Red Sox Notes: Eovaldi, Zavala, Gambrell
Nathan Eovaldi started for the Red Sox on Opening Day each year from 2020-22, pitching a combined 16 1/3 innings with a 2.76 ERA. Today, the Red Sox will face their former no. 1 starter on Opening Day, sending their new ace, Garrett Crochet, to the bump against Eovaldi and the Rangers.
Facing Eovaldi is never an enviable task – the right-hander has a winning record and an ERA under 4.00 in each of the past five seasons – but the Red Sox, in particular, probably aren’t thrilled to be meeting up with their old friend this afternoon. After all, they made an effort to re-acquire him this past offseason, and as it turns out, they were the runner-up for his services. According to Rob Bradford of WEEI, six teams showed legitimate interest in signing Eovaldi this winter, but the veteran’s decision ultimately came down to Texas or Boston. However, it’s not known how much money the Red Sox were willing to offer or if their final bid came close to the three-year, $75MM guarantee he landed with the Rangers.
Interestingly, Boston’s trade for Crochet came together less than 24 hours after Eovaldi signed with Texas. That’s not to say the Red Sox wouldn’t have pursued Crochet if they landed Eovaldi, but it’s a possibility worth considering. If that’s true, one could argue that missing out on Eovaldi was the best possible outcome for Craig Breslow and company. Eovaldi is a great pitcher, but Crochet is coming off an All-Star season and already looks like a strong early contender for the AL Cy Young.
Of course, the Red Sox would have been even better off with both Crochet and Eovaldi atop their rotation, especially now that so many of their other starters are on the IL, namely Lucas Giolito, Brayan Bello, and Kutter Crawford. And while the Red Sox surely have high hopes for the free agents starters they added this offseason – Walker Buehler and Patrick Sandoval – Eovaldi would have been a far less risky signing.
In other Red Sox news, catcher Seby Zavala has accepted his outright assignment and will begin the season with the Triple-A WooSox, per Chris Cotillo of MassLive. The 31-year-old was informed last week that he would not be making the Opening Day roster. While the minor league deal he signed with Boston in November included an assignment clause that allowed him to seek out an opportunity on another team’s 40-man roster, it appears he was not able to find such an opportunity and has instead reported to Triple-A. A veteran of five big league seasons, Zavala is a plus defender with 183 games of MLB catching experience. He will offer the Red Sox depth behind starting catcher Connor Wong, backup Carlos Narvaez, and Blake Sabol, who has a spot on the 40-man roster but will start the season at Triple-A.
Meanwhile, the Red Sox have released Grant Gambrell, a minor league right-handed starter (h/t to Christopher Smith of MassLive). Gambrell was one of five players Boston received in 2021 as part of the three-team trade that sent Andrew Benintendi to the Royals. The Red Sox initially acquired outfielder Franchy Cordero from Kansas City and right-hander Josh Winckowski from the Mets, while Gambrell was one of three players to be named later, along with fellow righty Luis De La Rosa and outfielder Freddy Valdez. As Smith points out, Winckowski is now the only player from that trade who is still playing in the Red Sox organization. Gambrell had pitched relatively well in Boston’s system over the past two years, putting up a 3.81 ERA and 4.29 FIP in 41 games (39 starts). However, he was never a top prospect, and now 27 years old, the Red Sox have evidently decided he does not fit into their future plans.
MLBTR Podcast: Brent Rooker’s Extension, Gavin Lux, And Catching Up On The Holiday Transactions
The latest episode of the MLB Trade Rumors Podcast is now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts! Make sure you subscribe as well! You can also use the player at this link to listen, if you don’t use Spotify or Apple for podcasts.
This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Tim Dierkes of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss…
- The Athletics and Brent Rooker agreeing to a five-year extension (1:40)
- The Dodgers signing Hyeseong Kim and trading Gavin Lux to the Reds (6:40)
- The Diamondbacks signing Corbin Burnes (14:45)
- Do the Blue Jays have unique challenges in signing free agents to come to another country? (16:30)
- Will Burnes opt out in two years and will the Diamondbacks trade a starter now? (21:05)
- The Yankees acquiring Cody Bellinger from the Cubs and signing Paul Goldschmidt (26:35)
- The Astros signing Christian Walker (34:40)
- The Mets signing Sean Manaea and Griffin Canning (39:15)
- The Red Sox signing Walker Buehler and Patrick Sandoval (43:35)
- The Phillies acquiring Jesús Luzardo and signing Max Kepler (50:35)
- The Orioles signing Charlie Morton (55:35)
- The Guardians trading Josh Naylor to the Diamondbacks and signing Carlos Santana (58:30)
- The Rangers trading Nathaniel Lowe to the Nationals and signing Joc Pederson (1:01:25)
- The Nationals get Lowe as well as signing Josh Bell, Michael Soroka and Trevor Williams (1:05:30)
- The Tigers signing Gleyber Torres and shuffling their infield around (1:08:25)
Check out our past episodes!
- Kyle Tucker To The Cubs, And Trades For Devin Williams And Jeffrey Springs – listen here
- Winter Meetings Recap – listen here
- Blake Snell, Dodger Fatigue, And The Simmering Hot Stove – listen here
The podcast intro and outro song “So Long” is provided courtesy of the band Showoff. Check out their Facebook page here!
Red Sox Notes: Arenado, Casas, Bregman, Sasaki
Reports last month from MLB.com’s John Denton indicated that the Red Sox, Mets, Phillies, Padres, Dodgers, and Angels were six of the teams (and perhaps the only six teams) Nolan Arenado was willing to waive his no-trade protection to join, should the Cardinals work out an acceptable swap with any of these clubs. Four weeks after that initial report, Boston remains “a preferred destination” for Arenado, according to MassLive.com’s Chris Cotillo and Sean McAdam. What isn’t known, however, is if the Red Sox and Cardinals are anywhere close on a deal, or if the Sox are particularly motivated to bring Arenado to Beantown.
Acquiring Arenado would check a couple of big needs off of Boston’s offseason shopping list. Chief baseball officer Craig Breslow reiterated earlier this week that the Sox were looking to add “a right-handed bat out of the middle of the lineup,” considering that the team is heavy with left-handed hitters. Bringing one of the best defensive third basemen of all time to Fenway Park would instantly help Boston’s subpar infield defense, and Arenado would even be reunited with his good friend and former Rockies teammate Trevor Story.
One initial roadblock, of course, is the fact that the Red Sox already have a star third baseman in Rafael Devers. Though Arenado has indicated that he is open to a position change in the right circumstance and Devers’ agent said in no uncertain terms in November that his client was staying at third base, it is hard to believe that Arenado would move off the hot corner in deference to a much weaker fielder in Devers. If a trade did happen, Devers would presumably become the new first baseman or DH, though this creates other conflicts with Triston Casas and Masataka Yoshida.
Both of those players, however, have been mentioned in trade talks this winter, and even in some of the same trade talks. Casas is the far more valuable trade asset of the two, and while Breslow said “we’re certainly not shopping him,” that naturally doesn’t mean Casas is off limits. Indeed, Cotillo and McAdam write that “there remains a belief in the industry that the Red Sox remain open to trading Casas, potentially for young pitching, to facilitate other roster maneuvering.”
It could be that the Sox are looking to first trade Casas before making any other moves, as their leverage in a Casas deal would be lessened if the Red Sox created a positional logjam beforehand. Trading Casas purely as a vehicle to clear payroll space surely isn’t Breslow’s preference, which is why that aforementioned attempt to link Yoshida and Casas together was still part of an attempt to bring Luis Castillo from Seattle to Boston.
Payroll is also a major aspect of any Arenado trade, as the third baseman is owed $74MM over the remaining three seasons of his contract. Between deferrals and the $10MM being covered by the Rockies, the present-day value of Arenado’s contract reportedly works out to $60MM. The Cardinals’ chief incentive in trading Arenado is naturally to move as much of this money as possible, and the proposed deal with the Astros that Arenado blocked would’ve seen Houston take on either $45MM (as per Katie Woo and Chandler Rome of the Athletic) or $59MM (as per ESPN’s Jeff Passan) of the $60MM figure.
Theoretically, the Red Sox could absorb the entire contract and still stay under the $241MM luxury tax threshold, as RosterResource estimates Boston’s current tax number at just under $212MM. It remains unclear exactly how much payroll capacity Breslow has been allotted this winter, as while the Sox have made overtures to several top free agents, their spending has been pretty modest to date. The Red Sox could perhaps convince the Cardinals to take on a bigger chunk of Arenado’s salary (or at least closer to the $45MM figure) if better prospects are offered in return. Chaim Bloom’s involvement in this speculative trade is an interesting wrinkle, as the incoming St. Louis president of baseball operations has plenty of knowledge of Boston’s farm system due to his past stint as the Red Sox CBO.
Trading for Arenado would come at a lesser overall cost than signing Alex Bregman, another top third baseman who remains on Boston’s radar. That said, the Red Sox are known to still be in the running for Bregman, who has some notable ties to the Sox in manager Alex Cora (from their days together in Houston) and his longtime friend Walker Buehler, who just signed with the Sox himself before Christmas. Buehler recently told Cotillo and other reporters that even in his brief time in a Sox uniform, “I have certainly made a pitch all over the place for [Bregman] to come to Boston.”
Turning to other Red Sox targets, it remains unknown if Boston is still one of the teams getting consideration from Roki Sasaki. Earlier this week, Sasaki’s agent Joel Wolfe updated reporters on his client’s search for a Major League team, and didn’t give any indication that the right-hander was finished with his in-person meetings with interested clubs.
The Red Sox weren’t one of the seven teams known to have spoken with Sasaki already, and word hasn’t broken if a meeting has been scheduled or perhaps it is has already taken place since Wolfe’s last presser. As of yesterday, WEEI.com’s Rob Bradford reported that the Sox hadn’t “been told they are out of” the running for Sasaki’s services, so the situation is still up in the air.
Red Sox Sign Walker Buehler
TODAY: The breakdown of Buehler’s deal is provided by MassLive.com’s Chris Cotillo (multiple links), who reports that the contract also contains a $25MM mutual option for the 2026 season. Buehler receives a $3.05MM signing bonus, $15MM in base salary, and then a $3MM buyout of the mutual option, totaling the aforementioned $21.05MM guarantee.
As much as $2.5MM in bonus money is also available. Buehler will unlock the first $500K of that cash when he makes his 20th start of the season, and he’ll earn another $500K upon making his 22nd, 24th, 26th, and 28th starts of the season.
DEC. 28: The Red Sox officially announced the Buehler signing.
DEC. 23: The Red Sox are in agreement with right-hander Walker Buehler on a one-year deal worth $21.05MM, according to a report from Russell Dorsey of Yahoo Sports. The deal is pending a physical and includes incentives that could raise the value beyond that aforementioned figure. Buehler is an Excel Sports Management client.
It’s an interesting deal for Buehler, as the $21.05MM guarantee perfectly mirrors that of the Qualifying Offer. Both Buehler himself and Red Sox right-hander Nick Pivetta were considered borderline candidates to be extended the QO at the outset of the winter. Ultimately, the Dodgers declined to extend that offer to Buehler while the Red Sox did so for Pivetta but were rebuffed. From a financial and roster perspective, today’s deal allows Buehler to secure the same guarantee he would’ve gotten had the Dodgers extended him the QO while allowing Boston to add a veteran right-hander to its young rotation on a one-year deal that mirrors what they offered Pivetta last month.
The 30-year-old right-hander was among the league’s most talented young starters during his rookie season back in 2018, and pitched to an excellent 2.82 ERA (146 ERA+) with a 3.16 FIP in a four-season stretch from 2018-21. That stretch concluded with Buehler finishing fourth in NL Cy Young award voting behind Corbin Burnes, Zack Wheeler, and Max Scherzer in a race that seemingly cemented his status as one of the league’s top aces. That career trajectory was thrown off the rails early in the 2022 season, however. Buehler pitched to a relatively pedestrian 4.02 ERA (101 ERA+) in 12 starts for the Dodgers that year before going on the injured list in June and ultimately requiring Tommy John surgery.
Buehler wouldn’t return to a major league mound until May of 2024, nearly two full years later, and struggled badly upon returning. Additional injuries limited Buehler to just 16 starts for the Dodgers this year, and even when he took the mound the right-hander struggled badly. In all, Buehler pitched to a 5.38 ERA (72 ERA+) with a 5.54 FIP in his final regular season in a Dodgers uniform. With that being said, the righty did manage to end his season on a positive note with a solid 3.60 ERA during the club’s run to the World Series championship this year. After a brutal start against the Padres in the NLDS, Buehler fired off ten scoreless frames between the NLCS and the World Series while striking out a third of his opponents.
That combination of a strong postseason, a terrible regular season, a fraught injury history, and a dominant track record made Buehler one of the most intriguing free agents on the market this winter and perhaps the ultimate high-risk, high-reward signing. To that end, it’s perhaps no surprise that he garnered interest from a huge number of teams. In addition to the Red Sox, Buehler also garnered interest from the Tigers, Cubs, Mets, Yankees, Athletics, and Braves this winter. That wide-ranging interest made it apparent early in the winter that Buehler was likely to surpass the one-year, $15MM deal MLBTR predicted he would land as part of our annual Top 50 MLB Free Agents list, where Buehler was ranked as the #37 free agent this winter. It even seemed to open the door to the possibility the right-hander would be able to land a mutli-year deal with opt-outs; while he ultimately settled for a straight one-year pact, his $21.05MM salary in 2025 is likely much healthier than what he would’ve received on an annual basis on a multi-year deal.
For the Red Sox, the addition of Buehler adds another arm with plenty of upside to a rotation already full of it. If Buehler manages to rebound to the form he showed earlier in his career, he’ll form a daunting front two in the Boston rotation alongside lefty Garrett Crochet with right-handers Lucas Giolito and Tanner Houck joining them to create a formidable quartet. The additions of Crochet and Buehler have also significantly deepened the group, as right-handers Brayan Bello, Kutter Crawford, Richard Fitts, and Cooper Criswell all figure to be in the conversation for starts as well after being key pieces of the club’s rotation last year. Further down the depth chart, the Red Sox also boast interesting upside plays Quinn Priester and Michael Fulmer.
The addition of Buehler brings the club’s payroll for 2025 up to just over $175MM, according to RosterResource. The figure is substantially higher for luxury tax purposes, however, sitting just under $212MM. That leaves the club with about $29MM to work with before they surpass the first luxury tax threshold. The Red Sox last surpassed that first threshold in 2022, but there’s been no indication from club brass that the first threshold represents a hard limit on their spending amid what has been a fairly busy offseason for the club. With the rotation seemingly solidified, it seems likely the club’s priorities will now shift towards adding a right-handed bat to their lineup, whether that comes in the form of an outfielder such as Teoscar Hernández or an infielder like Alex Bregman or Nolan Arenado.
Red Sox Interested In Walker Buehler
The Red Sox are known to be looking for starting pitching, with chief baseball officer Craig Breslow having said that he wants to “raise the ceiling” in the rotation. They have been connected to marquee free agents like Corbin Burnes and Max Fried as well as notable trade candidates like Garrett Crochet, Bryce Miller and Bryan Woo. Peter Abraham of The Boston Globe reports that Walker Buehler is another free agent they have interest in.
Whether Buehler would count as raising the ceiling would be a matter of debate at this point, as it’s been a few years since he was at his best over a meaningful stretch of time. From 2018 to 2021, he tossed 564 innings for the Dodgers, allowing 2.82 earned runs per nine. He combined a 27.7% strikeout rate with a 6.1% walk rate and 44.7% ground ball rate. He also posted good results in 15 postseason starts for the Dodgers in that time.
But in 2022, he had an ERA of 4.02 before requiring Tommy John surgery, the second of his career. He missed the entire 2023 campaign and didn’t immediately bounce back this year. He only made 16 starts in 2024 and had rough results, most prominently a 5.38 ERA. His 18.6% strikeout rate was below league average and also far from his previous form.
He did finish things on a positive note, in a very small sample but on a very big stage. After getting lit up by the Padres in the NLDS, he went on to throw ten shutout innings over his final three appearances of the Dodgers’ World Series run. That included four shutty against the Mets in the NLCS, a five-inning start against the Yankees in the third game of the World Series, followed by the final three outs in game five.
Going into 2025, Buehler is an interesting risk/reward play. His previous upside is tantalizing but he’s been hurt or middling for the past few years. He did have that strong finish in the playoffs but most modern front offices won’t be swayed by such a small sample, even it was under the brightest lights in baseball.
That uncertainty means that Buehler could likely be had for a relatively low price, which could either turn into a bargain or a waste. The Dodgers declined to issue Buehler a $21.05MM qualifying offer at season’s end, evidently not valuing him worth that price point. At the start of the winter, MLBTR predicted Buehler for a one-year deal with a $15MM, though the market for pitching has been stronger than expected, with mid-rotation or back-end guys like Luis Severino, Yusei Kikuchi, Frankie Montas, Matthew Boyd and Clay Holmes outearning their projections so far.
Despite the recent results, Buehler has proven to be quite popular this winter, having already drawn the interest of Atlanta, the A’s, Yankees, Mets, Cubs, Tigers and now Red Sox. For Boston, they tried a buy-low move last year which hasn’t worked out so far. After a few rough years, they gave Lucas Giolito a fairly modest $38.5MM guarantee on a two-year deal but elbow surgery wiped out his 2024 season.
The injury is not really the fault of the Boston front office but Giolito was a risky choice even before that and it was generally expected they would target more surefire rotation upgrades this time around. The club’s decision makers have talked about being aggressive this winter and putting together a club capable of winning the division, even if that means paying the competitive balance tax.
RosterResource pegs the club’s CBT number at $181MM right now, about $60MM shy of the $241MM base threshold. That means they have plenty of room to go after top free agents like Burnes and Fried, but they are also at least considering a more modest strike for someone like Buehler, or perhaps a combination of the two.
The rotation currently projects to include Tanner Houck, Kutter Crawford and Brayan Bello, with openings at the back. Giolito will be expected back at some point, though likely not at the start of the season. Guys like Richard Fitts, Cooper Criswell and Quinn Priester are on the roster but fairly unestablished and still optionable. Alongside Buehler, the Sox could consider other mid-rotation or back-end free agents such as Sean Manaea, Nathan Eovaldi, Jeff Hoffman, Nick Pivetta, Andrew Heaney, Jose Quintana, Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander and others.
Tigers Interested In Walker Buehler, Kyle Gibson, Andrew Heaney
It’s no secret the Tigers are looking to improve their rotation over the offseason, and three more potential targets for the team have emerged. According to Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press, the Tigers are showing interest in right-handers Walker Buehler and Kyle Gibson and left-hander Andrew Heaney.
Buehler is the biggest name of that trio. Although he’s coming off a difficult, injury-plagued season, he was an ace-caliber pitcher when last healthy in 2021. Indeed, from 2018-21, he pitched to 2.82 ERA and 3.56 SIERA over 564 innings. His 14.4 FanGraphs WAR ranked 14th among all pitchers in that time. Still just 30 years old and another year removed from Tommy John surgery, he is widely considered one of the top bounce-back candidates on the free agent market. It helps his case that he looked excellent in the postseason. After a rough outing in the NLDS, he pitched 10 scoreless innings between the NLCS and the World Series.
Precisely because Buehler comes with more upside than Gibson or Heaney, he could be looking for a longer-term commitment. The MLBTR staff predicted a one-year, $15 million contract for Buehler at the beginning of the offseason but noted that a two-year deal with an opt-out was a possibility. Petzold also remarked Buehler could be seeking a two-year deal with an opt-out this winter, and he suggested that might be more than the Tigers are willing to give. Ideally, they’re looking to offer a one-year deal.
In that case, Detroit could pivot to Gibson or Heaney. Of the two, Gibson seems more likely to sign a one-year contract. Both pitchers appeared on MLBTR’s Top 50 Free Agents list: Heaney at no. 25 and Gibson at no. 41. Our staff predicted a two-year, $24 million deal for Heaney and a one-year $13 million deal for Gibson. The slightly higher AAV prediction for Gibson reflects his longer track record of success, but at 37 years old, he’s unlikely to command a multi-year deal. Heaney, on the other hand, is young enough (he’ll turn 34 next June) that he could feasibly land a two-year commitment, especially on a market that has been quite kind to mid-tier starting pitchers thus far. Luis Severino, Yusei Kikuchi, Frankie Montas, and Matthew Boyd all signed for more guaranteed money than MLBTR predicted.
Gibson and Heaney are both coming off similar 2024 seasons. Gibson made 30 starts with a 4.24 ERA and 4.44 SIERA, while Heaney made 32 appearances (31 starts) with a 4.28 ERA and 3.95 SIERA. Heaney’s underlying numbers were a little promising – he had a higher strikeout rate and lower walk rate – but Gibson has been significantly more consistent and durable throughout his career. Ultimately, both are capable back-of-the-rotation starters but not much more. Either would raise Detroit’s floor, but neither would do much to lift the team’s ceiling.
If a pitcher like Gibson or Heaney is the only starter the Tigers add, they’ll need to hope that some of their younger arms step up to help ace Tarik Skubal at the top of the rotation. That includes Reese Olson, Casey Mize, and potentially top prospect Jackson Jobe. More arms that could make up the rest of Detroit’s starting staff include Keider Montero, Matt Manning, and Kenta Maeda. In other words, this team isn’t short on back-end depth. What they could really use is a proven, postseason-caliber starter. However, such an acquisition seems far less likely. According to The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal and Will Sammon, the Tigers have “some interest” in a reunion with Jack Flaherty, but the word “some” speaks volumes in that report.
Ultimately, despite their postseason appearance in 2024, it seems as if the Tigers aren’t planning to be particularly aggressive this winter. As Petzold points out, their interest in signing a starter to a one-year deal mirrors their strategy from the previous two offseasons, in which they signed Michael Lorenzen and Flaherty. There’s no doubt it paid off in both cases; Lorenzen and Flaherty both pitched well over a few months with Detroit before they were flipped for prospects at the trade deadline. However, the Tigers were still in the middle of a rebuild when they signed Lorenzen ahead of the 2023 season and Flaherty ahead of ’24. That’s no longer the case, so it’s odd to see they’re still looking for stopgaps rather than trying to sign a more impactful pitcher to a multi-year deal.
In the same vein, Petzold suggests the Tigers are interested in first baseman Christian Walker but says they might back off if “big-market teams” are also bidding on his services. Moreover, Petzold adds that they are unlikely to sign any free agents who rejected a qualifying offer. Walker is among that group. While the Tigers have been linked to Alex Bregman, who also received a qualifying offer, Petzold writes that they would probably only pursue him if he were still available entering spring training and his price tag plummeted. As is the case with Walker, the Tigers are interested but not interested enough to enter a bidding war. In other words, it seems as if they’d only be willing to sign a QO free agent at a significant discount.
Tigers Seeking Starting Pitching, Have “Some Interest” In Flaherty Reunion
As the Tigers look to build on the scorching finish to the season that delivered them a trip to the ALDS in 2024, Cody Stavenhagen of The Athletic reported yesterday that the club is expected to target “at least” one starting pitcher this winter. With that being said, Stavenhagen cautions that the club is hoping to stick with short-term additions who can be had on one- or two-year contracts. Stavenhagen also suggests that the club could be hesitant to land a pitcher who received a Qualifying Offer this winter due to the associated loss of draft capital.
That doesn’t mean the club is completely unwilling to explore higher-tier options, however, as The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal and Will Sammon reported this afternoon that the club has at least “some interest” in a reunion with right-hander Jack Flaherty. The early movement on the free agent market has generally been focused on hurlers who aren’t attached to draft pick compensation, ranging from lefty Blake Snell‘s massive five-year deal with the Dodgers to smaller moves like the Angels’ signing of right-hander Kyle Hendricks on a one-year pact. Flaherty, who signed with the Tigers last winter and had a resurgent half-season with Detroit before being traded to L.A. over the summer, is the best pitcher remaining on the market who is unattached to draft pick compensation.
While pairing Flaherty with ace lefty Tarik Skubal at the top of Detroit’s rotation is surely a tantalizing idea to fans and would help fortify the Tigers after their surprise return to contention this fall, it’s also possible that they’ll simply look to sign “the next” Flaherty instead of pursuing a reunion; while Rosenthal suggests Flaherty figures to land a deal in the four-to-six year range, Stavenhagen notes that the club hopes to find a “high-upside” pitcher on the market who they believe they can help maximize as they did with Flaherty this past year rather than pay a premium for more established talent. Right-handers Walker Buehler and Michael Soroka as well as southpaw Andrew Heaney could be among the pitchers of that sort on Detroit’s radar this winter.
Stavenhagen goes as far as to note that Buehler could be the club’s “white whale” this winter, but adds that there’s questions about whether or not he’ll need to accept the sort of short-term deal the Tigers are looking to make this winter. That’s a valid concern, as Buehler has received plenty of interest from all corners of the league with the A’s, Yankees, Cubs, Braves, and Mets among the teams with reported interest in the righty’s services. MLBTR ranked Buehler 37th on our annual Top 50 MLB Free Agents list last month while predicting a one-year, $15MM pact for the righty. That’s surely a price tag the Tigers would be eager to have him at, but given the widespread interest he’s drawn to this point and the hot market for starting pitching that has seen multiple players exceed expectations it wouldn’t be a shock to see Buehler land a multi-year deal even after posting a subpar 5.38 ERA in 16 regular season starts for the Dodgers this year. If Buehler’s market does end up running that hot, it could be hard to justify targeting him rather than spending a bit more to secure a more reliable asset like Flaherty.
If Buehler proves to be out of Detroit’s price range this winter, Soroka and Heaney represent two opposite sides of the spectrum for free agent starters. Soroka, 27, turned in a dominant rookie season with the Braves back in 2019 en route to an All Star appearance, a second-place finish in NL Rookie of the Year voting and a sixth-place finish for the NL Cy Young award. Since then, however, he’s struggled to stay on the field with just 46 innings of work combined between the 2020-23 seasons at the big league level. He was shipped from the Braves to the White Sox last winter and managed 79 2/3 innings of work last year while swinging between the rotation and bullpen.
His results were significantly better as a reliever in Chicago but that hasn’t stopped most interested teams from eyeing him as a rotation option this winter. If Soroka can build on the 2.75 ERA and 39% strikeout rate he posted after being bumped from the White Sox rotation back in May, he would be a strong addition to a Tigers pitching staff that has plenty of depth options but little certainty behind Skubal and Reese Olson. Casey Mize, Keider Montero, Jackson Jobe, Matt Manning, and Kenta Maeda are among the hurlers who could be in the mix for starts with the club next year but none have staked a firm claim to a rotation spot, leaving plenty of opportunity for an unproven upside-arm like Soroka to break into the rotation.
Heaney, by contrast, is a fairly well-established veteran arm at this point. The 33-year-old has been a more or less league average starter for the majority of his career at this point, with a 4.45 ERA (96 ERA+) and 4.28 FIP in 851 2/3 innings of work for the Angels, Yankees, Dodgers, and Rangers since the start of the 2018 season. While Heaney flashed some further upside in 2022 when he pitched to a 3.10 ERA (130 ERA+) and 3.75 FIP in 16 appearances (14 starts) for the Dodgers, his subsequent two years with Texas have seen him revert to his solid but unspectacular work as a back-end starter: 307 1/3 innings of work across 66 outings (59 starts) during which he posted a 4.22 ERA (98 ERA+) and 4.34 FIP. While Soroka would be a high-risk, high-reward addition for Detroit, signing Heaney would offer a more stable solution for the club’s rotation who could reliably lessen the workload expected from the club’s other rotation options.
While Stavenhagen only name-checked Buehler, Soroka, and Heaney as potential targets for the Tigers, there are plenty of other arms who could be had on short-term deals this winter. Plenty of fans and media members have speculated on the possibility that the club could look to reunite with either Justin Verlander or Max Scherzer in free agency this year. The two future Hall of Famers established themselves as among the game’s best pitchers in Detroit during the club’s last competitive window, and betting on one or the other to have something left in the tank in the twilight of their careers could be exactly the sort of short-term, high-upside gamble that Stavenhagen suggests president of baseball operations Scott Harris and his front office are searching for. Alex Cobb, Jose Quintana, and Kyle Gibson are among the other veteran starting pitching options expected to sign shorter-term deals this winter who could be plausible fits for the Tigers.
Cubs Considering Walker Buehler, Further Rotation Help
The Cubs’ two-year, $29MM deal with Matthew Boyd became official earlier today, locking in the veteran southpaw as the newest member of the Wrigleyville rotation. Even with this signing now on the books, Patrick Mooney and Sahadev Sharma of The Athletic report that the Cubs remain open to adding more starting pitching, and Walker Buehler is still “on their radar.”
Boyd lines up as Chicago’s fourth starter, behind Shota Imanaga, Justin Steele, and Jameson Taillon. Javier Assad is the favorite for the fifth starter role, with the likes of Jordan Wicks, Hayden Wesneski, and Ben Brown also in the mix for starts, plus top prospect Cade Horton also on the verge of his MLB debut. While this seems like plenty of depth already, the “you can never have enough pitching” mantra may apply, as Wicks, Brown, and Horton all missed a lot of time in 2024 due to injuries.
Acquiring yet another experienced starter via trade or free agency would allow the Cubs to make Assad its top depth arm, and it can be argued that Assad is overqualified for such a role given his solid 3.40 ERA over his 294 career Major League innings. Since injuries are basically inevitable, however, it stands to reason that Assad would still get some degree of rotation work. Beyond Assad, one of the other pitchers could potentially become a trade chip if the Cubs feel secure in the number of starters on hand.
The Cubs haven’t exactly been pinching pennies on the rotation during Jed Hoyer’s time as president of baseball operations, considering Taillon’s four-year, $68MM deal and Imanaga’s four-year, $53MM deal. However, Chicago has trended away from shopping at the very top of the pitching market to instead pursue more mid-range or shorter-term contracts like Taillon, Imanaga, Boyd, or (in the past) Marcus Stroman or Drew Smyly.
Buehler would also likely fall into this category, as it is widely assumed that the righty will sign a one-year pact as something of a pillow contract in the wake of a disappointing 2024 season. While that disappointment was certainly tempered by a couple of great postseason outings and a championship ring with the Dodgers, Buehler’s regular season saw him post a 5.38 ERA with a host of below-average secondary metrics over 75 1/3 innings.
Since Buehler didn’t pitch at all in 2023 while recovering from Tommy John surgery, it seems possible that he could perform better in 2025 now that he has shaken off the rust. The baseball world hasn’t forgotten how dynamic Buehler looked prior to that TJ procedure, and this kind of upside potential has led to interest from not just the Cubs, but also such publicly known suitors as the Braves, Yankees, Mets, and Athletics.
As Mooney and Sharma note, it shouldn’t be considered a lock that Buehler will receive just a one-year contract, given how several pitchers have already exceeded expectations in the first month of free agency. As such, Mooney/Sharma feel the Cubs could prefer to avoid the free agent market and instead pivot to adding a starter (or a reliever, or lineup help) in a trade. News on that front might not develop until Juan Soto signs, which would then perhaps clear the Cubs’ path in terms of finding a potential trade partner for one of Cody Bellinger or Seiya Suzuki.
Mets Among Teams Interested In Walker Buehler
Walker Buehler has been among the most popular targets on the rotation market for teams seeking upside on short-term deals, and Joel Sherman of the New York Post adds the Mets to the growing list of teams with interest in the longtime Dodgers righty. Buehler has also reportedly drawn interest from the Braves, Yankees and even the low-payroll Athletics.
The Mets stand to lose three members of their 2024 rotation, with Sean Manaea, Luis Severino and Jose Quintana all reaching free agency this offseason. They’ll also be without Christian Scott, their top pitching prospect who made his MLB debut in ’24, for most or all of the 2025 season after he underwent UCL surgery. The Mets already replenished some of those innings with last night’s agreement to sign veteran righty Frankie Montas to a two-year contract, but there’s a clear need for some additional help.
Buehler, 30, was once one of the National League’s most promising young pitchers but has seen that trajectory slowed by injuries. He pitched just 65 innings in 2022 and missed all of the 2023 season while recovering from the second Tommy John surgery of his career. His World Series heroics still loom large in the minds of most fans, but Buehler’s 2024 results on the whole were generally dismal. He totaled only 75 1/3 innings and did so with a 5.38 ERA and the worst rate stats of his career. Even in his first postseason appearance, the Padres roughed him up for six runs in five innings during the National League Division Series.
Buehler’s velocity was down nearly two miles per hour from its 2020 peak, while his 18.6% strikeout rate and 8.1% walk rate were way off from his prior career levels (27% and 6.3%, respectively). This past season’s paltry 8.2% swinging-strike rate ranked 190th out of the 204 big league pitchers who tossed at least 70 innings on the year. His career rate coming into the year had been a sharp 11.6%.
Whether Buehler can recapture some or all of his 2018-21 form is a question someone will pay a good bit of cash to find out. Over those four years, he combined to log a 2.82 earned run average in 564 innings, fanning 27.7% of opponents against a 6.1% walk while sitting in the upper 90s with his heater. That upside is tantalizing, but it’s also been three years and one major elbow surgery since we’ve seen that version of Buehler with any real consistency. The Dodgers could’ve made him a $21.05MM qualifying offer in hopes of keeping him but instead declined to make that offer. The lack of draft pick compensation hanging over Buehler’s head will surely enhance his appeal, but it’s also perhaps a red flag that the team that knows him best opted against that one-year offer (despite possessing some of the deepest pockets in MLB).
Buehler fits Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns’ ostensible preference for shorter-term deals that maintain roster flexibility. As Sherman points out, Stearns inked ten free agents last year during his first season in control of the Mets and only guaranteed a second year to Sean Manaea (whose contract gave him the right to opt out of that second year, which he ultimately chose to do). During his time as the Brewers’ president of baseball ops, Stearns similarly avoided the deep waters of the free agent market.
It’s still not fully clear whether that prior mentality will continue to drive his moves in Queens, however. The Brewers never had anywhere near the level of spending capacity the Mets possess, so it’s only natural that Stearns eschewed risky long-term commitments to free agents during his time in Milwaukee. And while he did so last offseason with the Mets, that was in part because the 2024 season was largely viewed as a transitional year while the Mets waited for dead money from the Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer and James McCann deals (among a few smaller-scale examples) to come off the books.
The Mets are now about $150MM shy of their 2024 spending levels, per RosterResource. A notable portion of that is earmarked for a hopeful signing of Juan Soto, of course, but there’s no reason the Mets couldn’t take a more aggressive stance elsewhere in free agency and broker some lengthier and more impactful deals for starting pitchers.
What type of deals Buehler commands could ultimately boil down to personal preference. Sherman suggests there are clubs with interest on one-year arrangements and others open to the idea of multi-year deals with opt-out opportunities. Speculatively speaking, Buehler would appear best-positioned if he takes a deal that allows him to return to the market next winter, whether that’s a straight one-year pact or two years with an opt-out. Doing so could position him as a candidate for a nine-figure deal if he bounces back in 2025. However, if he wants to max out right now, there could conceivably be teams willing to offer medium-length contracts with lighter annual values than he’d receive on a straight one-year deal or on a two-year pact with an opt-out.
Yankees Interested In Walker Buehler
The Yankees and right-hander Walker Buehler have “some mutual interest” in each other, according to MLB Network’s Jon Morosi. New York joins the Braves and Athletics as teams already publicly linked to Buehler in the first few weeks of free agency.
The added wrinkle of the Yankees’ pursuit, of course, is that Buehler delivered some of the best moments of his career against the Bronx Bombers during this year’s World Series. Buehler tossed five shutout innings in the Dodgers’ 4-2 win over the Yankees in Game 3, and followed up that strong start by getting the save in the scoreless ninth inning of Game 5, as Buehler threw the final pitches that sealed the Dodgers’ championship.
Those clutch performances (and four more innings of shutout ball against the Mets in Game 3 of the NLCS) helped bring a happy ending to an otherwise difficult season for the 30-year-old righty. Buehler missed all of 2023 recovering from his second Tommy John surgery, and returned to post a 5.38 ERA over 16 starts and 75 1/3 innings for Los Angeles during the regular season. Pretty much all of Buehler’s secondary numbers and metrics were down from his career norms, including an 18.6% strikeout rate that ranked only in the 16th percentile of all pitchers.
It isn’t uncommon for any pitcher returning from a TJ procedure to initially struggle against big league hitters, even if Buehler has the extra baggage of both his 2022 surgery and the surgery he underwent soon after being drafted by the Dodgers in 2015. Nathan Eovaldi and Daniel Hudson are two of the more prominent examples of pitchers who continued to have success after returning from two Tommy John surgeries, but obviously there’s some risk attached to Buehler going forward, even if the upside is clearly also present.
MLBTR projected Buehler to sign a one-year, $15MM deal this offseason, with the reasoning that he would seek out a pillow contract for 2025 and then quickly return to the market next winter after (hopefully) posting some front-of-the-rotation numbers. Any number of teams could potentially be fits for Buehler on such a short-term deal, though presumably he would prefer pitching for a contender.
New York fits that description, and the Yankees are at least monitoring the free agent pitching market given reports noting their interest in Corbin Burnes, Max Fried, Blake Snell, and Sean Manaea. The Bombers have the resources to broadly check in on basically any free agent at least out of due diligence, and the perception is that the club is prioritizing re-signing Juan Soto before any other bigger-ticket offseason business.
Signing Buehler to a one-year deal might not necessarily count as “bigger-ticket” in comparison to those other frontline pitchers who will command hefty multi-year contracts. Any additions to the rotation, however, would seemingly necessitate a trade since the Yankees already have six rotation candidates on the roster in Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodon, Clarke Schmidt, Nestor Cortes, Marcus Stroman, and reigning AL Rookie of the Year Luis Gil. Cortes or Stroman are the likeliest trade candidates if New York does indeed add another starter, and moving pitching could allow the Yankees to address other needs in the lineup or bullpen.