Tucker, Phillies DH Kyle Schwarber, Blue Jays infielder Bo Bichette, Astros lefty Framber Valdez, Padres righty Dylan Cease, Phillies lefty Ranger Suarez, Mets closer Edwin Diaz, Diamondbacks righty Zac Gallen, and Padres righty Michael King. All nine are now free agents.

There’s not much surprise in any of the nine players who rejected. Tucker, Schwarber, Bichette, Valdez, Cease, Suarez and Diaz were all locks. Gallen may have given some brief thought to accepting after a rough showing in 2025, but he finished strong and has a track record as a high-end starter who’s garnered multiple top-five finishes in NL Cy Young balloting. King was hobbled by nerve and knee injuries in an odd season but was dominant in 2023-24 and through the first two months of the current season. He was healthy late in the year and fanned three in his lone inning of postseason work. He’ll test the waters in search of a multi-year deal as well.

Now that this nonet has rejected qualifying offers, they’ll all be subject to draft compensation. Interested teams will need to surrender a draft pick (or multiple picks) and, in some cases, space from their bonus pool for international amateurs in order to sign any of this group. The extent of that draft compensation depends on the revenue-sharing and luxury tax status of the new team. MLBTR broke down which pick(s) each club would forfeit by signing a “qualified” free agent last month.

Similarly, the compensation for each player’s former club is dependent on revenue-sharing and luxury tax status — as well as the size of the contract signed by the player in question. MLBTR also ran through the compensation each team would receive if their qualified free agents turned down the offer and signed elsewhere.

Trent Grisham To Accept Qualifying Offer

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Outfielder Trent Grisham is accepting his $22.025MM qualifying offer and will return to the Yankees in 2026, reports ESPN’s Jorge Castillo. Players who accept a QO are considered free agent signings and are thus ineligible to be traded prior to the following June 15 unless they consent to the move.

It’s at least a modest surprise, as Grisham is coming off a breakout year at the plate which saw him club a career-high 34 home runs. He slashed .235/.348/.464, thanks in no small part to a career-best 14.1% walk rate and a 23.6% strikeout rate that stood as the second-lowest in his career. Between that production, the fact that Grisham only just turned 29 earlier this month, and a thin outfield market in free agency, the stars seemed to align for him to pursue a weighty multi-year contract this winter.

Instead, Grisham returns to the site of his breakout and will hold down a key role in an outfield that’s also currently slated to include Jasson Dominguez and Aaron Judge. The Yankees are interested in re-signing Cody Bellinger, have been linked to Kyle Tucker and also have DH Giancarlo Stanton at least loosely in the outfield mix. (He played 132 outfield innings in 2025.)

Grisham’s return muddies the waters a bit, but GM Brian Cashman said recently that even if he accepted, it wouldn’t impact the team’s pursuit of a new deal with Bellinger (link via the New York Post’s Greg Joyce). The Yankees wouldn’t have made the QO to Grisham if they believed his acceptance was a roadblock to bringing back Bellinger or signing Tucker. They’re surely glad to have him back. Even though his defensive grades took an unexpected downturn in ’25, he has the best defensive track record in center of the Yankees’ in-house options.

While Grisham could have looked to cash in this winter, he’ll instead take a hefty one-year payday in what amounts to a bet on himself. Though he’s a left-handed bat, his power output was hardly a product of Yankee Stadium’s short right field porch. In fact, Grisham hit just .195/.326/.376 at home this season, compared to .254/.364/.506 on the road. If he can replicate this year’s huge power production, he could hit the market next offseason on the back of consecutive plus seasons at the plate and without the encumbrance of a qualifying offer. A big enough showing this year could realistically position Grisham for a $100MM+ contract — particularly if his defensive grades rebound, too.

The looming potential for a work stoppage is one other wrinkle to consider, but if anything, today’s glut of QO decisions suggests that players aren’t necessarily going to shy away from short-term deals that put them on the open market next year — at least not en masse. Grisham is one of four players to accept the QO, joining Gleyber Torres, Shota Imanaga and Brandon Woodruff in that regard. In a vacuum, any one of the four accepting his QO wouldn’t be considered a major surprise — but all four accepting in the same offseason is downright atypical. This marks the first time since the inception of the qualifying offer that more than three players have accepted a QO.

With Grisham back in the fold, the Yankees’ projected payroll for the upcoming season jumps to about $263MM, per RosterResource. They’ll now have about $286MM of luxury tax obligations, placing them just over the third penalty line. That means that the Yankees’ top pick in the 2027 draft will drop by 10 places, unless they’re able to sneak their luxury count back under $284MM. Given the wide swath of offseason dealings that’s likely still on the table for Cashman & Co., that doesn’t seem to be a very likely outcome. In all likelihood, the Yankees will wind up in the top CBT penalty tier, just as they’ve done in each of the past three seasons.

Turning to the rest of the league, Grisham’s early removal from the free agent market — to a team that didn’t clearly need to retain him, no less — subtracts arguably the top center field option from the market. Bellinger, of course, can still play center but barely did so in 2025. Most teams probably consider him more of a corner outfielder/first baseman who can play occasional center field. Harrison Bader and Cedric Mullins are the two most notable options still on the market, though the former has been more of a part-time player and the latter is looking to bounce back from an awful 2025 showing. The market was light on center fielders to begin with and is even more so now, so teams looking for help at the position might be more inclined to turn to the trade market to address that deficiency.

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