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Hall Of Fame Announces Eight Names On Era Committee Ballot

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Dick Allen, Ken Boyer, John Donaldson, Steve Garvey, Dave Parker, Vic Harris, Tommy John and Luis Tiant were revealed today by the Hall of Fame as this year’s candidates on the Era Committee ballot.  Most commonly known as the “veterans committee,” a panel of 16 people (comprised of former players, executives, sportswriters, and historians) will meet during the Winter Meetings to vote on whether or not any of these eight candidates will be elected to Cooperstown.  At least 12 of 16 votes are needed for induction, and the results of the balloting will be revealed on December 8.

The Era Committee rotates between three pools of candidates every year — players from the “Contemporary Baseball” era of 1980 until the present, managers/executives/umpires from this same 1980-present period, and all individuals from the “Classic Baseball” era of pre-1980.  This year’s ballot focused on the Classic Baseball era, ranging from well-known MLB stars to somewhat lesser-known names like Harris and Donaldson, who were both icons of the Negro Leagues.

Several of the candidates have appeared on Era Committee ballots in the past, with Allen infamously falling a single vote short of induction in both 2015 and 2021.  Harris was also a near-miss on the 2021 ballot, landing 10 of the minimum 12 votes necessary for induction to Cooperstown.

Narrowly missing out on what is already a second-chance ballot adds to the bittersweet nature of the Era Committee.  While the process has corrected many oversights from the writers’ ballot, getting to these oversights sometimes decades after the fact means that some of the inductees aren’t able to personally enjoy their day of glory in Cooperstown.  Garvey, Parker, and John are the only members of this year’s ballot who are still alive, as Tiant passed away less than a month ago.

The Era Committee ballot is separate from the annual BBWAA ballot for more modern Hall of Fame candidates, and the results of the BBWAA ballot will be revealed on January 21.  Ichiro Suzuki is a lock for induction in his first year on that ballot, and C.C. Sabathia and Felix Hernandez are two other first-timers with solid Cooperstown cases.

Blue Jays Claim Michael Petersen, Outright Genesis Cabrera

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The Blue Jays announced they’ve claimed reliever Michael Petersen from the Marlins. Toronto outrighted Génesis Cabrera and Luis Frías off the 40-man roster. Both players elected free agency. Toronto also designated righty Emmanuel Ramírez for assignment.

Petersen is on the move for the second time in a few months. Miami grabbed the right-hander off waivers from the Dodgers in September. He allowed four runs across 5 2/3 innings to finish the year. Petersen had made 11 appearances with the Dodgers. He closed his debut campaign with a 5.95 earned run average through 19 2/3 innings.

The 30-year-old Petersen had much better numbers in 33 innings at the Triple-A level. He posted a 1.64 ERA while striking out a massive 35.2% of opponents. The native of the United Kingdom still has a couple options remaining, so he’ll serve as a bullpen depth piece if the Jays keep him on the 40-man roster.

Cabrera’s tenure in Toronto ends after a season and a half. The Jays acquired the southpaw from the Cardinals midway through the ’23 season. Cabrera pitched well down the stretch and returned for a second season. The results were solid enough, as he posted a 3.59 ERA while logging 62 2/3 relief innings. Cabrera had a subpar 18.5% strikeout rate and walked nearly 11% of his opponents, though. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projected him for a $2.5MM salary if tendered a contract for his final arbitration year. The Jays evidently weren’t willing to pay that price given Cabrera’s shaky K/BB profile.

Toronto grabbed Frías off waivers from the Diamondbacks late in the year. The 6’3″ righty was blown up for eight runs in 3 1/3 frames. He has a 7.38 ERA over 58 big league appearances. Frías was a reasonably well-regarded prospect who throws in the mid-90s, but he hasn’t shown any kind of strike-throwing consistency in the majors.

Ramírez, 30, was another late-season waiver acquisition. He came over from Miami in early September. Ramírez didn’t make an appearance for the Jays after allowing a near-7.00 ERA over 15 games for the Fish. He’ll presumably find himself on waivers in the next few days.

Jacob Stallings Declines Mutual Option With Rockies

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The Major League Baseball Players Association announced a list of 30 players who reached free agency today after having their option decisions resolved, and Rockies catcher Jacob Stallings was included among them. Colorado hasn’t announced a decision regarding Stallings’ mutual option, but MLBTR has learned that he declined his end of the option. Mutual options typically require the player to decide first, and that was the case in this instance. He’ll receive a $500K buyout and head back to the open market.

Stallings, 34, hit well in Colorado this season, turning in a .263/.357/.453 slash (114 wRC+) with a career-best nine homers in 281 plate appearances. Given that his mutual option was valued at a modest $1.5MM (with that $500K buyout), he surely feels he can top the net $1MM in free agency. The two sides have held mutual interest in a reunion for next season but have not yet come to terms on a new contract.

The 2024 season was Stallings’ first in Colorado. He’d spent the prior two campaigns in Miami and the first six years of his big league career in Pittsburgh. He won a Gold Glove with the Pirates in 2021 and was for a couple seasons regarded as one of the sport’s premier defensive backstops. His defensive grades have dwindled in recent years, due in no small part to a stark downturn in his framing grades. Stallings’ caught-stealing rates dropped off in his two years with Miami, but he was roughly league-average in that regard with the Rox (21% to the league-average 20%). Statcast rates him as one of the best in the sport when it comes to blocking balls in the dirt, listing him fourth out of 66 qualified catchers.

Stallings has posted solid offensive numbers in three of the past five seasons, with his two years in Miami standing as the exception. He draws plenty of walks (9.6% this past season) and strikes out at a roughly league-average rate (23.1%). That profile, coupled with his age, isn’t necessarily going to land him a lucrative long-term pact, but Stallings should find a one-year deal at a higher rate than last year’s $2MM base salary and could feasibly find some two-year offers. It’s a generally thin free agent class for catching help, with Danny Jansen, Carson Kelly and Kyle Higashioka standing as his primary competition on the open market.

As previously noted, the Rockies themselves figure to be among his suitors. Top prospect Drew Romo got his first taste of the majors in 2024 but hit poorly in a sample of 53 plate appearances. Romo had a solid offensive showing in Triple-A but only recently turned 23 and could require some more seasoning in the upper minors. Colorado also has utilityman Hunter Goodman as an option behind the plate, but he spent more time in the outfield than behind the plate and didn’t hit well either in his 224 plate appearances. There are no other catchers on the Rockies’ 40-man roster, so it stands to reason that whether it’s Stallings or another veteran, they’ll be on the hunt for some depth between now and spring training.

Mitch Haniger Exercises Player Option

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Mitch Haniger bypassed the opportunity to opt out of the final year of his contract with the Mariners, MLBTR has confirmed. The outfielder returns to Seattle on a $15.5MM salary.

There wasn’t much doubt about this decision. Haniger is coming off a second straight down year. He hit .208/.286/.334 across 423 plate appearances. That’s similar production to the middling .209/.266/.365 slash he posted during his first season with the Giants. Haniger had been an above-average hitter over the five years preceding his $43.5MM free agent deal with San Francisco.

Seattle reacquired Haniger last winter alongside Anthony DeSclafani in a deal that sent Robbie Ray to the Giants. Neither side got much out of that trade in the first season. Ray was inconsistent over seven starts and bypassed the chance to opt out of the $50MM remaining on his deal. The M’s did manage to flip DeSclafani as part of the Jorge Polanco trade with Minnesota, but Polanco underperformed while DeSclafani blew out and never pitched for the Twins.

Assuming the Mariners keep Haniger on the roster through the offseason, he’ll compete for a spot in Dan Wilson’s corner outfield/DH rotation. Seattle has Randy Arozarena locked into left field. Victor Robles is the favorite for playing time in right, but he can move into a fourth outfield capacity if the M’s add a bigger bat. Luke Raley should get a decent chunk of playing time at DH, especially if the Mariners acquire a first baseman via free agency or trade.

Joe Jimenez To Miss 8-12 Months After Knee Surgery

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Braves right-hander Joe Jimenez underwent a left knee surgery last week to fix cartilage damage, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Justin Toscano reports (X link).  The procedure comes with a recovery period of 8-12 months, so Jimenez is now in danger of missing the entire 2025 season.

There hadn’t been any indication that Jimenez was dealing with knee problems, as the reliever hasn’t been on the injured list for any reason since the very end of the 2022 campaign, when Jimenez was still pitching with the Tigers.  In a follow-up post on X, Toscano notes that Jimenez hurt his knee during the season but pitched through the discomfort, and the extent of the injury wasn’t known until the surgery took place.

Atlanta acquired Jimenez for a two-prospect package (which included Justyn-Henry Malloy) in December 2022, and the righty has been nothing short of stellar in his two seasons in a Braves uniform.  Jimenez had a 3.04 ERA over 56 1/3 innings in 2023, and then did even better in delivering a 2.62 ERA in 68 2/3 frames this past season.  His strikeout rates have been elite across both seasons, but Jimenez drastically improved his hard-contact numbers from 2023 to 2024 — he jumped into the 91st percentile of all pitchers in both barrel rate and hard-hit ball rate, after not even making the tenth percentile in either category in 2023.

It was almost exactly one year ago that the Braves signed Jimenez to a three-year, $26MM contract extension just shortly before Jimenez was about to hit the free agent market.  Jimenez earned $8MM in 2024 and is slated for $9MM in both 2025 and 2026, though that salary could end up being largely a sunk cost for the 2025 campaign depending on how much time he misses.

A return after the All-Star break would represent the best-case scenario for Jimenez, though the four-month range of his timeline creates a lot of gray area.  In theory, Jimenez could miss most of the regular season and still be ready to participate in a playoff run, though the more time Jimenez misses, the trickier decision the Braves may face in deciding whether or not to activate a potentially rusty pitcher for critical postseason games.

The Braves had one of the league’s best bullpens in 2024, but A.J. Minter, Jesse Chavez, and Luke Jackson are all free agents, and now Jimenez will miss at least half of the season.  Griffin Canning has already been brought into the rotation mix and, spending on any other starters acquired, Atlanta could dip into its young starting depth to reinforce the pen during the course of the 2025 season.  Odds are that president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos was already planning to add a reliever or two to the mix anyway this winter, but Jimenez’s injury now might make the Braves a little more aggressive in shopping in this market.

Clayton Kershaw Declines Player Option

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The MLB Players Association announced that Clayton Kershaw has become a free agent. That indicates he declined his $10MM player option with the Dodgers.

Kershaw has said on a few occasions that he plans to stay in Los Angeles. He announced at the World Series parade that he would be a “Dodger for life.” It stands to reason that the future Hall of Famer plans to renegotiate a new contract with the team, but he needed to decide by this evening whether to exercise the option.

In all likelihood, this is simply a move that’ll buy the sides time to hammer out a new incentive-laden deal. Kershaw’s last contract was heavily stocked with incentives as he returned from shoulder surgery. While he’s not battling anything quite that serious this time around, he is set to undergo surgeries on his left knee and left big toe. Kershaw and the club may want to evaluate his recovery before settling on some kind of incentive package for his next contract.

That also affords an extra bit of flexibility from a roster perspective. Kershaw would have counted against the 40-man roster all winter had he exercised the option. He won’t count against the roster for as long as he’s a free agent. That’ll allow the Dodgers to somewhat unofficially operate with an extra spot for a while.

Once Kershaw returns to L.A., he’ll rejoin a rotation that could lose both Jack Flaherty and Walker Buehler to free agency. The Dodgers have Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow, Shohei Ohtani, Tony Gonsolin and Dustin May among their in-house rotation options. As is the case each winter, it’s a group loaded with talent but plenty of durability questions. The Dodgers should be heavily involved for starting pitching.

Angels Select Scott Kingery, Release Kenny Rosenberg

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The Angels added recently acquired infielder Scott Kingery to their 40-man roster. The Halos released left-hander Kenny Rosenberg in a corresponding move.

Los Angeles acquired Kingery from Philadelphia over the weekend. They would not have done so if they weren’t planning to add him to the roster, as the infielder would otherwise have reached minor league free agency today. The 30-year-old former top prospect has only appeared in one big league game since 2021. He’s coming off a decent showing with Philadelphia’s top affiliate in Lehigh Valley, hitting .268/.318/.488 with 25 homers and stolen bases apiece.

Rosenberg, a 29-year-old swingman, has pitched in 17 MLB contests across the last three years. He owns a 4.66 earned run average. The Cal State Northridge product had a decent year with Triple-A Salt Lake, working to a 4.21 ERA through 115 1/3 innings in the Pacific Coast League. He punched out 21.5% of opponents against a tidy 7.8% walk percentage.

Yankees Outright Duke Ellis

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The Yankees announced that outfielder Duke Ellis went unclaimed on waivers. He neither has the requisite service time nor the previous outright necessary to become a minor league free agent.

Ellis, a Texas product, is a speedster who bounced around as a depth option. He played with the White Sox and Yankees this season and also spent time in the Seattle and Mets systems. Ellis got into 11 regular seasons games, mostly as a pinch runner. He collected his first big league hit in five at-bats. The Yankees gave him one more pinch-running appearance in October.

The 26-year-old will remain with Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and should be in camp next spring as a non-roster invitee. Ellis has a middling .237/.323/.337 batting line in his minor league career, but his speed and ability to play all three outfield spots give him a chance to crack the roster as a fifth outfielder.

Joey Meneses, Ildemaro Vargas, Michael Rucker Elect Free Agency After Nationals’ Outrights

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The Nationals announced that first baseman Joey Meneses, utilityman Ildemaro Vargas, and right-hander Michael Rucker are all free agents after clearing waivers and being outrighted off Washington’s 40-man roster.  Meneses was eligible for minor league free agency, while Vargas (due to service time) and Rucker (a past outright assignment) were each eligible to elect free agency and chose to exercise that right.  The moves clear some space on the Nationals’ roster for Josiah Gray, Cade Cavalli, Mason Thompson, and Joan Adon, who were all reinstated from the 60-day injured list.

Vargas was projected for a $1.8MM salary in his third and final year of arbitration eligibility, and with a non-tender likely looming, Vargas will now get an early start on the free agent market.  The 33-year-old Vargas signed a minor league deal with Washington midway through the 2022 season and ended up hitting .257/.302/.354 over 785 plate appearances and 234 games in a Nats uniform.  Most of Vargas’ playing time came at third base, but he spent a substantial amount of time at both middle infield positions and also chipped in for a few games as a first baseman, corner outfielder, and even a mop-up pitcher in blowouts.

Meneses also broke in with the Nationals (and in MLB in general) during the 2022 season, as he stepped in as Washington’s regular first baseman once Josh Bell was traded to the Padres as part of the Juan Soto deal.  After bouncing around the minors and playing in Mexico and Japan during his long pro career, Meneses made the most of his big league debut by hitting .324/.367/.563 with 13 homers over 240 PA during the remainder of the 2022 campaign.

The magic of that unexpected breakout didn’t last, however, as Meneses had an unspectacular .275/.321/.401 slash line in 657 PA in 2023 as the Nationals’ regular DH.  This translated to a sub-replacement level -0.2 fWAR, and the number sunk to -1.0 fWAR when Meneses hit only .231/.291/.302 in 313 PA this season.  Juan Yepez and rookie Andres Chaparro look to be covering Washington’s first base situation for now, though the Nats are expected to make a play for a bigger-hitting first baseman this offseason.

Rucker’s run in the Nationals’ organization was brief, as he was only selected off waivers from the Phillies in September and he didn’t see any big league action.  Rucker hasn’t pitched in the Show since 2023, and he was limited to 30 2/3 minor league innings with Philadelphia and Washington in 2024 due to a lengthy IL stint because of an arterial vasospasm in his pitching hand.

All of Rucker’s MLB experience came with the Cubs from 2021-23, when he posted a 4.96 ERA in 123 1/3 innings out of Chicago’s bullpen.  The home run ball gave Rucker a lot of issues, though his career 3.94 SIERA, 22.6% strikeout rate, and 9.4% walk rate are all palatable.  Assuming that Rucker is now fully healthy, he’ll likely land a minor league deal with a team in need of pitching depth.

Mariners Select Blas Castano

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The Mariners announced they’ve added righty Blas Castano to their 40-man roster. As a player with parts of seven seasons in the minors, he would’ve otherwise qualified for minor league free agency.

Castano gets a 40-man spot for the first time in his career at age 26. The Dominican Republic native spent six seasons in the Yankee system before joining the Mariners on a minor league deal in August ’23. Seattle can keep him in the minors for the foreseeable future, as Castano has a full slate of option years. They’d need to run him through waivers to take him back off the 40-man roster.

Seattle was impressed enough with Castano’s 2024 season to not allow him to get away. The 5’10” righty split the year between the top two minor league levels. He threw 125 1/3 innings of 4.38 ERA ball, striking out 20% of opponents against an 8% walk rate. They’re not dominant numbers, though he fared better in Double-A before moving up to the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League.

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