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Josh Rojas Diagnosed With Hairline Fracture In Toe

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White Sox infielder Josh Rojas has a hairline fracture in his right big toe. Manager Will Venable passed the info on to reporters, including James Fegan of Sox Machine. Rojas is currently in a walking boot. He left Saturday’s game with soreness in that toe. Per Daryl Van Schouwen of the Chicago Sun-Times, Rojas was “shaking off some contact” with a baserunner on a tag play earlier in the game.

Venable didn’t specifically rule Rojas out for Opening Day, but that seems to be a fair inference. Per Fegan, the skipper said his return will mostly be about pain tolerance and he’s currently in a fair amount of pain. Opening Day is just over a week away and the Sox have little reason to rush him if he’s not 100%.

Rojas, 31 in June, was signed to a one-year, $3.5MM deal in January. When healthy, he will likely be bouncing around to various positions, depending on the performance of other players on the roster. He has primarily played third and second base in his career, though he has also had some appearances at shortstop, first base and the outfield corners.

The hot corner appears to be spoken for. Venable said last month that Miguel Vargas will be the primary third baseman. He’s having a huge spring, currently hitting .393/.455/.571. Andrew Vaughn isn’t performing that well in camp but should be the regular at first base.

There’s less certainty up the middle. There was a chance for Colson Montgomery to secure the shortstop job but he hit .111/.111/.444 in spring and got optioned last week. That left Rojas, Lenyn Sosa, Brooks Baldwin and Jacob Amaya as some of the middle infielders that were both on the roster and in camp. If Rojas needs to miss some time, that could create extra room for the guys in that group.

It could also open some paths to playing time for non-roster invitees. Veteran Brandon Drury has plenty of second base experience and is hitting .361/.395/.806 this spring. Nick Maton is another NRI crushing the ball right now, with a .346/.433/.731 line in camp. Tristan Gray currently has a .353/.333/.824 line going. Spring stats are always to be taken with a grain of salt but the Sox are coming off a 121-loss season and should be using the 2025 to ride any hot hand that comes along.

Offseason In Review: Philadelphia Phillies

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After winning the NL East for the first time in 13 years, the Phillies had their quietest offseason since Dave Dombrowski took over as president of baseball operations. Some will say the Phillies didn’t need to make any major moves, considering that almost all of their key contributors are returning for another year. Others will argue they are playing a dangerous game by largely running it back, allowing the Mets and Braves to gain precious ground. Is this team moving in the right direction heading into 2025?

Major League Signings

2025 spending: $22.5MM
Total spending: $22.5MM

Trades & Claims

Option Decisions

  • None

Notable Minor League Signings

Notable Losses

The Phillies have enjoyed continued success under manager Rob Thomson, so it came as no shock when they began their offseason by extending the skipper through 2026. The team was also quick to confirm that Thomson’s full coaching staff would return in 2025, although they later lost assistant pitching coach/director of pitching Brian Kaplan to the Diamondbacks. Philadelphia’s pitching staff was arguably the best in baseball during Kaplan’s tenure working under Caleb Cotham (2022-24). The Phillies will hope that Cotham’s new second-in-command, Mark Lowy, has just as much success. In an additional personnel move, the Phillies promoted assistant GM Preston Mattingly to vice president and general manager. Those roles were previously held by Sam Fuld, who will remain with the organization in a new role on the business side of operations. 

At the same press conference in which Dombrowski announced Thomson’s extension, the POBO spoke the words that became the defining refrain of the Phillies’ offseason: “We just have to be open-minded to exploring what’s out there for us, talk to some clubs and see what ends up happening. That process hasn’t started. Sometimes you trade good players for good players” (per MLB.com's Todd Zolecki). 

Needless to say, that quotation led to much speculation about the Phillies making a major trade to shake things up. In particular, Alec Bohm was the subject of several trade rumors. The Royals, Mariners, Angels, and Athletics were all reported to have some degree of interest in the third baseman at one time or another. Coming off an All-Star campaign, Bohm’s value hasn’t been higher since he finished runner-up for the 2020 NL Rookie of the Year. However, there seemed to be a disconnect between how highly the Phillies valued Bohm and how badly any potential suitors were hankering after his services. For instance, the Phillies reportedly asked for Mason Miller from the A’s in exchange for Bohm, which quickly shut down any negotiations between the two teams (per The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal). 

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Front Office Subscriber Chat Transcript

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MLBTR's Steve Adams hosted a live chat today, exclusively for Trade Rumors Front Office subscribers.

 

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Braves Release Curt Casali, Reassign Sandy León To Minor League Camp

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The Braves announced yesterday that catcher Curt Casali was reassigned to minor league camp. They announced the same with Sandy León today. Casali has been released, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com.

It now seems highly likely that prospect Drake Baldwin will break camp with the club. Atlanta hasn’t made any firm announcements but Sean Murphy is going to start the season on the injured list due to a cracked rib. That leaves Chadwick Tromp as the only healthy catcher on the 40-man roster, meaning Atlanta needs to add someone. Casali and Leon were in camp as NRIs but that is no longer the case. Unless Atlanta brings in a catcher from outside the organization, then it seems like Baldwin will get an Opening Day job.

Baldwin, 24 this month, is one of the top catching prospects in the game. A third-round pick in the 2022 draft, he split last year between Double-A and Triple-A. He got into 124 games in total, including 72 at the top minor league level. Combined, he had a 13.1% walk rate and 17.2% strikeout rate on the year. He hit 16 home runs and slashed .276/.370/.423 for a 119 wRC+.

Coming into 2025, Baldwin is a consensus top 100 prospect. Baseball America currently has him in the #53 spot, noting that he profiles as a competent defender who is getting strong reviews for his work with pitchers.

Atlanta turned down a club option on Travis d’Arnaud at the start of the offseason, leaving Murphy and Tromp as the two catchers on the roster. Murphy’s injury opened a path for Baldwin to earn a job to start the season. He has certainly done everything he can to take advantage of that opportunity. He enters today with a spring batting line of .370/.485/.444.

That will seemingly be enough to get him a crack at the big leagues, at least to start the season. When Murphy suffered his cracked rib in early March, it was announced that he would be out of action for four to six weeks. He could therefore be back on the field in April but will likely need a bit of a rehab assignment to effectively redo his spring training.

While he does that, the team will see how Baldwin does against major league pitching. If he does well, perhaps he and Murphy could share the catching duties going forward, though Tromp is out of options. That means he would need to be removed from the 40-man roster, unless the club wants to carry three catchers when Murphy is healthy. But even the best prospects sometimes struggle when first promoted to the majors. If that happens with Baldwin, he can be optioned back to Triple-A while Murphy and Tromp handle things. For now, Baldwin will need a 40-man roster spot, though that could be easily accomplished by putting Joe Jiménez on the 60-day injured list.

Casali, 36, was in camp on a minor league deal. He’s been in the big leagues for over a decade now, generally providing solid defense with flashes of offense, though he hasn’t hit much in the past two years. He had a career batting line of .223/.316/.392 and 92 wRC+ at the end of the 2022 season, but he has slashed .186/.292/.229 over the past two campaigns for a 52 wRC+. His struggles have continued into this spring. He has 15 plate appearances in camp with Atlanta with no hits, no walks and seven strikeouts. The only time he reached base was on a hit-by-pitch.

That’s a small sample but obviously not a good showing, especially when compared to what Baldwin has been up to. Casali is an Article XX(B) free agent, meaning that he has at least six years of service time and finished last season on a major league roster or injured list. That means he has guaranteed opt-out dates on his minor league deal: five days before Opening Day, May 1 and June 1.

Since he wasn’t going to break camp with Atlanta, he was likely going to opt out and look for other opportunities. The club has seemingly let him go a bit early, allowing him to get a headstart on finding his next gig.

Despite his rough spring, he should get interest based on his track record. There are several clubs around the league with injury concerns. The Mets are going to be without Francisco Alvarez for a while. The Reds will start the season with Tyler Stephenson on the IL and Jose Trevino is banged up as well. The Giants have Patrick Bailey behind the plate but Tom Murphy will start the year on the IL and won’t be able to back him up. Casali could perhaps find a fresh minor league deal with one of those clubs or circle back to Atlanta after making a few calls.

Royce Lewis To Begin Season On Injured List

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March 17: Lewis has been diagnosed with a “moderate” hamstring strain and will begin the season on the injured list, writes Phil Miller of the Minneapolis Star Tribune. The injury is “not even close” to as serious as the quad strain that sidelined Lewis for more than two months early last season, according to Lewis himself. The team still does not have a formal timetable for his return to the active roster, however.

March 16: The Twins suffered a potentially devastating blow today when third baseman Royce Lewis exited the game after pulling up while running out a grounder. As relayed by Betsy Helfand of the St. Paul Pioneer Press, the Twins subsequently announced that the infielder had been diagnosed with a hamstring strain. The severity of the injury is currently unclear, but it seems likely that Lewis will miss at least some time with Opening Day less than two weeks away.

Lewis, 25, is among a number of immensely talented but often injured players on the Twins’ roster. The first overall pick in the 2017 draft, Lewis was a consensus top-10 prospect in the sport all the way back in 2019 and appeared to be on the verge of a big league debut in 2021. Unfortunately, a right ACL tear wiped out the entire 2021 season for the youngster, and while he made his big league debut in 2022 he suffered a second right ACL tear shortly thereafter that sidelined him until late May of 2023.

He’s been a more regular fixture of the club’s big league roster since that second call-up, though he’s missed time over the past two years due to oblique, hamstring, quad, and adductor strains. All of those injury woes have left Lewis with just 140 games played and 564 plate appearances under his belt over the past two seasons, though he’s remained an exciting talent through all of those issues and slashed .265/.328/.493 with a 127 wRC+ and 3.5 fWAR while playing third base for the Twins when healthy enough to take the field.

After his first fully healthy offseason of his major league career, it seemed as though Lewis was set to finally have a shot at participating in a wire-to-wire MLB season. Those hopes have likely been scuttled for the time being now, though, as his latest hamstring injury appears likely to keep him off the club’s Opening Day roster given Lewis’s lengthy injury and, more specifically, his history of lower half issues. It should be expected that the Twins will proceed with caution when it comes to handling the youngster given that context, although it seems likely that a more specific timetable for Lewis’s return won’t be clear until more information about the severity of Lewis’s strain is available.

If there’s a silver lining in this for the Twins, it’s that the club is reasonably well-equipped to handle the loss of Lewis. Jose Miranda is likely the favorite to step in at third base in Lewis’s place and hit a respectable .284/.322/.441 in 121 games last year as he rebounded from a dreadful 2023 campaign. If Miranda were to stumble, however, they’d have further flexibility as well. Brooks Lee is currently penciled in as the club’s second baseman but could slide over to the hot corner to make room for Edouard Julien or top infield prospect Luke Keaschall at the keystone.

Aside from those possibilities, the club also has a versatile option with no set position at its disposal in Willi Castro. Castro is already slated to serve in a super utility role and could cover any spot on the diamond as needed. If Castro were to play on the infield dirt regularly, that could open up time in the outfield or at DH for potential outfield options like DaShawn Keirsey, Austin Martin, or even top prospect Emmanuel Rodriguez.

Tobias Myers To Start Season On IL Due To Oblique Strain

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March 17: Myers will start the season on the IL due to an oblique strain, as expected. Manager Pat Murphy relayed the news to Hogg today, though he still seemed optimistic that it will be a brief absence, saying that a return in April “could be in play.”

March 15: The Brewers suffered what could be a brutal blow to their rotation today when right-hander Tobias Myers exited today’s game against the Angels with left oblique discomfort, as noted by Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Myers suggested to reporters after the game that the issue “seems mild,” but Hogg adds that Myers is set to undergo imaging tomorrow but is likely to require a stint on the injured list given the nature of oblique issues, which often require a month-long absence even for mild strains.

Myers, 26, enjoyed a phenomenal rookie season with the Brewers last year. A sixth-round pick by the Orioles back in 2016, he bounced through the Rays, Giants, Guardians, and White Sox organizations over the years before finally landing in Milwaukee and getting a shot at the big league level. He made the most of the opportunity, pitching his way into a rotation role and sticking there with an excellent 3.00 ERA in 138 innings of work. His peripheral numbers were slightly less rosy, with a 3.91 FIP, a 3.99 SIERA, and a 4.22 xERA all suggesting the righty is more of a mid-rotation or back-end starter than the 140 ERA+ production he offered last year might initially suggest. Even so, Myers figured to be a key piece of the Brewers this year as a stalwart of the club’s rotation.

That may now be set to change, at least for the beginning of the season. If Myers does wind up missing time, it’s a worrisome way for the club to start the 2025 campaign. Myers would join Brandon Woodruff, Aaron Ashby, DL Hall, and Robert Gasser on the injured list to open the season. While Freddy Peralta, Nestor Cortes, and Aaron Civale all appear to be healthy and on track to begin the season on time, there’s little certainty beyond that group.

MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy notes that while veteran left-hander Jose Quintana has not been ruled out for Opening Day, it’s possible the southpaw will need to spend some time in extended Spring Training before he’s ready to begin the season.  Quintana, 36, signed with the Brewers earlier this month and is about a week behind the rest of the club’s healthy pitchers after getting a late start to Spring Training. The Brewers won’t necessarily need a fifth starter until April 2 against the Royals, which provides the club some flexibility as Quintana builds up to game readiness. With that being said, it does the club no favors when it comes to finding a replacement for Myers in the rotation.

Should Myers require a trip to the shelf, McCalvy suggests that left-hander Tyler Alexander or right-hander Elvin Rodriguez could be leaned on to make starts. Neither of those are particularly inspiring options for more than a spot start or two. Alexander has had some solid years as a swing man with the Tigers and Rays over the years, but his 4.60 ERA across 52 career starts leaves much to be desired. Meanwhile, Rodriguez has just 33 innings of 9.55 ERA under his belt in the majors. Other options could include non-roster invitee Bruce Zimmermann, who pitched to a 4.16 ERA in the minors for the Orioles last year, or a prospect like Jacob Misiorowski. The young righty has just 17 2/3 innings of experience at the Triple-A level, making him a less than ideal candidate to jump to the majors right away, but other prospects like Chad Patrick could be more realistic options.

Cardinals Mulling Six-Man Rotation

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The Cardinals are considering opening the season with a six-man rotation, manager Oliver Marmol revealed this morning (link via John Denton of MLB.com). Doing so would allow the club to get righty Michael McGreevy some starts alongside Sonny Gray, Erick Fedde, Miles Mikolas, Andre Pallante and Steven Matz.

St. Louis has a veteran-laden rotation that includes two pitchers (Gray, Mikolas) who might’ve been trade candidates this winter were it not for full no-trade protection in both of their deals. Matz’s $12MM salary made him difficult for the Cards to move as well, and the team chose not to deal Fedde despite the right-hander having just one season left on his contract as the organization enters something of a transition year that was intended to focus on developing younger players.

McGreevy, 24, was the Cardinals’ first-round pick back in 2021 and made a brief MLB debut in 2024, tossing 23 innings with a 1.96 ERA and an 18-to-2 K/BB ratio. He also pitched to a 4.02 earned run average with a 21.6% strikeout rate, 6.9% walk rate and 49% ground-ball rate in 150 Triple-A frames. He currently ranks 10th among Cardinals prospects at Baseball America and 11th at MLB.com. He’s also already made 51 starts at the Triple-A level over the past two seasons and thus has little left to prove at the top minor league level.

So far in camp, McGreevy has pitched 11 2/3 innings and held opponents to a pair of runs on nine hits. He hasn’t walked any of the 43 batters he’s faced and has kept the ball on the ground at a nice 47.1% clip, though his 18.6% strikeout rate is a ways below average. Be that as it may, it’s been an undeniably strong camp for a former first-rounder who looks largely ready for an earnest big league audition.

There are obviously factors that could yet change the composition of a potential six-man group. Injuries are abundant this time of year and could impact any rotation at any point. The Cards were at least reported to be “open” to offers on Fedde earlier this month, though there’s no real indication they’re seriously pursuing a trade of the affordable right-hander, who’s earning $7.5MM this year. They’ve also been considering left-hander and former top prospect Matthew Liberatore for rotation work, although president of baseball operations John Mozeliak said late last week that at least initially, the expectation was that Liberatore would break camp as a reliever (link via Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch).

A’s Option Esteury Ruiz, J.T. Ginn

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The A’s optioned several names to Triple-A Las Vegas last night, including outfielder Esteury Ruiz, rotation hopeful J.T. Ginn, infielder Darell Hernaiz, and righties Elvis Alvarado and Grant Holman. Infielder Alejo Lopez and lefty Matt Krook, both former big leaguers in camp on non-roster deals, were also reassigned to minor league camp. All of those cuts were announced by the team.

Ruiz, 26, was the Athletics’ primary center fielder in 2023 and swiped a gaudy 67 bases that season but did so while batting only .254/.309/.345 in 132 games (497 plate appearances). Though he was one of several key players acquired in the Athletics’ slate of rebuild-focused trades — regrettably coming over in a three-way deal that sent star catcher William Contreras, whom the A’s could’ve kept, to the Brewers — Ruiz has fallen a ways down the team’s depth chart since that original acquisition.

Injury played a role in his drop down the pecking order, as he missed the bulk of the 2024 campaign with a wrist strain. Ruiz logged 29 games and 65 plate appearances in the majors and delivered only a feeble .200/.270/.382 output at the plate. He hit .345/.425/.596 in 73 minor league plate appearances last year, but he’s long had eye-catching numbers in the upper minors that haven’t carried over to MLB, where he’s a .243/.297/.343 hitter in 598 plate appearances. Ruiz didn’t do himself any favors this spring, hitting .121/.171/.152 in 35 trips to the plate during Cactus League play.

The A’s locked Lawrence Butler up on a long-term extension and saw JJ Bleday turn in a breakout performance at the plate last season. That leaves two of their three outfield spots spoken for in the long-term. Bleday is miscast as a center fielder, so perhaps there’s room for Ruiz to work his way back into that role, but prospects like Colby Thomas, Denzel Clarke and Henry Bolte are all on the cusp of MLB readiness as well. At least for the early stages of the 2025 campaign, it looks like the A’s will go with a left field platoon of Seth Brown and Miguel Andujar.

In the rotation, Ginn heads back to Triple-A on the heels of a tough spring. The righty’s final outing was excellent — four innings of one-run ball with seven punchouts — but he still served up 13 runs (11 earned) in 13 innings while walking 12.5% of his opponents. The 25-year-old is a former second-round pick whom the A’s acquired in the trade sending Chris Bassitt to the Mets. He was hit relatively hard between Double-A and Triple-A last year but turned in a decent blend of strikeout, walk and ground-ball rates (21.2%, 8.8% and 54.1%, respectively). He held his own with a 4.24 ERA in his first 34 MLB frames last summer as well.

With Ginn being sent out, it increasingly appears as though the Athletics’ season-opening rotation will include Luis Severino, Jeffrey Springs, JP Sears, Osvaldo Bido and Mitch Spence. A late injury could always change that, and the A’s still have one possible rotation alternative in camp in the form of Joey Estes, who’s had a decent Cactus League run this spring.

Hernaiz, acquired in the trade of Cole Irvin to Baltimore, became a long shot for the roster after the A’s signed both Gio Urshela and Luis Urias to major league contracts this winter. Jacob Wilson and Zack Gelof are lined up in the middle infield, while Urias and Urshela can handle third base and move around to multiple infield positions. Hernaiz hit well in Triple-A last year (.331/.376/.493) but mustered only a .192/.261/.242 line in his first 135 MLB plate appearances. His spring output wasn’t much more encouraging — .194/.302/.306 in 43 plate appearances — so he’ll had back to the minors for more work.

Submit Your Questions For This Week’s Episode Of The MLBTR Podcast

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On the MLB Trade Rumors podcast, we regularly answer questions from our readers and listeners. With the next episode set for Wednesday, we’re looking for MLBTR’s audience to submit their questions and we’ll pick a few to answer.

The 2025 Major League Baseball season is about to begin. If you have a question about a positional battle, a look ahead to the summer or anything else baseball-related, we’d love to hear from you! You can email your questions to mlbtrpod@gmail.com.

Also, if you want to hear your voice on the podcast, send us your question in audio form and we might play it. iPhone users can find instructions on how to do so here.

In the meantime, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

The Opener: Tokyo Series, Strider, Lewis

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With regular season baseball just over the horizon, here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world throughout the day today:

1. Tokyo Series Game 1:

While it doesn’t actually occur until early tomorrow morning, by this time tomorrow the 2025 campaign will officially be underway! The Tokyo Series, a two-game set between the Dodgers and Cubs hosted at the Tokyo Dome in Japan, will kick off at 5:10am CT (3:10am PT) tomorrow morning. Early risers who want to catch the first regular season game of the year will be able to tune in on FOX tomorrow morning, while locals to Chicago and Los Angeles respectively can find the game on Marquee Sports Network and Sportsnet L.A. as per usual for in-market Cubs and Dodgers broadcasts.

Both the Cubs and Dodgers will send Japanese-born players to the mound in their home country to start Game 1, with Chicago southpaw Shota Imanaga (2.91 ERA in 2024) taking on prized Dodgers right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto (3.00 ERA in 2024). Both clubs will be down a key piece of their middle infield for the series as well, with the Dodgers sitting star shortstop Mookie Betts due to illness while Cubs second baseman Nico Hoerner has continued rehabbing from offseason flexor tendon surgery at the club’s spring facility in Arizona while the rest of the club is overseas for this week’s series. Tommy Edman and Miguel Rojas are the top candidates to fill in for Betts at short with the Dodgers, while Jon Berti and Gage Workman could both be called upon to take Hoerner’s place in the Cubs lineup.

2. Strider returns to action:

Star right-hander Spencer Strider missed almost the entire 2024 regular season while rehabbing surgery an internal brace surgery on his UCL. While the right-hander will not be ready in time to make Atlanta’s Opening Day roster, he’s far enough along in his rehab to make his Grapefruit League debut in a start against the Red Sox this afternoon. Scheduled to take on left-hander Shane Drohan in a 1:05pm local time game at Atlanta’s spring facility in North Port, if Strider’s start today goes well and he continues on his current track, there now appears to be a good chance he’ll return to action ahead of schedule, perhaps missing only the regular season’s first couple of weeks.

3. Lewis undergoing testing:

Perhaps the most notable news from the weekend was the latest injury suffered by Twins third baseman Royce Lewis. The first overall pick of the 2017 draft has been plagued by frequent and lengthy absences due to injuries over the past half decade, and despite making his big league debut early in the 2022 season he has just 152 career MLB games under his belt. Lewis appeared set to finally have the first mostly normal offseason and Spring Training of his big league career this year, but unfortunately those hopes were dashed yesterday when he was pulled from the club’s game against the Red Sox due to a hamstring issue.

Lewis is set to undergo testing to determine the severity of the issue (and his timetable for return to action) today, but even a mild hamstring strain for a player with his history of lower half injuries will likely be approached with caution. While Lewis is out of commission, Jose Miranda and Willi Castro appear to be the most likely candidates to step in at third base.

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