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Cubs Acquire Matt Festa

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The Cubs have acquired right-hander Matt Festa from the Rangers in exchange for cash considerations, both teams announced. Festa was designated for assignment by the Rangers earlier this week to accommodate the signing of Chris Martin. To make room for Festa on the 40-man roster, the Cubs have designated utility man Miles Mastrobuoni for assignment.

Festa, 31, was a seventh-round pick by the Mariners back in 2016. The righty looked good during his first cup of coffee at the big league level back in 2018, but a subsequent cameo with the Mariners in 2019 saw him struggle badly with a 5.64 ERA in 20 appearances. That would be his last taste of big league action for a couple of years, as he underwent Tommy John surgery in 2020 and next pitched for the Mariners during the 2022 season. He was more or less an average middle reliever for Seattle over the next two seasons, with a 4.14 ERA (91 ERA+) and 4.48 FIP in 63 innings of work before he was designated for assignment and eventually released late in the 2023 season.

That led into a one-year period where Festa bounced around a number of different teams in the league. After being picked up on a minor league deal with the Padres last January, Festa did not crack the club’s big league roster out of Spring Training and pitched to a solid but unspectacular 4.50 ERA in 16 innings before San Diego granted him his release in mid-May. He signed with the Mets on a minor league deal just a few days later and was selected to the club’s big league roster in the late June, but found himself torched for five runs (four earned) in his lone inning of work with the club before he was once again cut loose. That led him to sign his third minor league deal of the year, this time with the Rangers, in early July.

After being added to the Rangers roster for the stretch run back in August, Festa pitched solidly enough with a 4.37 ERA (92 ERA+) and a strong 3.34 FIP. He posted some of the best strikeout and walk numbers he’s ever enjoyed at the big league level during his time in Texas as he punched out 25% of opponents while allowing free passes at a 7.6% clip. His peripheral numbers were something of a mixed bag during that time; while his .254 BABIP and 5.9% home-run-to-fly-ball rate both erred on the side of good fortune, Festa’s 54.1% strand rate was extremely low and suggested some bad luck when it came to sequencing.

It was an interesting enough profile for the Rangers to keep him on the 40-man roster early in the winter, but he became expendable once the club added a number of more reliable relief arms to their bullpen throughout the offseason. Now, he’ll head to Chicago with a chance to compete for a role in the Cubs’ bullpen this Spring. Currently, Chicago’s relief corps includes fellow offseason trade addition Eli Morgan, free agent signing Caleb Thielbar, and a handful of internal options such as Porter Hodge, Julian Merryweather, Luke Little, Tyson Miller, and Nate Pearson. It’s a group with plenty of flexibility but few set-in-stone options, and it would hardly be a surprise to see the Cubs continue to search for bullpen upgrades going forward this winter.

To bring Festa into the fold, the Cubs are risking parting ways with Mastrobuoni. The utility man has played adequate defense all over the diamond for Chicago in each of the past two seasons but has failed to establish himself offensively ever since being acquired from the Rays prior to the 2023 season. In 255 trips to the plate with the Cubs in 110 games over the past two years, Mastrobuoni has hit just .221/.282/.268. While his 15 stolen bases in 16 attempts and his ability to play the outfield corners, shortstop, second and third base have helped him provide value outside the batters’ box, that anemic slash line makes it easy to see why the club would decide to move on.

Even without Mastrobuoni in the fold, the Cubs figure to have plenty internal depth available in terms of utility players who can hit from the left side, with recent acquisition Vidal Bruján and Rule 5 Draft selection Gage Workman both currently in the mix for a bench job in 2025. Going forward, Chicago will have one week to either trade Mastrobuoni or place him on waivers. It’s not impossible to imagine a club bringing Mastrobuoni, who has a minor league option remaining, into the fold as optionable depth. Should he clear waivers, the Cubs will have the opportunity to outright him to Triple-A as a non-roster depth option for the 2025 campaign.

Athletics Sign CD Pelham To Minor League Deal

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The Athletics have agreed to a minor league contract with left-hander CD Pelham, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. The deal for the Pro Edge Sports Management client includes an invitation to big league spring training.

Pelham is a minor league journeyman who has spent time in the Rangers, Cubs, Padres, and Angels organizations over the past 10 years. Texas drafted the southpaw 978th overall in 2015. A little more than three years later, he made his MLB debut in Arlington, suiting up for the Rangers in 10 games down the stretch of the 2018 season. Over 7 2/3 innings, he gave up six earned runs on 12 hits, striking out seven but walking four. Unfortunately, Pelham struggled badly in the minors the following year, putting up an 11.97 ERA and 7.86 FIP in 42 games between Double and Triple-A. Suffice it to say, he did not make his way back to the majors with Texas. Instead, he found himself designated for assignment after the season.

The Cubs claimed Pelham off of waivers in November 2019. Yet, due to the canceled 2020 season and an injury that cost him the 2021 campaign, he did not appear in a game with the Cubs organization until May 2022. He was solid but unspectacular that year at Double and Triple-A, posting a 4.35 ERA and 4.73 FIP in 41 1/3 innings of work. After electing free agency, Pelham latched on with the Padres for 2023, but an injury and an inconsistent performance left him with a final line of 14 1/3 IP and a 7.53 ERA across a handful of stops in San Diego’s farm system.

Pelham opened the 2024 campaign in the Mexican League, pitching well enough for the Leones de Yucatán (1.04 ERA in 17 1/3 IP) to land a minor league deal with the Angels mid-season. Yet, despite his pitching to a 1.80 ERA and 3.75 FIP over 10 games in the Angels system, he was released at the end of July.

The southpaw returned to Mexico this offseason to pitch in the Pacific Winter League. He has thrived with the Tomateros de Culiacan (2.25 ERA in 28 IP), and evidently, the A’s liked what they saw. It’s still a long shot that Pelham will make it back to the majors in 2025, but the Athletics’ lack of pitching depth gives him a chance to return to a major league mound for the first time since 2018.

Mariners Claim Tyler Jay

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The Mariners announced that they have claimed left-hander Tyler Jay off waivers from the Brewers. The latter club designated him for assignment a week ago when they acquired Grant Anderson. Seattle’s 40-man roster had a vacancy but is now full.

Jay, 31, was the sixth overall pick in the 2015 draft but it took him almost a decade to get to the big leagues. Various injuries, including surgery for thoracic outlet syndrome, slowed his rise through the minors. By the end of the 2019 season, he had topped out at Double-A, then didn’t pitch in any official capacity in 2020 or 2021. That was followed by stints in indy ball in the next two years, which led to the Mets taking a flier on him on a minor league deal.

In April of last year, he finally got up to the majors, though was on and off rosters all year. The Mets selected his contract in mid-April but outrighted him a few days later. He was back up in June, then designated for assignment a second time in July. His second DFA resulted in getting traded to the Brewers, though that club kept him mostly on optional assignment. He finished the year with 7 2/3 innings pitched between his two clubs, allowing four earned runs while walking six batters and recording six strikeouts.

That’s a tiny sample size, so the Mariners are probably more interested in the minor league numbers. Jay tossed 56 2/3 innings at the Triple-A level last year, between the two organizations, allowing 3.02 earned runs per nine. He had a 20.9% strikeout rate, 5.1% walk rate and 47.3% ground ball rate. For what it’s worth, the strikeout rate jumped after he came to the Brewers, going from 18.6% with Syracuse to 25.7% with Nashville, though his walk rate also went from 2.5% to 10.8% after the switch.

For the Mariners, they’re clearly intrigued enough to give Jay a roster spot, at least for now. He has just a few days of service time and a couple of option years remaining, so he can at least serve as a cheap depth piece with roster flexibility. As a former first-round pick and top prospect, perhaps there’s some untapped upside in there. They currently have Tayler Saucedo and Gabe Speier as the top lefties in their projected bullpen, with Austin Kitchen also on the roster. Jay will jump into that group and try to push for opportunities in the 2025 season.

Padres, Dylan Cease Avoid Arbitration

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The Padres and Dylan Cease have avoided arbitration, as reported by Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune. The right-hander will earn $13.75MM in 2025. That’s $5.75MM more than his salary last season and just a hair over his $13.7MM salary projection, courtesy of MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz.

Cease, 29, was everything the Padres could have hoped for in 2024 after they sent Drew Thorpe, Jairo Iriarte, Samuel Zavala, and  Steven Wilson to the White Sox last March to acquire him. In a league-leading 33 starts, Cease pitched to a 3.47 ERA and 3.46 SIERA. He finished fourth in NL Cy Young voting. The Padres went 20-13 (.606) in his outings.

The 2024 campaign marked a resurgent bounceback for Cease following his disappointing 2023. After finishing runner-up in the AL Cy Young race in 2022, the righty lost velocity on his fastball the next season and finished with a 4.58 ERA. The underlying numbers suggested Cease was the victim of some rotten luck (and some terrible defense), but no matter how you sliced it, he didn’t look quite as dominant as he was the year before. In addition to his declining velocity, his strikeout rate was down, his hard-hit rate was up, and his 4.10 SIERA ranked 25th out of 43 qualified pitchers.

In 2024, Cease put all concerns to bed and proved he is still a frontline starting pitcher. His velocity was back up on all his pitches, and he even toyed with a new sweeper – to good results (.218 wOBA, 38.5% whiff rate). He ranked among the top 10 qualified pitchers in SIERA, FIP, and xERA, while cementing himself as one of the most durable starters in the league. Over the past four years, no one has started more games. Even the diminished version of Cease on display in 2023 would be well worth a $13.75MM salary. If he’s at the top of his game again in 2025, he’ll be one of the more underpaid aces around. Fortunately for Cease, if he can do that, he’ll be putting himself in a strong position to cash in big as a free agent next winter.

As for the Padres, they’ll be even more reliant on Cease in 2025 after losing fellow All-Star righty Joe Musgrove to a UCL injury in October. After undergoing Tommy John surgery, Musgrove will miss the entire 2025 campaign. That makes it all the more surprising that Cease’s name has come up in trade speculation this offseason. While there is no indication the Padres are actively shopping their ace, teams have inquired about his availability, and president of baseball operations A.J. Preller has not said anything to shut down the trade rumors. As ESPN’s Jeff Passan recently wrote, teams that have called the Padres about Cease “haven’t been rebuffed entirely.”

The Padres are reportedly trying to get their payroll down to somewhere in between last year’s $169MM total and this year’s current estimate of $208MM (per RosterResource). Trading Cease and his $13.75MM salary could allow the Padres to accomplish that. He’s not their most expensive player, but of the nine Padres set to earn eight figures in 2025, he is certainly the most tradeable. Still, the Padres are planning to compete this season, and it’s very difficult to imagine them trading their best starting pitcher to trim payroll without significantly hurting their chances in the NL West. It’s hard enough to find a pitcher of Cease’s caliber at any price, let alone on a one-year, $13.75MM deal.

Tigers, Tarik Skubal Avoid Arbitration

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The Tigers agreed to a one-year, $10.15MM deal with reigning AL Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal, reports ESPN’s Jeff Passan. It’s a massive, nearly 300% raise on top of last year’s $2.65MM salary for the 28-year-old, handily topping the $8MM projected by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz. Skubal, who’s under club control through the 2026 season, will be arb-eligible one more time next winter.

Skubal unanimously won American League Cy Young honors after a dominant breakout showing in which he paced the AL in wins (18), ERA (2.39), strikeout rate (30.3%), K-BB% (25.6%) and virtually every form of wins above replacement (6.3 bWAR, 5.9 fWAR, 6.5 RA9-WAR). The left-hander tossed 192 innings, punched out 228 opponents against just 35 walks and held opponents to only 15 homers. Skubal completed at least six innings in 25 of his 31 starts and held opponents to two or fewer runs on 24 of his 31 trips to the bump. He was as consistently dominant an arm as the sport had to offer, registering an ERA no worse than 3.05 in any individual month of the season.

That dominant performance from Skubal played a major role in Detroit’s surprise run to the postseason — and in the team’s upset win over the Astros in the American League Wild Card series. Skubal was flat-out dominant in the first two playoff starts of his career, tossing a combined 13 shutout innings with 14 strikeouts, one walk and just seven hits allowed in gems over Houston and Cleveland. He took the mound for the decisive Game 5 in the intra-division ALDS showdown against the Guardians and cruised through most of his start until being tagged for a backbreaking grand slam off the bat of Guards outfielder Lane Thomas.

It was a sour note on which to end an otherwise storybook season for both player and team, but Skubal has nevertheless entrenched himself among the game’s elite arms. The Tigers and their fan base would surely love to extend the star southpaw, though as a 28-year-old Scott Boars-represented ace who’s just two seasons away from reaching free agency and a potential $200MM+ payday — perhaps more, depending on how the next two seasons play out — Skubal seems decidedly unlikely to sign a long-term pact.

Looking ahead to the 2025 season, Skubal will get the Opening Day nod and front a staff also including Reese Olson and free-agent pickup Alex Cobb. Presumably, top prospect Jackson Jobe, who debuted late in the 2024 campaign, will have the inside track on a job as well, though at just 22 years old and with minimal experience above the Double-A level, he won’t simply be handed the spot. He’ll need to earn it in spring training.

Former No. 1 pick Casey Mize, rebound hopeful Kenta Maeda, right-hander Keider Montero and former top first-rounders Matt Manning, Alex Faedo and Ty Madden will all be in the mix for rotation work as well — at least as things currently stand. It’s still plenty feasible, whether by free agency or trade, that the upstart Tigers add to the rotation in a meaningful way between now and Opening Day.

Mariners, Randy Arozarena Avoid Arbitration

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The Mariners have avoided arbitration with Randy Arozarena, as first reported by Francys Romero. The left fielder will earn $11.3MM in 2025, slightly less than his projected $11.7MM salary (per MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz). He will be eligible for arbitration once more ahead of the 2026 campaign.

Arozarena, 30 in February, is coming off the least productive season of his MLB career. Entering the 2024 campaign, the former AL Rookie of the Year had a career .802 OPS and 127 wRC+ in just over 2000 trips to the plate. In 2024, his OPS dropped to a career-worst .720, while his wRC+ fell to a career-worst 114. Those are still above-average numbers, to be clear, but a step back from his All-Star-caliber performances of the past.

On the bright side, Arozarena hit significantly better after a deadline trade from the Rays to the Mariners, raising his wRC+ from 109 to 122. Interestingly, the biggest difference between his numbers with Tampa Bay and Seattle was his batting average on balls in play (BABIP). He actually struck out more often and hit for less power with the Mariners, but his BABIP increased from .249 to .323. That could be good news for Arozarena, who came into the year with a career .331 BABIP, far higher than his overall .275 BABIP in 2024. If more of his batted balls drop for hits in 2025, he could get back to being a far more productive hitter once again.

Even in a down year, Arozarena hit 20 home runs and stole 20 bases, achieving his fourth straight 20/20 season. He also ranked among the top five qualified AL batters with an 11.3% walk rate. On top of that, he reached 600 plate appearances for the fourth year in a row. Since his debut in 2019, his only two stints on the injured list have been due to COVID-19 protocols. An outfielder who can play every day while offering a rare combination of power, speed, and plate discipline is a valuable player indeed; he’d command far more than $11.3MM on the open market. He will certainly be valuable to the Mariners, who need as much offense as they can get. Seattle’s pitching staff is among the best in the league, but the bats failed to support the arms last season. That’s precisely why the M’s brought Arozarena in at the deadline. They’ll be counting on him to continue producing at the plate in 2025.

Diamondbacks Avoid Arbitration With Zac Gallen, Josh Naylor

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The Diamondbacks avoided arbitration with right-hander Zac Gallen and first baseman Josh Naylor, according to reports from Mark Feinsand of MLB.com and Robert Murray of FanSided. Gallen will earn $13.5MM, while Naylor will command $10.9MM. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz had projected Gallen at $14.1MM and Naylor at $10.9MM. It’s the final year of club control for both players.

Gallen, 29, pitched 148 innings of 3.65 ERA ball last season, representing his lowest innings total and highest ERA of the past three seasons. The right-hander missed roughly a month with a hamstring strain, limiting his time on the mound and perhaps also impacting his performance.

At his best, Gallen is an All-Star and Cy Young-caliber arm. He finished in the top five of NL Cy Young balloting in both 2022 and 2023, earning his lone career All-Star nod in the latter of those two seasons. Across those two years, Gallen pitched to a 3.04 ERA in 394 innings. Since making his big league debut with the Marlins in 2019 — Miami flipped him to Arizona that summer for Jazz Chisholm Jr. — Gallen touts a 3.29 ERA, 26.6% strikeout rate and 7.6% walk rate in 815 1/3 innings.

Gallen has long been the ace of Arizona’s staff, but he’ll at least nominally be bumped into the No. 2 spot of a potential powerhouse rotation in the wake of the D-backs’ shock signing of Corbin Burnes to a six-year, $210MM deal. Burnes, Gallen, Merrill Kelly, Eduardo Rodriguez, Ryne Nelson, Brandon Pfaadt and rebound hopeful/trade candidate Jordan Montgomery give the Diamondbacks a wealth of rotation talent to lean on in the coming season.

Naylor, 27, came to Arizona last month in a trade that sent righty Slade Cecconi and a competitive balance draft pick back to the Guardians. Cleveland immediately pivoted and signed Carlos Santana to a one-year, $12MM deal that mirrored the projection for Naylor. Cleveland will end up with the pricier of the two options at first base in the end, though they also added a controllable 25-year-old swingman and a pick in the high 60s of the 2025 draft.

The 2025 season will be Arizona’s lone year of control over Naylor, who’s coming off a career-best 31 home runs. He turned in a .243/.320/.456 batting line in 2024, clocking in about 18% better than league-average, by measure of wRC+. His bat faded a bit in the season’s second half, but only relative to the huge first-half numbers Naylor posted (particularly in April and in June). He was an above-average hitter in five of the season’s six months, per wRC+, with the lone exception being May, when he was just 3% under par.

Put more succinctly, Naylor is a consistent slugger who’ll bolster the middle of the D-backs’ lineup in place of Christian Walker, who signed a three-year, $60MM deal in Houston as a free agent (netting the Snakes a compensatory draft pick after the first round in the process). Naylor walked at a career-best 9.2% clip in 2024 and fanned at a 16.6% pace that’s considerably lower than league average.

Both Gallen and Naylor are candidates to receive a qualifying offer from the D-backs at season’s end, positioning Arizona to net compensation in the 2026 draft for their potential departure. Gallen, in particular, is a veritable lock so long as he’s healthy. Naylor would be a very strong QO candidate as well if he replicates or approximates the .267/.330/.465 form he’s turned in over the past three seasons, as he’d reach the market at just 28 years of age.

Tyler Nevin To Sign With NPB’S Seibu Lions

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Infielder/outfielder Tyler Nevin is heading overseas to sign with the Seibu Lions of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, per multiple reports out of Japan. Salary figures have not been publicly reported.

Players that head to foreign leagues often have strong numbers in the minors but less so in the majors, a category that Nevin certainly falls into. He has received 591 plate appearances at the major league level over the past four years, suiting up for the Orioles, Tigers and Athletics. He produced a line of .204/.299/.315 in those, which translates to an 81 wRC+, indicating he was 19% below league average.

Over the past three years, he stepped to the plate 639 times at the Triple-A level. His 10.2% walk rate and 17.2% strikeout rate in that time were both solid numbers and he also hit 26 home runs, helping him produce a combined .313/.391/.536 line and 135 wRC+.

Those minor league numbers got Nevin some big league chances but he couldn’t take advantage of them and exhausted his final option year in 2023, which left him struggling to hold a roster spot in 2024.

This year, Nevin likely would have been ticketed for more of the same if he had stayed in North American ball, probably settling for a minor league deal and maybe the occasional major league opportunity. Instead, by heading to Japan, he will likely earn himself a bit more of a financial guarantee and perhaps a decent chance at lengthy playing time at a high level.

Nevin is capable of playing all four corner spots and could slot into any of those for the Lions. If he has a nice season, perhaps he could parlay that into a return to North America down the line, or a bump to a higher salary level while staying in Asia.

Padres, Luis Arraez Avoid Arbitration

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The Padres have avoided arbitration with three-time batting champion Luis Arraez, reports Robert Murray of FanSided. Arraez will earn $14MM in 2025, his final year of arbitration eligibility. A $14MM payday represents a nice raise for the infielder, who made $10.6MM in 2024, though it’s slightly less than his projected $14.6MM salary (per MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz).

The Padres acquired Arraez in a trade with the Marlins last May. Although he represented San Diego at the All-Star Game this past summer and finished the season with an NL-best .314 batting average, the 2024 season was a down year for Arraez. His .739 OPS and 109 wRC+ were well below his .829 OPS and 130 wRC+ from 2022-23. In addition, his defensive numbers were worse than ever. He managed to accrue -3 DRS and -6 OAA at first base and -3 DRS and -7 OAA and second base. Thus, the Padres ended up using him as their DH a good amount of the time, which only further decreased his overall value.

If Arraez can shore up his defense and get back to hitting like he did in 2022 and ’23, he will still be a bargain for San Diego at a $14MM salary. However, the Padres are thought to be trying to cut payroll this winter. According to RosterResource, their projected payroll for the 2025 season is $39MM higher than their final payroll at the end of 2024. President of baseball operations A.J. Preller is reportedly trying to bring the payroll down to somewhere in between its current projected figure and last year’s final tally. If Preller plans to reduce payroll and still make any additions this winter, he will almost certainly have to trade some of his more expensive veterans. Thus, Arraez’s name has popped up in trade rumors.

About a month ago, Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune reported that the Padres had engaged in internal discussions about trading Arraez. It’s not hard to see why. His contract is more tradeable than the longer-term deals belonging to Manny Machado, Xander Bogaerts,  Fernando Tatis Jr., Jake Cronenworth, Joe Musgrove, or Yu Darvish. Dylan Cease surely has more trade value than Arraez, but for the same reasons, the Padres might be more likely to want to keep him around. Cease is projected to earn $13.7MM in arbitration, a similar number to Arraez’s $14MM salary. So, trading Cease would free up a similar amount of payroll as trading Arraez, but it would mean giving up a far more productive player.

Yet, the only team to be formally linked to Arraez this winter is the Yankees, and it’s unclear how interested New York really is. ESPN’s Jeff Passan recently wrote that the Yankees have “continued to discuss” Arraez with the Padres, but the New York Post’s Jon Heyman and SNY’s Andy Martino have pushed back on that connection. Martino reports that the Yankees “briefly” checked in on Arraez in November and “have not engaged with the Padres” on the subject since.

To further complicate matters, Bob Nightengale of USA Today is now reporting that the Padres “plan to keep” Arraez after all. That’s somewhat surprising if the team is still serious about trimming payroll, but perhaps the Padres decided teams around the league were undervaluing Arraez after his down year in 2024. That might be the right decision. After all, if he can get back to being the hitter he was from 2022-23, the Padres would have a hard time replacing that kind of production for less than $14MM.

Dodgers Trade Diego Cartaya To Twins

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The Twins have acquired former top catching prospect Diego Cartaya from the Dodgers in exchange for minor league right-hander Jose Vasquez, per announcements from both clubs. Cartaya was designated for assignment earlier in the week. Minnesota had an open 40-man roster spot, and their roster is now full.

As recently as two years ago, Cartaya was a consensus top-20 prospect in the entire sport. He’s still just 23 years old, but the Venezuelan-born backstop’s offensive development has stalled out in the upper minors. Back in 2022, Cartaya slashed a combined .254/.389/.503 with 22 homers and a 14.3% walk rate across two Class-A levels. He’s followed that with lackluster performances in both Double-A (.204/.303/.379 in two seasons) and Triple-A (.208/.293/.350 in 208 plate appearances last year).

Though his bat hasn’t progressed, scouting reports in recent seasons have praised improved glovework from the 6’3″, 219-pound Cartaya. Both Baseball America and MLB.com noted in their 2024 midseason reports on Cartaya that he made notable gains with his framing, receiving and blocking. He’d already been touted for plus arm strength, though shaky accuracy has led to a roughly average 20% caught-stealing rate in his five minor league seasons.

If nothing else, the tools are there for Cartaya to be a solid defender behind the plate and a patient, OBP-focused hitter in the batter’s box. He did turn in a solid .247/.370/.377 slash against lefties last year, though that came in just 92 plate appearances and he struggled immensely versus southpaws in a similar sample a year prior. Cartaya still has one minor league option year remaining, so the Twins can send him to Triple-A to begin the season without needing to pass him through waivers.

The Twins already have an above-average starter in Ryan Jeffers and a pricey, glove-first backup in Christian Vazquez. Catcher Jair Camargo and catcher/first baseman Mickey Gasper (acquired from the Red Sox last month) are both on the 40-man roster as well. Minnesota has been hopeful of trading Vazquez and a portion of his $10MM salary as they seek to scale back payroll. There could well be a market if they’re willing to eat around half that sum, and the addition of Cartaya creates some further depth in the event that they do indeed move Vazquez (or, more surprisingly, listen to offers on Jeffers).

In return for Cartaya, the Dodgers will pick up a project right-hander. Vasquez, listed at 6’4″ and a 200 pounds, signed with the Twins out of the Dominican Republic as part of their 2022 international class. He’s spent the past two years — his age-18 and age-19 seasons — pitching for Minnesota’s affiliate in the Dominican Summer League. The bottom-line results aren’t much to look at, as Vasquez has been tagged for a 8.05 ERA in 57 innings. Part of that was a sky-high ERA north of 11.00 in 2023, however. He pitched to a more palatable 4.99 mark in 30 2/3 frames this past season.

Command was a major issue for Vasquez in ’23, evidenced by a ghastly 21.9% walk rate. He made major strides in 2024, however, cutting that mark in half (10.7%) while nearly doubling his strikeout rate from 17.8% to 32.1%. He was a bit older than the average DSL player last year and figures to head to one of the Dodgers’ full-season affiliates in 2025. There’s some obvious bat-missing potential for the lanky right-hander, but he’ll need to make further gains with his command and find a way to get left-handed opponents out. Vasquez held righties to an awful .203/.309/.290 output in 2024 but was scorched for a .314/.407/.392 line against southpaws.

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