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Frankie Montas Shut Down Six To Eight Weeks With Lat Strain

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12:50pm: The Mets informed reporters, including Tim Healey of Newday, that Montas has a high grade right lat strain. He will get a platelet-rich plasma injection and be shut down for six to eight weeks. That will take him roughly to the start of April, at which point he will have to start ramping up again. Even if he is back to full health at that point, he’s likely going to miss at least a month of the season.

12:40pm: It’s a lat injury, per Jon Heyman of The New York Post, though the timetable is still unknown.

11:41am: Mets camp has only just begun, but Mike Puma of the New York Post reports that free agent pickup Frankie Montas has not been throwing and will be shut down for a “significant stretch.” Details surrounding the apparent injury have not yet come to light. The Mets signed Montas to a two-year, $34MM contract back in early December. He has an opt-out opportunity at the end of the season, though a prolonged injury absence will obviously reduce the likelihood of that coming to pass.

Without details about the injury or expected absence, it’s hard to say how worried Mets fans should be. Regardless, it’s not ideal to be starting camp with one of their key offseason investments already behind.

The Mets were facing a significant rotation overhaul this winter, with Sean Manaea, Luis Severino and Jose Quintana all hitting free agency. They had also lost Christian Scott to Tommy John surgery last year and Paul Blackburn had undergone a spinal procedure. They still had Kodai Senga, though he missed most of 2024.

Given the club’s big spending in recent years, some expected them to go after the top free agents, but they took a different route this winter. They never seemed particularly interested in guys like Corbin Burnes or Max Fried, instead opting for short-term pacts. They re-signed Manaea with a three-year deal, and also gave three years to reliever Clay Holmes with the idea of converting him to a rotation job. Montas got two years with an opt-out while Griffin Canning got a one-year deal.

Injuries have been an issue for Montas recently, most notable a shoulder issue that required surgery and wiped out most of his 2023 campaign. He was back on the mound last year with uneven results, posting a 4.48 earned run average and tepid 22.6% strikeout rate. That latter number did tick up to 28.7% after a deadline deal to the Brewers, which is perhaps what gave the Mets some optimism that he was back on a good track, but health may now be an issue again.

That shoulder surgery is one reason why Montas hasn’t been able to log many big league innings. He also received an 80-game PED suspension in July of 2019, putting his breakout on hold. The pandemic-shortened 2020 season then capped him at 11 starts that year. He tossed 187 innings in 2021 but then the shoulder issues slowed him down late in 2022 before the aforementioned surgery. Amid all those stops and starts, Montas has only once hit 151 innings pitched in a season.

If Montas is behind, then a season-opening start on the injured list seems likely. Until more details are reported, it can only be guessed whether the concern will extend deeper into the season. Assuming Montas does start the season on the IL, the Mets project to start the campaign with a rotation of Senga, Manaea, Holmes and David Peterson, with Canning, Blackburn and Tylor Megill options for the back end, though Blackburn also might start the season on the IL.  Prospects Brandon Sproat and Blade Tidwell should be in Triple-A, though both struggled at that level last year.

If the Mets want to add some more depth in the wake of this Montas news, they will have options. The free agent market still features guys like Quintana, Andrew Heaney, Spencer Turnbull and others. Marcus Stroman, Jordan Montgomery and others are likely available in trades.

Per RosterResource, the payroll is at $331MM and the competitive balance tax at $325MM. The pure payroll was in a similar spot last year, though they got their CBT number all the way up to $358MM. Whether they want to add more payroll to continue adding to the rotation remains to be seen.

Royals Extend GM J.J. Picollo, Exercise 2026 Option On Manager Matt Quatraro

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The Royals have signed general manager J.J. Picollo to an extension that runs through the 2030 season and contains a 2031 club option, per a team announcement. They’ve also exercised their 2026 club option on manager Matt Quatraro, reports Anne Rogers of MLB.com.

Picollo, 54, has been with the Royals for nearly two decades, originally joining the club as an assistant general manager and director of player development. He’d spent the prior seven years in the Braves’ scouting and player development departments.

Kansas City promoted Picollo to general manager in 2021, but he was still the team’s No. 2 baseball operations executive under then-president of baseball operations Dayton Moore. When the Royals moved on from Moore following the 2022 campaign, Picollo was elevated to the top of the department. The Royals have quickly returned to contention in the American League Central under his watch.

The Royals have been more active in free agency under Picollo than they’d been in prior seasons, and while the overall results have been mixed, most of the less-successful moves under Picollo have been small-scale pickups. Signings like Garrett Hampson, Adam Frazier, Chris Stratton and Ryan Yarbrough didn’t pay dividends. The two-year, $13MM investment in Hunter Renfroe is the most regrettable of those smaller-scale additions. He’s still under contract in 2025 and looking for a rebound after a dismal 2024 campaign. However, the club’s largest investments have been successful. Signings of Michael Wacha and Seth Lugo have been roaring successes.

Picollo’s signing of Aroldis Chapman on a one-year, $3.75MM deal proved most impactful of all, as Chapman was flipped to the Royals in the summer of 2023 — a deal that helped propel Texas to the World Series but also netted the Royals current ace Cole Ragans. That move might be the most impactful rental swap for any team in recent memory. Last summer’s acquisition of Lucas Erceg looks like a major win for the organization’s long-term outlook as well.

Under Picollo’s watch, the Royals have also extended shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. on an 11-year, $288.7MM contract — though the structure of that deal makes it quite likely that Witt will either opt out well before its endpoint or re-sign on another extension at some point closer to that opt-out opportunity.

An extension through the 2030 season gives Picollo the runway to even more firmly place his stamp on the organization. Obviously, while he didn’t have final say over many of the moves in the late 2010s and earlier 2020s, his fingerprints are still on many of those decisions. As the remainder of the current decade plays out, he’ll more firmly claim ownership of the state of the Royals’ roster. He’s already out to a good start, coming off an 86-76 showing that sent Kansas City to an ALDS showdown with the Yankees. They came up short in that effort, but that still marked the team’s first postseason appearance since the 2015 campaign in which K.C. won the World Series under Moore and former skipper Ned Yost.

Quatraro, 51, is entering his third season as the Royals’ skipper. The former Rays bench coach signed a three-year deal in Kansas City in the 2022-23 offseason. The 2023 Royals lost 106 games but improved by a staggering 30 wins in 2024, thanks to breakout performances from Ragans and Witt as well as big years from free agent adds like Wacha and Lugo.

The Royals didn’t have to make a decision on Quatraro’s future just yet, but today’s pair of announcements speaks volumes about Sherman’s satisfaction with the top baseball decision-makers he’s put in place. Picollo tells Rogers that he and Quatraro have forged a “great relationship” and that while he’s excited his skipper will be around for at least one additional year, he also anticipates Quatraro’s stay in Kansas City “being longer than that.”

Yankees Sign Rob Zastryzny To Minor League Deal

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The Yankees announced Monday morning that they’ve signed left-handed reliever Rob Zastryzny to a minor league deal and invited him to join their major league camp. Zastryzny was designated for assignment by the Cubs last week and outrighted after he went unclaimed on waivers. However, the veteran southpaw had the right to reject that assignment in favor of free agency. The Cubs never formally announced that he did so, but this morning’s announcement from the Yankees makes it clear that’s how things played out.

Zastryzny, 32, has pitched in parts of six big league seasons and tallied nearly two full years of MLB service. He tossed 7 2/3 innings with the 2024 Brewers and allowed only one run four hits and a walk with five strikeouts. He’s also seen big league time with the Cubs, Mets, Angels and Pirates, combining for a 4.30 earned run average in 67 innings.

Zastryzny has fanned 18.2% of his opponents against a 10.5% walk rate. His 44.8% ground-ball rate is only a couple ticks better than average, but he’s excelled when it comes to keeping the ball in the yard, limiting opponents to an average of just 0.40 homers per nine frames. Lefties have been particularly inept against him, batting just .189/.319/.232 in 113 plate appearances. Conversely, righties have torched the 6’3″ southpaw at a .311/.372/.447 clip. Zastryzny posted a 3.03 ERA in Triple-A last season and carries a career 4.69 mark in parts of eight seasons at that level (409 innings).

The Yankees’ only left-hander in the bullpen at the moment is Tim Hill, who re-signed in the Bronx on a one-year deal earlier this month. Zastryzny joins fellow veteran Tyler Matzek as a seasoned non-roster invitee in camp. He’ll compete for a spot alongside Hill in the ’pen, though there are enough notable unsigned veterans that it’s possible the Yankees could still bring someone in on a guaranteed deal.

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

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

Spring training is ramping up but there’s still offseason business to discuss. If you have a question about a past transaction, a look ahead to the rest of the winter or anything else baseball-related, we’d love to hear from you! You can email your questions to mlbtrpod@gmail.com.

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

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

Diamondbacks Designate Seth Martinez For Assignment

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The Diamondbacks announced that right-hander Seth Martinez has been designated for assignment. That’s the corresponding move for their signing of fellow righty Kendall Graveman, which is now official.

Martinez, 30, has never suited up for the Snakes. He was just claimed off waivers from the Astros in November, shortly after the World Series. He lasted on the roster through most of the winter but has been nudged off today.

All of his major league experience has been with Houston thus far. He was added to that club’s roster late in 2021 and spent several years as a fringe member of the bullpen, getting optioned to the minors 12 times since getting that roster spot.

Around those trips on the shuttle, he tossed 137 1/3 major league innings for the Astros, allowing 3.93 earned runs per nine. His 20.7% strikeout rate, 9.2% walk rate and 39.6% ground ball rate to this point are all close to average but a bit worse than the mean. He also tossed 105 minor league innings over the past four years with more intriguing numbers. He had a 2.66 ERA in that work, along with a 31.5% strikeout rate and 10% walk rate.

He exhausted his final option year in 2024, which means he’ll be less valuable from a roster flexibility standpoint going forward. That likely played a role in the Astros bumping him off their roster. The Diamondbacks were presumably intrigued enough by his minor league strikeouts to claim him and hang onto him for a while but he’s been squeezed off a roster yet again.

Martinez will now be in DFA limbo for a maximum of seven days. He will likely be put back on waivers, which is a 48-hour process, so the Diamondbacks could explore trade interest for the next five days. If any club acquired Martinez, he has a bit more than two years of service time, meaning he still hasn’t qualified for arbitration and can be theoretically controlled for four seasons. However, his aforementioned out-of-options status will give him a bit of a challenge in sticking somewhere.

Diamondbacks Sign Kendall Graveman

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February 17: The Graveman signing is now official, with righty Seth Martinez designated for assignment as the corresponding move.

February 14: The Diamondbacks are reportedly in agreement with veteran reliever Kendall Graveman on a one-year, $1.35MM deal. The signing is still pending a physical. Graveman, a client of Sports One Athlete Management, will earn $1.25MM this season and has a $100K buyout on a $5MM mutual option for the 2026 season. The deal includes another $1.95MM in performance bonuses. Arizona will need to create a 40-man roster spot when the deal is finalized.

Graveman, 34, missed the 2024 season while recovering from shoulder surgery but had a strong run between the Mariners, Astros and White Sox across the three prior seasons. The former starter moved to a relief role late in the 2020 season after returning from Tommy John surgery and found fast success in a high-leverage role. From 2021-23, Graveman pitched 187 1/3 innings with a 2.74 ERA, 51 holds, 24 saves, a 24.5% strikeout rate and a 10.4% walk rate.

Though last season was lost to shoulder troubles, Graveman was cleared to begin throwing late last summer. He progressed through a normal offseason throwing and conditioning program and is ready for spring training.

When he’s been healthy, Graveman has relied upon a power sinker sitting north of 96 mph, pairing that offering with an upper-80s slider and a lesser-used changeup that sits 89-90 mph. That heavy sinker has allowed him to consistently post ground-ball rates comfortably north of 50%. The right-hander lost a bit of life on all those pitches in 2023 and saw his command erode considerably in the season’s second half, following a trade from the White Sox back to the Astros.

It’s possible shoulder issues contributed to both those red flags, of course. It’ll be telling how he looks early in camp and early in the season. If Graveman is back to 96-98 mph with his sinker and can get his walk rate back down to the 9% range — it was at 12.4% in 2023 — he’ll be a formidable piece in what should be a strong Diamondbacks bullpen.

D-backs general manager Mike Hazen has been open about his desire to add a closer this offseason. While Graveman may not be handed the role out of the gate, he adds a talented and experienced option for manager Torey Lovullo to consider. If he can get back to 2021-23 form, it’s easy to see Graveman factoring into the ninth inning. Prior to this agreement, the Snakes appeared likely to lean on some combination of A.J. Puk, Justin Martinez and Kevin Ginkel in save opportunities.

The addition of Graveman pushes the Diamondbacks’ payroll a bit north of $195MM, per RosterResource. That’s a franchise-record mark by a wide margin, shattering the previous highwater mark of $163MM, set just last year. Prior to the 2024 season, the D-backs had never opened the season higher than $132MM. They’ve been heavily involved in both the trade and free agent markets in each of the past two offseasons, however, with no bigger strike coming than the club-record $210MM investment in newly signed ace Corbin Burnes.

Since Graveman only bumps the payroll by $600K over a league-minimum player, it’s at least feasible that the D-backs could remain engaged in the market for additional bullpen help. David Robertson and Kyle Finnegan both remain unsigned and have ample closing experience. Craig Kimbrel and Hector Neris are both still out there as well and looking to rebound from shaky 2024 campaigns, while Daniel Bard is an even more extreme rebound candidate as he looks to rebound from flexor tendon surgery that cost him all of the 2024 campaign with his 40th birthday looming in June. The trade market presents additional possibilities, of course, but Hazen said just yesterday that any forthcoming bullpen acquisitions would likely be made via free agency.

ESPN’s Jesse Rogers first reported the D-Backs and Graveman had a one-year deal. MLB.com’s Steve Gilbert was first with the $1.35MM guarantee. Rogers reported the maximum $3.3MM value after incentives, while Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic reported the mutual option/buyout.

Mike Trout Moving To Right Field

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Angels star Mike Trout met with the team yesterday to discuss his health outlook and potential means of keeping him healthier moving forward. The longtime center fielder now tells reporters that he’ll be shifting to right field in an effort to keep him on the field with more regularity (link via ESPN’s Alden Gonzalez).

Trout’s talents are obvious but his health, or lack thereof, has been the primary focus of his recent career. In the eight seasons from 2012 to 2019, Trout was a fixture for the Angels as their primary center fielder. He never played fewer than 114 games, got into at least 134 games in seven of those eight campaigns and got to 157 contests in four of them. He then played in 53 of the club’s 60 games in the shortened 2020 season.

But he was limited to just 36 games in 2021 by a right calf strain. He played more regularly the following year, but was still capped at 119 contests by back problems. A left hamate fracture was the primary culprit in 2023, with Trout getting into 82 games. Last year, he twice suffered a tear of his left meniscus and only got into 29 games. His production has still been very strong when on the field, but trying to keep him there more often is an obvious goal for the club.

In addition to those mounting injuries, Trout is now 33 years old and will turn 34 in August. His contract runs through 2030 and he therefore still has six seasons to get through, at a premium salary, before it runs its course. Center field is a more taxing position than either of the corners, so moving Trout over to right will detract from his value somewhat but ideally be better for his long-term health than staying up the middle.

The Angels have Taylor Ward in left field and Jorge Soler slated to be their primary designated hitter. With Trout now set to be the regular in right, they will have a question mark in center. With Trout having missed so much time in recent years, Mickey Moniak has gotten plenty of run there with good defensive metrics. He logged 445 innings up the middle in 2023 and then 800 last year. Combined with his previous center field work with the Phillies, he now has 1,465 2/3 innings at the position in his career with three Defensive Runs Saved and eight Outs Above Average.

The bigger question is what we will provide offensively. He seemed to have something of a breakout in 2023, hitting 14 home runs in 323 plate appearances, leading to a .280/.307/.495 batting line and 114 wRC+. However, there were some yellow flags in there. His 2.8% walk rate and 35% strikeout rate were both awful marks and his production seemed to be floating on top of a .397 batting average on balls in play.

Regression seemed to be likely and indeed came to pass in 2024. Though Moniak improved his walk and strikeout rates to 5% and 27.3% respectively, those were still subpar numbers. He hit another 14 home runs, but in a larger sample of 418 plate appearances. His BABIP fell to .272, far closer to the league average, which was .291 last year. His .219/.266/.380 line led to a 79 wRC+.

Moniak has 84th percentile sprint speed and those aforementioned strong grades for his glovework. That perhaps gives him a decent floor, at least capable of running down fly balls and stealing a few bases. There is perhaps a bit of upside with the bat but there’s also a chance that he’s a hole in the bottom of the lineup. The 32.% career strikeout rate is obviously a concern. Zack Gelof was the only qualified hitter to be above that in 2024. It is perhaps encouraging that Moniak has been striking out less over time. From 2021 to the present, his strikeout rate has gone from 43.2% to 39.3%, 35% and 27.3%, though even that last number is still rough.

Another option on the roster is Jo Adell, though there is perhaps even more concern with him than with Moniak. He has hit .211/.268/.381 in his career for a 78 wRC+, striking out 32.2% of the time. That includes a .207/.280/.402 line and 90 wRC+ in 2024, though with some nicer numbers under the hood. He hit 20 home runs last year and got his strikeout rate down to 27.9%. His .244 BABIP was below average and lower than his previous marks, despite decent Statcast data.

Perhaps he deserved better and there’s an offensive breakout on tap for him, though whether he can handle center field defensively is another question, as he has just 122 big league innings there. He has 3 DRS while OAA considers him to have been league average, but it’s hard to read too much into such a small sample of playing time.

It’s also possible that a platoon will form, since Moniak hits from the left side and Adell the right. Moniak has a dismal .176/.210/.244 line against lefties in his career but a more respectable .239/.282/.428 mark and 93 wRC+ against righties. Adell’s career splits aren’t massive but he was noticeably better against lefties in 2024. He only struck out 20% of the time against southpaws while slashing .245/.295/.582 for a 138 wRC+, in spite of a .232 BABIP. Against righties, he struck out 30.3% of the time and hit .195/.275/.345 for a wRC+ of 76.

They do have a notable center field prospect in Nelson Rada, though he is currently 19 years old and struggled at Double-A last year. In the short term, they could bolster the group by bringing in a veteran such as Kevin Pillar, who was with them last year and is currently unsigned.

Perhaps the Angels cane make it work but it’s an area of uncertainty on a roster that has a few of them. Anthony Rendon is slated to miss significant time yet again, leaving the Angels relying on another oft-injured player at third in Yoán Moncada. Shortstop Zach Neto is recovering from shoulder surgery and might start the season on the injured list. The rotation is currently relying on veteran soft-tossers like Kyle Hendricks and Tyler Anderson.

But those things were mostly true even before today’s news, which is a sensible one for the long run. Ideally, this development means that Trout will spend less time on the injured list and more time on the field, which will be good for both the Angels and baseball fans in general.

A’s, Mark Kotsay Agree To Extension

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9:52am: The A’s announced Kotsay’s extension.

9:42am: The A’s and manager Mark Kotsay have agreed to a three-year contract extension, reports Martin Gallegos of MLB.com. The new contract spans the 2026-28 seasons and gives the A’s a club option over the 2029 campaign. The A’s exercised a 2025 club option on Kotsay back in November, but he was unsigned beyond the current season prior to this new agreement.

Kotsay, 49, has helmed the A’s since 2022 and was the team’s bench coach and quality control coach for the five prior seasons. He also spent four seasons of 17-year major league career in green and gold — including perhaps the best season of his career, in 2004, when he hit .314/.370/.459 as the Athletics’ everyday center fielder.

Though Kotsay’s managerial record is an ugly 179-307, win-loss records rarely tell the full tale of a manager’s success (or lack thereof). That’s all the more true of a rebuilding club. The A’s have made virtually no effort to field a competitive roster throughout Kotsay’s tenure. The focus has been on culling payroll, acquiring/developing young players and, from a bigger picture standpoint, finalizing the relocation process that’s currently landed them in West Sacramento. The idea is to move to Las Vegas for the 2028 season, which would be Kotsay’s final guaranteed year on the current contract.

Expectations for Kotsay will rise during his second contract with the club. The A’s have spent more on the 2025 roster than at any point in recent seasons, due in part to foster interest with a new temporary fanbase in Sacramento but more so due to the threat of having their status as a revenue-sharing recipient revoked for the second time in the past decade. The A’s have signed Luis Severino, Jose Leclerc, Gio Urshela, T.J. McFarland and apparently Luis Urias in free agency, and they swung a trade to bring left-hander Jeffrey Springs over from Tampa Bay as well. Those acquisitions, plus a five-year extension for slugger Brent Rooker, have added $162MM in new long-term money to the team’s books, including more than $45MM for the upcoming 2025 season.

While the Athletics’ roughly $74MM payroll and $106MM luxury-tax number still sit at or near the bottom of the league overall, it’s still a small uptick from recent seasons; from 2022-24, the A’s ran payrolls between $50-65MM and never reached even an $85MM CBT number.

The new additions will join a burgeoning core of interesting young hitters. The late-blooming Rooker is the Athletics’ lineup cornerstone, but outfielders JJ Bleday and Lawrence Butler have blossomed at the plate, while prospects Jacob Wilson, Zack Gelof and Tyler Soderstrom have shown varying flashes of upside at shortstop, second base and first base, respectively. Shea Langeliers doesn’t get on base much, but his 29 homers in 2024 were second among all major league catchers, trailing only division-rival Cal Raleigh (34) up in Seattle. On the pitching side of things, lefty JP Sears looks like a solid innings eater at the very least, while closer Mason Miller has emerged as one of the game’s premier bullpen arms.

The A’s won’t enter the 2025 season as a favorite in the AL West by any stretch of the word, but they’re in a better position that any point since their latest rebuild kicked off — even though the slate of trades shipping out Matt Olson, Matt Chapman, Sean Manaea, Frankie Montas, Chris Bassitt, A.J. Puk, Lou Trivino and others hasn’t actually yielded many of the club’s current core contributors. (Langeliers came over in the Olson swap; Bleday was acquired for Puk.)

For the time being, the focus in West Sacramento will largely be on coaxing further development from Butler, Bleday, Wilson, Gelof, Soderstrom and looming first baseman of the future Nick Kurtz. Before long, however, the A’s will likely be expected to take a legitimate step forward — particularly if payroll continues to rise ahead of the planned move to the Las Vegas Strip. Ownership has clearly determined that Kotsay is the right person to spearhead those efforts and that such continuity will yield similar gains to the ones enjoyed in 2024, when the A’s improved by 19 games over their 2023 record due largely to improvements from players already in house.

Padres Sign Nick Pivetta

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Feb. 17: Pivetta passed his physical and has reported to Padres camp. The team has formally announced his four-year contract.

Feb. 12: The Padres are reportedly in agreement with Nick Pivetta on a backloaded four-year, $55MM deal. The CAA client receives a $3MM signing bonus and a $1MM salary for the upcoming season. He’s guaranteed $19MM, $14MM, and $18MM salaries over the following three seasons and can opt out after the contract after the second and third years. While the salary structure helps the Padres navigate short-term payroll constraints, the $13.75MM average annual value counts evenly against the team’s luxury tax calculation. The deal is pending a physical and has not been officially announced by the Padres, who have two openings on their 40-man roster.

Pivetta, who’ll celebrate his 32rd birthday on Friday, was the best unsigned starting pitcher. He had declined a $21.05MM qualifying offer from the Red Sox at the beginning of the offseason. That was a bit of a surprising decision that presumably played a role in holding up his market into Spring Training. He finds a multi-year deal with a much greater overall guarantee than he would have received had he accepted the QO, though he’s taking a notable pay cut for the upcoming season in the process.

The 6’5″ righty debuted with the Phillies in 2017. He struggled for most of his four-year tenure in Philadelphia. A 2020 deadline trade sending him to Boston turned his career around. Pivetta has been a mid-rotation workhorse over the last four years. He ranks 23rd in MLB with 623 innings since the start of the 2021 season. He owns a cumulative 4.33 earned run average and has allowed an ERA between 4.04 and 4.56 in each season.

Pivetta was a fixture in Alex Cora’s rotation over his first two seasons in Boston. He remained in that role early in the ’23 campaign, but the Sox kicked him to the bullpen in the middle of May. Pivetta was sitting on a 6.30 ERA over his first eight starts of the season. He had a fantastic turnaround in a long relief capacity. Pivetta allowed 1.98 earned runs per nine with an exceptional 36.9% strikeout rate over his first 17 relief appearances. Boston gradually stretched him back out to a rotation workload as the season progressed, putting him back in the starting five entering last season.

A flexor strain in his elbow sent him to the injured list in early April. That was remarkably the first non-virus IL stint of his nearly seven-year MLB career. Pivetta returned no worse for wear a month later and stayed heathy from May onwards. He wound up taking the ball 27 times and worked to a 4.14 ERA across 145 2/3 innings.

Pivetta’s run prevention numbers are those of a league average starter. That alone would be a significant boost to a San Diego rotation that needs reliable back-end innings. Pivetta’s strikeout and walk profile has been more intriguing than the bottom line results. He punched out 28.9% of opposing hitters against a modest 6.1% walk rate last season. That was the third season of the past four years in which he has posted a well above-average strikeout rate.

However, the swing-and-miss ability has been somewhat undercut by longstanding issues keeping the ball in the park. Pivetta has allowed a higher than average home run rate in every season of his MLB career. He gives up a lot of hard contact. While Statcast’s park factors grade Fenway Park as one of the sport’s most hitter-friendly venues overall, it has played around neutral for home runs over the past few seasons. Petco Park has been around average for home runs as well, though it broadly plays more favorably for pitchers.

Pivetta slots fourth on Mike Shildt’s rotation depth chart for the moment. He’s behind Dylan Cease, Michael King and Yu Darvish in what had been a very top-heavy rotation. It’s a lot more balanced now, as Pivetta can provide innings that San Diego lost when Joe Musgrove underwent Tommy John surgery last fall. That’d leave one spot up for grabs among the likes of Randy Vásquez, Matt Waldron and potential reliever conversion candidates Bryan Hoeing and Stephen Kolek.

That’d only be the case if there are no other moves before Opening Day. The Padres have been hamstrung all offseason by payroll restrictions. It’s the second straight winter in which the front office has had limited financial leeway. They’ve inked a trio of cheap one-year deals to plug holes at catcher and left field. They signed Elias Díaz for $3.5MM to start behind the plate while bringing in Connor Joe and Jason Heyward for a left field platoon at a combined $2MM cost.

Pivetta won’t make much more than that in year one. The bigger ramifications are from a luxury tax perspective. The Padres snuck below the tax line in 2024. They’ve seemingly preferred to do so again this offseason. The Padres had projected narrowly above this year’s $241MM base threshold. Pivetta pushes them close to the second tax tier. RosterResource calculates their tax number around $258MM. The actual fees are relatively small. They’re taxed at a 20% rate on spending between $241MM and $261MM. They’ll pay a $2.75MM tax on the Pivetta deal and are currently lined up for about $3.4MM in taxes overall.

While ownership may simply be willing to live with that relatively small tax bill, the front office could consider payroll-clearing trades in the coming weeks. Cease, who has a $13.75MM tax number himself for his final arbitration season, has been in trade rumors all offseason. King ($7.75MM) has been the subject of lesser trade chatter, while Robert Suarez and Luis Arraez have also been speculated about. Trading Cease or King would again raise questions about the rotation’s stability, though any such deal would almost certainly include at least one affordable MLB rotation piece in the return package.

The money isn’t the only cost for San Diego. They’ll surrender their second-round pick (#64 overall) in the upcoming draft, as well as $500K from their 2026 bonus pool for international amateurs, because Pivetta had declined the qualifying offer. The Red Sox get a compensation pick in the ’25 draft, which will land 77th overall.

Pivetta winds up being the only free agent starter of this offseason to sign a four-year deal. Michael Wacha, Yusei Kikuchi, Sean Manaea, Nathan Eovaldi and Luis Severino each signed for three years but pulled higher annual values. All but Wacha landed a larger overall guarantee. Severino and Manaea had also declined qualifying offers, while Wacha would have received one had he not re-signed with Kansas City just before QO decisions were due. Pivetta will collect $23MM over the next two seasons. His opt-out decisions will come when there are two years at $32MM and (if he doesn’t take the first out) one year at $18MM remaining.

ESPN’s Jeff Passan was first to report the signing and the salary breakdown. Image courtesy of Imagn.

Giancarlo Stanton Behind In Camp Due To Elbow Soreness

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Feb. 17: Stanton tells reporters that the pain level he’s currently experiencing is “very high” in both elbows, adding that it’s been three to four weeks since he swung a bat (via MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch). Both Stanton and Boone compared the issue to tennis elbow, with Stanton noting that there’s some degree of tendon tearing in each elbow that’d be at risk for surgery if he were to “blow it up” by “overdoing” it while dealing with the injury (via Greg Joyce of the New York Post). However, that’s not a concern at this time, Stanton emphasized.

Feb. 16: Yankees position players reported to camp today ahead of their first full-squad workout tomorrow, and the injury updates have already begun to creep in. Manager Aaron Boone told reporters (including The Athletic’s Chris Kirschner) today that both veteran slugger Giancarlo Stanton and center fielder Trent Grisham are behind in camp due to injuries. Stanton is suffering from soreness in both elbows, while Grisham is dealing with a hamstring issue. Grisham’s injury appears to be of relatively little concern, as MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch notes that he’s already resumed baseball activities and is running at near full strength again. Stanton’s issue, however, appears to be more serious. Hoch relays that Boone was noncommittal about Stanton’s timeline when asked if the issue could impact the slugger’s availability for Opening Day.

“I don’t know,” Boone said (as relayed by Hoch). “I’m not going to put any timeline on it. We’re just going to be smart about it.”

Stanton’s health has been tricky for the Yankees to navigate over the years, but the fact that his latest ailment is an upper body issue is worth noting. The 35-year-old has made a number of trips to the injured list over his seven years in a Yankees uniform, but all but one of those IL stints have been due to lower half issues pertaining to his hamstrings, calves, or knees. The lone exception to that was a biceps strain that sidelined him early in the 2019 season, which ultimately cost him six weeks of the regular season.

Losing Stanton to start the year would be a frustrating development for a Yankees lineup that already lost Juan Soto and Gleyber Torres in free agency. While the additions of Paul Goldschmidt and Cody Bellinger to the lineup should be improvements over the difficult seasons Alex Verdugo and Anthony Rizzo had last year, the club is currently set to rely on internal options in the form of Jasson Dominguez, Oswaldo Cabrera, and DJ LeMahieu to fill in the holes in left field and at third base. The loss of Stanton would serve to further thin out the club’s lineup card.

The club’s internal options seem unlikely to offer anything close to the solid .233/.298/.475 (116 wRC+) that Stanton posted in 2024, but outfield prospect Everson Pereira is healthy entering Spring Training after having his 2024 campaign cut short by UCL surgery. Pereira has a solid .287/.365/.530 slash line in 75 career games at the Triple-A level but struggled in a 27-game cup of coffee at the big league level in 2023. Another option could be first baseman/catcher Ben Rice, a bat-first prospect who was called up to fill in for Rizzo at first base last year but has returned to catching over the offseason and figures to compete for the club’s back-up catcher spot behind Austin Wells.

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