Mets Notes: Bregman, Nimmo, Minter
Infielder Alex Bregman remains unsigned, with his market taking some turns recently. While returning to the Astros once seemed impossible, it now seems that door is open a crack. Other teams are still lurking but it doesn’t seem like the Mets will be jumping in. Ari Alexander of KPRC 2 reports that the Mets are no longer in the running.
The Mets were connected to Bregman earlier this winter but it always seemed like a somewhat less-than-perfect fit since the club has a lot of other options for the infield corners. First baseman Pete Alonso and the club have been in a bit of a staring contest for months and it’s still possible that he comes back to Queens. Even without Alonso, the Mets could have Mark Vientos as their regular first baseman and then have third base open for a competition between Brett Baty, Ronny Mauricio and Luisangel Acuña. Bregman is reportedly willing to move to second base but the Mets have Jeff McNeil there. McNeil can also play the outfield but the Mets have a somewhat crowded mix there.
Bregman is a more established big leaguer than any of the Mets young options but he wouldn’t come cheap. He reportedly has been unwilling to accept a six-year, $156MM offer from the Astros this winter, hoping to get something in the $200MM range. While the Mets might have had some interest in going with a more certain player like Bregman for the 2025 season, signing Bregman would be a larger commitment in terms of dollars and years. He’s about to turn 31 years old and the Baty/Acuña/Mauricio trio are all in the 22-26 range, so perhaps the Mets would rather dedicate their money elsewhere.
It also seems like Alonso is more likely to sign a short-term pact, having pitched a three-year deal to the Mets, while Bregman is still holding out hope for a long-term deal. Considering all those factors, it seems that a reunion with Alonso is probably more likely than pivoting to giving a big deal to Bregman.
Turning to players already on the roster, the club held Amazin’ Day recently, which allowed members of the media to get updates on certain players. Per two reports from Bill Ladson of MLB.com, both outfielder Brandon Nimmo and left-hander A.J. Minter are hoping to be ready before or around Opening Day.
Nimmo, the longtime Met, was playing through plantar fasciitis in his left foot during the latter parts of last year’s schedule. It’s possible that affected his performance, as he slashed .248/.361/.454 in the first half but just .190/.277/.319 in the second, followed by a tepid .220/.328/.280 performance in the postseason. He tells Ladson that he had an injection in his foot after the season and has ramped up to jogging, but has not yet started sprinting. He says he will probably miss some early spring training games but expects to be ready to go by Opening Day.
Getting a healthy season out of Nimmo hasn’t always been easy. Due to various injuries from 2016 to 2021, he only once topped 92 games and maxed out at 140. In 2022 and 2023, he finally showed what he could do with proper health. He got into at least 151 games in both of those campaigns and slashed a combined .274/.365/.450 for a 131 wRC+. Last year, despite the foot injury, he got into 151 contests but his production dipped to .224/.327/.399 and a 109 wRC+.
Nimmo turns 32 in March but his contract runs through 2030, so the club will obviously want to keep him healthy and productive for as long as possible. The fact that he’s trending towards Opening Day readiness is a good sign but the club will probably opt for playing things slow for long-term health if any speed bumps arise.
Minter, 31, was just signed a few days ago. His 2024 season was ended by left hip surgery in August. Regardless, the Mets liked him enough to give him a two-year, $22MM deal with an opt-out after year one. His recovery timeline in the wake of that procedure has been a little murky but he’s hoping to be ready for the start of the season as well.
“The goal is to be ready for Opening Day, hopefully,” Minter said. “With that being said, my hip does feel really good. I’m happy where I am. I don’t want to put a date on it. … The Mets are going to have their protocols. They want me to take it day by day. But for me, personally, my goal is to be ready close to Opening Day.”
Over the past five years, Minter has posted an earned run average of 2.85 over 267 appearances. He has struck out 30.1% of opponents while limiting walks to a 7.8% clip. His contributions were more limited last year due to the hip injury but the Mets are clearly hoping he can be back to his old self once that’s fully in the rear-view mirror.
Rockies Notes: Marquez, Relief Pitching, Condon
Rockies general manager Bill Schmidt spoke with reporters (including the Denver Post’s Kyle Newman and Just Baseball Media’s Patrick Lyons) at the “Rockies Fest” fan event this weekend, addressing such topics as the health of several notable Colorado players. German Marquez was one of those players, as Schmidt said the right-hander is recovered from the stress reaction in his right elbow that prematurely ended Marquez’s 2024 season.
Injuries have limited Marquez to five starts and just 24 innings for the Rox over the last two seasons. The bulk of that injury layoff came in the form of Tommy John rehab, after Marquez underwent the procedure in May 2023. He made it back to the big leagues by July of last season, but Marquez’s return lasted just a single game, and four innings in Colorado’s 8-5 win over the Mets on July 14. Elbow inflammation soon sent Marquez to the 15-day IL after that one outing, and the stress reaction was discovered shortly thereafter.
Marquez has spent all nine of his Major League seasons with the Rockies, posting a 4.40 ERA over 996 innings from 2016-22. The Rockies acknowledged Marquez’s durability and success at handling Coors Field with a five-year, $43MM contract extension in April 2019, with a $16MM club option for the 2024 campaign. The option never ended up coming into play, as Marquez inked a new two-year, $20MM deal with Colorado in September 2023 that covered the 2024-25 seasons, and gave both sides a little more flexibility as Marquez recovered from his TJ surgery.
With the first season of that deal unfortunately going down as a wash, Marquez now faces extra pressure as an impending free agent. Marquez’s first priority is just getting healthy and getting back onto a mound, and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the Rockies make a move to lock him up on another extension if he pitches well in the early part of the season. Despite his lengthy track record in the majors, Marquez doesn’t turn 30 years old until next month.
Any kind of rotation stability is sorely needed in Denver, both due to the infamous thin-air conditions and because of how hard the Rox have been hit by pitching injuries over the last few years. Marquez is penciled into a rotation that also includes Austin Gomber, Ryan Feltner, Kyle Freeland, and Antonio Senzatela (who also missed most of 2023-24 due to Tommy John rehab). Between this group and some Triple-A arms nearing their big league debuts, Schmidt is hopeful the Rockies have amassed enough depth to withstand any further injuries or any struggles from the regular starters.
Some more pitching could be on the way in the form of relievers, as Schmidt indicated that the Rockies could yet add to their bullpen before Spring Training. Diego Castillo, Jimmy Herget, Tommy Doyle, and Jake Woodford are among the pitchers with MLB experience who have been brought into the organization on minor league deals or waiver claims, and it remains to be seen if the Rockies’ pitching explorations will lead to any guaranteed contracts for bullpen help.
Infielders Thairo Estrada and Kyle Farmer are the only players the Rox have signed to guaranteed deals, both brought into the fold on one-year contracts. It isn’t necessarily surprising that a team coming off 204 losses in the last two seasons isn’t aggressively spending, but the Rockies are continuing their unusual path of not entirely rebuilding, but also clearly focusing on younger talent.
Charlie Condon is one of those key building blocks for the future, and Schmidt said the team hadn’t yet decided where Charlie Condon will play in the minor leagues next season. The third overall pick of the 2024 draft began his pro career in inauspicious fashion by hitting only .180/.248/.270 over 109 plate appearances for high-A Spokane, but Schmidt said Condon was trying to play through a bruised thumb that “he kind of didn’t tell us” about.
This injury could well explain those struggles, even though it isn’t unusual for even star prospects to face some growing pains in their first taste of professional baseball. Condon was also moving right into his pro career on the heels of 60 games with Georgia during the 2024 NCAA season, with Condon crushing college pitching to the tune of a .433/.556/1.009 slash line and 37 homers over 304 PA. In recently-released top-100 lists, MLB Pipeline rated Condon as the 29th-best prospect in the sport, and Baseball America ranked him 42nd.
Twins Notes: Correa, Buxton, Ryan, Lewis
The TwinsFest fan event in Minnesota was today and, as noted by Matthew Leach of MLB.com, manager Rocco Baldelli and president of baseball operations Derek Falvey provided updates on the health of a number of major players on the roster. Chief among those was shortstop Carlos Correa, who turned in phenomenal numbers for the Twins on a rate basis last year but was limited to just 86 games due to plantar fasciitis. Falvey noted today that Correa has had “no issues” with his plantar fasciitis this offseason, and Correa himself backed that up.
“I’m ready to go, full go for spring training,” Correa told reporters, as relayed by Bobby Nightengale of the Star Tribune. “I’ve been sprinting. I’ve been running around. I’ve been doing about everything. I’ve been focused on not only just treatment but also strengthening. A lot of walking barefoot around the house. All that’s helping work on my toes and all that, so I’m in a really good spot.”
Nightengale adds that Correa is ahead of schedule relative to last offseason and has already begun hitting and taking groundballs in addition to running. That Correa appears to be fully healthy headed into 2025 is surely a huge relief for the Twins, as the shortstop is arguably the club’s most impactful player when healthy. If he can deliver anything like last season’s .310/.388/.517 slash line over a full season this year, that should be a huge boost for the Twins as they angle towards making a return to the postseason following a frustrating late-season collapse last September.
Correa isn’t the only impact player who received a positive health update today, however. Falvey and Baldelli both indicated that having a normal offseason without any rehabbing or physical therapy has done wonders for center fielder Byron Buxton, who has often been injured frequently throughout his career but managed to appear in 102 games this year with a .279/.335/.524 slash line in 388 trips to the plate. If he can build on his healthy offseason and stay on the field in 2025, that would give the Twins a second player with five-win potential in their lineup alongside Correa.
Turning to the rotation, right-hander Joe Ryan ended the 2024 campaign on the shelf due to Grade 2 teres major strain that sidelined him back in August. Fortunately, the issue has not bled into the offseason and Leach indicates that he’s at the same point in his throwing program that he would be at this point in the winter during any other year. That’s surely a huge relief for the Twins given that Ryan was their best starter last year when healthy. The 28-year-old righty posted a strong 3.60 ERA (115 ERA+) with a 3.44 FIP and a strong 27.3% strikeout rate in 23 starts for the club last season. Building on that performance in 2025 would be particularly key for the Twins if staff ace Pablo Lopez were to be traded this winter, though rumors have quieted down on that front since reports indicated the club was listening to offers on him last month.
One other update to come from today’s festivities involved infielder Royce Lewis and the club’s plans for him in 2025. Earlier this winter, reporting indicated that the Twins were considering a shift from third base to second for Lewis. Since then, it’s been confirmed that the club plans to have Lewis take reps at both positions during Spring Training, but LaVelle E. Neal III of the Star Tribune relayed this evening that Falvey made clear the club’s plan as things stand is for Lewis to continue playing third base during the season this year. That would seemingly leave second base open for 2022 first rounder Brooks Lee, though Edouard Julien is also capable of playing the position.
Cardinals Notes: Payroll, Rotation, Liberatore
The Cardinals are facing a major obstacle as they attempt to retool their roster towards a younger (and cheaper) product for the 2025 campaign: they’ve been unsuccessful to this point in their attempts to move on from veteran third baseman Nolan Arenado. It’s against that backdrop that president of baseball operations John Mozeliak revealed yesterday (as reported by Katie Woo of The Athletic) that the club’s payroll situation may not be quite as dire as it seemed earlier this winter.
“(Chairman Bill DeWitt Jr.) is giving me a little bit of flexibility because we haven’t been able to accomplish what we thought we would by now,” Mozeliak said, as relayed by Woo. “He’s been very understanding about what that might look like.”
Mozeliak went on to describe moving a different significant salary like that of left-hander Steven Matz or righty Erick Fedde as not something the club would have to do if they’re unable to deal Arenado. While he acknowledged that making such a deal would be “helpful” from a payroll perspective, he also emphasized that he was not interested in making a deal “for the sake of just trying to get to a number.”
That the Cardinals’ front office won’t necessarily be forced to slash payroll in other areas of the roster if they’re unable to move on from Arenado and his salary is surely a relief for fans in St. Louis who are hoping to see the team compete in 2025. RosterResource currently projects the club for a $148MM payroll in 2025, which represents a $35MM haircut relative to the club’s 2024 payroll. Moving most of Arenado’s contract, which calls for the Cardinals to pay him $27MM in 2025, would come close to doubling the gap between the 2024 and ’25 payrolls. That would surely provide the club with the room below even their lowered payroll capacity to add talent to the bullpen and bring in a right-handed bat who can help balance a lineup that figures to revolve around Lars Nootbaar, Nolan Gorman, and Alec Burleson in 2025.
With that said, it seems as though Mozeliak is not interested in dealing away salary from his rotation in order to make those upgrades to other parts of the roster happen at this point. When he spoke at the Cardinals’ Winter Warmup fan event yesterday, Mozeliak made clear that he values the depth the club currently has in the rotation. With that being said, St. Louis has reportedly expressed some level of interest in reuniting with veteran right-hander Kyle Gibson throughout the winter, and it’s at least plausible to imagine a scenario where the club manages to trade away Matz or Fedde before turning around and re-signing Gibson for a lower salary than that of the starter they dealt. That could create some additional room in the payroll to sign a reliever or bench bat even in the event the club is unable to trade Arenado.
If the Cardinals do end up dealing from their rotation mix this winter, there’s one player in the organization in particular who could be poised to seize on that opportunity: southpaw Matthew Liberatore. A former top prospect who the Cardinals traded for in the deal that sent Randy Arozarena to the Rays, the lefty was mostly used as a reliever in 2024. While he made six starts for the Cardinals in the majors last year, only one of those outings saw the southpaw finish the fourth inning. That’s not stopping Liberatore from stretching back out in 2025, however, as John Denton of MLB.com relayed this afternoon that the lefty plans to work towards starting in Spring Training and throughout the 2025 season.
As Denton notes, it’s hard to imagine Liberatore finding success in the rotation over the long-term without substantial improvement against right-handed hitters, as he’s been torched to the tune of a .292/.368/.510 slash line throughout his career when pitching without the platoon advantage. That held true in 2024 as well, as Liberatore surrendered an ugly 6.16 ERA with a 5.22 FIP against right-handed batters this past season while limiting lefties to a 1.98 ERA and 2.59 FIP. If the lefty can sort his platoon issues out, however, he could be an option worth considering for the club’s rotation mix alongside right-hander Michael McGreevy in the event that the club deals from its rotation without bringing in Gibson or another veteran arm.
Rangers Notes: deGrom, Seager, Carter, Jung
Rangers right-hander Jacob deGrom is enjoying the first fully healthy offseason he’s had in quite some time after returning from rehab for Tommy John surgery back in September. As noted by Shawn McFarland of the Dallas Morning News, deGrom spoke to reporters about his outlook headed into the 2025 season and revealed that he’s begun throwing off the mound early this winter. The veteran hopes that building up towards pitching in games more slowly over a longer period of time than he has in the past will help him to stay healthy this season.
The 36-year-old is perhaps the very best pitcher in the entire sport when healthy, but maintaining his health has been a struggle over the past half decade. After winning back-to-back NL Cy Young awards with the Mets in 2018 and ’19 and finishing third during the shortened 2020 season, deGrom got off to an unbelievable start in 2021 with a 1.08 ERA and an eye-popping 45.1% strikeout rate. Unfortunately, he was sidelined in early July with forearm and elbow issues that ultimately ended his season. It’s been more of the same ever since, with deGrom making increasingly brief appearances in the majors each year but nonetheless continuing to dominate whenever he’s on the mound.
Since the start of the 2021 season, deGrom has pitched to a 2.01 ERA (200 ERA+) with a 1.63 FIP and 307 strikeouts in 197 1/3 innings. That would be on a shortlist for the greatest pitching seasons of all time if it hadn’t taken deGrom parts of four seasons to accumulate those numbers, and after watching Jordan Montgomery and Max Scherzer depart from their rotation in back-to-back offseasons the Rangers are surely hoping that they’ll get to see what deGrom can do over a full slate of starts this year. That’s something deGrom is fully on board with, as he told reporters (including McFarland) yesterday that his goal is to make 30 starts this year.
While McFarland notes that deGrom has not yet spoken to Rangers brass about his workload for 2025, the idea of a pitcher with deGrom’s injury history making 30 starts can’t be entirely dismissed. After all, southpaw Garrett Crochet made 32 starts with the White Sox last year despite not having pitched more than 65 innings in a season throughout college and his entire professional career due to injuries and time spent in the bullpen. The White Sox made that possible by aggressively managing his innings throughout the second half. He never recorded an out in the fifth inning this year after the calendar flipped to July and his pitch count maxed out at 77 after the All-Star break. Crochet, of course, is more than a decade younger than deGrom, but this sort of aggressive innings management could allow the Rangers to utilize their ace all throughout the regular season and into the playoffs without him needing to throw anything close to 200 innings.
deGrom isn’t the only key player for the Rangers who is hoping for better health in 2024. McFarland relays that third baseman Josh Jung, outfielder Evan Carter, and shortstop Corey Seager are all healthy and ready for Spring Training next month after undergoing surgeries in the fall. Seager underwent sports hernia surgery back in September but resumed baseball activities in November, while Jung and Carter are on a slightly more delayed timeline after undergoing wrist and back surgery respectively in October.
That trio being healthy and effective in 2025 would be a huge boon for the Rangers who failed to defend their 2023 World Series title in the 2024 postseason in large part thanks to a lackluster offense. Rangers hitters produced a collective wRC+ of just 95 last year as Seager was limited to 123 games by injuries while Jung and Carter managed just 46 and 45 games respectively. Seager remained as effective as ever when healthy enough to take the field with a .278/.353/.521 slash line in 533 trips to the plate, but Jung (102 wRC+) and especially Carter (80 wRC+) struggled to keep up with their expected production even when they were on the field due to the nagging nature of their injuries.
While the club has augmented its offense this winter by bringing in Joc Pederson and Jake Burger to replace Nathaniel Lowe in the lineup, better health from Jung and Carter figure to be necessary if the Rangers hope to look more like their 2023 offense, which was third in baseball with a 116 wRC+, than their below-average 2024 club in the upcoming season. Healthy seasons from Jung and Carter would also come with the benefit of pushing outfielder Leody Taveras and infielder Josh Smith into bench roles, giving them one of the deeper positional groups in the sport when fully healthy.
AL East Notes: Morton, Rays, Neander, Yankees
As has been the custom over his last few seasons, veteran right-hander Charlie Morton talked things over with his wife after the 2024 campaign to figure out whether or not he would again try to ramp up for another run. This time, however, Morton might’ve on some level made his decision even before his 2024 season was over. Morton told MLB.com’s Jake Rill and other reporters that in his final start of the regular season with the Braves, “I remember walking off the field and just this like sinking feeling in my stomach — it just didn’t feel right. I’m sure a lot of guys toward the end of their careers, they think about retiring, shutting it down, and you really want to walk off the field the last time and feel good about it. And a lot of guys don’t get that opportunity. I just didn’t feel good about it. I felt like I could have done better. I felt like I still had the tools to be a good pitcher in the big leagues.”
Now set to begin his 18th big league season, the 41-year-old Morton signed a one-year, $15MM deal with the Orioles. It was an ideal fit for Morton both because the O’s are a contender, and for important off-the-field reasons. Morton and his wife Cindy each have family relatively near the Baltimore area, and the Orioles’ Spring Training camp in Sarasota is near the Mortons’ home in Bradenton, Florida.
More from around the AL East…
- Erik Neander said “we’ll look for those opportunities” to further bolster the position-player side, but the Rays’ president of baseball operations told Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times believes the team’s offense can improve based on in-house sources alone. “You’re counting on some players internally to take that next step forward or bounce back from where they’ve been, and that was similar to ’22 and obviously ‘23 offensively….There are an assortment of players we have that we think there’s good reason to believe they will be better than where they were last year, and/or just as a unit, that we can be a little bit more better….just kind of using history as a guide,” Neander said. When considering adding veterans to the mix, Topkin notes that along with salary cost, the Rays also weigh whether or not that veteran could take at-bats away from a younger player that might well deliver similar production with the same playing time.
- The Yankees have lost a total of 14 coaches, coordinators, and player-development personnel to other teams since the offseason began, with the New York Daily News’ Gary Phillips running through the full list of departed names throughout the organization. As VP of player development Kevin Reese admits, this is an “unusually high” amount of turnover, though “when other teams are coming after them and getting promotions and bringing guys to the big leagues, that speaks well to the people that we had. We take a lot of pride in having good people and continuing to build it.” The depth of personnel may have contributed to the departures, as “there are only so many spots for people to move up before there’s a logjam,” said Rick Guarno, who is now the Mets’ Triple-A hitting coach after previously working as the hitting coach with the Yankees’ high-A affiliate.
Red Sox Notes: Arenado, Casas, Bregman, Sasaki
Reports last month from MLB.com’s John Denton indicated that the Red Sox, Mets, Phillies, Padres, Dodgers, and Angels were six of the teams (and perhaps the only six teams) Nolan Arenado was willing to waive his no-trade protection to join, should the Cardinals work out an acceptable swap with any of these clubs. Four weeks after that initial report, Boston remains “a preferred destination” for Arenado, according to MassLive.com’s Chris Cotillo and Sean McAdam. What isn’t known, however, is if the Red Sox and Cardinals are anywhere close on a deal, or if the Sox are particularly motivated to bring Arenado to Beantown.
Acquiring Arenado would check a couple of big needs off of Boston’s offseason shopping list. Chief baseball officer Craig Breslow reiterated earlier this week that the Sox were looking to add “a right-handed bat out of the middle of the lineup,” considering that the team is heavy with left-handed hitters. Bringing one of the best defensive third basemen of all time to Fenway Park would instantly help Boston’s subpar infield defense, and Arenado would even be reunited with his good friend and former Rockies teammate Trevor Story.
One initial roadblock, of course, is the fact that the Red Sox already have a star third baseman in Rafael Devers. Though Arenado has indicated that he is open to a position change in the right circumstance and Devers’ agent said in no uncertain terms in November that his client was staying at third base, it is hard to believe that Arenado would move off the hot corner in deference to a much weaker fielder in Devers. If a trade did happen, Devers would presumably become the new first baseman or DH, though this creates other conflicts with Triston Casas and Masataka Yoshida.
Both of those players, however, have been mentioned in trade talks this winter, and even in some of the same trade talks. Casas is the far more valuable trade asset of the two, and while Breslow said “we’re certainly not shopping him,” that naturally doesn’t mean Casas is off limits. Indeed, Cotillo and McAdam write that “there remains a belief in the industry that the Red Sox remain open to trading Casas, potentially for young pitching, to facilitate other roster maneuvering.”
It could be that the Sox are looking to first trade Casas before making any other moves, as their leverage in a Casas deal would be lessened if the Red Sox created a positional logjam beforehand. Trading Casas purely as a vehicle to clear payroll space surely isn’t Breslow’s preference, which is why that aforementioned attempt to link Yoshida and Casas together was still part of an attempt to bring Luis Castillo from Seattle to Boston.
Payroll is also a major aspect of any Arenado trade, as the third baseman is owed $74MM over the remaining three seasons of his contract. Between deferrals and the $10MM being covered by the Rockies, the present-day value of Arenado’s contract reportedly works out to $60MM. The Cardinals’ chief incentive in trading Arenado is naturally to move as much of this money as possible, and the proposed deal with the Astros that Arenado blocked would’ve seen Houston take on either $45MM (as per Katie Woo and Chandler Rome of the Athletic) or $59MM (as per ESPN’s Jeff Passan) of the $60MM figure.
Theoretically, the Red Sox could absorb the entire contract and still stay under the $241MM luxury tax threshold, as RosterResource estimates Boston’s current tax number at just under $212MM. It remains unclear exactly how much payroll capacity Breslow has been allotted this winter, as while the Sox have made overtures to several top free agents, their spending has been pretty modest to date. The Red Sox could perhaps convince the Cardinals to take on a bigger chunk of Arenado’s salary (or at least closer to the $45MM figure) if better prospects are offered in return. Chaim Bloom’s involvement in this speculative trade is an interesting wrinkle, as the incoming St. Louis president of baseball operations has plenty of knowledge of Boston’s farm system due to his past stint as the Red Sox CBO.
Trading for Arenado would come at a lesser overall cost than signing Alex Bregman, another top third baseman who remains on Boston’s radar. That said, the Red Sox are known to still be in the running for Bregman, who has some notable ties to the Sox in manager Alex Cora (from their days together in Houston) and his longtime friend Walker Buehler, who just signed with the Sox himself before Christmas. Buehler recently told Cotillo and other reporters that even in his brief time in a Sox uniform, “I have certainly made a pitch all over the place for [Bregman] to come to Boston.”
Turning to other Red Sox targets, it remains unknown if Boston is still one of the teams getting consideration from Roki Sasaki. Earlier this week, Sasaki’s agent Joel Wolfe updated reporters on his client’s search for a Major League team, and didn’t give any indication that the right-hander was finished with his in-person meetings with interested clubs.
The Red Sox weren’t one of the seven teams known to have spoken with Sasaki already, and word hasn’t broken if a meeting has been scheduled or perhaps it is has already taken place since Wolfe’s last presser. As of yesterday, WEEI.com’s Rob Bradford reported that the Sox hadn’t “been told they are out of” the running for Sasaki’s services, so the situation is still up in the air.
Marlins Notes: Payroll, Alcantara
The rebuilding Marlins have continued to subtract from their big league roster this winter, trading Jake Burger to the Rangers and Jesus Luzardo to the Phillies. Since Burger wasn’t yet arbitration-eligible and Luzardo was projected for a modest $6MM in his second arb year, the trades were more about adding young talent than cutting payroll, yet losing even Luzardo’s estimated $6MM salary has an additional impact on a bigger-picture question facing Miami’s finances.
As observed by The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal (using estimates from RosterResource), the Marlins have a luxury tax number of roughly $82.8MM. This leaves the Fish some ground to cover before they reach the $105MM threshold estimated as the figure representing 150 percent of the club’s reported $70MM or so in revenue-sharing funds. As stipulated by the league’s collective bargaining agreement, teams who receive revenue-sharing funds must spend at least 150 percent of those funds on player payroll, at the risk of facing a grievance from the players’ union.
It wouldn’t be the first time that the Marlins faced this consequence, as the MLBPA filed a grievance against the Marlins, Rays, Pirates, and Athletics in February 2018 based on the union’s stance that the clubs were simply pocketing a good deal of their revenue-sharing money, rather than reinvesting those funds towards player payroll. Rosenthal and his Athletic colleague Evan Drellich recently noted that that grievance was still pending in an adjusted form, though the most recent CBA saw the minimum spend rise from 125 percent to its current 150 percent figure.
The revenue-sharing minimum drew more of a spotlight this winter when the A’s started to increase their payroll, which was viewed as the team trying to hit that $105MM tax number and avoid any heat from the players’ union. The Athletics’ situation is a little different since their revenue-sharing status was reduced in the earlier years of the CBA while the team was looking for a new ballpark, and they are now back to receiving a full-fledged share of revenue-sharing funds in 2025.
The Marlins have generally been among the lowest-spending teams in baseball for most of their history, and spanning multiple ownership groups. Bruce Sherman’s purchase of the Marlins in 2017 was initially viewed as a possible light at the end of the payroll tunnel, though the sudden departure of CEO Derek Jeter prior to the 2022 season threw a wrench into that perception, especially since payroll expenditures were reportedly one of several sources of disagreement between Sherman and Jeter.
Miami did elevate spending a bit under GM Kim Ng and the team made the playoffs in 2023, but Sherman’s desire for a better farm system led to Ng’s departure after that season, and the hiring of Peter Bendix as the Marlins’ new president of baseball operations. Taking a page from Bendix’s former team in Tampa Bay, the Marlins seem to be moving towards a Rays-esque model of relying on a strong minor league pipeline to build their rosters, while only modestly spending on payrolls. Bendix’s arrival kickstarted yet another rebuild, as the Marlins have dealt several of their more experienced and higher-priced players over the last year.
As much as the Athletics’ winter moves were made with the revenue-sharing number in mind, acquiring Luis Severino, Jeffrey Springs, and Gio Urshela are also sensible from an on-field standpoint, given the club’s needs in the rotation and at third base. Considering that the A’s played solid baseball over the last three months of the 2024 season, the West Sacramento team might even have some darkhorse potential as a wild card contender if everything breaks right and the Athletics get another breakout or two from younger players.
The Marlins are in a different situation. While there is some interesting talent on the roster, it is very hard to imagine Miami contending in 2025, nor does contending seem to be in the front office’s plans within the near future as Bendix focused on overhauling the player development system.
Spending $22.2MM to get up to the $105MM threshold likely won’t translate, therefore, in any additions that will help Miami win ballgames in 2025. The Marlins could add a couple of lower-cost veterans on one-year deals, with an eye towards potentially trading those players at the deadline once the majority of their salaries have been officially tallied onto the team’s tax bill. With a nod towards the Marlins’ goal of restocking the farm system, Bendix could potentially look into trading for a bad contract or two from another team, with that other team adding some prospects as a sweetener to further entice Miami into absorbing most or all of the money owed.
Unsurprisingly, Bendix didn’t provide many details on the Marlins’ spending plans, telling the Miami Herald’s Barry Jackson and other reporters this week that “I’m not going to comment on what we might or might not do. Bruce continues to give us all the resources we need to build this franchise for sustainable success.”
Bendix also didn’t entirely close the door on the possibility that Sandy Alcantara could be traded, saying that “We never rule out anything. We listen to everything.” That said, Alcantara was told back in August that he probably wasn’t getting dealt this offseason, and Bendix noted that “Sandy is a really important piece for our organization. I’m really excited to see him pitch on Opening Day.”
Alcantara is the highest-paid player on Miami’s roster, as the 2022 NL Cy Young Award winner is owed $17MM in each of the next two seasons, plus there is a $21MM club option ($2MM buyout) on his services for 2027. This salary has naturally made Alcantara the subject of continued trade rumors, even though Alcantara didn’t pitch in 2024 due to Tommy John surgery.
Obviously the Marlins wouldn’t be trading the right-hander for a maximum return in the wake of this injury, which is why a deal this winter remains unlikely. If Bendix was to sell low on Alcantara now only to see him rebound to ace form in the early part of the 2025 season, that’ll count as a missed opportunity to gain the biggest possible trade package for the Marlins’ biggest remaining trade chip. Miami’s payroll might also factor into the equation here, as Rosenthal notes that trading Alcantara would leave the Marlins even further away from the $105MM revenue-sharing threshold.
Just as Bendix isn’t likely to openly state that Alcantara is available in trade talks, the PBO also isn’t likely to entirely shut down any offers because of basic due diligence. Bendix surely doesn’t want to limit options just in case a pitching-needy team actually is willing to part with a premium return for a pitcher coming off a lost season.
Mets Notes: Pederson, Alonso, Third Base, Rotation
The Mets have already added one of the best left-handed hitters in the game this offseason, signing Juan Soto to a 15-year, $765MM deal. However, Jon Heyman of the New York Post suggests they were recently in on another big lefty bat: Joc Pederson. That was, of course, before Pederson agreed to a two-year, $37MM deal with the Rangers early on Monday morning.
Presumably, the Mets were interested in Pederson as a designated hitter. Coming off an excellent 2024 campaign, he would have made a strong replacement for J.D. Martinez. Like Pederson, Martinez became a free agent at the end of the season. If the Mets are still in the market for a DH after losing out on Pederson, their options are somewhat limited. Martinez might be the best true DH left in free agency. They could, of course, pursue an outfielder like Anthony Santander or Teoscar Hernández, but those two are looking for significantly more money than Pederson, and, presumably, they would prefer to continue playing the outfield.
However, if it’s really just another big bat the Mets are looking for, the best solution could also be the most straightforward: re-signing first baseman Pete Alonso. Bob Nightengale of USA Today reported on Sunday that the Mets are still “pushing hard” to re-sign their homegrown slugger. If that’s true, it’s difficult to imagine Alonso ending up anywhere else. Teams like the Yankees and Astros have already filled their holes at first base. And when the Mets set their sights on a target, they’re not easy to outbid.
Nightengale also notes that the Mets “like their internal options” at third base – in other words, he implies they aren’t likely suitors for star third baseman Alex Bregman. However, it’s not clear if that is at all contingent on the team re-signing Alonso. If Alonso is back in Queens next season, Mark Vientos is the obvious candidate to play third base. Vientos was one of the team’s best hitters in 2024, while also providing capable defense at the hot corner. Yet, if Alonso signs elsewhere, Vientos is likely to move across the diamond and take over at first. Simply put, there is a massive difference between Vientos and the next-best option at third base, which seems to be former top prospect and unproven big leaguer Brett Baty. The other internal options include Ronny Mauricio, who spent the entire 2024 season on the IL, and Luisangel Acuña, a second baseman/shortstop who has never played third base professionally. It’s hard to believe the Mets would feel confident going into the season without a more reliable player at third base.
It’s easier to accept the notion that the Mets are done adding to their rotation, which Will Sammon of The Athletic suggests is the case. After agreeing to a three-year, $75MM deal with Sean Manaea, the Mets have now signed three notable free agent starters: Manaea, Frankie Montas, and Clay Holmes. Those three will join Kodai Senga and David Peterson in the rotation, with Paul Blackburn, Griffin Canning, and Tylor Megill offering additional depth. Top prospect Brandon Sproat is another arm who could start for the Mets at some point in 2025.
With Senga and Manaea occupying the top two spots in the rotation, the Mets don’t have a bona fide ace like Zack Wheeler of the Phillies or Chris Sale of the Braves. However, their starting pitching depth looks like it’s going to be an asset. They would surely find room for Roki Sasaki if the NPB superstar chooses to sign in Queens, but otherwise, the Mets seem to have all the starters they can carry to begin the 2025 campaign.
Rays Notes: Littell, Outfield, Caballero, Front Office
The Rays made a long-awaited trade from their rotation depth last week when they packaged left-hander Jeffrey Springs and reliever Jacob Lopez in a deal with the A’s that brought back right-hander Joe Boyle, two minor leaguers, and a pick in Competitive Balance Round A of the 2025 draft. Prior to that deal, Springs was viewed alongside right-hander Zack Littell as the two most likely Rays hurlers to be moved this winter. Now that Springs is off the board, however, ESPN’s Jeff Passan suggests that the Rays are “less likely” to part with Littell this winter.
That’s not exactly surprising. After all, while the Rays have a considerable rotation surplus with a number of excellent potential arms, those arms generally come with question marks. Shane McClanahan and Drew Rasmussen will both have recently returned from elbow surgery and could see their innings managed, while youngsters like Shane Baz, Ryan Pepiot, and Taj Bradley have never even thrown 150 innings in a big league season before in their careers. That leaves Littell, who threw 156 1/3 innings of work across 29 starts for the Rays last year, as potentially the club’s most durable arm headed into 2025. Given the frequency with which pitchers get hurt in the modern game, having a sixth starter locked and loaded is hardly a bad idea in case of injuries for any club, to say nothing of the value it could provide a club with a rotation that sports as many injury risks as the Rays’ does.
Of course, it’s impossible to rule out a trade completely when discussing a player with just one year remaining before free agency on the Rays. The club’s front office typically attempts to cash in their players on the trade market before they reach free agency, and even if Littell starts the season with the Rays a midseason trade can’t be ruled out. With that said, Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times recently suggested that the club might be more or less done making moves after dealing Springs and adding Danny Jansen in free agency. One place Topkin suggests the club could look to make an addition is in the outfield, particularly if a lefty bat were to fall into the club’s lap in free agency or via trade. Topkin makes particular mention of Joc Pederson and Jurickson Profar as hypothetical options, though he’s quick to note that either player would surely need to see their market in free agency crater before they’d become realistic options for the Rays as things stand.
A more likely outcome in Topkin’s view seems to be going with internal options. That could include giving infielder José Caballero a serious look in the outfield. With Josh Lowe locked into one starting outfield spot and some combination of Jonny DeLuca, Christopher Morel, and Richie Palacios slated to handle the rest of the playing time on the grass as things stand, mixing Caballero in would give the club additional depth in the outfield should they fail to make an external addition. It’s easy to imagine Caballero’s strong glove at shortstop translating fairly well to the outfield grass, and getting a speedster who stole an AL-best 44 bases in just 483 plate appearances last year into the lineup more regularly could help to spark the club’s offense. With that being said, Caballero’s .227/.283/.347 (83 wRC+) slash line last year likely isn’t enough to make it as an outfield regular unless he proves to be a plus defensive option in center.
Turning to off-the-field matters, Topkin also reports that the club currently has no plans to install a GM beneath president of baseball operations Erik Neander. Current Marlins president of baseball operations Peter Bendix served as GM of the Rays under Neander before taking his current gig with Miami last winter, but Topkin suggests that the club’s current set up of two vice presidents and four assistant GMs serving as Neander’s top lieutenants suits the Rays just fine and that Bendix’s title will remain unfilled for the foreseeable future.