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Brewers Acquire Grant Anderson

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The Rangers announced they’ve traded reliever Grant Anderson to the Brewers for minor league pitcher Mason Molina. Milwaukee designated left-hander Tyler Jay for assignment to open a 40-man roster spot, according to Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

Texas had designated the 27-year-old Anderson for assignment earlier in the week when they finalized the Joc Pederson deal. The low-slot righty has made 49 MLB appearances for the Rangers as an up-and-down reliever. His major league work hasn’t been great, as he has allowed 6.35 earned runs per nine over 62 1/3 innings. Anderson’s respective strikeout (21.5%) and walk (8.8%) rates aren’t far off league average. He has had massive home run issues, though, giving up 16 longballs (2.31 per nine innings) in his major league career.

That hasn’t been as big a problem in the minors. Anderson didn’t allow a single homer over 27 2/3 Triple-A innings this year. He fanned 28.3% of minor league opponents and turned in a sub-3.00 ERA in the Pacific Coast League. Anderson has a 3.87 mark over parts of three seasons for the organization’s top affiliate in Round Rock.

Anderson still has a minor league option remaining, so Milwaukee can keep him at Triple-A Nashville for another season. The Brewers have Trevor Megill, Joel Payamps, Nick Mears and Jared Koenig locked into the Opening Day bullpen. Milwaukee could carry Rule 5 pick Connor Thomas in long relief. That’d only leave a couple ’pen spots up for grabs if everyone is healthy, so the flexibility afforded by the option is valuable.

Milwaukee acquired Jay from the Mets in July. The 30-year-old southpaw was limited to two MLB appearances after the deal. He tossed three scoreless innings with three walks and strikeouts apiece. Jay had pitched five times for New York earlier in the year, his first taste of big league action.

A former top 10 pick of the Twins, Jay has spent seven seasons in the minor leagues. He had a productive year in Triple-A between the New York and Milwaukee systems, combining for a 3.02 earned run average through 56 2/3 innings. He struck out a slightly below-average 20.5% of opponents while showing excellent control (5.1% walk rate). Milwaukee will trade Jay or put him on waivers within the next five days.

Molina, 21, was Milwaukee’s seventh-round pick last summer. The Arkansas product threw five scoreless innings in Low-A during his initial professional action. The 6’2″ lefty had turned in a 4.47 ERA over 15 appearances (13 starts) for the Razorbacks in his junior season. Baseball America wrote at the time of the draft that Molina’s 89-90 MPH fastball plays above its velocity because of its life at the top of the zone. Molina’s command is a work in progress. He’s a low minors developmental flier for the Rangers.

Jeff Hoffman Reportedly Seeking Deal In Same Range As Clay Holmes’s

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While free agent starting pitchers have done quite well for themselves this winter, free agent relievers aren’t exactly flying off the shelves. To that point, only two relievers from MLBTR’s Top 50 Free Agents list have signed so far, and both of them joined their new teams to be starting pitchers: Clay Holmes and Michael Soroka. It was particularly interesting to see Holmes sign as a starter. For one thing, he hasn’t started a game since his rookie season in 2018. What’s more, he has been one of the top relievers in the game over the past four seasons, pitching to a 3.05 ERA and 2.83 SIERA with 74 saves in 264 appearances. He was an All-Star in 2022 and ’24.

Jeff Hoffman is one of the aforementioned unsigned relievers from MLBTR’s Top 50 list. Like Holmes, he’s coming off an All-Star season out of the ’pen, but he is reportedly drawing interest as a starting pitcher. Indeed, ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported in mid-December that Hoffman had received “more interest from teams” as a starter. That helps explain why Hoffman seems to have set his sights on a deal in the same range as the three-year, $38MM contract Holmes landed from the Mets, according to Matt Gelb of The Athletic.

It’s not hard to understand why Hoffman would compare himself to Holmes. They’re both right-handed relievers with closing experience, and they’re less than three months apart in age. Then again, while Holmes has a longer track record of success, most metrics suggest Hoffman has been the better pitcher since he broke out as a high-leverage reliever partway through the 2023 campaign. In particular, he’s coming off a stronger 2024 season in almost every single statistical category, including strikeout rate, walk rate, innings pitched, ERA, SIERA, and all versions of WAR.

That’s precisely why MLBTR ranked Hoffman ahead of Holmes on our Top 50 list, predicting a four-year, $44MM contract for the former and a three-year, $30MM deal for the latter. Considering that Holmes was able to beat his predicted contract by $8MM, one might have thought Hoffman would be seeking even more – perhaps something closer to the four-year, $56MM deal we initially predicted for fellow free agent reliever Tanner Scott.

However, Hoffman and his agents have now had a couple of months to gauge interest on the open market, and one wonders if he’s discovered that teams aren’t valuing him significantly more than they valued Holmes. After all, it doesn’t seem as if the Mets vastly outbid every other suitor for Holmes’s services. Mere hours before he signed, Jayson Stark of The Athletic reported that Holmes was still choosing between numerous offers and that he had been in negotiations with several contending teams. Maybe one of those suitors could pivot to Hoffman instead, especially if he’s seeking a similar deal.

The Phillies were one of those contending clubs. They are also the only team that has been formally linked to Hoffman this offseason. Yet, after adding reliever Jordan Romano, starter Jesús Luzardo, and swingman Joe Ross, they’re almost certainly out on Hoffman.

Evidently, Hoffman has other suitors, but it’s not yet clear who they are. Other teams that were reportedly in on Holmes include the Orioles, Red Sox, and Blue Jays. The Orioles were interested in Holmes as a starter, but they’ve since signed Tomoyuki Sugano, likely filling that hole. The Blue Jays, meanwhile, were interested in Holmes as a reliever, and they have since signed Yimi García. It’s harder to say if that would preclude them from pursuing Hoffman. As for the Red Sox, it’s unclear if they wanted Holmes as a starter or a reliever, but it’s worth noting that they have added three starters since they were linked to Holmes (Garrett Crochet, Walker Buehler, and Patrick Sandoval), and they already have two potential closers at the back of their bullpen (Liam Hendriks and Aroldis Chapman).

Royals Re-Sign Austin Cox To Minors Contract

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The Royals have signed Austin Cox to another minor league contract. After electing free agency in November, the left-hander will return to the only MLB organization he’s known throughout his seven-year pro career. The team announced the signing this afternoon.

Cox, who turns 28 on Opening Day, first signed with the Royals as a fifth-round draft pick in 2018. After an impressive debut in Rookie ball that year, Cox began to appear on Royals top prospect lists around the industry. His 3.78 ERA in nine starts was solid, but what really turned heads was his 35.7% strikeout rate.  In addition, he gave up just one home run in 33 1/3 innings of work.

The lefty followed up his strong first impression with an equally promising performance in 2019. Cox looked sharp at both Single-A and High-A, pitching to a 2.76 ERA and 3.48 FIP in 130 2/3 innings across both levels. His 24.2% strikeout rate wasn’t nearly as high as it was at Rookie ball, but it was still quite good, and it came over a much larger sample size against more difficult competition. On top of that, he reduced his walk rate and continued to limit home runs.  Entering the 2020 season, both FanGraphs and Baseball America included Cox among their top 10 prospects in the Royals system; Keith Law of The Athletic ranked him at no. 12.

Unfortunately, Cox was unable to pitch in 2020 due to the lost minor league season, and he struggled at Double-A and (briefly) Triple-A in 2021. His fastball velocity fell and he cut his slider from his pitch mix, giving him a less imposing and less diverse arsenal. His strikeout rate continued to drop while his walk rate rose, and he surrendered 11 home runs in just 68 frames; that’s the same number of dingers he allowed the year before when he pitched almost twice as many innings. Thus, it was hardly surprising to see Cox plummet down prospect rankings during the 2021-22 offseason. Once a promising back-end starter, he seemed destined for a role in the bullpen instead.

Cox continued to start at Triple-A in 2022 and ’23 but failed to improve his results. In May 2023, he made his MLB debut out of the Royals bullpen. Although he had limited experience as a reliever, his big league career couldn’t have gotten off to a better start. He didn’t give up a hit until the 40th batter he faced. Unfortunately, his work was less impressive after that. Cox would ultimately pitch in 24 games for Kansas City that year: 21 relief appearances and three short spot starts. His numbers were serviceable but unspectacular for a lower-leverage swingman. He pitched to a 6.10 ERA and 4.71 FIP in 10 1/3 innings as a starter and a 3.91 ERA and 3.33 FIP in 25 1/3 innings out of the bullpen. A knee injury ended his season early, and the Royals designated him for assignment at the beginning of the offseason. He subsequently elected free agency.

Cox rejoined the Royals on a minor league contract shortly thereafter and spent the entire 2024 campaign with the Triple-A Omaha Storm Chasers. He exercised an opt-out clause in his contract in July but signed another minor league pact with the organization later that month. Thus, his new deal with the Royals is the third minor league contract he has signed with the team in the past 14 months. Presumably, he will continue to do exactly what he did in 2024: provide depth as a left-handed swingman at Triple-A. While his performance this past year didn’t prove good enough to earn him another chance with the big league club, there is clearly a strong relationship between pitcher and team that both sides are interested in carrying on.

Angels Reportedly “Weighing” Pursuit Of Pete Alonso

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The Angels are reportedly “weighing” a pursuit of free agent first baseman Pete Alonso as they search for another bat to add to their lineup, according to a report from Jon Heyman of the New York Post.

Alonso, 30, is the top free agent available at first base this winter but hasn’t found the market he was surely hoping for to this point in the winter. While plenty of clubs entered the winter with needs at first base, a number of feasible landing spots for Alonso have subsequently addressed the position in other ways: the Yankees added Paul Goldschmidt, the Astros signed Christian Walker, the Nationals traded for Nathaniel Lowe, and the Tigers shifted Colt Keith to first base after signing Gleyber Torres. Meanwhile, many of the teams that could potentially be in the market for first base/DH such as the Mariners, Padres, and Twins are facing payroll constraints that make a pursuit of Alonso quite unlikely.

That’s led to a feeling in recent weeks that a return to Queens may be inevitable for the slugger. The Mets have not yet filled their hole at first base, and while they’ve replaced Alonso’s bat in the lineup with Juan Soto it’s hard to deny that the club could benefit from adding another slugger to the mix, particularly a right-handed hitter like Alonso who can help balance out Soto and Brandon Nimmo’s left-handed bats alongside switch-hitter Francisco Lindor. In recent weeks, however, it appears that Alonso’s market has begun to expand a bit. The Giants were connected to the slugger last week, and now the Angels have seemingly entered the fray as well. While both clubs would face a bit of a tight roster fit given the presence of incumbent first basemen on the roster, either club would surely benefit from adding Alonso’s bat to the middle of their lineup.

In Anaheim’s case, youngster Nolan Schanuel appears to hold the keys to first base for the time being. The club’s first-round pick in 2023, Schanuel rocketed through the minors to reach the majors shortly after being drafted and since then has slashed a respectable .255/.354/.357 in 176 games at the big league level. While the 22-year-old hasn’t developed the necessary power to be more than an average bat in the majors to this point, his phenomenal plate discipline suggests a bright future is ahead for the youngster. That makes it hard to believe that the Angels would kick Schanuel from the lineup to sign Alonso, but Heyman reports that both could coexist in the Anaheim lineup even with Jorge Soler entrenched as the club’s regular DH by moving Schanuel to left field.

It’s a novel solution to the problem given that Schanuel has not played the outfield before as a professional, but it’s not completely impossible to imagine him being able to handle the position defensively. After all, Schanuel got occasional reps in the outfield as an amateur and those days aren’t nearly as far behind him as they are for more established big leaguers or even fellow youngsters who spent more time in the minor leagues. That defensive risk could be worth taking if it means adding a hitter of Alonso’s caliber to the lineup, replacing the likely platoon of Jo Adell and Mickey Moniak the club currently seems poised to utilize in the outfield alongside Taylor Ward.

With that being said, it’s hard to imagine the Angels preferring an arrangement with Alonso that pushed Schanuel into the outfield to simply signing a big bat for their outfield mix and keeping their young hitter at his natural position. The Halos have also been connected to Anthony Santander on the free agent market recently, and Heyman concedes that the Angels landing Santander is “more likely” than the club ultimately ending up with Alonso due in part to the cleaner positional fit. With that being said, Santander’s market isn’t limited to the Angels. If he winds up signing somewhere else such as Detroit or Toronto, it suddenly becomes easier to imagine Angels brass being more willing to move things around to accommodate the addition of Alonso at first base given that the only other impact free agent available in the outfield would be Jurickson Profar, who lacks the lengthy track record of success that Alonso offers.

Free Agent Profile: Charlie Morton

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The 2024-25 offseason has seen starting pitchers enjoy a hot market practically from the start of the winter, and virtually every starter has signed a deal that surpassed expectations this winter. That’s led to a run on starters all throughout the winter, and as the 2025 calendar year begins just four starting pitchers who MLBTR predicted to land multi-year deals this winter remain on the market: Jack Flaherty, Nick Pivetta, Jose Quintana, and Andrew Heaney. With a number of clubs still hoping to add starting pitching help this winter, that means several teams are going to have to turn towards one-year deals in order to add to their rotation.

The list of players who figure to be available in that corner of the market is wide-ranging, with solid but unspectacular veterans like Kyle Gibson and Martín Pérez as well as players hoping to rebound from down or injured seasons like Michael Lorenzen and Spencer Turnbull. One particularly unique group of pitchers available on one-year deals is a handful of aging veterans who have long been among the better starters in baseball but either can’t garner or aren’t interested in making multi-year commitments at this point in their careers. Former Cy Young award winners Clayton Kershaw, Max Scherzer, and Justin Verlander all fall into this category, but the best of the group in 2024 was actually 41-year-old right-hander Charlie Morton.

Unlike the aforementioned trio, Morton isn’t a future Hall of Famer. He didn’t make his big league debut until he was 24 years old and didn’t fully break out as a front-end starter until his age-33 season, which came with the Astros back in 2017. Since then, however, Morton has been among the better pitchers in the sport. He’s grown into one of the more durable starters in the sport with more than 1200 innings of work over the past eight seasons, good for eighth in the majors. Among starters with at least 1000 innings of work during that time, Morton’s 3.64 ERA and near-matching 3.63 FIP rank ninth, while his fantastic 27.4% strikeout rate ranks sixth behind only Scherzer, Verlander, Gerrit Cole, Yu Darvish, and Blake Snell.

That steady, reliable production would have made Morton an attractive free agent for a number of clubs in recent years, but his last foray into free agency was back in the 2020-21 offseason, when he limited his market to just Atlanta and Tampa Bay in an effort to remain close to his family. Since then, he’s signed successive short-term extensions with the Braves in order to remain in Atlanta. In four years as a member of the Braves, Morton pitched to a 3.87 ERA (110 ERA+) with a 3.92 FIP in 686 1/3 innings of work, positioning himself as a durable mid-rotation arm.

There’s been some variance in Morton’s work with Atlanta, as he posted top-of-the-rotation caliber results in 2021 and ’23 but was closer to league average in 2022 and ’24. Even in those down years, though, Morton’s durability made him a quality rotation option not unlike Gibson. With the floor of a sturdy, back-of-the-rotation veteran and the ceiling of a playoff-caliber starter, Morton stands out among the remaining starters available as something like the best of both worlds; he’s been as durable over the years as a veteran like Gibson or Patrick Corbin, but with recent success that easily clears those more reliable arms.

While even Morton’s best years pale in comparison to what the aforementioned trio of aging aces looked like at their peak, Morton’s numbers after the past two years are actually very similar to Scherzer’s on a rate basis: Scherzer has posted a 3.81 ERA (109 ERA+) with a 4.29 FIP since the start of the 2023 season, while Morton has posted a 3.92 ERA (108 ERA+) with a 4.17 FIP over the same time frame. Scherzer’s 26.8% strikeout rate and 7.4% walk rate are better than Morton’s 24.7% strikeout rate and 10.4% walk rate, but Morton benefits from a much higher groundball rate and of course has nearly double Scherzer’s volume over the past two years.

While betting on a pitcher who’s already celebrated his 41st birthday will always come with risk, Morton’s impressive durability and consistent track record of success make him one of the most intriguing mixes of upside and stability still available in free agency at this point. With that said, it doesn’t appear that the veteran has fully decided whether or not he’ll return to the mound at all for 2025. Morton has frequently considered hanging up the glove to join his family at their home in Florida, and while initial reports indicated his intention to pitch in 2025, Morton’s plans seemingly remain up in the air as he would likely wind up somewhere other than Atlanta for the coming season.

Reportedly, Morton’s preference is to pitch for a team that hosts their Spring Training in Florida so he can stay close to home for more of the season. Aside from the Braves and Rays, the Orioles, Red Sox, Tigers, Astros, Blue Jays, Marlins, Twins, Mets, Yankees, Phillies, Pirates, Cardinals, and Nationals all play in the Grapefruit League during the spring. The majority of those teams are either facing significant payroll constraints or unlikely to add rotation help this winter, but the Orioles, Astros, Tigers, and Mets could all be speculative potential destinations for the right-hander should he wind up departing Atlanta.

Twins Sign Mike Ford To Minor League Deal

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The Twins have signed first baseman Mike Ford to a minor league deal, according to a report from Jon Morosi of MLBNetwork. The deal includes an invitation to big league Spring Training next month.

Ford, 32, made his big league debut back in 2019 with the Yankees. Ford hit the ground running in 50 games for the club, slashing an impressive .259/.350/.559 with 12 home runs in just 163 plate appearance. That dynamic performance was enough to earn Ford additional chances with the Yankees over the next two seasons, but he wasn’t able to capitalize on them as he hit just .134/.250/.276 in 156 trips to the plate split between the 2020 and 2021 seasons. The Yankees eventually opted to trade Ford to the Rays in a cash deal midway through the 2021 season.

Though Ford wouldn’t make it back to the majors in 2021, that trade nonetheless set off a lengthy series of transactions that saw the slugger bounce around the league with a number of different stops. Two months after being acquired by the Rays, he was claimed off waivers by the Nationals. After being non-tendered by Washington following the 2021 season, he was signed by the Mariners and added to their 40-man roster ahead of the 2022 season. Before appearing in a big league game with the club, however, he was traded to the Giants in a cash deal. His stay in San Francisco then lasted just one game before he was traded back to the Mariners, where he then appeared in 16 games before being designated for assignment and claimed off waivers by the Braves. After five games in Atlanta, he was then shipped to Anaheim and finished the 2022 season with the club, playing 28 games for the Angels down the stretch.

Given that whirlwind of transactions Ford found himself a part of over the course of 14 months, it’s perhaps no surprise that his 2022 season left much to be desired. While he garnered 149 plate appearances across 50 games with the four teams that played him in the majors that year, he hit just .206/.302/.313 during that time. Ford ultimately returned to free agency and signed a second consecutive minor league deal with Seattle. After lingering at Triple-A for the first two months of the year, he was added to the Mariners’ roster at the start of June and proceeded to have the best season of his career. He slashed a solid .228/.323/.475 (128 wRC+) in a career-high 84 games while clobbering 16 home runs in just 251 trips to the plate. Ford still struck out at a hefty 32.3% clip, but his power allowed him to carve out a semi-regular role with the Mariners serving mostly as the club’s DH.

Unfortunately for Ford, he was non-tendered by the Mariners following the 2023 campaign as the club looked to overhaul its lineup to focus more on contact rather than power. Ford signed with the Reds on a minor league deal prior to the 2024 campaign but managed to get into just 17 games with the club this year and hit a paltry .150/.177/.233 in 62 plate appearances. After being cut loose by Cincinnati at the end of May, Ford tried his luck overseas with Nippon Professional Baseball’s Yokohama DeNA BayStars. His time in Japan did not go especially well, and he made it into just six games with the club’s Central League team before returning to the open market this winter.

Now, Ford is poised to join the Twins as a budget first base option for the club. Minnesota has struggled with a significant payroll crunch throughout the offseason and been limited in its ability to add to a roster that entered September in clear playoff position but collapsed down the stretch. After watching Carlos Santana depart for their division rivals in Cleveland last month, Minnesota appeared thin at first base with some combination of José Miranda and Edouard Julien likely to be the club’s internal solution at the position. With Ford now in the mix, those two youngsters will have additional competition this spring for the first base job, though signing a non-roster veteran like Ford is unlikely to stop the Twins from adding a more proven player in free agency should they manage to create enough payroll space to do so.

Guardians Sign Luis Frias To Minor League Deal

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The Guardians have signed right-hander Luis Frias to a minor league deal with an invite to big league Spring Training, per a club announcement.

Frias, 27 in May, signed with the Diamondbacks out of the Dominican Republic as an amateur and made his pro debut back in 2016. After slowly making his way through the lower levels of the minors in his early years with the club, Frias quickly rose from High-A all the way to Triple-A during the 2021 season. While he struggled to a 4.93 ERA in 23 starts across three levels of the minors that year, that didn’t stop Arizona from giving Frias his first big league opportunity down the stretch. He pitched fairly well in that brief cup of coffee, with a 2.70 ERA and three strikeouts in 3 1/3 innings of work, though his five walks represented a clear red flag regarding how his command would play at the big league level.

Those control issues manifested in the form of a brutal 2022 season. Frias’s sophomore campaign in the desert scarcely could have gone worse, as he posted a 10.59 ERA in 17 big league innings of work while once again walking (17) more batters than he struck out (14). His 3.99 ERA at Triple-A offered some level of optimism, though even that was held back by a 12.3% walk rate at the level. Despite his struggles, Frias’s tantalizing stuff was enough to convince Arizona to keep him in the fold for 2023, and he delivered the best season of his career in return. Though he walked 12.2% of opponents in the majors that year, Frias posted a 4.07 ERA that was 9% better than average by measure of ERA+ in 31 innings of work. His 18.7% strikeout rate was lackluster, but in terms of pure run prevention his results were those of a perfectly adequate middle reliever.

Unfortunately, Frias’s performance went back off the rails in 2024. In 13 MLB appearances split between the Diamondbacks and Blue Jays, the right-hander struggled to a 13.97 ERA and 5.55 FIP while recording just 9 2/3 total innings of work. Things even looked dire at the Triple-A level during his time in Arizona, as he posted a lackluster 4.88 ERA for the club’s affiliate in Reno. Fortunately for Frias, however, he dominated at Triple-A late in the year after being plucked off waivers from the Snakes. He posted a 0.96 ERA and a 27.9% strikeout rate for his new club’s Buffalo affiliate, and while that wasn’t enough to convince the Jays to keep him on their 40-man roster this winter it was evidently enough to earn Frias a look from the Guardians this winter.

While Frias isn’t likely to break camp as part of a crowded Cleveland bullpen, he’ll now have the opportunity to work with one of the league’s best pitching development organizations in hopes of further harnessing his potential and sorting out his command going forward. In the meantime, he’ll serve as a non-roster depth option for the Guardians out of the bullpen who could be called upon in the event of an injury.

The Opener: Kim, Arbitration, Scherzer

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As the MLB offseason continues, here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world throughout the day today:

1. Kim’s posting window draws closed:

KBO infielder Hyeseong Kim has just under 32 hours remaining in his posting window, which is set to close at 4pm CT tomorrow. MLBTR ranked Kim as the #26 free agent available in our annual Top 50 MLB Free Agents list, where we predicted a three-year, $28MM deal for Kim at the outset of the offseason. With that being said, it’s worth noting that the earning power of international free agents can be difficult to predict as Kim’s fellow countryman Jung Hoo Lee demonstrated last winter when he signed a nine-figure deal with the Giants that blew past all expectations at the time of his posting.

There’s been few concrete rumors regarding Kim’s free agency to this point in the offseason, and with so little known about Kim’s free agency it’s difficult to predict which teams may be interested in the infielder or if he could consider returning to the Kiwoom Heroes in 2025 if he’s unable to find a contract to his liking. Kim is primarily a second baseman but has plenty of experience at shortstop as well and is generally regarded as a strong defender who should have little trouble handling third base if needed. The Mariners, Yankees, Angels, Cubs, Padres, and Brewers are among a number of teams who could make sense as potential suitors for a versatile infielder like Kim.

2. Arbitration filing deadline approaches:

Arbitration-eligible players around the league have to either reach an agreement with their club or face an arbitration hearing each winter, and decision day is rapidly approaching for those players this winter. The deadline to file for arbitration is one week from today on January 9. While teams and players are free to negotiate even after filing, clubs have increasingly used next week’s deadline as a cutoff for negotiations, taking what’s been termed a “file-and-trial” approach to arbitration. The majority of arb-level players typically sign before the deadline in order to avoid arbitration, as Royals right-hander Kyle Wright did last month. Many more players figure to follow in Wright’s footsteps over the next week, including what’s sure to be a rush of deals on the day of the deadline.

3. Scherzer’s market heating up?

Reporting yesterday indicated that four teams are involved in the market for future Hall of Famer Max Scherzer, though no specific clubs have been connected to the veteran hurler. At age 40, Scherzer is coming off an injury-marred season and is no longer the perennial contender for Cy Young awards that he was during his peak. Even so, the right-hander has remained valuable when healthy, with a 3.81 ERA (109 ERA+) and a 26.8% strikeout rate over the past two seasons. The eight-time All-Star is among the highest upside players still on the market and offers a relatively low-cost alternative to the top hurlers remaining on the market, Jack Flaherty and Nick Pivetta, while standing out in a crowd of veterans searching for one-year deals as the most impactful option at that level of the market now that Walker Buehler is off the board.

MLB Mailbag: Braves, Red Sox, Cubs, Mariners, Torkelson, Alonso, Bregman

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Welcome to the first mailbag of 2025!  In this one we get into what the Braves, Red Sox, Cubs, and Mariners might do, the future of first basemen Spencer Torkelson and Pete Alonso, outfield options for the Astros, various Alex Bregman destinations, and much more.

John asks:

Braves fan here wondering if the Braves will re-sign AJ Minter?

Bill asks:

With market choices dwindling whom might Atlanta pursue in the pitcher/outfield categories? Or will they rely on young pitching hopes and current outfield options?

Phillip asks:

What do you see the Atlanta Braves doing? We need another outfielder, starting pitcher, and 2 relief pitchers. Are we going to be thrifty or are we going for quality?

Bruce asks:

Can you predict what the usually unpredictable Alex Anthopolous will acquire to play LF and SS and SP down the 2025 Atlanta Braves?

In attempting to guess how the rest of the Braves' offseason will go, it may be helpful to first project their payroll.  President of baseball operations and GM Alex Anthopoulos said in October payroll would be going up.

The Braves' actions thus far this offseason do not match those of a team planning to increase payroll: declining Travis d'Arnaud's option, dumping Jorge Soler, moving money around with the Reynaldo Lopez and Aaron Bummer extensions (though not in a way that helps their CBT payroll), non-tendering Ramon Laureano, and most importantly, failing to sign any notable free agents.  It's also true that Anthopoulos' October comments came before the Braves learned more information about the timelines of Ronald Acuña Jr., Spencer Strider, and Joe Jimenez.  I could see how that would affect payroll allocation, but not why it would affect the total payroll.

The Braves appear to have a $220MM CBT payroll at present, and on December 11th David O'Brien of The Athletic wrote that the Braves "don’t seem inclined to go too far above that $241 million [luxury tax] threshold."  That's after running a $276MM CBT payroll in 2024.  Perhaps in his October "payroll is going up" comments, Anthopoulos was threading a needle where the team's 26-man Opening Day actual payroll will increase, but their CBT payroll will not.  Last year's Opening Day actual payroll was $222MM and the team is at $197MM at present.  It's also likely the team would like to keep powder dry for midseason additions.

Given O'Brien's comment, we probably shouldn't project much more than $25MM in additional AAV to be added this offseason.  The second tax threshold of $261MM could be a ceiling on the CBT payroll.  So how might Anthopoulos improve the team with many major names now off the board?

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Padres, Moises Gomez Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Padres agreed to a minor league contract with Moisés Gómez last month, according to the MLB.com transaction log. The 26-year-old corner outfielder had been outrighted and released by the Cardinals last season.

Gómez is working to get to the big leagues for the first time. He seemed on track after hitting 39 homers in the minor leagues in 2022. That earned him a 40-man roster spot with St. Louis. Gómez spent the entire ’23 campaign on optional assignment to their Triple-A affiliate. He popped another 30 homers but hit .232 with a .293 on-base percentage. That wasn’t enough to crack the MLB roster. St. Louis sent him through outright waivers last February.

The righty-hitting outfielder again opened the season at the Triple-A level. He hit .208 and saw his power production evaporate, as he only managed three longballs in 45 games before being released. Gómez closed the season in the independent American Association. He has mashed in winter ball in his native Venezuela this offseason. Gómez is hitting .273/.396/.613 with 15 longballs in 48 winter ball games.

San Diego will give him an opportunity to rebound from his difficult past two seasons. Gómez has big power, hitting 127 homers in parts of nine minor league seasons between the Tampa Bay and St. Louis systems. That includes 49 longballs in fewer than 1000 Triple-A plate appearances, though he’s a .236/.303/.452 hitter at that level. He has punched out in nearly a third of his trips to the plate in Triple-A.

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