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Orioles Claim Jhonkensy Noel, Designate George Soriano For Assignment

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The Orioles have claimed outfielder Jhonkensy Noel from the Guardians, according to announcements from both clubs. Noel was designated for assignment last month. To open a spot for Noel, the O’s designated right-hander George Soriano for assignment.

Noel, 24, changes organizations for the first time. The Guards signed him as an international amateur back in 2017 and he has been part of that system until today. Over the past two years, he has shown some big power ability but also a poor approach. In 351 big league plate appearances, he has 19 home runs but his 4.8% walk rate and 32.8% strikeout rate are both awful figures. That’s led to a lopsided .193/.242/.401 slash line thus far.

He exhausted his final option season in 2025, which pushed him off Cleveland’s roster. He was designated for assignment December 17th when Cleveland acquired Justin Bruihl from the Blue Jays. DFA limbo is normally capped at one week but there are clearly different rules around the holidays, as “Big Christmas” just spent close to three weeks in that liminal space.

The O’s have grabbed him today, though Noel won’t have a great path to playing time. Baltimore has a fairly crowded group for their outfield corners, as well as the first base and designated hitter spots. Pete Alonso should be the regular at first, with Coby Mayo and Ryan Mountcastle also in the mix there. Those guys could spill over into the DH slot, though the O’s might also want at-bats for their catching tandem of Adley Rutschman and Samuel Basallo. The outfield group includes Colton Cowser, Taylor Ward, Tyler O’Neill, Dylan Beavers, Leody Taveras, Heston Kjerstad and others.

Alonso, Mayo, Mountcastle, Ward and O’Neill are all right-handed power bats. The same is true of Noel, though he has a lesser track record of major league success than everyone in that group. The O’s tend to be very aggressive at claiming players off waivers and then putting them back on the wire later, hoping to keep them as non-roster depth. It’s possible that is the plan here, as Noel currently faces a steep path to a big league role.

His numbers in the minors are more encouraging than his major league work. Over the past two years, he has stepped to the plate 536 times at the Triple-A level with 30 home runs. His 7.5% walk rate and 23.7% strikeout rate were still not amazing but much better than his big league work. His .285/.349/.538 line in that sample translates to a 130 wRC+.

Being out of options will make it challenging for him to carve out a lengthy amount of big league playing time. But if he gets a chance and runs with it, he can be affordably controlled for years to come. His service time clock is at one year and 29 days, meaning he is still five years from free agency and two years from qualifying for arbitration.

Soriano, 27 in March, has never pitched for Baltimore. He spent his entire career with the Marlins until the Orioles grabbed him off waivers in early November. Over the past three years, he tossed 118 innings for Miami, allowing 5.95 earned runs per nine. He struck out 22% of batters faced and gave out walks at a 10.3% clip.

Like Noel, Soriano exhausted his final option season in 2025 and got pushed to the waiver wire. As mentioned, the O’s like to make claims and then try to pass guys through waivers later to keep them as non-roster depth. Soriano flashed some intriguing potential in Triple-A last year, tossing 42 2/3 innings with a 2.32 ERA, 28.8% strikeout rate, 8.8% walk rate and 55.7% ground ball rate.

His service time clock is at 1.095, so he also has years of potential cheap control. That could entice another club to acquire him but the O’s would surely be happy if they can get him through waivers and hang onto him in a non-roster capacity.

Photo courtesy of Ken Blaze, Imagn Images

Royals, Jorge Alfaro Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Royals and veteran catcher Jorge Alfaro are in agreement on a minor league contract, reports Aram Leighton of Just Baseball. Presumably, there’s an invitation to major league camp included in the CAA client’s deal.

Now 32 years old, Alfaro was one of the top catching prospects in the game when the Phillies sent him to Miami alongside right-hander Sixto Sanchez in the trade that sent star backstop J.T. Realmuto to Philadelphia. Alfaro had a decent run between the Phils and the Fish from 2017-19 when he slashed .269/.322/.429 with 33 homers in 956 plate appearances. That output came with a sky-high 34% strikeout rate, however.

While the bloated strikeout rate made it hard to imagine Alfaro continuing his success at the plate, his plus raw power and accurate rocket of an arm gave him a chance to stick around in at least a part-time role, but Alfaro has slipped into journeyman status as his strikeout woes have escalated and his framing/blocking grades have dwindled. Over his past 736 MLB plate appearances dating back to 2020, Alfaro is a .237/.277/.352 hitter. He’s walked in just 3.6% of his plate appearances during that time and fanned nearly 10 times as often. Even in Triple-A with the Brewers in 2025, Alfaro swatted 15 homers and slashed .244/.285/.430 … but did so with a 36.5% strikeout rate.

The Royals don’t need immediate help behind the plate. Alfaro is likely being viewed as a depth option for Triple-A Omaha, but injuries or trades could always impact the depth chart. Team captain Salvador Perez, of course, isn’t going anywhere and will again see plenty of time behind the plate.

That said, Perez has seen more time at first base and at designated hitter in recent seasons, and with prospect Carter Jensen looking ready for a real audition, Perez could spend even less time behind the dish. Blake Mitchell is another well-regarded catching option in the upper minors, and 20-year-old Ramon Ramirez gives them a third catching prospect of note (although he’s yet to play above High-A).

Tigers Sign Scott Effross To Minor League Contract

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January 5th: Effross will indeed get an invite to big league camp and will also make a salary of $950K in the majors, reports Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press.

January 4th: The Tigers signed right-hander Scott Effross to a minor league contract in December, as per Effross’ MLB.com profile page.  Effross has been assigned to Triple-A Toledo, and will presumably be a non-roster invite to the Tigers’ big league spring camp.

The 32-year-old sidearmer is looking to rebound from three straight injury-marred seasons.  A Tommy John surgery entirely wiped out Effross’ 2023 campaign, and a back surgery during that TJ rehab period kept Effross out of any game action until June 2024, and he ended up tossing 35 1/3 minor league innings that season as well as 3 1/3 MLB frames with the Yankees.  During Spring Training 2025, Effross then suffered a Grade 2 hamstring strain that led to three more months on the shelf, and he amassed only 10 2/3 innings for New York while being frequently shuffled up and down from the minors.

While Effross was projected for just an $800K salary in his first year of arbitration eligibility, the Yankees chose to non-tender the righty in November.  It wasn’t an unexpected decision given Effross’ injury woes, and he’ll now look to try and re-establish himself and win a job in Detroit’s bullpen.  He has a minor league option remaining, as well as two more arb-eligible years if he can make the roster and recapture some of his early-career form.

Before the Tommy John surgery, Effross looked to be establishing himself as a bullpen weapon in his first two Major League seasons.  He debuted in 2021 as a member of the Cubs, and posted a 2.78 ERA, 27.9% strikeout rate, 5.6% walk rate, and 45.1% grounder rate over 71 1/3 combined innings with the Cubs and Yankees during the 2021-22 seasons.  New York was intrigued enough to acquire Effross in a one-for-one swap for Hayden Wesneski at the 2022 deadline, in what ended up being a nice trade for Chicago.

Effross’ few cups of coffee in the majors over the last two seasons have yielded only a 7.71 ERA and a 12.3% strikeout rate across 14 innings.  His K% was also diminished (through not to that extent) during his minor league work in 2024-25, and Effross struggled to a 6.37 ERA in 29 2/3 frames with at the Triple-A level last year.

Athletics Sign Tyler Soderstrom To Seven-Year Extension

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Jan. 5: Some details on the breakdown are provided by Jon Heyman of The New York Post. Soderstrom gets a $3MM signing bonus and $1MM salary in 2026. His salary then jumps to $6MM, $10MM, $12MM, $16MM, $17MM and $19MM in the subsequent seasons. The 2033 club option is worth $27MM with a $2MM buyout. His 2032 and 2033 salaries can jump by $1MM or $2MM based on MVP finishing, though specifics of those escalators haven’t been reported. There should also be further escalators, considering Passan’s reporting that the deal can max out at $131MM. Soderstrom also gets some limited no-trade protection for 2032 and 2033, though details are also unreported in that department.

Dec. 29: The Athletics have formally announced the extension.

Dec. 25: The Athletics aren’t taking the holiday off. They’re in agreement with outfielder Tyler Soderstrom on a seven-year, $86MM extension, reports Jeff Passan of ESPN. Passan adds that there’s a club option for 2033 and escalators that could push the contract value by another $45MM if the option is exercised. The deal buys out at least three free agent years and potentially a fourth, keeping him under club control through his age-31 season. Soderstrom is represented by Paragon Sports International.

Soderstrom becomes the latest core offensive piece whom the A’s lock up on a long-term deal. They extended Brent Rooker and Lawrence Butler on respective $60MM and $65.5MM guarantees last winter. Soderstrom tops those by a decent margin, becoming the largest contract in club history in the process. Their three-year, $67MM free agent deal with Luis Severino had previously been that high-water mark.

[Related: Largest Contract in Franchise History for Each MLB Team]

The lefty-hitting Soderstrom was a first-round pick in 2020. He’d been an excellent offensive player dating back to high school. The biggest question was where he’d fit on the other side of the ball. While Soderstrom was drafted as a catcher, most scouts felt he’d need to move off the position. That has essentially been borne out, as his only 15 MLB starts behind the dish came during his 2023 rookie season. The fallback for poor defensive catchers is generally first base, and that’s indeed where Soderstrom spent the early part of his big league tenure.

Soderstrom struggled over a 45-game sample as a rookie. His .233/.315/.429 slash across 213 plate appearances in 2024 was a significant step forward but hadn’t yet put him alongside Rooker, Butler and Shea Langeliers as clear members of the A’s core. Soderstrom entered this year with a little pressure in the form of 2024 fourth overall pick Nick Kurtz, a college first baseman who was expected to hit his way to the majors very quickly.

While Kurtz would do just that, Soderstrom’s breakout ’25 campaign ensured the A’s couldn’t afford to take him out of the lineup either. The 24-year-old was one of the league’s best hitters in the first few weeks of the season. He connected on nine home runs with a .284/.349/.560 slash before the end of April. Soderstrom was tied for fourth in MLB (behind only Aaron Judge, Cal Raleigh and Eugenio Suárez) in homers through the season’s first month. By the time Kurtz forced his way to the majors on April 21, Soderstrom was locked into the middle of Mark Kotsay’s batting order.

That presented the A’s with a positional dilemma. Rooker is an everyday designated hitter. The 6’5″, 240-pound Kurtz wasn’t going to be able to play anywhere other than first base. Despite his catching/first base background, Soderstrom is a solid athlete and average runner. The A’s threw him into left field on the fly even though he’d had no professional experience there. They presumably expected to live with some defensive growing pains to keep his bat in the lineup.

Soderstrom dramatically exceeded those expectations. He graded 10 runs better than an average left fielder by measure of Defensive Runs Saved. Statcast graded his range five plays above average. Soderstrom ended the season as a Gold Glove finalist at a position he’d never played five months earlier. He joins Butler as core outfield pieces, ideally in a corner tandem flanking defensive specialist Denzel Clarke in center.

The increased defensive responsibility didn’t impact Soderstrom’s rhythm at the plate. He scuffled between May and June but rebounded with a .305/.359/.530 showing over the season’s final four months. Soderstrom finished with an overall .276/.346/.474 batting line while ranking fourth on the team with 25 homers. He improved his contact rate by six percentage points and held his own against same-handed pitching (.270/.315/.423) while teeing off on righties (.278/.356/.491). The  breakout also wasn’t a product of the A’s playing half their games at the hitter-friendly Sutter Heath Park. Soderstrom had an OPS north of .800 both at home and on the road.

As recently as this past summer, there was speculation about the A’s potentially swapping Soderstrom for a controllable starting pitcher. The extension firmly takes that off the table and ensures he’ll remain alongside Kurtz, Rooker, Butler and Jacob Wilson in an excellent offensive corps. The first three are signed through at least 2029. Kurtz and Wilson are under team control for five seasons. Langeliers has another two seasons of arbitration eligibility.

Soderstrom was already under club control for four seasons. He was a year closer to free agency than Butler was at the time of his extension, which explains why the price was a little more than $20MM higher. Soderstrom tops the $57.5MM guarantee which Royals third baseman Maikel Garcia received in the same service class, but that deal only extended K.C.’s control window by two seasons.

The A’s backloaded the Rooker and Butler extensions, with the highest salaries corresponding to their planned move to Las Vegas in 2028. The salary breakdown on Soderstrom’s deal hasn’t yet been reported. The A’s had a projected payroll around $87MM before today, as calculated by RosterResource. That’s $12MM above where they opened the ’25 season. General manager David Forst told MLB.com’s Martín Gallegos last week that the team was looking to upgrade a rotation that ranked 27th in ERA and 25th in strikeout percentage.

Image courtesy of Charles LeClaire, Imagn Images.

Nationals Claim Joey Wiemer

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The Nationals have claimed outfielder Joey Wiemer off waivers from the Giants, reports Robert Murray of Fansided. San Francisco designated Wiemer for assignment last month in order to open a roster spot for newly signed reliever Jason Foley.

Wiemer, 27 next month, was a fourth-round pick by the Brewers in 2020 and previously drew some top-100 fanfare back in 2022-23. His stock has since dipped as he’s bounced from Milwaukee to Cincinnati to Kansas City via the trade market, and now from Miami to San Francisco following a pair of DFAs.

In parts of three big league seasons, Wiemer carries a tepid .205/.279/.359 batting line with a strikeout rate just under 30%. That said, he popped 13 homers and swiped 11 bags as a rookie in 2023 and has held his own against lefties in the majors, hitting .255/.298/.484. It’s a power-over-OBP skill set, but Wiemer can play all three outfield spots and has a solid glove. He’s drawn positive marks in left, center and right in his career, drawing 11 Defensive Runs Saved and 7 Outs Above Average overall.

Wiemer is out of minor league options, so he’ll need to stay on Washington’s 40-man roster for the rest of the offseason and break camp with the team or else be designated for assignment once again. He can’t be sent to the minors without first passing through waivers.

For now, he projects as a possible bench option who could provide a righty-swinging complement to outfielders like James Wood, Daylen Lile and Robert Hassell III — although it’s also possible that the acquisition of Wiemer bumps Hassell back down to Triple-A. Hassell, unlike Wiemer, has minor league options remaining. A return trip to Triple-A Rochester could afford him everyday at-bats as he hopes to carve out a larger role on the big league club.

Trade Rumors Front Office Subscriber Chat Transcript

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Steve Adams

  • Happy 2026!
  • Yeah, that's going to feel weird for awhile.
  • I'll get going at 3pm CT today, but feel free to submit questions ahead of time, as always. Hope the holidays have treated everyone well thus far!
  • Hello all! Sorry for the delay
  • Lets get underway!

Bo Knows Okamoto

  • Am I now the odd man out in Toronto?

Steve Adams

  • It's more crowded, but  no, I don't take the Okamoto signing as any kind of surefire sign he's gone, no. They still have Ernie Clement atop their depth chart at second base, and Clement is at best a glove-first, league-average hitter and more likely a glove-first utility player.There's plenty of space to get both Bichette and Okamoto near-regular playing time, especially since Okamoto could spend some time at first and/or DH, while Bichette  could play some SS if Gimenez goes down with any sort of injury.

Chaim Bloom

  • Im resigned to the fact that Ill need to absorb another team's bad contract in order to move Nolan Arenado.  As long as the player attached to said contract is (A) playable in my outfield or (B) tradable, Im good with that. Right now I have the Angels and Jorge Soler is a good fit, and I think the Phillies might be willing to move Alec Bohm and let Nolan  play third if I take Nick Castellanos.  Both teams want me to throw in 5-10 million dollars because they know I'm slightly more desperate that they are...

Steve Adams

  • I just don't think it makes sense for the Cardinals to take back another pricey veteran. Part of the thinking in dumping Arenado is opening time for younger players. Castellanos is every bit as untradeable. I suppose they could just release the player they take back.I think the Cardinals will eventually trade Arenado by just paying like $30MM+ of what's left on the contract, though.

Dave

  • Would Tucker sign with LAD for 5 years $250 million with three opt out years?

Steve Adams

  • The Dodgers are in the top penalty bracket for the luxury tax already, and that setup would cost them $55MM in taxes annually, plus Tucker's salary. If we distribute the 250 evenly over five years, it's $105MM per year. Even for the Dodgers, that seems steep

Guest

  • Just letting you know I’m accessing this while beta testing the app.  App looks great!

Steve Adams

  • Love it! Thanks for helping out!

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Giants Sign Tyler Mahle

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January 5th: The Giants officially announced the Mahle signing today but still haven’t announced a corresponding 40-man roster move.

January 1st: Mahle is guaranteed $10MM on the deal, according to Jon Heyman of the New York Post. Performance bonuses could bump it up near $13MM, reports Kiley McDaniel of ESPN.

Dec. 31: The Giants are closing in on a deal with free agent right-hander Tyler Mahle, reports Shayna Rubin of the San Francisco Chronicle. It’s a one-year pact, per Rubin. The 31-year-old Mahle is a client of ISE Baseball.

Mahle is coming off an injury-riddled 2025 with the Rangers, though he was productive when healthy. The veteran righty was one of the most pleasant early-season surprises, pitching to a 1.64 ERA over the first two months of the season. Mahle allowed two earned runs or fewer in 11 of his first 12 starts to begin the campaign. He was knocked around for eight earned runs across his first two starts of June, then hit the IL with shoulder fatigue. Mahle returned for a pair of outings in September, allowing a run over 9 2/3 innings.

Persistent maladies have limited Mahle to just 125 innings over the past three seasons. He made nine starts across a season and a half with Minnesota, missing time with a strained shoulder and a forearm issue. It was a disappointing outcome for the Twins, who parted with Spencer Steer and Christian Encarnacion-Strand to land Mahle at the 2022 trade deadline. After signing with Texas in December 2023, Mahle missed the first four months of the year while recovering from elbow surgery. After three games with his new club, he went down with shoulder tightness and missed the rest of the year.

Mahle was routinely striking out more than a batter per inning during his peak years with Cincinnati, but those numbers have tailed off as the injuries have mounted. Mahle posted an uninspiring 19.1% strikeout rate last season. He sat at 92 mph with his fastball, down a couple of ticks from his best seasons with the Reds. The ERA estimators all suggest Mahle’s 2.18 ERA in 2025 should be viewed with skepticism. His xERA and xFIP were both above 4.00, while his SIERA was all the way up at 4.62. Mahle ran hot with home run luck (4.9% HR/FB), while also benefiting from a career-high 84.6% LOB%.

It was reported in mid-December that the Giants were still in the market for pitching after signing righty Adrian Houser. With Justin Verlander hitting free agency, the club entered the offseason with Logan Webb and Robbie Ray as the only guaranteed members of the 2026 rotation. Landen Roupp, who missed the final six weeks of the 2025 campaign with a knee injury, is also expected to be on the staff. Houser and Mahle are the favorites to round out the group.

President of baseball operations Buster Posey entered the offseason focused on adding to the rotation and the bullpen. While the club has been connected to some of the bigger names on the starter market, including Framber Valdez and Zac Gallen, the moves so far have been relatively minor. Houser came on board via a two-year, $22MM pact with a club option for a third season. The Giants added relievers Jason Foley and Sam Hentges on cheap deals. Mahle now joins the squad on a one-year deal.

Given the injury histories for Ray and Mahle, plus the limited track record for Roupp, San Francisco will likely need to lean on internal options for additional innings. Carson Whisenhunt, Carson Seymour, and Kai-Wei Teng all received opportunities last season, but none delivered useful results. Hayden Birdsong graduated from a long relief role to the rotation, but control issues led to a demotion to Triple-A. Keaton Winn and Blade Tidwell (acquired in the Tyler Rogers trade) missed time with injuries. Trevor McDonald might be the leading candidate to open the year as the sixth starter/injury fill-in. The righty closed the year with a pair of stellar outings, tossing six innings of one-run ball against the Dodgers and striking out 10 Rockies over seven frames.

RosterResource currently has the Giants’ payroll at $175MM for 2026. That mark doesn’t include Mahle’s deal or the $17MM payment owed to Blake Snell in mid-January as part of his deferred signing bonus. When adding in those considerations, the club is on track to comfortably exceed the $177MM it spent on payroll last season. The increase in expenses could be the reason the Giants ultimately rounded out the rotation with low-cost veterans in Houser and Mahle. A general hesitation by the front office to pursue long-term deals for starters likely also factored in.

Photos courtesy of Jerome Miron, Imagn Images

Brewers Add Daniel Vogelbach To Coaching Staff

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The Brewers announced their coaching staff for the upcoming 2026 season, and includes a familiar name. Former major league first baseman Daniel Vogelbach, who played with the Brewers from 2020-21, has been hired as a hitting coach. That’s part of a broader shakeup of the hitting coach staff. Lead hitting coach Al LeBoeuf, who was away from the team for part of the 2025 season after a prostate cancer diagnosis, is not returning to the major league staff but is staying in the organization. Assistant hitting coach Eric Theisen has been elevated to the lead hitting coach role. Vogelbach and former Blue Jays hitting coach Guillermo Martinez (another new hire to the staff) will be Theisen’s assistants.

Further changes in the staff are afoot. Third base coach Jason Lane has been promoted to the title of “offense and strategy coordinator.” Infield coach Matt Erickson will now also be the club’s third base coach. Assistant pitching coach Jim Henderson is being promoted to the title of “pitching coordinator.” In his old assistant pitching coach role, the Brewers will elevate Juan Sandoval, who’d previously been a minor league pitching coach and coordinator.

Spencer Allen, who’d been Milwaukee’s director of player development, joins the major league staff as a first base coach, replacing Julio Borbon. Allen was the head coach at Northwestern prior to joining the Brewers organization prior to the 2022 season. Adam McCalvy of MLB.com reports that both Borbon and LeBoeuf are remaining in the Brewers’ organization in roles that have yet to be specified.

It’s a major shakeup of the coaching staff, though much of the turnover is due to internal promotions. Vogelbach is the most recognizable newcomer. He played in parts of nine major league seasons from 2016-24, hitting a combined .219/.340/.405 with 81 home runs in just under 2000 plate appearances. Vogelbach rarely hit for average but always possessed superlative pitch recognition (career 15.1% walk rate) and considerable raw power. This marks his first coaching assignment since concluding his playing career last offseason, when he joined the Pirates as a special assistant in their baseball operations department.

Martinez, 41, was the Blue Jays’ hitting coach from 2019-24. He’s spent several seasons as a minor league hitting coach and hitting coordinator with both the Jays and the Cubs. After departing Toronto’s major league staff following the 2024 season, he returned for a second stint in the Cubs’ ranks, serving as a hitting coach with their Double-A club. He’s now back in the majors with just the third organization as he heads into his 15th season of professional coaching.

Phillies Hire Don Mattingly As Bench Coach

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The Phillies announced Monday that they’ve hired Don Mattingly as the new bench coach to manager Rob Thomson. President of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski acknowledged last month that he’d spoken to Mattingly about the vacancy. Last year’s bench coach, Mike Calitri, changed roles this offseason and became the team’s major league field coordinator. Mattingly has spent the past three seasons as the Blue Jays’ bench coach but chose not to return in that role for the 2026 season as he instead explored other opportunities.

“I am excited to welcome Don Mattingly to Philadelphia,” Thomson said in this morning’s press release. “Having known Don for years and having worked closely with him in New York, I know that his knowledge of the game and his character make him a great addition to our tremendous coaching staff.”

Notably, Mattingly joins an organization that employs his son, Preston, as its general manager. The younger Mattingly isn’t the top decision-maker in Philadelphia’s front office — Dombrowski still holds hat role as the team’s president — but he’s a key figure in baseball operations who spent several seasons as the team’s director of player development and an assistant general manager before being elevated to his current post.

As Thomson noted in his comment, the two men worked together in the Yankees organization, though they didn’t overlap on the team’s major league coaching staff. Thomson actually succeeded Mattingly as bench coach in 2008, after Mattingly accepted an offer to become Joe Torre’s hitting coach in Los Angeles. He’d been in the running for the managerial vacancy in the Bronx that ultimately went to Joe Girardi, who named Thomson his new bench coach.

Even if they weren’t on the same big league staff, however, Mattingly and Thomson worked together with the Yankees. Mattingly was a minor league instructor prior to being added to the big league staff as hitting coach in 2003. During that time, Thomson worked both as a minor league manager and as a key figure in the Yankees’ player development department, where the two aligned to work with the Yankees’ up-and-coming talent.

In addition to his work as a bench coach and hitting coach between the Bronx and L.A., the now-64-year-old Mattingly spent five years managing the Dodgers and another seven managing the Marlins. He then jumped to the Jays, where he was first hired as bench coach and then had the title “offensive coordinator” added to his position. In that role, Mattingly oversaw the hitting coaches up and down the entire organization.

Now bound for Philadelphia, Mattingly will serve as Thomson’s top lieutenant. There’s been some speculation as to how long Thomson will continue to manage, but he signed a one-year extension through the 2027 season following the 2025 campaign, so he’s locked in for at least two more years. Mattingly is actually two years older than Thomson, so he’s not exactly the prototypical younger heir-apparent in waiting, but if Thomson does step away after his current contract, the Phillies would have an experienced option in the organization already. If not, Mattingly simply adds another seasoned coach to a veteran staff full of several well-regarded names.

The Opener: Cabrera, Imai, Blue Jays

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Here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world throughout the day:

1. Cabrera market heating up?

Right-hander Edward Cabrera has been viewed as a potential trade piece for the Marlins for several years now, but over the weekend the market for Cabrera’s services seemed to heat up somewhat. The Yankees, Giants, Cubs, and Mets were all reported as having interest in Cabrera’s services yesterday, with the Yankees seeming to be involved most heavily. Cabrera is headed into his age-28 campaign and is controlled for the next three seasons via arbitration, making him an affordable addition for virtually any club looking for starting pitching. The talented righty enjoyed a breakout season in 2025, though it was also his first season throwing even 100 innings at the big league level due to a lengthy injury history. The right-hander’s combination of upside and risk make him one of the more intriguing assets on the trade market at the moment.

2. Imai presser today:

The Astros are set to formally introduce right-hander Tatsuya Imai at a press conference later today at Daikin Park, according to Brian McTaggart of MLB.com. The addition of Imai should add a capable and upside-laden arm to the Astros’ rotation, slotting in behind Hunter Brown and helping to offset the loss of Framber Valdez. Houston was a somewhat surprising entrant into the Imai bidding but managed to reel the right-hander in with a three-year deal that guarantees $54MM thanks to a combination of significant incentives and the opportunity to opt out of the deal in each of the next two offseasons. That could set Imai up for a much bigger payday down the road if he can deliver high-end results, but in the meantime Astros fans will get the opportunity to watch one of Japan’s top young starters make the jump to MLB in their uniform.

3. What’s next for the Blue Jays?

After signing a number of pitchers early in the offseason, from Dylan Cease to Tyler Rogers, the Blue Jays made a splash on the position player market by bringing in third baseman Kazuma Okamoto over the weekend. Adding Okamoto to the infield, at least on paper, would fill the hole left on the infield by Bo Bichette’s departure in free agency. With Okamoto at third, Ernie Clement can move to second base while Andres Gimenez slides to shortstop. However, there’s been no indication that the Blue Jays are done adding. A reunion with Bichette could certainly still be possible (thereby pushing Clement into a utility role), and the team has also been known to be very involved in the market for the offseason’s top free agent, outfielder Kyle Tucker. Will they be able to follow up Okamoto’s signing with an even bigger bat to boost the lineup?

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