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Blue Jays Designate Brett de Geus For Assignment

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The Blue Jays designated reliever Brett de Geus for assignment, as first reflected on the MLB.com transaction log. Toronto needed to create a 40-man roster spot after signing Jeff Hoffman this evening.

de Geus landed with the Jays on a late-season waiver claim from Miami. The 27-year-old righty made two appearances and allowed four runs across 2 1/3 innings. de Geus had made brief appearances with the Mariners and Marlins earlier in the year. He concluded the season with 11 1/3 frames while allowing 10 runs (nine earned). He struck out seven and issued four walks.

That marked de Geus’ first MLB action since his 2021 rookie year. He tossed 50 innings as a Rule 5 pick that season but allowed more than seven earned runs per nine. de Geus owns a 7.48 earned run average across 61 1/3 big league innings. He combined for a 5.31 ERA through 39 Triple-A innings last season. He posted a well below-average 15.6% strikeout rate against a decent 8.1% walk percentage.

Toronto is likely to place de Geus on waivers within the next few days. He has a previous career outright, which means he’d be able to elect minor league free agency if he goes unclaimed.

Orioles Backed Out Of Agreement With Jeff Hoffman After Flagged Physical

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Jeff Hoffman signed a three-year, $33MM contract with the Blue Jays this evening. The righty nearly landed with a division rival. Robert Murray of FanSided reports that Hoffman and the Orioles had agreed to terms on a three-year, $40MM contract earlier this week. According to Murray, Baltimore pulled out of the deal after the physical revealed something related to his throwing shoulder that concerned the organization. Shi Davidi and Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet write that Baltimore continued to pursue Hoffman and made him a revised offer after backing out of the initial terms, but the All-Star reliever turned his attention elsewhere.

Teams have different standards for the injury risk that they’re willing to tolerate on prospective signings or trade acquisitions. The Orioles have a reputation for being particularly attentive to the physical. The O’s backed out of agreements with Grant Balfour and Tyler Colvin, respectively, in 2013 and ’14. They restructured their agreement with Yovani Gallardo during the 2015-16 offseason because of concerns about his shoulder. Those situations all predated the hiring of general manager Mike Elias and the franchise’s sale to owner David Rubenstein. This could certainly be coincidental.

Hoffman has not spent any time on the injured list over the last two years. He missed a good portion of the second half of 2022 because of a forearm issue. Hoffman did miss around two months in 2021 due to a shoulder impingement. He was sidelined between May 27 and July 21 that season. The injury did not require surgery.

Other teams have failed free agent physicals, of course. The most famous instance was when the Giants and Mets each pulled out of agreements with Carlos Correa because of concerns about his ankle during the 2021-22 offseason. The Yankees reportedly pulled out of a deadline trade to acquire Jack Flaherty from the Tigers last summer because of concerns about his back. That’s not a direct parallel, as the Yanks had issues with Flaherty’s medical records rather than conducting their own physical.

The Flaherty situation illustrates that different clubs’ medical departments could have diverging opinions on a player’s health. The Dodgers traded for the righty within hours of the Yankees deal falling through. (Flaherty stayed healthy for the stretch run with Los Angeles.) Hoffman’s physical wound up costing him $7MM in guaranteed money, though he can earn up to $6MM back via innings-based incentives. It’s not clear whether his agreement with Baltimore would have included any performance bonuses.

Baltimore quickly pivoted to their next bullpen target. The O’s agreed to a one-year, $10MM deal with righty Andrew Kittredge last night. He’ll join Yennier Cano, Seranthony Domínguez and Keegan Akin in front of closer Félix Bautista, who is returning from 2023 Tommy John surgery.

White Sox Sign Omar Narváez To Minor League Deal

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The White Sox announced that they have signed catcher Omar Narváez to a minor league deal with an invite to major league spring training. The veteran backstop is represented by ISE Baseball.

Narváez, 33 next month, has had a fairly unusual career. Once a bat-first catcher with defensive question marks, he later flipped that profile and became a solid defender with a tepid bat. Last year, he didn’t succeed in either category and ended up spending most of the season in the minors.

From 2016 to 2019, with the White Sox and Mariners, he slashed .276/.361/.411 for a 113 wRC+. But thanks to his poor defensive metrics, he was worth only 3.1 wins above replacement in 353 games over that stretch, per the calculations of FanGraphs. He then spent 2020 to 2022 with the Brewers, hitting .233/.318/.350 for an 84 wRC+ but producing 4.6 fWAR in 247 games thanks to his superior work behind the plate.

The Mets signed him to a two-year, $15MM deal going into 2023, which turned into a bust. A significant left calf strain put him on the shelf early in the first year of that deal and he only played 49 games on the season, hitting just .211/.283/.297. Early in 2024, he produced a dismal line of .154/.191/.185 in 69 plate appearances. He was released by early June and signed a minor league deal with the Astros, then hitting .196/.325/.304 in 169 Triple-A appearances.

It’s obviously been a rough patch for Narváez but he has a track record of past major league success, both offensively and defensively, though usually not at the same time. He’s a sensible flier for the Sox, who had little proven behind the plate. They currently have two catchers on the 40-man roster: Korey Lee and Matt Thaiss. Lee is a former prospect who could still break out but has hit .188/.227/.313 in his career thus far. Thaiss, picked up in a cash deal last month, is a bit better at the plate but isn’t considered a strong defender.

The club’s future probably lies in Edgar Quero or Kyle Teel or both. Quero was acquired from the Angels in the Lucas Giolito/Reynaldo López trade and Teel from the Red Sox in the Garrett Crochet deal. Both are consensus top 100 prospects but they may not be immediate solutions. Neither is on the 40-man roster yet. Quero has just 26 games at the Triple-A level while Teel has 28. Getting to the majors this year is certainly possible for both of them but there are no guarantees that they will immediately succeed even if they get there. Narváez gives the club an experienced backstop that they could lean on if their younger options get injured or hit speed bumps.

Free Agent Profile: Yasmani Grandal

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This winter’s free agent market has been hot in some ways but there are still plenty of intriguing names out there for most positions. One area that moved fairly quickly was the catching market, with many of the top names off the board.

It wasn’t an amazing class to begin with but the top free agent backstops this winter were Danny Jansen, Carson Kelly and Kyle Higashioka. All three of them signed about a month ago. Gary Sánchez, Travis d’Arnaud, Jacob Stallings and Austin Hedges have also been locked up.

For teams still looking for help behind the plate, their options are now more limited. Former All-Star Game MVP Elias Díaz is still out there, though he’s coming off a season in which his struggles were pronounced enough that he was released by the Rockies, finishing out the year as Higashioka’s backup in San Diego. Christian Bethancourt had some good results with the Cubs last year but was nonetheless outrighted, perhaps due to how inconsistent he’s been in recent years. James McCann has had passable offense at times but his work behind the plate hasn’t been well regarded.

One intriguing guy still available is Yasmani Grandal. His numbers were rough in 2022 and 2023 but there are some ways in which last year was a bounceback. The Pirates gave a lot of time behind the plate to Joey Bart, who engineered a nice breakout season, as well as former top overall pick Henry Davis. But Grandal was somewhat quietly in the mix next to those guys and managed to get into 72 games and step to the plate 243 times, as well as crouching behind the dish for 560 1/3 innings.

Offensively, he had a cromulent performance. His 18.9% strikeout rate was his best apart from his part-time work over a decade ago, before he was established as a big leaguer. His 9.9% walk rate was a bit below some of his previous work but still above league average. He also popped nine home runs in that limited role. His .228/.304/.400 batting line translated to a 95 wRC+, below average overall but above par for a catcher.

Grandal has been a solid defender in his career, particularly in the framing department, and that continued last year. Among guys with at least 550 innings caught in 2024, Grandal ranked seventh on the FanGraphs leaderboard for framing. The six guys ahead of him on that list each had more than 700 innings behind the plate. Patrick Bailey was the only backstop significantly ahead of the pack on a rate basis. Statcast had Grandal 11th on their framing leaderboard. Of the 10 guys ahead of him, only Hedges caught fewer pitches than Grandal.

The strong framing contributed to a solid overall defensive profile. When combined with a decent year at the plate, he actually provided some sneaky value, depending on which measure of wins above replacement you trust most. Baseball Reference only gave him 0.6 WAR on the year but FanGraphs had him at 1.4 and Baseball Prospectus at 1.8. That’s likely due to those outlets having different weights for catcher defense or framing specifically.

Grandal hasn’t gotten any attention this offseason. He hasn’t been tagged at MLBTR since early May, when he was activated from the injured list, having started the season on the IL due to plantar fasciitis in his left foot.

He isn’t going to help sell season tickets, but for clubs who still want upgrades behind the plate, perhaps he’s the best bet. He isn’t likely to cost much either. He only got $2.5MM plus incentives from the Bucs a year ago. Perhaps his solid season can get him a bump, but he’s also now 36 years old and still unsigned, which doesn’t give him a lot of negotiating leverage. Even if he does earn a raise, it surely won’t be massive.

Going back to Pittsburgh is probably not an option. Bart surely earned himself some run after his strong season, while the club still has Davis. There’s also Endy Rodríguez, who seemed to be emerging as the club’s catcher of the future in 2023, but then spent 2024 recovering from surgery on his ulnar collateral ligament and flexor tendon in his throwing arm. Jason Delay is on the 40-man roster as well.

Teams like the Red Sox, Nationals, Padres, Phillies, Atlanta, Blue Jays, Mariners and others could arguably do with improving their catching depth. Some of those clubs have strong starting options but most clubs avoid leaning on one catcher too much these days. Cal Raleigh led the league with 125 starts last year, meaning every team had a backup/secondary catcher in the starting lineup at least 37 times, often far more.

There’s obviously some risk with signing a 36-year-old catcher but he arguably has a decent floor, depending on how one values his framing. While he struggled offensively in 2022 and 2023, BR considered him to be well below replacement level, but FG had him just barely below, while BP gave him 2.3 WAR for that two-year period.

Latest On Pete Alonso

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Pete Alonso’s market hasn’t come together the way he and agent Scott Boras had hoped just yet, though there’s still more than a month until pitchers and catchers report to spring training, leaving ample time for a deal to come together and still afford Alonso a normal spring training. One element that’s likely impacted things, as with any high-profile free agent, is trepidation from teams in terms of asking price. Mark Feinsand of MLB.com has previously suggested that the Boras Corporation has used contracts like Prince Fielder (nine years, $214MM) as a point of comparison in negotiations.

Boras firmly pushed back on that this morning in comments to SNY’s Andy Martino. Boras tells Martino that “10-year-old contract” like Fielder’s simply “is not relevant to the current Alonso negotiations.” (Fielder’s contract is actually 13 years old, though that only further hammers home the point Boras is making.)

Even with that pushback, it’s likely that years have been the holdup in talks regarding Alonso. The Mets famously offered him a seven-year, $158MM extension in 2023. That included Alonso’s final arbitration season (2024), wherein he was paid $20.5MM. He’d need to top $137.5MM over the next six seasons in order to come out ahead in that bet on himself.

Of course, that doesn’t all need to come in the form of one contract. We’ve seen plenty of free agents in the past find more tepid interest than anticipated in free agency, take an opt-out laden deal, and come out ahead over the course of multiple contracts. It’s not the ideal course of action for most players, but it can certainly work to the player’s benefit.

More specifically, that course of action has been common for both high-end and mid-level Boras clients. It doesn’t always work — just ask Jordan Montgomery — but there are plenty of success stories.

Matt Chapman, Blake Snell, Carlos Rodon and Carlos Correa are all recent examples. Chapman took a three-year, $54MM deal with opt-outs in San Francisco and mashed his way into a $151MM extension. He’ll ultimately earn $169MM over a seven-year term. Snell took two years and $62MM from the Giants last winter after reportedly rejecting a Yankees offer in the $150MM range. (He’s since contended the number was well shy of that.) He opted out and landed $182MM from the Dodgers, bringing his six-year earnings to $214MM (albeit with nearly a third of it deferred). Rodon opted out of the second season of his own two-year, $44MM deal with the Giants and cashed in with $162MM in the Bronx. Correa signed a three-year, $105.3MM deal in Minnesota, opted out and went through a strange free agent odyssey that still resulted in an additional $200MM guaranteed from Minnesota, even after a pair of failed physicals in San Francisco and Queens.

It’s not yet clear whether Alonso will ultimately go that route, but former Mets GM Jim Duquette (2003-04), now with MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM, reports that Boras and Alonso have pitched an opt-out laden three-year deal to the Mets — and the Mets alone. Even with that reported offer from the player’s camp, Duquette suggests no deal is close for now.

A three-year deal for the Mets — something in the Cody Bellinger mold — would make plenty of sense for both parties. New York would retain the NL home run leader dating back to Alonso’s big league debut and do so without needing to commit long-term to a 30-year-old first baseman who offers minimal defensive/baserunning value. Pairing Alonso and Juan Soto in the heart of the Mets’ order would be formidable.

For Alonso, he’d secure multiple seasons at an annual rate presumably higher than anything available to him on a lengthier deal. Bellinger’s $80MM deal guaranteed him $60MM over the first two seasons of the three-year term if he chose to forgo the first opt-out (which he did). An identical construct for Alonso would mean that, including the $20.5MM he earned in his final arbitration season, he could have $53MM from 2024-25 or $80.5MM from 2024-26. If the aim is to topple the $158MM he rejected in 2023 (which, again, would’ve covered the 2024-30 seasons), he’d be well on his way.

Additionally, Alonso would have the opportunity to improve on a down showing in 2024 that has surely hindered interest. The slugger didn’t have a bad season; his .240/.329/.459 slash was 22% better than league-average, by measure of wRC+. His 34 home runs were a clear plus mark. But Alonso’s past two seasons haven’t been as dominant as he was from 2019-22, when he hit a combined .261/.349/.535 (37% better than average).

A 2025 showing more in line with that form would potentially set Alonso up for a much larger payday — and do so on the heels of a premium salary in 2025. He’d also have the benefit of reentering the open market without a qualifying offer and the associated draft pick compensation hanging over his head. Players can only receive one QO in their career, and Alonso rejected one from the Mets back in November.

Orioles Claim Roansy Contreras, Designate Liván Soto

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The Orioles announced that they have claimed right-hander Roansy Contreras off waivers from the Reds. Cincinnati had designated him for assignment earlier this week. In order to open a roster spot, the O’s designated infielder Liván Soto for assignment.

Contreras, 25, has been bouncing around the league over the past year. That’s likely a reflection of his uneven performance and out-of-options status. He made his major league debut with the Pirates and had some intriguing results with them, but exhausted his final option in 2023. He opened last year with Pittsburgh but was designated for assignment in May and flipped to the Angels. He spent the rest of the season with the Halos but was put on waivers in October and claimed by the Rangers. He went to the Reds on another waiver claim last month and has now been claimed again.

A notable Yankee prospect, Contreras was flipped to Pittsburgh in the January 2021 trade that sent Jameson Taillon to the Bronx. In 2022, he seemed to establish himself as a viable big league starter. He made 21 appearances for the Pirates that year, 18 of those being starts, tossing 95 innings while allowing 3.79 earned runs per nine. His 21.1% strikeout rate and 9.6% walk rate were fairly close to league par while his fastball averaged 95.6 miles per hour. Since he was only 22 years old at the time, it seemed fair to expect that was just the beginning.

But things have soured since then. Contreras posted a 6.59 ERA in 2023, which prompted the Bucs to send him to the minors, burning his final option. They moved him to a primary relief role in 2024 but, as mentioned, bumped him off the roster in May.

Between the Bucs and the Angels, he had some passable but not outstanding results. He finished the year with 68 1/3 innings between the two clubs and a 4.35 ERA. But his 18.8% strikeout rate and 10.4% walk rate were both subpar. His .265 batting average on balls in play and 75.1% strand rate were both on the fortunate side, leading to his 5.16 FIP and 4.55 SIERA being worse than his ERA.

Despite the up-and-down results, Contreras is still young and throws hard, averaging almost 95 mph last year with both his four-seamer and his sinker. He has just over two years of MLB service time, meaning he can be retained for four seasons before he would qualify for free agency. The fact that he is out of options means that he’ll need a roster spot on Opening Day but the Orioles could also try to run him through waivers later in the offseason to retain him as non-roster depth.

As for Soto, 25 in June, the Orioles seem to engaging in some sort of contest to see how many times they can bump him on and off the roster. This is the sixth time he’s been designated for assignment in the past year, three of those coming at the hands of the Orioles, two from the Angels and one from the Reds.

He has a strong .351/.407/.494 batting line, though in a small sample of 87 plate appearances over the past three big league seasons. In 370 Triple-A plate appearances last year, he slashed .283/.377/.381 for a 103 wRC+. He didn’t produce much power, hitting four homers in 88 games, but his 12.4% walk rate and 16.8% strikeout rate were both strong numbers.

The O’s will now have a week to either trade Soto or run him through waivers. Since the waiver process takes 48 hours, any trade talks would need to come together in the next five days. He still has one option year and plenty of minor league experience at the three infield positions to the left of first base. He seems to be a popular depth target around the league so it wouldn’t be surprising to see him acquired by another club in the coming days.

Diamondbacks Claim René Pinto

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The D-backs announced Friday that they’ve claimed catcher René Pinto off waivers from the Orioles. Baltimore designated him for assignment a week ago to create roster space for free agent signee Charlie Morton. Arizona already had two open spots on their 40-man roster, so there’s no corresponding move.

Pinto changes hands for the second time this offseason. Baltimore had claimed him off waivers from the Rays within days of the end of the World Series. Their subsequent signing of Gary Sánchez to an $8.5MM free agent deal indicated that Pinto’s tenure with the O’s could be brief. The 28-year-old is out of minor league options. Baltimore couldn’t send him to Triple-A without exposing him to waivers. The Orioles will go with Adley Rutschman and Sánchez as their duo behind the plate.

While Pinto has a better chance of holding his roster spot in Arizona, that’s by no means guaranteed. Gabriel Moreno is locked in as the starter. Jose Herrera has spent parts of three seasons as the backup. Herrera is also out of options. It’s unlikely that the Diamondbacks will carry three catchers into the regular season. The Snakes could let Pinto and Herrera compete for the #2 job during Spring Training.

Alternatively, Adrian Del Castillo could squeeze them both off the roster. He had a monster year in Triple-A (.312/.399/.603) and hit .313/.368/.525 in his first 25 big league games. Del Castillo isn’t considered an especially strong defender, however, so the Snakes could use him as a multi-positional bench bat rather than risk thinning their catching depth by waiving Herrera and Pinto.

Pinto is a right-handed hitter who has appeared in parts of three MLB seasons for Tampa Bay. He owns a .231/.263/.404 slash with 10 homers across 237 career plate appearances. Pinto showed some power in a small sample in 2023. That earned him the Opening Day catching assignment last season, but he struggled behind the dish. Opponents went 18-19 in stolen base attempts over just 135 innings. Pinto also committed a passed ball and was behind the plate for seven wild pitches.

Tampa Bay optioned him and kept him in Triple-A for the rest of the season. He hit just .191/.257/.373 over 53 games with their top affiliate and was never called back up. Pinto’s broader offensive track record in the minors is more impressive. He’s a .253/.303/.487 hitter across 907 Triple-A plate appearances spanning four seasons.

Phillies Outright Jose Cuas

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Right-handed reliever Jose Cuas went unclaimed on waivers and was assigned outright to Triple-A Lehigh Valley, MLBTR has learned. He was originally designated for assignment back on Dec. 23, but the holidays freeze up the waiver/DFA process every year, leading to prolonged stints in limbo for a handful of players. Cuas will stick with the Phillies as a non-roster player and be in big league camp this spring as he hopes to compete for another look in the majors.

Cuas, 30, was a September waiver claim out of the Blue Jays organization. He didn’t pitch for the Phillies during the season after joining the organization. He logged a combined 16 1/3 innings between the Jays and Cubs, working to a 7.71 ERA in that small sample. Cuas has pitched 119 1/3 innings in the big leagues and sports a career 4.37 ERA with a 22% strikeout rate, a 12.9% walk rate and a solid 45.2% ground-ball rate.

From 2022-23, Cuas pitched 103 innings for the Royals and Cubs — the first big league experience of his career. During that time, the former infielder notched a tidy 3.84 ERA while fanning 22.2% of his opponents against a 12.5% walk rate. In parts of four Triple-A seasons, the sidearming righty carries a 4.12 ERA, 27.4% strikeout rate and 10.3% walk rate.

Cuas’ journey in baseball has been one of the least traditional you’ll encounter, as chronicled at great length by Alec Lewis of The Athletic a couple years back in a must-read piece for fans of players endure extensive minor league grinds. An 11th-round draft pick by the Brewers as an infielder back in 2015, he was out of baseball a few years later and working as a FedEx driver during the day while training with his brother after dark in freezing weather. Cuas had washed out as a hitter and briefly tinkered with a move to the mound in 2018, but he was released by the Brewers midseason.

Cuas pitched indie ball in 2018 and ’19, parlaying a strong run in the Atlantic League into a minor league look with the D-backs. In 2020, a couple months after the league shut down due to the pandemic, he was released. One of his former D-backs coaches reached out to get Cuas a look in the Dominican Winter League the following offseason. It didn’t lead to a big league deal. He went back to the Atlantic League — this time catching the attention of the Royals, who eventually have him his MLB debut in 2022.

Now sporting more than two full years of big league service, Cuas has pitched in each of the past three MLB seasons. He’s obviously yet to solidify himself as a consistent contributor, but the mere fact that he’s reached this point is somewhat incredible, given his move from the infield to the mound, multiple stints in independent ball, and multiple releases from big league organizations.

With the Phillies, Cuas could have to bide his time before an opportunity arises. Philadelphia has a very veteran bullpen, with young Orion Kerkering (one year of MLB service) and lefty Tanner Banks (2.092 years) the only members under four full years of big league service. Kerkering and Banks are the only two members who can even be optioned, but they’re both locked into spots after nice 2024 seasons. Cuas will join lefty Nick Vespi and righty Cody Stashak as players with some notable big league experience who’ll be non-roster invitees in Phillies camp.

A’s Open To Further Rotation Additions

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The Athletics have been quite active this offseason but aren’t necessarily done adding to the roster. General manager David Forst tells Jessica Kleinschmidt of the A’s Radio Network that he’s still hopeful to make another addition or two, specifically mentioning the rotation as one possible area.

Ahead of their 2025 move to West Sacramento, the A’s have signed Luis Severino and Gio Urshela, acquired Jeffrey Springs, and extended Brent Rooker. The team’s rotation now features Severino, Springs, JP Sears, Joey Estes and Mitch Spence. Other candidates on the 40-man roster include J.T. Ginn, Osvaldo Bido, Gunnar Hoglund, Jacob Lopez and Ryan Cusick. Lefty Ken Waldichuk and righty Luis Medina are on the mend from Tommy John surgery and will open the season on the injured list, but the former could be an option in the second half. (Medina’s surgery was performed in August, likely taking him out through the end of the 2025 season.)

The flurry of offseason dealings has “boosted” the Athletics’ payroll to … $64.5MM in terms of total salary owed. Their luxury ledger is a bit higher, thanks in large part to the fact that Severino and Rooker are on backloaded deals. RosterResource projects the A’s around $97MM in CBT considerations. They’re reportedly aiming to pull north of $105MM in hopes of avoiding a grievance from the MLBPA tied to the appropriation of the funds the team receives through revenue-sharing. The A’s previously lost their revenue-sharing status for similar reasons and were only reinstated as a recipient under the 2022-26 collective bargaining agreement. They haven’t topped $83MM in luxury obligations since.

Some free agents will balk at the notion of playing their games in a Triple-A park, though as the A’s showed with Severino, that can be bridged with a far more substantial contract than most expected entering the winter. Forst’s club feels like a particularly good fit to take on a somewhat unwanted contract in the rotation as well.

The D-backs would welcome the opportunity to shed Jordan Montgomery’s $22.5MM salary. Ditto the Phillies and Taijuan Walker (two years, $36MM) and, presumably, Tigers and Kenta Maeda ($10MM in 2025). The Yankees are shopping Marcus Stroman ($18MM in 2025, conditional $18MM player option for 2026 if he pitches 140 innings) and are willing to pay down some salary. The Cardinals could move Steven Matz and the final $12MM he’s owed in the last season of a four-year deal. The Twins are open to offers on Chris Paddack and his $7.5MM as they look to scale back spending. Rangers righty Jon Gray ($13MM) has seen his name kicked around the rumor circuit this winter as well. Put more concisely, there’s no shortage of arms who’d fit that bill, but the list of clubs willing to take on such a contract isn’t large. That puts the A’s in a decent position.

Another addition to the rotation would further make the A’s more respectable than many will give them credit for entering 2025. A rotation fronted by Severino, Springs, Sears and a to-be-determined outside acquisition could at least be competitive, health permitting. The lineup features not only the excellent Rooker but emerging outfield contributors JJ Bleday and Lawrence Butler. Catcher Shea Langeliers only posted a .288 OBP but swatted 29 homers this past season. Young players like Jacob Wilson, Tyler Soderstrom and Zack Gelof have shown potential. Mason Miller is one of the game’s premier closers.

Based on that foundation, it’s at least within the realm of possibility that the A’s emerge as a surprise club in 2025. That makes any forthcoming additions all the more interesting. The team’s budget for the actual cash payroll isn’t known, but their current $64.5MM projection is about $1.5MM ahead of last year’s paltry $63MM mark.

Yankees Willing To Pay Down Salary In Marcus Stroman Trade

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Marcus Stroman entered the offseason as a logical trade candidate and became an even more likely player to change hands when the Yankees signed Max Fried to an eight-year contract. Recent reports have unsurprisingly indicated that New York is indeed shopping Stroman, but Jon Heyman of the New York Post adds further context, writing that the Yanks are willing to pay down a portion of Stroman’s $18MM salary to help facilitate a deal.

With Gerrit Cole, Fried, Carlos Rodon, Clarke Schmidt and 2024 AL Rookie of the Year Luis Gil in the rotation, Stroman is very arguably their sixth-best rotation arm right now. That’s not optimal for a player who’s not only guaranteed $18MM this coming season but who also carries a conditional player option for the 2026 campaign. If Stroman pitches 140 innings in 2025 — he’s averaged more than 150 frames per 162-game season dating back to 2019 — he’d pick up an $18MM player option for 2026 as well. That only creates extra urgency for the Yankees to move him, as the five names ahead of Stroman on the depth chart are all signed/controlled beyond the 2025 season.

The Yankees already traded one starter after signing Fried (Nestor Cortes), and they’re in the market for either a second baseman or third baseman. They’re reportedly not working with the limitless budget some might expect from the “Evil Empire,” so shedding Stroman’s salary — or a portion of the deal — would give GM Brian Cashman some additional funds in his pursuit of infield help.

The Braves, A’s and Angels are just a few of the teams still seeking rotation help this offseason. Stroman might be New York’s fifth- or sixth-best starter right now, but that’s not the case with many other potential suitors. Stroman is coming off a decent 4.31 ERA in 154 2/3 innings in his first (and possibly only) season with the Yankees. He was hit hard by lefties, in particular, which didn’t play well with Yankee Stadium’s short right field porch; Stroman logged a 5.31 ERA at home compared to a 3.09 mark on the road. A team with a more favorable pitchers’ stadium might view him as a good bet to provide average or better innings at a low cost of acquisition. And in a market where 37-year-old Alex Cobb and 41-year-old Charlie Morton are commanding $15MM salaries on one-year deals — Cobb on the back of a season wherein he made only three starts — Stroman’s salary isn’t exactly egregious.

The Yankees’ willingness to pay down some of Stroman’s salary also inherently signals a willingness to take on a contract of some note in return. That creates a myriad potential frameworks; New York has some interest in Luis Arraez, for instance. He has more trade value than Stroman, but the comparable salaries could make the financial component easy to work out if the Yankees are willing to add the right pieces. Conversely, the Reds would probably welcome the opportunity to shed the $15MM owed to Jeimer Candelario in each of the next two seasons. The Tigers can’t love the $10MM they still owe Kenta Maeda, and he has more experience working in the ’pen than Stroman. Those are entirely speculative scenarios, to be extra clear, but they’re they type of creative situations Cashman and his team can explore when trying to find a Stroman fit.

As things stand, Stroman feels like one of the likeliest players around the league to change hands between now and Opening Day. He’s a pricey veteran without a clear role on his current club but is still relatively productive and not egregiously overpriced when looking at the rest of the market. His current club also has other obvious needs and some degree of financial parameters within which is has to operate.

The Yankees are currently at a projected $303MM worth of luxury tax obligations, per RosterResource. Any subsequent additions to the payroll will come with a 110% tax. Shedding Stroman’s deal would drop them beneath the fourth (and highest) threshold, which sits at $301MM. The third penalty tier (from $281-301MM) comes with a slightly lesser 95% tax rate. In essence, every dollar they save on Stroman’s contract will amount to about $1.95 saved. That only creates more benefit to finding a fit on the trade market.

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