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Gerrit Cole Recommended For Tommy John Surgery, Yankees Awaiting Second Opinion

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Yankees fans have been nervously awaiting news regarding ace Gerrit Cole ever since he was sent for “diagnostic tests” on his elbow on Friday. Today, Jim Bowden of The Athletic reports that Cole has been recommended for Tommy John surgery, though the Yankees are currently waiting to receive a second opinion to confirm that diagnosis. The news is in line with reporting yesterday that indicated Cole was “concerned” about his elbow and that the righty was seeking a second opinion on the issue.

If the diagnosis is confirmed, the Yankees would lose Cole for not only the 2025 season but likely at least some of the 2026 campaign as well. Even if a second opinion suggests that Cole could rehab the issue rather than go under the knife, even a relatively minor elbow issue could wipe out much of Cole’s 2025 campaign. It was just last year that the veteran right-hander was sidelined by elbow inflammation for nearly three months at the start of the season and ultimately did not make his season debut until June 19. While it’s impossible to establish a timetable for Cole’s return until the second opinion comes in and the Yankees announce more information about their veteran’s status, even the most optimistic of estimates would likely leave Cole out of commission for around that long.

Last season, the Yankees were able to lean on the surprise contributions of eventual AL Rookie of the Year Luis Gil to round out their rotation while Cole was absent. They’ll enjoy no such luxury this time around, as Gil is ticketed to miss multiple months himself due to a lat strain. With Cole and Gil both seemingly ticketed for significant absences to open the 2025 campaign, a starting staff that was so overflowing with talent that the Yankees opted to trade Nestor Cortes to the Brewers and aggressively shopped Marcus Stroman throughout the winter will now be searching for answers as they attempt to patch together the back of their rotation.

The good news for the Yankees is that their rotation is still reasonably well-stocked. Max Fried is a viable ace-in-waiting to pick up the slack from the loss of Cole, while Clarke Schmidt and Carlos Rodon maintain their spots in the middle of the club’s projected rotation. With Stroman sliding into the back of the rotation after entering camp projected for a possible long relief role, that leaves just one spot in the club’s starting five that will need to be filled for the first few months of the season.

The club has a handful of internal options at its disposal, even with well-regarded prospect Chase Hampton having undergone Tommy John surgery himself last month. The top option on the club’s 40-man roster as things stand is right-hander Will Warren, who made his big league debut last year. That cup of coffee at the big league level did not go over very well, as Warren was shelled to the tune of a 10.32 ERA in 22 2/3 innings of work. That was just a glimpse into Warren’s struggles last year, as he also floundered at the Triple-A level with a 5.91 ERA across 23 starts at the highest level of the minors. With that being said, the 25-year-old has impressed so far this spring with a 1.13 ERA in three appearances. If the Yankees believe the issues that plagued Warren in 2024 are behind him, it’s easy to imagine him being chosen as the fifth starter despite the question marks much like Gil last year.

Warren isn’t the only option the Yankees have at their disposal, however, as a handful of non-roster invitees are in camp with the club at present. Veteran right-hander Carlos Carrasco is just days away from his 38th birthday and has struggled badly the past two years with a 6.18 ERA in 193 2/3 innings of work for the Mets and Guardians, but his 15 years of MLB experience could offer the club some veteran stability at the back of the rotation even if Carrasco’s overall results are very likely to be well below average. Right-hander Allan Winans and southpaw Brandon Leibrandt are among the club’s other non-roster invitees who could theoretically be called upon.

Another option, of course, would be to look outside the organization for rotation help. That’s surely not the Yankees’ preferred course of action; after all, budget concerns kept them from adding a surefire infielder at second or third base to pair with Jazz Chisholm Jr. this winter, leaving the club to sort through lackluster options like Oswaldo Cabrera, Oswald Peraza, and the now-injured DJ LeMahieu at the hot corner. With that being said, former Yankee Jordan Montgomery could surely be acquired from the Diamondbacks for virtually no cost other than eating a portion of the lefty’s salary after his difficult 2024 campaign, while interesting options like Kyle Gibson and Spencer Turnbull remain available in free agency. That’s hardly an exhaustive list of potential external candidates, though many clubs may prefer to hold their potential trade chips until the trade deadline at this stage in the calendar unless overwhelmed by an offer.

Dodgers’ Michael Grove Undergoes Season-Ending Shoulder Surgery

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6:20pm: Per Ardaya, Grove underwent surgery to repair his right labrum. Roberts added that Grove attempted to pitch through the issue dating back to last season, but the club opted for surgery after the issue did not respond well to an offseason of rest.

12:58pm: Michael Grove’s season has already come to an end, as the Dodgers right-hander underwent surgery on his throwing shoulder and will now miss the entire 2025 campaign, The Athletic’s Fabian Ardaya reports.  Grove’s last 2024 appearance came in Game 2 of the NLDS, and he was removed from the Dodgers’ playoff roster after that game with the first occurrence of this shoulder issue.

Manager Dave Roberts stated two weeks ago that Grove was expected to start the season on the injured list, as recovering from that postseason shoulder problem had cost the righty about a month of his normal winter ramp-up work.  It isn’t yet known if Grove was trying to pitch through more discomfort or if a new issue was discovered after testing, but regardless, the 28-year-old will now unfortunately be sidelined until 2026.

This marks the second major surgery of Grove’s baseball career, as he had a Tommy John procedure in 2017 when he was still playing college ball at West Virginia.  The Dodgers were still intrigued enough by his potential to make Grove a second-round pick in the 2018 draft, though between his injury rehab, the canceled 2020 minor league season, and simply some struggles in his first taste of pro ball, Grove didn’t really start delivering good numbers until 2022.

That same year saw him make his big league debut in the form of 29 1/3 innings of 4.60 ERA work, as Grove started six of his seven games.  The right-hander started 12 of 18 MLB appearances in 2023, with Los Angeles cycling Grove up and down from Triple-A multiple times whenever they needed a fresh arm in the rotation or bullpen.  Grove was also shuttled back and forth several times last season, though he worked primarily as a reliever and posted a 5.12 ERA over 51 innings.

Grove’s 5.48 ERA over 149 1/3 career Major League innings isn’t very impressive, yet his SIERA is a far more palatable 3.85.  With decent strikeout (23.2%) and walk (6.9%) rates, plus several other solid peripherals, Grove’s under-the-hood numbers paint a far better picture of his ability, though he has a penchant for allowing home runs at inopportune times.  Injuries also hampered Grove over the last two seasons, as he missed significant chunks of time with groin and lat-related issues, beyond the shoulder injury that took him off the Dodgers’ postseason roster.

Los Angeles overcame an absurd number of pitching injuries to capture last season’s World Series, and it already looks like the Dodgers’ staff will be facing more health issues in 2025.  As per RosterResource’s projections, ten pitchers are set to begin the season on the injured list, with issues ranging from relatively minor injuries to season-ending problems (i.e. Grove’s surgery, or River Ryan and Kyle Hurt probably missing 2025 after undergoing Tommy John surgeries last year).  This is on top of the several pitchers with checkered injury histories who are expected to be part of the Opening Day roster, such as Tony Gonsolin, Dustin May, Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow, and two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani.

The Dodgers are so deep in pitching that the team is hoping the sheer volume of available arms can help cover for any more injuries that might arise during the season, and this is also why L.A. was so aggressive in adding Snell, Roki Sasaki, Tanner Scott, Kirby Yates, and others to their depth chart.  While Grove isn’t exactly a household name amidst all of the Dodgers’ superstars, losing another innings-eating reliever removes another layer of security from the Dodgers’ plans.

Grayson Rodriguez To Start Season On IL; Andrew Kittredge To Miss Months

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TODAY: Rodriguez was diagnosed with elbow inflammation and he received a cortisone shot to deal with the issue, Hyde told reporters (including the Baltimore Banner’s Andy Kostka).  The plan is for Rodriguez to be shut down for 7-10 days to let the shot take effect, and the right-hander will then start a throwing program.

March 8: Kittredge underwent left knee debridement on Friday, the Orioles revealed to reporters, including Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com. The team described the procedure as “successful.”

March 7: Orioles manager Brandon Hyde provided members of the media with updates on various injured players today. Most notably, right-hander Grayson Rodriguez is going to start the season on the injured list due to some discomfort in his elbow/triceps area, though Hyde emphasized that there’s no concern about the righty’s ligament. Andy Kostka of The Baltimore Banner was among those to relay the info. Additionally, righty Andrew Kittredge is going to have arthroscopic knee surgery and will miss multiple months, per Kostka.

Rodriguez had diminished velocity in his most recent start and later told reporters that he felt “sluggish” and “flat” during the outing. Hyde eventually revealed that Rodriguez was battling some soreness in his triceps. It seems the club is still working on firming up the diagnosis but has enough info to determine that Rodriguez won’t be ready by Opening Day. “It’s not a ligament issue, so we’re not concerned about that,” Hyde said, per Kostka. “But it’s going to result in some missed time. … Right now, we’re still getting opinions.”

Time will tell about the long-term picture, but the O’s will have to make a rotation pivot in the short term. Without Rodriguez, four rotation spots will be taken by Zach Eflin, Charlie Morton, Tomoyuki Sugano and Dean Kremer. Hyde said today that the final rotation spot will likely come down to Albert Suárez or Cade Povich, per Kostka.

Suárez, 35, spent the 2019 to 2023 seasons pitching in Asia. He returned to affiliated ball with the O’s last year and had good results in a swing role. He made 24 starts and eight relief appearances, tossing 133 2/3 innings with a 3.70 earned run average. He only struck out 19.1% of batters faced but limited walks to a 7.6% clip. He projected to be in a long relief role to start the year. If he jumps into the rotation, perhaps Roansy Contreras will take over as the long man since the O’s are stretching him out.

Povich, 25 in April, was a top 100 prospect going into 2024 but didn’t excel in his first taste of the majors. He made 16 starts last year with a 5.20 ERA, 19.6% strikeout rate and 9.6% walk rate. But his minor league numbers were better, as he logged 77 2/3 Triple-A innings last year with a 3.48 ERA, 28.2% strikeout rate and 8.5% walk rate. He still has options and could be in the Triple-A rotation if not in the majors.

Ideally, one of those arms will cover the rotation spot for a few turns while Rodriguez gets healthy. Though if it’s eventually determined that he’s facing a longer absence, perhaps the club will look for external help. The free agent market still features Kyle Gibson, Lance Lynn, Spencer Turnbull and others. Pitchers such as Jordan Montgomery and Taijuan Walker are likely available on the trade block.

As for Kittredge, it’s an unfortunate blow since the O’s made a notable investment in him less than two months ago. In mid-January, Baltimore signed Kittredge to a one-year, $10MM deal, hoping to have him take up a key role in the club’s bullpen. But he recently experienced some soreness in his left knee and was sent for some testing, which revealed the need for this operation.

This isn’t the first time an injury has intervened in the righty’s career. Kittredge had a 1.88 ERA in 71 2/3 innings for the Rays in 2021 but then Tommy John surgery wiped out most of his next two seasons. He stayed healthy last year after being traded to the Cardinals and tossed 70 2/3 innings with a 2.80 ERA, 23.3% strikeout rate, 7% walk rate and 45.2% ground ball rate. That spurred the O’s to give him an eight-figure deal but it now appears it will take several months for them to receive any kind of return on that investment.

Without Kittredge, the O’s still have many strong relief options, including Félix Bautista, Yennier Cano, Keegan Akin, Seranthony Domínguez and Gregory Soto. If the Kittredge injury sends them looking for external options, guys like David Robertson, Phil Maton and Joe Kelly are unsigned.

As for shortstop Gunnar Henderson, who is dealing with an intercostal strain, Hyde said he is still getting treatment. Per Jake Rill of MLB.com, Hyde said Jackson Holliday will be getting some shortstop reps and possibly Jordan Westburg as well, with the O’s looking to build contingency plans for the event Henderson misses time. Rich Dubroff of Baltimore Baseball adds that Liván Soto and Luis Vázquez are also possibilities.

Both Holliday and Westburg played lots of shortstop in the minors and should be relatively fine in moving over there to cover for a bit, though they would create holes elsewhere. Holliday projects as the regular second baseman and Westburg the third baseman. Coby Mayo or Ramón Urías could perhaps cover third if Westburg is at short, though it sounds like Hyde might have a slight preference for Holliday, which would create a hole at the keystone. Urías has lots of second base experience, but roughly a quarter of the time he’s spent at third.

As for Soto and Vázquez, neither is on the 40-man roster at present. They both have plenty of minor league experience at second, third and short but they have played just 46 major league games between the two of them.

Gerrit Cole Going For Imaging On Elbow

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March 8: According to MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch, the results of Cole’s initial diagnostic tests have been distributed, and the right-hander is now in the process of seeking a second opinion. While Cole told reporters (including Hoch) that he is “concerned” about his elbow, the 2023 AL Cy Young winner also expressed a bit of optimism. “I’ve still got some hope,” he said. Per Hoch, Cole and the Yankees expect to know more about the status of his elbow in the next few days.

March 7: Gerrit Cole is heading for “diagnostic tests” on his throwing elbow, reports Jon Morosi of the MLB Network. It’s not currently clear whether the Yankees fear a significant injury, or if the testing is more precautionary in nature. In either case, it’s certainly not encouraging news after Cole missed the first couple months of 2024 with elbow inflammation.

It was almost exactly one year ago today that Yankees skipper Aaron Boone revealed that Cole was headed for an MRI. The 2023 Cy Young winner was having difficulty recovering between throwing sessions. Testing didn’t reveal any structural damage, but an inflammation diagnosis necessitated a month-long shutdown. Cole began the season on the 60-day injured list; he didn’t make his season debut until June 19.

Cole stayed healthy for the remainder of the season, aside from one skipped start due to what the team termed general body soreness. He turned in a 3.41 earned run average across 17 starts. While he struggled over his first few outings, Cole was dominant from the beginning of August through the end of the regular season. He turned in a 2.25 ERA with a 26% strikeout rate while holding opponents to a .182/.255/.248 slash line over his final 10 appearances.

The 34-year-old righty took the ball another five times in the postseason. He worked to a 2.17 ERA across 29 playoff innings, but his strikeout rate in October plummeted to a meager 17.7% clip. After the season, he and the Yankees were faced with a decision on his contract. Cole decided to opt out of the remaining four years and $144MM on his nine-year deal. He hoped the Yanks would override that by preemptively triggering a $36MM club option for 2029. The team declined to do so but allowed him to rescind the opt-out and remain with the team on his original contract.

Cole has taken the ball twice during Spring Training. He looked sharp in his first appearance, working 3 1/3 innings of one-run ball with five strikeouts on February 28. The Twins torched him for six runs on five hits (including a pair of homers) over 2 2/3 frames yesterday. That alone isn’t cause for concern — Spring Training results are largely immaterial — but Cole evidently hasn’t felt completely healthy. His fastball has averaged 95.5 MPH during his spring work, according to Brooks Baseball. That’s around where it sat last March, a bit below the 97 MPH velocity he’d shown in previous Spring Trainings.

The Yankees won’t have much to report until they receive the imaging results. Even if there’s no structural damage, it seems likely Cole will begin the season on the injured list. The Yanks already lost 2024 Rookie of the Year Luis Gil to a severe lat strain. GM Brian Cashman said on Thursday that the Yankees anticipate an absence of at least three months for the young right-hander (relayed by Greg Joyce of The New York Post). Depth starter JT Brubaker broke three ribs trying to dodge a comebacker early in camp.

New York signed Max Fried to an eight-year, $218MM free agent deal. He’ll probably get the ball on Opening Day. Clarke Schmidt and Carlos Rodón will follow in the rotation. Marcus Stroman, who entered camp sixth on the depth chart, now projects as the fourth starter. A season-opening IL stint could draw Will Warren or out-of-options righty Yoendrys Gómez into the rotation. New York has Carlos Carrasco and Allan Winans in camp as non-roster invitees.

If Cole winds up missing a decent chunk of time, the Yanks could look to a late free agent acquisition. Veteran innings eater Kyle Gibson remains unsigned; he’s throwing side sessions to stay loose in advance of his age-37 season. Swingman Spencer Turnbull has a spotty injury history but pitched well in 54 1/3 innings for the Phillies last year. Patrick Corbin and former Yankee Lance Lynn are also still free agents.

In a smaller injury development, the Yanks announced this morning that reliever Tyler Matzek sustained a mild right oblique strain (link via Bryan Hoch of MLB.com). The veteran southpaw could resume throwing early next week, but the injury takes him out of consideration for the Opening Day roster. Matzek is in camp as a non-roster invitee. He has tossed one scoreless inning.

Soto: Mets Didn’t Offer The Most Money

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The Juan Soto free agency was one of the most anticipated in baseball history. It was expected to deliver historic results and did just that. He signed a massive 15-year, $765MM deal with the Mets. That’s the longest contract ever and the largest guarantee. The $51MM average annual value is also a record if one considers the deferrals in Shohei Ohtani’s deal with the Dodgers. Ohtani technically got $700MM over ten years for a $70MM AAV but the heavy deferrals bring the net present value down to the $45MM range annually.

Despite all those records, Soto claims he could have got more. Abriendo Sports released a teaser for a Spanish-language interview they did with Soto. The full conversation won’t be released until Sunday but reporter Mike Rodriguez provided an English translation of the teaser. Soto says that the field was narrowed to the Mets, Yankees, Dodgers, Blue Jays and Red Sox and that the Mets didn’t offer the most money, with multiple teams offering more.

No other details were provided but it’s potentially an interesting bit of information. The five finalists are not surprising, as they were the clubs most often connected to Soto throughout the winter and towards the end of his free agency. Soto’s claim that the offer from the Mets wasn’t actually the highest doesn’t align with previous reporting. At the time of the agreement with the Mets, it was reported by Jon Heyman of The New York Post that the Yankees topped out at $760MM over 16 years. Sean McAdam of MassLive reported that the Red Sox maxxed out at $700MM over 15.  Shi Davidi and Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet reported that the Blue Jays stopped short of $700MM. Patrick Mooney, Will Sammon, Brendan Kuty and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported the Dodgers stopped at $600MM.

All those numbers are under what Soto got from the Mets, so it’s tough to figure which teams could have had a larger offer than $765MM. Andy Martino of SNY reports today that Boston was one of multiple clubs willing to go higher than the top offer if they thought Soto would accept, but he went to the Mets because of the “family-friendly vibe” established by Alex Cohen, wife of Mets owner Steve Cohen. Perhaps the Red Sox had topped out at $700MM in terms of an official offer but had made some sort of verbal indication to Soto and agent Scott Boras that they were willing to keep pushing.

Speculatively speaking, it’s also possible that there was some creative accounting going on. The Dodgers are famous/infamous for their heavy use of deferred money in the contracts they sign with players. Ohtani’s contract is the most extreme example. As mentioned, it came with an advertised sticker price of $700MM but actually had a net present value that the league calculated at just over $460MM while the MLBPA calculated it around $438MM. While the Dodgers reportedly stopped their offer at $600MM, perhaps that was a post-deferral number, while the offer might have had a shinier pre-deferral number.

Or perhaps there was some mystery team willing to throw out wild numbers that Soto never took especially seriously. 11 clubs reportedly reached out to him at the start of free agency. Soto was connected to clubs like the Giants, Phillies, Rays, Royals and even his original Nationals club at various points through the offseason. None of them seemed to get especially close. The Rays reportedly offered Soto some kind of high-AAV deal on a short-term, so it’s also possible that’s what Soto is referring to. Maybe the Rays offered a higher AAV than the Mets but with far fewer years.

Ultimately, it’s all a moot point. Soto has signed with the Mets and that can’t be changed now. Still, it does make for fun hypothetical speculation. Teams generally went nuts for Soto because of his incredible track record at such a young age. Many top prospects don’t debut until their mid-20s but Soto already had 936 big league games under his belt by the end of his age-25 season. And he had hit .285/.421/.532 for a 158 wRC+ in those. To get that player with so many prime years remaining was a very rare alignment that led to an unprecedented bidding war and perhaps we don’t know how high it actually could have gone.

George Kirby Shut Down Due To Shoulder Inflammation, Will Open Season On Injured List

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Star Mariners right-hander George Kirby has been shut down from throwing due to shoulder inflammation and will very likely open the 2025 season on the 15-day injured list, general manager Justin Hollander announced to the team’s beat today (video link via Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times). There’s no structural damage at play, and Hollander made clear that Kirby felt he could continue pitching, but the team is understandably taking a cautious approach with such an important member of the pitching staff. Said Hollander:

“George Kirby has not been feeling great after his outings. In the outings, he’s throwing the ball well — same velocity as you would expect. He just hasn’t felt like he’s bouncing back great. We did an MRI — MRI looks great. No structural concerns whatsoever, and I will repeat that: zero structural concerns. There is some inflammation in there that we need to get out, so much to George’s chagrin, we are going to take the ball out of his hands. … This is more like a week-to-week thing than a day-to-day thing. We just want to make sure we’re doing the right thing for the big picture of the whole season as opposed to worrying about Opening Day.”

Hollander didn’t paint the issue as one that would require a long-term absence, but it’s nevertheless a cause for concern and a blow to the team’s short-term outlook. Kirby, the 20th overall pick in the 2019 draft, made his big league debut in 2022 and immediately cemented himself as one of the sport’s most promising young pitchers. The now-27-year-old righty has pitched 511 2/3 innings in the major and turned in a 3.43 ERA with a solid 23.3% strikeout rate and a minuscule 3.1% walk rate. He has arguably the best command of any pitcher in MLB and has parlayed that into an All-Star appearance and a top-10 Cy Young finish in his young career.

Kirby has never been on the major league injured list, though Divish notes that he missed a month during the 2021 minor league season due to mild inflammation in his shoulder and also had a bout of inflammation while pitching at the Mariners’ alternate site during the shortened 2020 season. Neither instance proved to be a long-term issue, and the M’s are surely hopeful that’ll be the case this time around as well.

There’s no immediate timetable for Kirby’s return. In his absence, Seattle will still have an outstanding top-four consisting of Logan Gilbert, Luis Castillo, Bryce Miller and Bryan Woo. Righty Emerson Hancock is the most experienced depth option on the 40-man roster, although the former No. 6 overall pick (2020) hasn’t yet lived up to that draft billing. He’s pitched in the majors in each of the past two seasons and delivered 72 1/3 innings with a 4.71 ERA. Hancock’s 7% walk rate is strong, but his 14.3% strikeout rate ranks seventh-lowest among the 449 pitchers with at least 70 combined innings over the past two seasons.

Other depth options in camp include righty Blas Castano, who’s also on the 40-man roster (but has not yet made his MLB debut) and non-roster invitees Logan Evans, Jhonathan Diaz, Luis F. Castillo and Casey Lawrence. Evans is generally ranked within the top 10 of an absolutely stacked Mariners farm system after posting a 3.20 ERA in 107 Double-A innings last year. He’s not far from being MLB-ready. Diaz and Lawrence are journeymen who’ve both had brief stints with the M’s in the past. Castillo made a brief MLB debut with the 2022 Tigers and has since spent two seasons in Japan, pitching to solid results.

For all the accolades heaped on their top-five starters, the Mariners are relatively light on depth options behind that prized quintet. It’s difficult to convince veterans who settle for minor league deals to sign on with a team that pretty clearly lacks a path to the majors, as exemplified by the Mariners and Phillies in recent seasons. The M’s generally need to rely on in-house development for depth. Hancock and Evans are products of that process, but the Mariners have also seen prospects like Taylor Dollard and Sam Carlson derailed by injury and traded others like Adam Macko, Connor Phillips, Brandon Williamson and Levi Stoudt in recent years.

It seems unlikely the Mariners would immediately go outside the organization for any sort of notable addition. Beyond the fact that Kirby doesn’t appear ticketed for a long-term absence, the M’s have scant payroll space, as their bare-bones offseason made abundantly clear. Beyond that, any new arms brought into the fold might not be built up in time to factor into the Opening Day rotation.

One route the team could take would be opportunistically grabbing a rotation arm off waivers if the opportunity presents itself, or scooping up a veteran who’s been in camp with another club but is informed he won’t make that team’s Opening Day roster. There aren’t any immediate options available in that regard, but as teams begin to set their rosters in the weeks ahead, both avenues can become more viable paths for Seattle to bolster its depth.

Guerrero: Asking Price In Extension Talks Was Below $600MM

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Extension talks between the Blue Jays and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. didn’t result in a deal before the start of Spring Training. That has been the slugger’s self-imposed deadline. While he left the door ajar to hearing out other offers from Toronto, Guerrero said last month that he expects to test free agency.

The four-time All-Star provided some details on negotiations in a Spanish-language interview with Enrique Rojas and Juan Arturo Recio of ESPN. ESPN has also published a summary of Guerrero’s comments in English. Most notably, he says that his camp’s final offer to the Jays checked in below $600MM, though he did not provide the specific asking price. He pushed back against the suggestion that he was seeking a deal comparable to the $765MM which Juan Soto secured from the Mets.

While Guerrero seemingly wasn’t pursuing an average annual value close to Soto’s $51MM mark, he did seek one of the largest contracts ever. Guerrero indicated he was looking for 14 or 15 years. Soto’s 15-year contract is the longest of all time. Fernando Tatis Jr. inked a 14-year extension, but that began in his age-22 season. Guerrero turns 26 in a few weeks. Even if the extension proposal would have bought out his final arbitration year, a deal of 14-plus years would run through at least age 39.

The Jays were involved in the Soto bidding. They were seemingly among the teams willing to go above $600MM on the superstar outfielder. Ben Nicholson-Smith and Shi Davidi of Sportsnet reported shortly after Soto agreed to his deal with the Mets that Toronto’s last offer landed below $700MM. One could argue they should be willing to make a similar investment for Guerrero, but his track record has been less consistent — which is reflected in the comparably lower asking price.

Guerrero is a career .288/.363/.500 hitter. He’s coming off his second-best season, as he raked at a .323/.396/.544 clip with 30 homers a year ago. Soto has a lifetime .285/.421/.532 batting line; he hit .288/.419/.569 with 41 longballs during his walk year with the Yankees. Guerrero said in December that the Jays had made an offer in the $340MM range prior to the Soto contract. That would have valued him similarly to Rafael Devers, who inked a $313.5MM extension with the Red Sox in 2023. Devers was a career .283/.342/.512 hitter who was entering his age-26 season at the time. While he played a more valuable position, he’s a below-average defender at the hot corner.

It remains to be seen whether the Soto contract will dramatically improve the market for future top free agents. Teams could view him as an outlier, the kind of free agent who might only come along once every few decades. From a net present value perspective, Soto obliterated prior precedent. Shohei Ohtani’s deal was valued around $461MM and $438MM by MLB and the Players Association, respectively. That reflected the massive deferral structure. Either net present value still represented the largest contract in league history at the time. Soto broke that record by more than $300MM.

Guerrero and Kyle Tucker headline next winter’s free agent class. Tucker is coming off a monster .289/.408/.585 showing and plays a solid right field. He’s arguably the better player in the short term, but Guerrero is two years younger. That could give him the greatest earning power in the class, though it’ll obviously be heavily dependent on their respective platform seasons. Guerrero will make $28.5MM in his final year of arbitration.

Dodgers, Dave Roberts Making Progress In Extension Talks

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The Dodgers and longtime manager Dave Roberts are making progress on a new contract, reports Joel Sherman of The New York Post. Sherman writes that a deal is expected to be finalized before the team heads to Tokyo next week in preparation for their opening series against the Cubs.

According to Sherman, Roberts is likely to establish a new record for average annual value. That indicates he’ll beat the $8MM salary which Craig Counsell received on his five-year deal with the Cubs last winter. It’s unclear how long Roberts’ next deal will be. He’s currently slated to enter the final season of the three-year extension he signed in March 2022.

A deal has seemed to be a formality for months. The front office has unsurprisingly expressed interest in continuity on the heels of their second World Series within the last five years. Roberts said in early February that negotiations had just gotten underway. He indicated he was hopeful of getting a deal done but added that he wanted “to feel (his) value” on the contract terms. A record-setting deal should do just that.

Roberts has been at the helm in Los Angeles since November 2015. He’s the National League’s longest-tenured active manager. Kevin Cash, who is entering his 11th season in Tampa Bay, narrowly tops him in that regard overall. The Dodgers have made the playoffs in each of Roberts’ nine seasons. Only a 107-win season by the 2021 Giants kept L.A. from winning the NL West every year. Los Angeles had also won the NL West under Don Mattingly in each of the three years preceding Roberts’ hiring.

The 52-year-old Roberts has been fortunate to work with incredible rosters. Still, talent alone doesn’t guarantee success. No other team has made the playoffs in each of the last nine years. Dodger brass was comfortable enough with Roberts’ leadership skills to stick by him despite some criticism about his in-game tactics in the postseason early in his tenure. The veteran skipper adroitly handled a rotation that had been decimated by injury during last year’s World Series run.

Roberts has led the Dodgers to an 851-507 record in the regular season. No other skipper who has managed as many games has bested that 62.7% win percentage. Roberts has helmed the Dodgers to four pennants and a pair of championships. He won the NL Manager of the Year award in 2016.

Athletics Announce Marc Badain As New President

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The Athletics announced that Marc Badain will be the club’s new president, per Mick Akers of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Badain is most notable for having previously been president of the NFL’s Raiders, who moved to Las Vegas in his time in that job. He will replace Dave Kaval, who announced his resignation from the position in December. Sandy Dean was named interim president when Kaval stepped down but will now serve as vice chairman.

“We are excited to welcome Marc to the Athletics,” A’s owner John Fisher said in a statement. “His vast experience, particularly his work on the opening of Allegiant Stadium and overseeing the Raiders’ move to Las Vegas, makes him a great addition to our team at this pivotal moment. His leadership, commitment to the community, and ability to oversee transformative projects will be key as we look to build a strong and successful future in Southern Nevada.”

Badain served as president of the Raiders from 2013 to 2021. At the start of that time frame, the Raiders played their home games in Oakland Coliseum, sharing the facility with the Athletics. Looking for a new stadium, the Raiders started to explore the possibility of moving to Las Vegas in 2015. Those plans gradually became reality and the move was approved in 2017, though the Raiders stayed in Oakland through the end of the 2019 NFL season, moving into their new stadium in Vegas in 2020.

Badain then resigned in 2021. Per a report from Daniel Kaplan and Tashan Reed of The Athletic in October of 2021, Raiders owner Mark Davis said that “accounting irregularities” prompted the resignation. He said the team “overpaid our taxes…we paid more than we owe,” a matter that “may have started in Oakland.” Badain has since been working with the Oak View Group, trying to build a hotel and casino complex with a venue capable of hosting an NBA team.

Controversial finish aside, there are some clear parallels between his Raiders tenure and the current state of the Athletics. The A’s are in a similar position to where the Raiders were a few years ago. The baseball club is planning to play out of a new stadium in Vegas starting with the 2028 season. They failed to work out a deal to stay in Oakland beyond the end of their 2024 lease of the Coliseum, so they are going to play out of Sutter Health Park in West Sacramento for the 2025-27 seasons. That is normally the home of the Sacramento River Cats, the Triple-A affiliate of the Giants. The A’s and River Cats plan to share the park for the next three years.

The detour to West Sacramento is a notable difference, but the journey of the two franchises is otherwise quite similar. Since Badain has already steered one franchise from the Oakland Coliseum to a new facility in Las Vegas, the A’s seem to be banking on his experience to guide them through the process in the coming years.

“I’m honored to join the Athletics and help guide the team into a new era of success,” Badain said in the news release. “Las Vegas is a city that celebrates innovation and excellence, and I’m excited to work alongside the team, the fans, and the community to create something extraordinary.”

Brewers Sign Jose Quintana

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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.

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