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Cody Bellinger Exercises Player Option With Cubs For 2025 Season

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Cody Bellinger has exercised his $27.5MM player option for the 2025 season, according to ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel and Jeff Passan (X link).  Bellinger’s three-year, $80MM deal with the Cubs last winter included opt-outs after both the 2024 and 2025 seasons, but Bellinger will pass on the first opt-out (and $2.5MM buyout) in order to remain in Chicago for at least one more year.

Bellinger also earned $27.5MM in the first year of his contract, so he’ll have a $25MM decision waiting for him with next year’s opt-out.  With $5MM attached to that opt-out, Bellinger has now guaranteed himself $60MM of that initial $80MM payday, and could potentially be in line for another long-term contract if he delivers a big 2025 season.

Of course, Bellinger thought that his big 2023 season might’ve set him up for a lucrative long-term contract last winter, yet he ended up rejoining the Cubs for that three-year pact.  Similar option-heavy shorter-term deals were also in the cards for other notable Scott Boras clients like Blake Snell, Matt Chapman, and Jordan Montgomery, leading the quartet to be known as the “Boras Four” as their trips through free agency dragged deep into Spring Training.

Bellinger signed near the end of February so he still had the benefit of most of spring camp, though injuries were probably the bigger reason why the former NL MVP’s performance dropped off from 2023.  A fractured right rib and a fractured left middle finger resulted in a couple of relatively brief trips to the injured list, though Bellinger hit a modest .266/.325/.426 with 18 home runs over 569 plate appearances.

While his 109 wRC+ was still above the league average, it also wasn’t the kind of standout platform year that would’ve made Bellinger a lock to top the remaining salary on his Cubs contract.  As a result, Bellinger was still reportedly unclear about his opt-out decision as late as September 20, and he has now chosen perhaps the slightly more cautious move of just sticking in Wrigleyville for another season.

There’s plenty of logic in Bellinger’s decision, beyond the obvious appeal of a $27.5MM payday.  After being a free agent in each of the last two offseasons, a quiet winter with his 2025 destination already established surely had some appeal for Bellinger.  He has also been vocal about how much he has enjoyed playing for the Cubs, so he’ll now stay in a familiar and welcome environment of the Friendly Confines.

From the Cubs’ perspective, they now have a pretty big salary on their books for 2025.  Of course, a one-year outlay for a player with Bellinger’s upside isn’t exactly a bad outcome, and obviously it was an outcome the front office has planned for given the three-year contract.  With Pete Crow-Armstrong now establishing himself in center field, Bellinger will probably be the Cubs’ primary right fielder next season, with Seiya Suzuki perhaps getting the bulk of DH duty.  Bellinger’s ability to also play center field and first base adds to his versatility, and gives manager Craig Counsell some flexibility in figuring out his daily lineups.

As per RosterResource, the Cubs’ projected payroll for next year up to roughly $183.5MM, factoring in Bellinger staying and Drew Smyly leaving after Chicago declined their end of the veteran pitcher’s mutual option.  This leaves the Cubs with plenty of spending space before they get up to the $241MM luxury tax threshold, provided the threshold is any sort of real barrier for ownership.  The Cubs didn’t pay the tax in any of the 2021-23 seasons but may have just barely crossed the threshold this season, depending on the league’s final calculations.

Braves Sign Reynaldo López, Aaron Bummer To New Contracts

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The Braves announced today that they have signed both right-hander Reynaldo López and left-hander Aaron Bummer to new contracts. They also selected right-hander Domingo Gonzalez to the roster.

López will make $30MM over the next three years: $8MM in 2025, $14MM in 2026 and $8MM in 2027. On his previous deal, he was set to make $11MM in ’25 and ’26 with an $8MM club option and $4MM buyout for ’27. This deal effectively guarantees that club option ahead of time while allowing Atlanta to move some of his money from the ’25 ledger to the ’26 ledger.

Bummer’s deal had two club options for ’25 and ’26, both valued at $7.25MM with $1.25MM buyouts. Per today’s announcement, he is now guaranteed $13MM over the next two years: $3.5MM in ’25 and $9.5MM in ’26. That’s slightly less than the $14.5MM he could have made if both options were eventually picked up but he gets the security of having it locked in now, staving off any chance of an injury or a decline in performance hurting his future earning power. In this instance as well, the club moves some money from ’25 to ’26.

Before the offseason has really even begun in earnest, Atlanta’s payroll and competitive balance tax situation have already been a clear focus. Almost as soon as trades were allowed to happen, outfielder/designated hitter Jorge Soler was flipped to the Angels, essentially as a salary dump. Atlanta got right-hander Griffin Canning in return but it seems their primary motivation was to get rid of the two years and $26MM left on Soler’s deal. Now, a couple of days later, they announced these reworked deals. In both cases, the goal was seemingly to give Atlanta a bit more spending power in the upcoming offseason.

According to RosterResource, Atlanta is currently slated to have a payroll of $191MM and a CBT number of $210MM. The latter is higher because it’s calculated based on a contract’s average annual value rather than what the club is set to actually pay in 2025. The club has signed some backloaded extensions, which leads some players to have a higher CBT hit than their current salary.

The club finished 2024 with a payroll of $232MM and $277MM. Looking ahead to 2025, there’s some breathing room relative to last year’s numbers, but triggering options on Marcell Ozuna ($16MM), Travis d’Arnaud ($8MM) and Luke Jackson ($7MM) will eat up some of that. The club also has plenty on its offseason to-do list, with Max Fried and Charlie Morton now free agents, opening up two holes in the rotation. The club might consider upgrading on Orlando Arcia at shortstop, Sean Murphy at catcher or Jarred Kelenic in the outfield.

In the case of López, his new deal won’t impact his CBT hit. He signed a three-year, $30MM deal with Atlanta last winter, a deal that came with a $10MM luxury tax calculation. This new deal also has him slated to make $30MM over the next three years, keeping the CBT hit the same.

In terms of pure dollars, he is now guaranteed $4MM extra than previously, with that club option locked in. If he should suffer an injury or a decline in performance between now and then, he has prevented the club from going with the buyout. In exchange, the club gets a small increase in spending power this winter by moving $3MM of his salary ahead by a year. His return to a starting role was a big success this year as he posted a 1.99 earned run average in 135 2/3 innings.

With Bummer, the club clearly wanted to keep him around but worked out some details that they liked better than those options. This will actually increase his CBT hit relative to 2024, but by a bit less than if they had just picked up the option.

Atlanta acquired Bummer a year ago when he still had one guaranteed season left on his deal with the White Sox. Per the rules of the collective bargaining agreement between the league and the players union, a player’s CBT hit is recalculated at the time of a trade. Bummer was set to make a $5.5MM salary in 2024 and $1.25MM buyout on the option, so his CBT hit was $6.75MM in 2024. He had a strong season, posting a 3.58 ERA out of Atlanta’s bullpen this year.

If Atlanta had picked up the ’25 option, his CBT hit would have jumped to $8.5MM, when factoring in the $7.25MM salary and the $1.25MM buyout on the ’26 option. Instead, Atlanta has locked him in at $13MM for the next two years, reducing his CBT hit to $6.5MM. They also backloaded the salary so that they have more money to spend on the ’25 club. For him, he’s potentially leaving a small amount of money on the table, as he could have eventually made $14.5MM if both options were triggered. But he now has more guaranteed up front, so he’s protected against a big surgery or some other unfortunate developments cropping up between now and his second option decision.

Perhaps Atlanta expects to have a bit less of a payroll crunch a year from now. Ozuna’s contract will be done after 2025, as will that of Raisel Iglesias. They have ’26 club options for players like Chris Sale, Pierce Johnson, Ozzie Albies, David Fletcher and Arcia that they could walk away from, depending on each player’s health and performance between now and then. RR currently pegs Atlanta for a $137MM payroll and $136MM for CBT purposes in 2026. However, those numbers will eventually climb based on the options and players who qualify for arbitration, as well as with any multi-year deals the club gives out this winter.

Gonzalez, 25, was originally signed by the Pirates but Atlanta nabbed him in the minor league phase of the 2022 Rule 5 draft. Players who have played parts of seven years in the minors, including the cancelled 2020 season, can qualify for minor league free agency. That was about to be the case for Gonzalez but Atlanta wanted to keep him around, so they’ve added him to the roster today.

He was in a swingman role when in the Pirates’ system but Atlanta has had him working primarily in relief since they grabbed him. He has posted huge strikeout totals but also given out a high number of walks. He spent all of last year in Double-A, posting a 4.19 ERA in 53 2/3 innings. He struck out 30.5% of batters faced while giving out free passes at a 13.3% rate. This year, he split his time between Double-A and Triple-A. He had a 2.91 ERA in 52 2/3 innings, increasing his strikeout rate to 38.8% while decreasing the walks to 10.3%. Those strong results will get him onto a major league roster for the first time and he should compete for a role in Atlanta’s bullpen next year.

Robbie Ray Declines Opt-Out Clause In Giants Contract

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Left-hander Robbie Ray has declined the opt-out clause in his contract, meaning that he’ll remain with the Giants for both the 2025 and 2026 seasons.  ESPN’s Jeff Passan (X link) was the first to report the news.  The five-year, $115MM pact Ray signed with the Mariners prior to the 2022 season was slightly backloaded, and thus Ray will earn $25MM in each of the 2025 and 2026 seasons.

It’s not terribly surprising that Ray is taking the proverbial bird in the hand here. He underwent ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction, commonly known as Tommy John surgery, and a flexor tendon repair in May of 2023. While recovering from that operation, the Mariners traded him to the Giants.

Ray was able to get back on the mound with San Francisco in 2024, but made seven starts with an unimpressive 4.70 earned run average before spending the month of September on the injured list due to a left hamstring strain.

Pitchers with injury question marks can still get paid but Ray would be hard-pressed to find more than $50MM on the open market. Carlos Rodón had plenty of injury absences in his early career but was able to secure a two-year, $44MM deal from the Giants going into 2022. However, Rodón had just made 24 starts for the White Sox in 2021 with a 2.37 ERA and was going into his age-29 season. Ray, on the other hand, is now 33 years old and has made eight starts over the past two years with a 5.03 ERA.

Taking all that into consideration, Ray’s best financial move was to keep this guarantee. He’ll return to the Giants next year and hopefully get back on track. While it’s probably unrealistic to expect him to get back to his Cy Young winning form from 2021, getting even part of the way back there would be nice. The year that he earned that hardware, he made 32 starts for the Blue Jays with a 2.84 ERA, 32.1% strikeout rate and 6.7% walk rate.

One Giant starter is departing, as Blake Snell has opted out of his deal. Next year’s rotation in San Francisco projects to include Ray, Logan Webb and Kyle Harrison. Perhaps Jordan Hicks will get another shot at starting or maybe he’ll be back in the bullpen. Guys like Landen Roupp, Keaton Winn, Tristan Beck, Hayden Birdsong and others would also be in the mix.

If the club looks to bolster that group, the free agent market will be headlined by guys like Snell, Corbin Burnes, Max Fried, Jack Flaherty and plenty of others. The trade market should feature Garrett Crochet, Sonny Gray and more.

Ha-Seong Kim Declines Mutual Option With Padres; Wandy Peralta Declines Opt-Out

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Padres shortstop Ha-Seong Kim declined his end of an $8MM mutual option for the 2025 season, and he’ll now take a $2MM buyout and enter free agency, The Athletic’s Dennis Lin reports (X link).  Left-hander Wandy Peralta will be staying in San Diego for at least one more season, as Peralta will pass on his opt-out clause and remain in the four-year, $16.5MM deal he signed with the Padres last winter.

Neither decision registers as a surprise. Kim has hit .250/.336/.385 over the past three years for a wRC+ of 106, indicating he has been 6% above league average at the plate in that time. He also stole 72 bases in that stretch and provided above-average defense at shortstop, second base and third base.

His situation is a bit complicated by the fact that he underwent right labrum surgery not too long ago. His return timetable is a bit unclear but it has been suggested he is likely to miss at least part of the start of the 2025 season.

Even with that injury situation, it’s understandable that he would walk away from his mutual option at a net $6MM price point. Players coming back from injury can often still have notable earning power. Michael Conforto secured a two-year, $36MM deal from the Giants after missing an entire season. Rhys Hoskins got two years and $34MM from the Brewers after his own missed campaign. Both players had the ability to opt out after one season, though neither eventually did so.

The situations aren’t entirely analogous. Both Conforto and Hoskins were expected to be healthy in the first seasons of their deals, which won’t be the case with Kim. Perhaps that puts his earning power a bit below those two, but it still makes it sensible for him to turn down his option today. Whether he can get a two-year deal with an opt-out or a more straightforward one-year pillow deal, he should be able to get past the $6MM he’s leaving on the table today.

For the Padres, they will now have to figure out what to do at shortstop. When Kim was hurt late in the year, they moved Xander Bogaerts from second to short. It’s unclear whether they would want to do that for the long term as they just decided a year ago to have Bogaerts take on the less-demanding second base spot. Jackson Merrill came up as a shortstop before getting moved to center field for 2024. He could switch back but performed so well in center that the club might decide to keep him there.

The free agent market is headlined by Willy Adames but the Padres have some payroll limitations and probably aren’t the most logical landing spot for him. The trade market could feature Bo Bichette but it’s unclear if the Blue Jays will make him available.

As for Peralta, he signed with the Padres last winter on a four-year deal with a $16.5MM guarantee and opt-outs after each season. He went on to have a pretty mediocre season, despite a respectable 3.99 earned run average. His 52.9% ground ball rate was still above league average but his worst in a full season since 2019. His strikeout rate fell to 13.6% this year after being in the 18-23% range in the previous five years.

It it weren’t for a fairly low .233 batting average on balls in play, he would have allowed more runs to score. His 5.46 FIP and 4.57 SIERA disagree on how bad things were under the hood but both suggest the ERA is misleading. After that performance, he’ll stick with the Padres and hope for a better season, with the chance of returning to free agency again a year from now.

Yankees Decline Club Option On Anthony Rizzo

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The Yankees announced that they have declined their 2025 club option on Anthony Rizzo, and the veteran first baseman is now a free agent.  It was an $11MM decision for the team, as Rizzo will receive a $6MM buyout instead of the $17MM salary he would’ve received if the option had been exercised.

The move probably ends Rizzo’s tenure of three-plus seasons in the Bronx, which began after he was a trade deadline pickup from the Cubs in July 2021.  He hit well enough that the Yankees re-signed him to a two-year, $32MM deal that winter, and since that deal contained an opt-out clause after the first season, Rizzo parlayed that opt-out into another two-year, $40MM pact the following offseason.

Rizzo’s 2022 season was easily his best in New York, as he hit .224/.338/.480 with 32 homers over 548 plate appearances.  He was also off to a hot start in the first two months of the 2023 campaign before his career was altered by a collision at first base with Fernando Tatis Jr. on May 28, 2023.  Rizzo picked up what was deemed as a neck injury on the play and returned to action after sitting out a few games, yet he then went into a brutal slump over the next two-plus months until finally going on the IL at the start of August.  Rizzo was diagnosed with post-concussion syndrome, which naturally led to quite a bit of controversy over how Rizzo was both misdiagnosed in the first place, and why his head-related injury went seemingly unnoticed for so long.

That IL placement ended Rizzo’s 2023 season, and he returned to more bad injury luck this year when he fractured his right forearm after another awkward collision at first base in June.  Rizzo went on the 60-day injured list and didn’t return until the start of September, and he then suffered further injury when he had two fingers broken by a Ryan Borucki pitch near the end of the regular season.  The broken fingers kept Rizzo out of the Yankees’ ALDS matchup with the Royals, though he returned to hit a respectable .267/.421/.300 over 38 PA in the ALCS and World Series.

Since Opening Day 2023, Rizzo has hit only .237/.315/.358 over 796 regular-season plate appearances, over 191 of 324 games.  His translates to 0.6 fWAR and a below-average 91 wRC+, and since Rizzo turned 35 last August, it made for a pretty easy call for the Yankees in declining the option.

The health question is clearly paramount for Rizzo as he returns to the open market, as possible suitors will surely have concerns of what Rizzo still has in the tank after 14 Major League seasons.  His track record and respected locker room presence probably means that he should be able to land some kind of big league contract for a low guaranteed salary, if likely as a platoon bat rather than a regular at first base.  A return to the Yankees at a lower salary seems possible, but the likelier scenario is that New York either fortifies the lineup with a bigger bat at first base, or perhaps rotates DJ LeMahieu and others through the position.

Sean Manaea To Opt Out Of Mets Contract

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Left-hander Sean Manaea is planning to opt out of the second year of his contract with the Mets, MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo writes (X link). Manaea signed a two-year, $28MM free agent deal with New York last winter that contained the player option for the 2025 season, and he’ll now leave $13.5MM on the table in search of a longer and more lucrative guarantee this offseason. He’s a virtual lock to receive a $21.05MM qualifying offer but is overwhelmingly likely to decline that in his pursuit of a longer-term pact.

Manaea’s decision comes as little surprise. The two-year pact he inked in Queens came in his second free agency foray. Since first reaching the open market on the heels of the 2022 season, he’s signed a pair of two-year contracts with opt-outs after year one, showing willingness to bet on himself and the confidence that he’ll eventually land a longer-term contract. Given the strength of his 2024 campaign, he’s now likely to find a guarantee of at least three years in free agency.

Entering the 2024 season, Manaea was viewed as something of a veteran stabilizer for the Mets’ rotation. New York’s president of baseball operations, David Stearns, made a series of short-term acquisitions in the rotation — Luis Severino also inked a one-year deal, and Adrian Houser was acquired from the Brewers — in an effort to patch things over in what most expected to be a transitional year for the Mets. Instead, the Amazins romped through the season’s final four months as the sport’s hottest team and rode that momentum all the way to the NLCS.

Manaea’s success was a huge part of that run. The 6’5″, 245-pound southpaw pitched a career-high 181 2/3 innings in the regular season and worked to a sharp 3.47 ERA. He fanned one quarter of his opponents, issued walks at a solid 8.5% clip and deftly avoided home runs (1.04 HR/9). Solid as the year-long numbers were, it was the second half where Manaea truly took off. Manaea altered his throwing motion midseason — closely resembling the delivery of likely NL Cy Young winner Chris Sale — and at the suggestion of pitching coach Jeremy Hefner began a unique pregame workout wherein he throws to the opposite mound in the bullpen while warming (X link, with video, via Steve Gelbs of SNY).

The transformation was nearly immediate. Over the final two-plus months of the year, Manaea pitched to a 3.09 ERA with an improved 28.5% strikeout rate against a 6.2% walk rate. He ditched his cutter entirely and eventually ditched his four-seamer as well, all in the name of throwing more sinkers and sliders. Opponents had averaged 89.2 mph off the bat against him prior to the changes and posted a 40.8% hard-hit rate, per Statcast. Down the stretch, those numbers plummeted to 87.5 mph and 32.4%, respectively. Manaea’s excellence carried on through three postseason starts, but he finally ran into a wall in the Mets’ final game of the year, surrendering five runs in just two innings in the decisive Game 6 loss to the eventual World Champion Dodgers.

In free agency, Manaea will market not only a career-high workload (200-plus innings, including the postseason) but also newly altered mechanics and a tweaked repertoire that led to his late-season surge. He’ll turn 33 in February, which will make anything longer than a four-year deal extraordinarily unlikely, but a three- or four-year pact at a strong annual value should be on the table. The Mets are in the market for multiple starting pitchers and will surely have interest in retaining the big lefty, but Manaea will command interest from a broad range of suitors. He’s one of the top starters on the market this time around, but his age will prevent him from landing the type of long-term deal from which many clubs shy away.

Blake Snell Opts Out Of Deal With Giants

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Left-hander Blake Snell has exercised the opt-out provision in his contract and is now a free agent. Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic was among those to relay the news on X.

The news is not at all surprising. Snell was a free agent a year ago and didn’t find the contract he was seeking, despite the fact that he was coming off a Cy Young campaign in 2023.

He eventually signed with the Giants on a two-year pact with a $62MM guarantee. That came in the form of a $15MM salary and $17MM signing bonus for 2024, with a $30MM salary for 2025 if Snell stayed.

The opt-out after the first year was clearly there to give Snell a chance to take another shot at free agency if he could stay healthy and engineer another strong season in 2024.

For a while, it seemed like that wasn’t going to come to pass. Perhaps due to the fact that he didn’t sign until the middle of March and had a delayed spring training, he stumbled out of the gate in 2024 and also suffered a few injuries. At the end of June, he was on the injured list for the second time, the first one labeled as a left adductor strain and the second as a left groin strain. He had a 9.51 earned run average in the six starts he was able to make.

But he came back shortly after that and was completely dominant the rest of the way. He posted a 1.23 ERA in his final 14 starts of the year. His 10% walk rate was a tad high but he struck out 38.1% of batters faced.

Snell has had a few injury absences over the years but has continually demonstrated himself to be one of the best pitchers on the planet when on the mound. From 2018 until the present day, he has a 3.03 ERA and 32.1% strikeout rate, both of which are top ten numbers among qualified starters for that stretch. Among pitchers with at least 250 innings pitched over the past two years, only Tarik Skubal has a lower ERA than Snell’s 2.57 mark. Snell’s 32.7% strikeout rate in that time is also second best, a hair below Tyler Glasnow’s 32.8% rate.

Given that elite performance, it was widely expected that Snell would return to free agency in the hopes of a finding a more robust market this time around. He will be one of the top starting pitchers available alongside Corbin Burnes, Max Fried and Jack Flaherty. Snell is leaving $30MM on the table but should be able to blow past that with a nine-figure deal of some kind.

D-Backs To Exercise Option On Eugenio Suarez

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The Diamondbacks are picking up their $15MM option on Eugenio Suárez, reports Jesse Rogers of ESPN (on X). The deal would have come with a $2MM buyout, effectively rendering it a $13MM decision.

Just a few months ago, the Diamondbacks wouldn’t have envisioned making this decision. Suárez got out to a terrible start to the season, his first in the desert after an offseason trade with the Mariners. He went into the All-Star Break with a .216/.302/.366 slash while striking out in nearly 29% of his plate appearances. Arizona considered bumping him out of the starting lineup in deference to rookie infielder Blaze Alexander.

A monster second half not only salvaged his starting job but locked in that extra $13MM. Suárez was one of the game’s hottest hitters after the Break. He mashed at a .307/.341/.602 clip with 20 homers in his final 65 games. He cut his strikeout rate by a few percentage points while running a three-month power barrage. By the end of the season, he’d pushed his numbers to a .256/.319/.469 line with 30 homers across 640 plate appearances. After accounting for the difference in his home park, that’s not far off the cumulative .234/.327/.423 showing he posted over his final two seasons in Seattle.

Suárez essentially played at the level Arizona expected, albeit in extremely streaky fashion. It would’ve been surprising for the Diamondbacks to cut him loose on the heels of that monster finish. He’s a potential offseason trade candidate, though. Bringing Suárez back blocks the clearest path to playing time for top prospect Jordan Lawlar. The Snakes have Geraldo Perdomo and Ketel Marte locked into the middle infield.

The 22-year-old Lawlar lost most of this year to injury. He only appeared in 23 minor league games and didn’t see any MLB action despite making his big league debut late in the ’23 season. Lawlar still has minor league options remaining, so the Snakes could keep him in Triple-A for another year. If they feel he’ll be ready for an extended audition early next season, shopping Suárez could allow them to reallocate salary while recouping value they wouldn’t have received if they’d bought out the option.

Option decisions on Jordan Montgomery and Suárez push Arizona’s projected payroll to roughly $137MM, as calculated by RosterResource. An easy option call to retain Merrill Kelly will add another $6MM. Arizona opened this past season with a franchise-record payroll in the $163MM range. If they’re willing to replicate that, they’ll have some leeway to replace free agents Christian Walker and Joc Pederson. Trades of Montgomery and/or Suárez could clear a good bit more money if ownership doesn’t want to match this year’s spending. They won’t find a taker for the entirety of Montgomery’s $22.5MM deal, but teams like the Yankees, Blue Jays or Astros could be willing to give up talent while taking Suárez’s salary off the books.

Image courtesy of USA TODAY Network.

Yankees Exercise Club Option On Luke Weaver

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The Yankees announced that they have exercised their club option on right-hander Luke Weaver for the 2025 season. He’ll make a $2.5MM salary in the upcoming campaign.

The decision is not surprising at all. The Yankees showed a lot of faith in Weaver and it paid off in a big way. Though he was once a first-round pick and top prospect, his initial career success led into a real rough patch.

Weaver showed some promise as a starter at the start of his career but posted a 5.95 earned run average over the 2020-2023 period. He was designated for assignment by the Mariners in September of 2023 and landed with the Yankees, making three appearances for the Yanks as they ran out the clock on that season.

They must have seen something they liked in that time, as they re-signed him in January, a one-year deal that included a $2MM salary in 2024, a club option for 2025, as well as incentives and escalators.

The gamble paid out in a huge way, as Weaver just wrapped up an excellent season. He tossed 84 innings out of the Yankee bullpen this year with a 2.89 earned run average. He struck out 31.1% of batters faced while keeping his walk rate to a 7.9% level. He earned 22 holds and took over as closer late in the year, earning four saves. He made another 12 appearances in the postseason with a 1.79 ERA, earning four more saves.

Weaver’s $2.5MM club option came with escalators but they didn’t kick in until 100 innings pitched, presumably allowing him to lock in extra earnings if he eventually returned to the rotation. But since he stayed in relief all year, he wasn’t able to push the value of the option up.

$2.5MM is peanuts for a major league club, especially one like the Yankees that generally runs one of the higher payrolls in the league. For how well Weaver pitched this year, this was one of the most no-brainer decisions of the offseason.

Nick Martinez Declines Player Option; Brent Suter Re-Signs New Deal With Reds

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The Reds announced their full slate of option decisions for the 2025 season this afternoon. Right-hander Nick Martinez turned down his $12MM player option for next season. The Reds held a $3.5MM club option on lefty reliever and Cincinnati native Brent Suter, but rather than exercising it they’ve signed him to a new one-year contract with a club option for the 2026 season. He’ll be guaranteed $2.25MM and the option is worth $3MM, MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon reports. Gordon Wittenmyer of the Cincinnati Enquirer adds that the Reds first paid the $500K buyout on Suter’s $3.5MM option for the upcoming season before re-signing him to the new terms.

Meanwhile, Cincinnati declined a $3.5MM option on catcher Luke Maile in favor of a $500K buyout, while right-hander Jakob Junis declined his end of an $8MM mutual option. He’ll be paid a $3MM buyout. Each of Martinez, Maile and Junis are now free agents.

Martinez, now 34, has shown a strong willingness to bet on himself when it comes to contracts. After pitching in Japan from 2018 to 2021, he has returned to North America and continually signed deals with opt-outs that he has triggered.

Going into 2022, he signed a four-year, $25.5MM deal with the Padres with the ability to opt-out after each season. He eventually triggered his first opt-out and re-signed with the Friars for 2023, a $26MM guarantee over three years with a convoluted club/player option structure. After the 2023 season, the Padres turned down a two-year, $32MM club option and then Martinez turned down his two-year, $16MM player option. He then signed a two-year, $26MM deal with the Reds that again allowed him to opt out after one season.

With the Padres before and with the Reds in 2024, Martinez oscillated between the rotation and bullpen. He got into 42 games this year, including 16 starts, tossing 142 1/3 innings with a 3.10 earned run average. His 20.4% strikeout rate was a bit below average but his 3.2% walk rate was elite. Among pitchers with at least 140 innings pitched this year, only George Kirby gave out free passes at a lower rate.

Both with the Padres and Reds, his results have been better out of the bullpen. This year, he had a 3.84 ERA as a starter but a 1.86 mark as a reliever. Whether he’ll be viewed as a reliever or starter will likely differ from club to club, but he should be able to top $12MM on the open market, making his decision to opt out a logical one.

Now the Reds will be able to issue him a qualifying offer and it has been suggested in some circles that they will consider it. Though Martinez is a solid contributor, it would be a bit of a surprise to see him offered a $21.05MM QO.

None of his previous contracts have had an average annual value higher than $13MM, so he would likely accept such an offer. The Reds have generally had payrolls just a bit above $100MM in most recent years, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts, so Martinez accepting the QO would take up something approaching a fifth of their payroll. That’s a lot of money to commit to a swingman.

Suter, 35, has been a steady performer in the big leagues for close to a decade now. Debuting back in 2016, he now has a 3.45 ERA in over 500 career innings. He signed with the Reds in the offseason and gave them 65 2/3 innings with a 3.15 ERA. His strikeout rate wasn’t great but he demonstrated excellent control and his usual propensity for limiting damage. His average exit velocity and hard hit rate were both in the 96th percentile, according to Statcast.

His previous deal came with a $2.5MM salary for 2024 and a $500K buyout on a $3.5MM club option for 2025. As mentioned, the Reds gave him that buyout and worked out a new salary for the upcoming season, also securing a club option for ’26.

Maile doesn’t hit much but has a strong reputation as a defender and game-caller. That continued to be the case this year, as he slashed .178/.268/.252 but with solid work behind the plate.

The Reds are moving on today but could perhaps circle back to Maile at a lower price point. Tyler Stephenson is the only backstop on the 40-man roster now, so they will need to find a backup, whether that’s Maile or someone else.

Junis, 32, has generally had solid results in his career. However, his 2024 was largely held back by injury. He signed with the Brewers in the winter, a $7MM guarantee broken up into a $4MM salary and a $3MM option.

He went on the injured list early in the year due to a right shoulder impingement. His return from that injury was delayed when he was struck by a batted ball during BP. He eventually tossed 67 innings on the year with a 2.69 ERA, getting flipped from the Brewers to the Reds as part of the deadline deal that sent Frankie Montas to Milwaukee.

Going back to the start of 2021, Junis has thrown 304 1/3 innings with a 3.99 ERA, 22.6% strikeout rate and 5.2% walk rate and should be able to secure himself a solid deal in free agency.

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