Offseason In Review: Texas Rangers
The Rangers tried to walk the line of remaining competitive while simultaneously scaling back payroll. It led to a pair of major trades and a chunk of small free-agent and waiver acquisitions.
Major League Free Agent Signings
- Danny Jansen, C: Two years, $14.5MM (includes buyout of 2028 mutual option)
- Jakob Junis, RHP: One year, $4MM (includes buyout of 2027 mutual option)
- Chris Martin, RHP: One year, $4MM (includes deferred $2MM signing bonus)
- Jalen Beeks, LHP: One year, $1.6MM
- Jordan Montgomery, LHP: One year, $1.25MM
- Tyler Alexander, LHP: One year, $1.1MM
- Alexis Diaz, RHP: One year, $1MM (later outrighted to Triple-A)
2026 spending: $17.95MM
Total spending: $27.45MM
Option Decisions
- DH Joc Pederson exercised $18.5MM player option
Trades and Waiver Claims
- Acquired LHP MacKenzie Gore from Nationals in exchange for INF Gavin Fien, RHP Alejandro Rosario, 1B Abimelec Ortiz, INF Devin Fitz-Gerald and OF Yeremy Cabrera (all minor leaguers/prospects)
- Acquired OF Brandon Nimmo from Mets in exchange for 2B Marcus Semien
- Acquired RHP Carter Baumler from Pirates in exchange for minor league RHP Jaiker Garcia and cash (Baumler was selected from the Orioles in the Rule 5 Draft)
- Claimed C Willie MacIver off waivers from Athletics
- Claimed RHP Michel Otañez off waivers from Athletics
- Claimed RHP Zak Kent off waivers from Cardinals (eventually landed with Twins via waivers)
- Claimed OF Dairon Blanco off waivers from Royals
Extensions
- None yet
Notable Minor League Signings
- Andrew McCutchen, Mark Canha, Ryan Brasier, Cal Quantrill, Austin Gomber, Josh Sborz, Nabil Crismatt (out for season due to UCL surgery), José Herrera, Anthony Veneziano, Jonah Bride, Tyler Wade, Declan Cronin, Nick Pratto, Patrick Murphy, Andrew Velazquez, Richie Martin
Notable Losses
- Marcus Semien, Adolis Garcia (non-tendered), Jonah Heim (non-tendered), Merrill Kelly, Tyler Mahle, Jon Gray, Shawn Armstrong, Phil Maton, Jacob Webb (non-tendered), Patrick Corbin, Hoby Milner, Danny Coulombe, Rowdy Tellez, Dylan Moore, Dom Hamel (lost on waivers), Dustin Harris (outrighted, elected free agency) Billy McKinney (outrighted, elected free agency)
The Rangers entered the offseason with a hefty slate of impending free agents. As many as four viable big league rotation arms (Merrill Kelly, Tyler Mahle, Jon Gray, Patrick Corbin) and four quality relievers (Shawn Armstrong, Phil Maton, Hoby Milner, Danny Coulombe) hit the market at season’s end. Texas created further holes on the roster by non-tendering right fielder Adolis Garcia, catcher Jonah Heim and another solid middle reliever, Jacob Webb.
Despite all the departures on the pitching side of things, it seemed early that reimagining an offense that had grown stagnant and regularly struggled against fastballs and velocity was a goal. Texas had tried to do that the prior offseason by parting with Nathaniel Lowe and bringing in Joc Pederson and Jake Burger to reshape the heart of the order. It didn’t work out. Pederson and Burger had career-worst seasons. Texas hit .234/.302/.381 as a team. The resulting 92 wRC+ was tied for fifth-worst in baseball. Rangers hitters ranked 18th in home runs but just 22nd in runs scored. They were 26th in each of batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage.
That prompted a second and more aggressive shuffle of the offense. The Rangers found no takers for Garcia and Heim at their projected arbitration prices and ultimately non-tendered the pair, losing two key contributors from their 2023 World Series roster for nothing. Three days later, Texas dumped the final three seasons of Marcus Semien’s contract on the Mets, taking on the final five seasons of Brandon Nimmo’s eight-year contract in return.
Nimmo walked at a career-low 7.7% rate in 2025 and struck out more often than Semien, but he was a far more productive hitter overall in 2025. He’s also two years younger. Nimmo may have been traded straight up for Semien, but he’s effectively stepping into the roster spot created by Garcia’s non-tender. He can be reliably counted on for more walks and an on-base mark 40 to 50 points higher than Garcia. At least in 2025, he hit for more power as well. Nimmo makes the Rangers younger (relative to Semien) and provides a higher floor than had been the case with the whiff-prone Garcia.
The only other addition of note to the lineup this winter came in yet another attempt to solidify the team’s struggling catching corps. After Heim regressed in 2024, the Rangers signed Kyle Higashioka to a two-year contract last winter. That contract worked out reasonably well, but Higashioka will be 36 in a month and has never topped last year’s 327 plate appearances or logged even 700 innings behind the plate. With Heim out the door and no immediate heir-apparent coming from the farm, the Rangers needed some form of addition.
The free agent market was thin behind the plate — as is typically the case — but Texas scooped up one of the market’s better options when signing Danny Jansen to a two-year contract. Jansen draws poor framing grades but posted a solid 24.1% caught-stealing rate last year and typically receives good marks from Statcast for his ability to block balls in the dirt. He also draws walks at a high rate each season (12.5% in ’25, 10.8% since ’20) and has above-average pop. Jansen is strikeout-prone but not egregiously so. Although both Jansen and Higashioka hit from the right side, Jansen has better career splits in right-on-right matchups, while Higashioka has more conventional platoon splits. They probably won’t be used in a strict platoon, but Jansen will get more starts versus righties and generally see a larger workload than Higashioka.
Beyond Nimmo and Jansen, the Rangers’ lineup will remain mostly unchanged. They’ll rely on better health for Corey Seager and better performances from names like Pederson, Burger and Josh Jung, each of whom disappointed relative to expectations and projections in 2025. It’s certainly a risk, given that this lineup has a similar structure to the one that’s fallen flat in each of the past two seasons, but the Rangers were clearly working with a limited budget and did their best to make some changes where they could.
One final addition will likely be former NL MVP Andrew McCutchen. He signed a minor league deal after spring training was already underway. Cutch and the Pirates reunited in 2023 and he spent three seasons with his original organization, but the Buccos were hunting bigger fish this winter and opted to move on after McCutchen’s bat fell to about league-average over the past two seasons (slightly below that in 2025). At 39 years old, McCutchen isn’t going to dial things back to his peak form, but he can still hit lefties, which makes him a nice complement for Pederson. And, if Pederson can’t right the ship after last year’s calamitous .181/.285/.328 batting line (76 wRC+), Texas could move on entirely and turn DH reps over to McCutchen. Even if he’s “only” a league-average bat, that’d be a substantial improvement over Pederson’s 2025 output.
The other big change in the lineup isn’t due to a new acquisition but rather a change in role. Josh Smith has been a utility player for his first four seasons with Texas but is now in line for regular at-bats at second base, in place of Semien. Smith has posted a .254/.336/.380 line in semi-regular work over the past two seasons. It’s unremarkable production, but Smith had a strong four-month run to begin the ’25 season before a largely BABIP-driven swoon weighed down his production late in the year. He was hitting .277/.354/.420 through his first 380 plate appearances but batted only .195/.293/.252 in his final 183 plate appearances — all while experiencing a drop of more than 60 points in his average on balls in play.
Smith has never had a set, everyday role. He played seven different positions last year (in addition to a handful of DH appearances). Sam Haggerty‘s presence on the bench gives him a right-handed platoon partner if the Rangers prefer to go that route. They probably should, given that Smith is a career .223/.309/.322 hitter versus lefties to Haggerty’s .280/.362/.446. (Haggerty is a switch-hitter, but he’s delivered only a .202/.277/.279 slash as a left-handed hitter.)
As has typically been the case in recent years, the pitching staff was a prominent focus — both the bullpen and the rotation. Texas got nice performances from Robert Garcia and Cole Winn in 2025, and they brought Chris Martin back for one more go-around even though he’d previously hinted at retirement.
The Rangers had success building nearly an entire bullpen from small-scale free agent deals last winter and will try to replicate the strategy in 2026. It’s a clear risk, as relievers are the game’s most volatile performers on a year-to-year basis. The Texas farm is light on impact arms, however, particularly after dealing six minor league pitchers to acquire Merrill Kelly, Phil Maton and Danny Coulombe in separate trades.
Last offseason, Texas brought in Martin, Shawn Armstrong, Hoby Milner, Jacob Webb and Luke Jackson (in addition to trading for Robert Garcia, who’s controlled through 2029). This winter it was more of the same. Martin is back on another one-year deal, and he’s joined by Jakob Junis, Jalen Beeks, Tyler Alexander and Alexis Diaz, although the former will have to earn his way back onto the roster.
Diaz inked a $1MM contract after being non-tendered by the Braves but was designated for assignment and passed through waivers when Texas signed Beeks earlier this month. It’s at least possible that was the plan from the jump; we increasingly see teams sign experienced players to low-cost, one-year deals and then pass them through waivers to stash as Triple-A depth, knowing they won’t reject the outright assignment to the minors because doing so means forfeiting any guarantees on the contract (for players with fewer than five seasons of service anyhow). Even if that wasn’t the initial intent, Diaz didn’t do himself any favors by allowing eight runs with four walks and a hit batter in 1 2/3 frames this spring.
As was the case last spring, the Rangers’ bullpen looks shaky on paper. All of Martin, Beeks, Junis and Alexander have had success at times but lack consistency (hence being available on short-term contracts). Garcia’s performance was strong but less than elite. Winn posted a pristine 1.51 ERA, but metrics like SIERA (4.13) and FIP (3.90) aren’t buying it because of the former top prospect’s mediocre 21.6% strikeout rate and sub-par 10.5% walk rate.
There are other potential upside plays in the mix. The Rangers claimed righty Michel Otañez off waivers from the division-rival A’s, selected righty Carter Baumler from the from the Orioles in the Rule 5 Draft (by way of a trade with the Pirates), and signed veterans Ryan Brasier and Josh Sborz to minor league contracts. Baumler was an over-slot ($1.5MM) fifth-rounder who posted a 2.04 ERA with a 29% strikeout rate between High-A and Double-A last year. Otañez sits upper 90s with his heater and misses bats in droves but also has a career 14% walk rate in the majors. Sborz was a key bullpen piece for much of 2023 but has been hampered by injuries since. Brasier has a nice track record but is 38 years old and has had a tough spring.
Perhaps the Rangers can defy the odds again, but this is a tough way to build a bullpen with any sort of regularity. Relievers are inherently volatile, and that volatility often necessitates going out and adding help at the deadline if the club is in contention. That could lead to trading away some potential down-the-road bullpen arms, creating a bit of a vicious cycle.
The other side of the pitching staff, once again, proved a core focus for the Rangers. Since being installed as president of baseball operations, former big league right-hander Chris Young has repeatedly focused on deepening his pitching staff. That’s in part due to the old adage that there’s no such thing as “too much” pitching — which a former pitcher understands keenly — and also in part due to difficulty in developing homegrown arms.
Former No. 2 overall pick Jack Leiter was a bright spot in 2025, but fellow top prospect Kumar Rocker couldn’t get off the ground floor. Winn was once a top-tier rotation project who’s fizzled out in a rotation role and is now in the ‘pen. Other prominent Rangers pitching prospects like Owen White, Hans Crouse, Dane Dunning and Brock Porter (to name a few recent examples) have largely plateaued — if not before reaching the majors then not long after.
The struggles to develop homegrown pitching have led the Rangers to routinely go outside the organization to get it. They did so again this winter, bringing former trade acquisition and 2023 rotation savior Jordan Montgomery back on a one-year deal that’ll potentially plug him into the rotation once he’s recovered from UCL surgery. The larger move, of course — arguably their signature move of the offseason — was the trade for Washington’s MacKenzie Gore.
Texas sent a five-player package, headlined by 2025 first-rounder Gavin Fien, to Washington to pry Gore loose. The package notably lacked a consensus top-100 prospect, though the Nats presumably have Fien in that group on their internal rankings. One would imagine the Nationals at least asked about names like Sebastian Walcott and Caden Scarborough and were rebuffed. Washington had a thin system that badly needed depth, however, so diversifying their risk by acquiring a bushel of prospects rather than one or two higher-end names is a reasonable approach.
In that sense, the trade worked out for both parties. The Nats add a smattering of talented young players to their system, including last summer’s No. 12 overall pick (Fien). The Rangers added two years of Gore without surrendering the very best their system has to offer.
Gore will spend the next two seasons in Texas. He’s a former No. 3 overall pick who once ranked as the sport’s top pitching prospect. Injuries and poor performance stemming from mechanical issues delayed his arrival in the majors, but he’s started 89 games over the past three seasons now and done so with a respectable 4.15 ERA. Gore looked to finally be breaking out in full last summer. He made the All-Star team and entered the break with a terrific 3.02 ERA, 30.5% strikeout rate and 7.7% walk rate. A brutal four-start stretch saw him rocked for 23 runs over his next 15 2/3 innings. He then rebounded with a 3.74 ERA down the stretch.
Gore now joins Jacob deGrom, Nathan Eovaldi and Leiter to form an impressive quartet. The depth thereafter isn’t great, in part because the Rangers shipped out three nearly MLB-ready starters for Kelly last summer. Lefty Jacob Latz is the favorite for the fifth spot on the starting staff. Rocker, Jose Corniell and David Davalillo are depth options on the 40-man roster, and Young brought in veterans like Cal Quantrill and Austin Gomber on minor league deals. Both Montgomery and southpaw Cody Bradford could be ready to return from the IL early this summer.
It’s a talented but top-heavy group, and the Rangers are at some risk of that depth being exposed if deGrom and/or Eovaldi run into further injury troubles. Eovaldi hasn’t started 30 games since 2021. DeGrom made 30 dominant starts last season but combined for 35 starts in the four seasons prior.
The Rangers have the makings of a solid veteran core on both the offensive and pitching side of things. Their defense should be good but perhaps not to the extent of last season, given the subtraction of Semien’s all-world glove at second and Garcia’s quality glove in right field. The bullpen will need several things to break right, and the bench and minor league depth options are a bit lacking.
Better health from Seager and center fielder Evan Carter, rebounds from Burger/Pederson, and a step forward from standout left fielder Wyatt Langford — who has superstar potential — would go a long way toward pushing the Rangers back into the postseason mix.
How would MLBTR readers grade the Rangers’ offseason? Have your say in the poll below:
How would you grade the Rangers' offseason?
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C 48% (356)
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B 31% (229)
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D 12% (92)
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F 5% (35)
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A 4% (27)
Total votes: 739
The Opener: Spring Breakout, Alvarez, Rose
Here are three things to keep an eye on around the baseball world headed into the weekend:
1. 2026 Spring Breakout:
This year’s Spring Breakout got underway last night, with a slate of six games between clubs showcasing some of their top prospects. Among the prospects to impress most yesterday were Reds right-hander Chase Petty, who struck out six over four scoreless innings, and Nationals infield prospect Gavin Fien, who went 3-for-4 with a walk and two doubles at the plate. Spring Breakout games will continue today and throughout the weekend, with the Brewers’ top-ranked farm system in baseball set to face off against the Mariners’ farm at 2:10pm local time in Arizona. Top shortstop prospect Jesús Made will be joined by Jett Williams, Cooper Pratt, and others on a stacked Brewers prospect roster, while the Mariners will showcase top prospects Colt Emerson and Kade Anderson, among others.
2. Alvarez exits with minor injury:
Mets fans were given a scare yesterday when catcher Francisco Alvarez departed the game due to back tightness. Fortunately, Will Sammon of The Athletic was among those to relay assurances from manager Carlos Mendoza that Alvarez’s removal was precautionary and that he would have been able to continue playing had it been a regular season game. Alvarez’s status will be worth keeping an eye on for fans in Queens given that the club would likely need to turn to Luis Torrens and Ben Rortvedt as its tandem behind the plate if he required a trip to the injured list, but for now the level of concern seems fairly. The 24-year-old Alvarez, already heading into his fifth season, will be looking to build on a big second half last year where he slashed .276/.360/.561 across 41 games.
3. Rose calling it a career:
In other Mets news, longtime Mets broadcaster Howie Rose announced that 2026 will be his final year in the booth ahead of his retirement. Rose has done radio play-by-play for the Mets for more than 30 years, and noted in his retirement announcement that he’s been involved in Mets broadcasting since 1987. The beloved broadcaster told fans he hopes to be involved with the Mets in the future in some capacity, but for this year they can count on him being in the booth of the team’s home games, Subway Series games at Yankee Stadium, and any of the team’s postseason games. We at MLB Trade Rumors would like to congratulate Rose on a fine career and wish him all the best headed into his final season in the booth and his well-earned retirement.
Yankees Notes: Weathers, Lagrange
Ryan Weathers was knocked around in today’s Grapefruit League loss. The new Yankees southpaw allowed seven runs on eight hits in three innings. He’s up to 16 earned runs over 12 1/3 frames across four starts this spring.
The struggles haven’t jeopardized Weathers’ hold on a rotation spot. Manager Aaron Boone confirmed the lefty will open the season in the starting five (relayed by Bryan Hoch of MLB.com). Boone noted that he’s more focused on the pitcher’s raw stuff than results in exhibition play.
Despite being hit around, Weathers has shown a promising arsenal. His fastball is up above 98 mph on average, a tick higher than his 97 mph heater during last year’s regular season with Miami. Weathers has picked up 17 strikeouts while missing bats on more than 14% of his offerings. It’s certainly an ugly ERA, but the velocity and whiffs are encouraging.
Max Fried, Cam Schlittler, Will Warren, Luis Gil and Weathers will comprise the season-opening rotation. Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodón are each opening on the injured list. Cole threw an inning in his first Spring Training appearance on Wednesday. Rodón hasn’t pitched this spring but could be ready for regular season action by the end of April.
Weathers and Gil each have a minor league option remaining. They’ll have a few starts to try to ensure they stick in the rotation once Rodón and/or Cole are healthy. It’d be crowded if everyone is available, but the Yankees don’t have much experienced depth in the short term. Osvaldo Bido is out of options and could find himself back on waivers next week. Swingmen Ryan Yarbrough and Paul Blackburn and prospect Elmer Rodríguez (who has yet to pitch in the big leagues) are the other healthy rotation options on the 40-man roster.
Among the team’s non-roster invitees, no one turned more heads this spring than righty Carlos Lagrange. The 22-year-old fireballer reeled off 13 2/3 innings of one-run ball while recording 13 strikeouts. He was routinely pumping triple digit fastballs with wipeout secondary stuff. There was some thought that Lagrange might even be pitching his way into the Opening Day conversation, but the Yankees reassigned him to minor league camp this afternoon.
Boone acknowledged that Lagrange looked much nearer to MLB readiness than he’d anticipated coming into the spring. “I don’t know if we were ever going to break [camp] with him, but I would say we’ve at least talked about it,” he told Greg Joyce of The New York Post. “What he’s done the last six weeks definitely made us think maybe he’s closer than we think.”
Lagrange’s arsenal would probably play in the big league bullpen already. It’s potential top-of-the-rotation stuff, so the Yankees will continue developing him as a starter in the minors to work on his command. Lagrange was around the zone this spring, only issuing four walks with one hit batter. That’s obviously a small body of work. His strike-throwing has been the big question in the minors. Lagrange walked more than 12% of opponents in his 120 innings between High-A and Double-A last year. He’ll need to be added to the 40-man roster to keep him out of the Rule 5 draft next offseason, and it seems likely he’ll debut at some point this year.
Brewers Option Logan Henderson, Blake Perkins
The Brewers made a few camp cuts on Thursday. Starter Logan Henderson, outfielder Blake Perkins, and corner bat Tyler Black were all sent out and will open the season with Triple-A Nashville.
Two weeks ago, Henderson had seemingly been well positioned for a spot in the Opening Day rotation. There are at least two jobs up for grabs after the Freddy Peralta trade and with Quinn Priester beginning the season on the injured list. The Brewers have rotation roles committed to Jacob Misiorowski, Chad Patrick and (assuming he’s fully built up) Brandon Woodruff.
The 24-year-old Henderson was firmly in the mix after impressing over his first five MLB starts a year ago. His odds of breaking camp were set back when he reported minor elbow soreness last week. Henderson had finished the 2025 season on the injured list with elbow inflammation. The team didn’t consider this recent flareup especially alarming — he’s already throwing again — but he hasn’t appeared in a Spring Training game in two weeks.
Skipper Pat Murphy indicated the demotion is largely about giving Henderson a chance to build his workload in the minors. “Part of this move is to make sure he can go post regularly,” Murphy told reporters (link via Adam McCalvy of MLB.com). “We’re not going to immediately build him up to five innings. We’re going to let him go two innings and see how he responds, two innings and see how he responds. Just make sure he’s responding each time because he’s had (an injury) history.”
This probably paves the way for Brandon Sproat and Kyle Harrison to round out the rotation. Harrison left yesterday’s appearance with a blister, but it’s not expected to be an issue moving forward. Robert Gasser and Shane Drohan are also still in the mix, with Drohan having the far more impressive camp of those two.
Acquired from the Red Sox in the Caleb Durbin trade, Harrison has allowed 12 runs (eight earned) across 9 2/3 spring innings. That’s obviously not ideal, but he has struck out 15 opponents while averaging 95 mph on his fastball. Sproat came over from the Mets as part of the Peralta return. He has allowed five runs with a 10:2 strikeout-to-walk ratio over nine innings.
In any case, the Brewers will lean heavily on their bullpen while frequently shuttling starters up and down from Nashville. There’s more clarity on the position player side, which is down to 14 a week before Opening Day. The final camp cut will almost certainly be third catcher Reese McGuire, a non-roster invitee.
McCalvy notes that the Perkins option means Brandon Lockridge is heading north with the club. The speedster won the fourth outfield role by hitting .314 with four homers and three steals in 12 games this spring. He’ll join Gary Sánchez, Jake Bauers and utility infielder David Hamilton on the season-opening bench.
Dodgers, Logan Allen Agree To Minor League Deal
The Dodgers are in agreement with left-hander Logan Allen on a minor league contract, reports Shi Davidi of Sportsnet. Allen, 28, spent last season in Korea and is fresh off representing Canada in the World Baseball Classic.
A namesake of a current Guardians starter (who also pitched in the WBC as a member of Team Panama), this Logan Allen is a former Cleveland pitcher. Allen also suited up with the Padres, Orioles and Diamondbacks in an MLB career which has spanned parts of five seasons. His most recent big league experience came with Arizona two years ago. Allen allowed a 5.46 earned run average over 28 innings.
He signed with the KBO’s NC Dinos last winter. Allen took the ball 32 times and logged 173 innings but didn’t have great rate production. He allowed a 4.53 ERA in the pitcher-friendly league. That ranked 28th among the 38 KBO pitchers who reached 100 innings. Allen was 25th among the group with a 19.4% strikeout rate.
KBO teams are limited to four foreign-born pitchers, one of whom must be from Australia or elsewhere in Asia. Given that restriction, it’s not surprising the Dinos went in a different direction after Allen’s middling season. They re-signed Matt Davidson, former Cubs minor leaguer Riley Thompson and added Curtis Taylor (who spent last year in Triple-A with the Cardinals) as Allen’s replacement. Japanese-born Natsuki Toda is their Asian-born international player.
Davidi writes that Allen was set to sign with a Mexican League team for 2026. He got the WBC nod and pitched twice for Team Canada, working 3 1/3 innings of one-run ball. He impressed Dodgers evaluators enough to instead land a new affiliated ball opportunity. He’ll begin the season as rotation or long relief depth for Triple-A Oklahoma City.
Giants Option Bryce Eldridge
The Giants optioned rookie first baseman Bryce Eldridge, the team informed reporters (including Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle). San Francisco also optioned second baseman Tyler Fitzgerald and outfielder Grant McCray.
Eldridge will open the season in the minors after finishing the ’25 season on the MLB roster. The 21-year-old top prospect made his big league debut in September. He played in 10 games and took 37 plate appearances, batting .107 without a home run. Eldridge took seven walks but struck out 13 times.
A 6’7″ power bat, Eldridge popped 25 homers in the upper minors last year. He combined for a .260/.333/.510 batting line across 433 trips. Eldridge spent the majority of the year as one of the youngest players in Triple-A. There’s immense physical upside, but he’s clearly far from a finished product. Eldridge struck out in more than 29% of his minor league plate appearances.
The whiffs have remained an issue this spring. Eldridge has fanned in 19 of his 50 exhibition plate appearances. He’s second (behind former Giants first-round pick James Tibbs III) in strikeouts among Spring Training hitters. It’s understandable the team feels he’d benefit from more reps against Triple-A pitching.
While Eldridge is surely disappointed not to have made his first Opening Day roster, it’s not exactly a career setback. Most hitters his age aren’t in consideration to break camp. He’ll very likely be back up at some point this season.
The demotion will probably have service time implications. He has 14 days of big league time, meaning he’d need to spend 158 days on the MLB roster to reach one year of service at season’s end. That won’t happen unless he’s called up before the end of April. It’s not a case of service time manipulation, to be clear. If the Giants were primarily concerned with that, they wouldn’t have promoted him last season (earlier than they needed to select him onto the 40-man roster).
The Giants are likely bypassing the chance at getting a Prospect Promotion Incentive draft pick, though it’d technically still be in play if they recall him within the first couple weeks. The PPI pick is conditional on awards voting, though, and Eldridge’s strikeout rates are concerning enough that he’d have an uphill path to winning Rookie of the Year. The primary focus is what the team thinks best for his development.
Rafael Devers will be the primary first baseman. The Giants don’t have a set designated hitter with Eldridge in the minors. There’s now more of a path to carrying both Luis Matos and Jerar Encarnación on the active roster. Both players are out of options and would otherwise need to be traded or exposed to waivers.
Casey Schmitt and a backup catcher (likely Rule 5 draftee Daniel Susac) are going to have bench spots. That’d leave one position player spot available between Will Brennan, Drew Gilbert, Christian Koss or a non-roster invitee. Corner bat Victor Bericoto and speedy outfielder Jared Oliva are among the minor league invites who have impressed this spring.
Astros’ Bennett Sousa To Begin Season On Injured List
Astros reliever Bennett Sousa will begin the season on the 15-day injured list, manager Joe Espada tells reporters (including Brian McTaggart of MLB.com). The southpaw suffered a left oblique strain last week and is back in Houston for testing.
It certainly seems like it’ll be more than a minimal injured list stay. Espada declined to specify a timeline but noted it’d be “a while.” Sousa is shut down entirely until he’s able to throw without pain. He’ll join Josh Hader as key bullpen arms starting the season on the shelf.
Losing Sousa obviously isn’t as impactful as beginning the season without Hader, but it’s nevertheless a real blow to Espada’s relief corps. A waiver claim at the end of the ’23 campaign, Sousa quietly developed into a key bullpen piece last year. He fired 50 2/3 innings of 2.84 ERA ball while striking out almost 30% of batters faced. By the second half, no Houston pitcher was being called upon in higher-leverage situations on average.
Sousa has struggled to stay healthy over the past few years. He missed the entire 2024 season due to thoracic outlet surgery. Sousa came back stronger than ever but went down at the end of August with elbow inflammation — ultimately ending his season. He had tossed three innings of one-run ball this spring.
Hader’s absence means Bryan Abreu will begin the season as the primary closer. Bryan King and Steven Okert still give the Astros a pair of quality left-handed setup arms. The bullpen is much less imposing from the right side, especially if they’re reluctant to use Abreu earlier in games.
Enyel De Los Santos, himself questionable for Opening Day after battling a right knee issue, could be set for important innings. Rule 5 pick Roddery Muñoz has had a fantastic Spring Training and should break camp. AJ Blubaugh and Kai-Wei Teng could pitch multiple innings if they make the team, while Ryan Weiss will either be part of a six-man rotation or in long relief. Minor league signee Christian Roa has pitched very well (8 2/3 innings of one-run ball with 12 strikeouts) and seems to have a clear path to an Opening Day roster spot.
Grayson Rodriguez May Begin Season On Injured List
Angels right-hander Grayson Rodriguez may begin the season on the injured list. Manager Kurt Suzuki told reporters, including Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register and Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com, that Rodriguez has a “dead arm” and will be slowed down. With Opening Day now just a week away, that makes it possible Rodriguez starts the season on the 15-day injured list, depending on how things progress in the coming days.
At this point, it doesn’t appear to be a major issue. Rodriguez isn’t even being shut down, with Fletcher noting that he still threw today, but it’s concerning nonetheless. Injuries have been in the spotlight for Rodriguez in recent years. He made 43 starts for the Orioles in 2023 and the first half of the 2024 season. He hasn’t made an official start since July of 2024, primarily due to shoulder issues.
He underwent elbow debridement surgery in August of last year. He was flipped to the Angels early this offseason in a one-for-one-trade for outfielder Taylor Ward. After that deal, Rodriguez spoke about his health and seemed optimistic. He said that he had been dealing with bone spurs in his elbow for three or four years. He believed this was adding stress to his shoulder and causing his numerous problems with that part of his arm.
For Rodriguez to now be dealing with arm problems once again is less than ideal. Perhaps it will remain a fairly minor issue but the Angels don’t have a lot of margin for error. They came into camp with a rotation projected to include José Soriano, Yusei Kikuchi, Reid Detmers, Alek Manoah and Rodriguez. Soriano and Kikuchi are fine but the group is fairly questionable after that.
Detmers had a 3.96 ERA in relief last year but a 6.70 ERA as a starter the year prior. He has a 7.27 ERA in spring training so far. Like Rodriguez, Manoah is looking to bounce back after a lengthy injury absence, but he has a 9.39 ERA this spring.
If Manoah gets optioned or Rodriguez needs to spend some time on the IL, that could open a spot for Jack Kochanowicz. He’s having a good spring but posted a 6.81 ERA in the big leagues last year. Fletcher suggested yesterday that Ryan Johnson has a chance to earn a spot, getting an aggressive Opening Day nod yet again. The Angels gave him a spot in their bullpen to begin last season even though he hadn’t yet played a game as a professional. He posted a 7.36 ERA through early May, at which point he was optioned down to High-A.
It’s worth reiterating that there’s still nothing to indicate Rodriguez is dealing with any kind of major issue. He may still avoid the IL if he feels better in the coming days. Even if he lands on the shelf, Opening Day IL stints can be backdated three days, so he could be back in less than two weeks.
But the Angels are going into a season where they hope to contend but need a lot of things to go right in order to that to be possible. They went 72-90 last year and didn’t make strong moves to upgrade the roster this winter. The Playoff Odds at FanGraphs give them just a 4.9% chance of cracking the postseason. The PECOTA Standings at Baseball Prospectus are even more pessimistic, giving the Halos just a 0.1% chance.
A minor setback for a club’s fourth starter wouldn’t always be a cause for worry but it looms larger for the Angels than with other clubs since any setback can further diminish already-slim those odds.
Photo courtesy of Allan Henry, Imagn Images
Hayden Birdsong To Undergo Tommy John Surgery
The Giants announced that right-hander Hayden Birdsong will undergo Tommy John surgery next week. He will miss the entire 2026 season and part of the 2027 campaign as well. Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area was among those to pass the info along.
The news is not surprising but is awful for Birdsong and the Giants regardless. It was reported a few days ago that Birdsong had an elbow issue and would be getting a second opinion. He was then diagnosed with a forearm strain and a sprain of his ulnar collateral ligament. He took a few days to consider his options but it seems he is destined for the surgeon’s table.
Prior to this injury, Birdsong was slated to be one of the club’s top depth starters. They project to start the season with a starting five of Logan Webb, Robbie Ray, Tyler Mahle, Adrian Houser and Landen Roupp. Due to injuries, teams usually need about a dozen starters to get through a full season. The Giants have Carson Seymour, Carson Whisenhunt and Blade Tidwell as optionable depth starters. Birdsong would have been in that group but has now been subtracted.
Birdsong should end up on the 60-day injured list whenever the Giants need a spot on the 40-man roster. The one silver lining of that outcome is that Birdsong will get a full year of service time and pay, more than if he spent the year as a healthy but frequently-optioned depth arm.
The typical recovery timeline for Tommy John surgery is usually 14 months or more. That means Birdsong won’t be available until about midway through the 2027 season, even in a best-case scenario. Ray and Mahle are both scheduled for free agency after 2026, so two rotation spots are potentially opening up. Those could be filled internally if guys like Seymour, Whisenhunt or Tidwell step up. The Giants could also make notable trades between now and then, in addition to potentially signing free agents next winter.
Time will tell what shape the rotation is in when Birdsong is again healthy but he should be a key part of the group regardless. He only has a 4.77 earned run average in his career so far but is only 24 years old and comes with some prospect pedigree. FanGraphs has been especially bullish, as they gave him the #42 overall spot at one point during the 2024 season. Birdsong posted a 2.51 ERA on the farm that year but then had a 6.23 ERA in Triple-A in 2025 and now he’s dealing with this lengthy rehab process.
Photo courtesy of Eakin Howard, Imagn Images
Poll: Who Will Win The AL East?
With Opening Day just around the corner, the offseason is more or less complete for MLB’s 30 clubs and teams are now focused on the incoming season and being the final team standing to raise the Commissioner’s Trophy. Until the playoffs begin, however, teams will be focused on a smaller goal: winning their division. In the run-up to the start of the season, we will be conducting a series of polls to gauge who MLBTR readers believe is the favorite in each division. That series starts today with the AL East. All teams are listed in order of their 2025 regular season record:
Toronto Blue Jays (94-68)
The Blue Jays only narrowly won the AL East last year, with the division coming down to a tiebreaker. They made a much more convincing case for themselves as the top dog in the division come the postseason, however, as they easily dispatched the Yankees in the ALDS and went on to make it all the way to Game 7 of the World Series before losing that final game against the mighty Dodgers by just a hair. They went on to have an aggressive offseason in their efforts to stay at the top of the totem pole. The Jays lost Bo Bichette and Chris Bassitt to free agency, but managed to retain Max Scherzer while adding Dylan Cease and Cody Ponce to a rotation that already boasts Kevin Gausman, Shane Bieber, and Trey Yesavage. Their efforts to improve on the pitching side didn’t ignore the bullpen either, as Tyler Rogers was brought in to support Jeff Hoffman and Louis Varland in the late innings. Losing Bichette certainly hurts for Toronto’s offense, but Kazuma Okamoto figures to be an able replacement as a right-handed bat in the middle of the order, and the team also bolstered their outfield depth with the addition of Jesus Sanchez. Will that be enough to maintain control in the East, or will Toronto brass regret missing out on Bichette and Kyle Tucker this winter?
New York Yankees (94-68)
The Yankees only lost the East by a hair last year. Their plan for this season appears to be running back last year’s squad and hoping that the return of Gerrit Cole can push them over the edge. Cody Bellinger, Paul Goldschmidt, Amed Rosario, Trent Grisham, and Paul Blackburn are all returning via free agency. With that being said, the team didn’t make any significant additions aside from bringing back the old guard when it comes to free agency. Their lone major addition to the roster this offseason was a trade with the Marlins that brought back southpaw Ryan Weathers, who has never thrown even 100 innings in a season but does sport a solid 3.74 ERA across his last 24 outings. That addition to the rotation mix is matched by a substantial loss in the bullpen, however, as both Devin Williams and Luke Weaver eschewed the Bronx in favor of Queens during free agency. Perhaps the additions of Cole (as he returns from a season lost to Tommy John surgery) and Weathers will make up for those losses, but the Yankees will also have to contend with the injury bug; Cole, Carlos Rodon, and Anthony Volpe are all starting the season on the injured list, while Clarke Schmidt is already lost for the year to elbow surgery.
Boston Red Sox (89-73)
The Red Sox certainly had a busy offseason, but it’s not exactly the ones fans were expecting. Alex Bregman is suddenly a Chicago Cub. Both Jarren Duran and Wilyer Abreu remain with the Red Sox. While the team’s elite outfield remains intact, the infield looks somewhat suspect. The addition of Willson Contreras at first base should provide some reliability that former top prospect Triston Casas has not been able to so far in his career, but the Red Sox will be banking on another solid season from Trevor Story after his bounce-back in 2025 while turning to Marcelo Mayer at second base and Caleb Durbin at third base. All three of those players have the opportunity to be solid, but only Mayer has a ceiling comparable to the impact Bregman offered and fans in Boston need not be reminded of the risks associated with handing the keys to a young player at second base after Kristian Campbell‘s rookie year. On the other hand, the team’s pitching looks better than ever. Garrett Crochet nearly won the Cy Young award last year, and this season he’ll be supported by both Ranger Suarez and Sonny Gray to give the Red Sox one of the more impressive potential playoff rotations in the game. Will that be enough to win the AL East this year, given the club’s lack of impact hitting additions?
Tampa Bay Rays (77-85)
The Rays are coming off back-to-back seasons where they finished just a bit below .500. After the rest of the division spent the offseason loading up on talent for the 2026 campaign, a lot will need to go right for the Rays to improve this year. Junior Caminero is a superstar at third base but the losses of Brandon Lowe and Pete Fairbanks figure to be a tough blow this year. In typical Rays fashion, the club’s additions aren’t necessarily impactful on paper. None of Jake Fraley, Gavin Lux, Cedric Mullins, Steven Matz, and Nick Martinez had impact seasons last year but they’ve all shown themselves to be more than capable of being effective major leaguers in the past. Additionally, young pieces like Ryan Pepiot and Carson Williams could plausibly take the sort of step forward Jonathan Aranda did last year, therefore joining Aranda and Yandy Diaz as strong pieces of Caminero’s supporting cast. Will all that be enough to overcome the Rays’ high-spending rivals?
Baltimore Orioles (75-87)
The Orioles had a disaster of a 2025 season but they resolved to fix their flaws in this offseason and made a strong effort to do just that. Pete Alonso and Taylor Ward brought in reliable, right-handed power that a lineup stacked with upside but lacking in floor desperately needed. A revamped rotation featuring not just a healthy Kyle Bradish but also a reunion with Zach Eflin plus the additions of both Shane Baz and Chris Bassitt certainly offers more upside than last year’s group, even if they failed to sign the surefire ace they entered the season widely expected to target. That improved rotation is also being supported by a bullpen that brought back Andrew Kittredge after dealing him away at the trade deadline and added Ryan Helsley in order to replace injured closer Felix Bautista. The bones of a very deep and talented team are clearly present in Baltimore but whether they can rise from fifth in the division all the way to first will surely depend on the health and performance of their core pieces like Jackson Holliday, Jordan Westburg and Adley Rutschman. Gunnar Henderson remains a good bet to earn himself MVP votes but will the rest of that elite group of youngsters be able to start to catch up to him?
After a busy offseason all around the AL East, which team is most likely to come out on top this year? Will the Blue Jays hold on after their near-miss at a championship last season? Will the Yankees be able to get better results with the same roster? Will the Red Sox or Orioles be able to make an unorthodox offseason into a success despite notable misses on some stated goals for the winter? Or will the Rays once again work the magic that’s made them so successful in the past and surprise the league? Have your say in the poll below: