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Braves Acquire Davis Daniel

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The Braves have acquired right-hander Davis Daniel from the Angels, per announcements from both clubs. The Halos designated Daniel for assignment earlier this week. Left-hander Mitch Farris heads the other way.

Daniel, 28 in June, has a small amount of major league experience thus far. Between last year and this year, he has tossed 42 2/3 innings for the Angels, allowing 5.06 earned runs per nine. His 8.1% walk rate is right around average but his 19.9% strikeout rate and 39.1% ground ball rate are both a few ticks worse than par.

Atlanta is probably more interested in the Triple-A season that Daniel just had. He made 21 starts and one relief appearance at the Sale Lake Bees, logging 118 innings. His 5.42 ERA in that time is obviously not impressive, but the Bees play in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League. Daniel struck out 23.3% of batters faced and only gave out walks at a 6.5% clip. His 4.41 FIP was almost exactly a run better than his ERA.

Daniel still has an option remaining, so he can give Atlanta a bit of extra rotation depth without taking up an active roster spot. Atlanta projects to have a rotation fronted by Chris Sale, Reynaldo López and Spencer Schwellenbach. They will eventually get Spencer Strider back into that mix at some point, once he’s recovered from his April internal brace surgery. Until then, options for the back end include Grant Holmes, Ian Anderson, AJ Smith-Shawver, Hurston Waldrep, Bryce Elder and others. Daniel will jump into that group, who will presumably battle each other for positions on the depth chart.

Farris, 24 in February, was selected by Atlanta in the 14th round of the 2023 draft. Since then, he has thrown 124 2/3 innings over 21 starts and nine relief appearances in the minors. In that time, he has a 2.96 ERA, 30% strikeout rate and 9.7% walk rate. He spent most of 2024 at High-A and will backfill some of the pitching depth that the Angels just lost by cutting Daniel from the roster. Farris isn’t Rule 5 eligible until December of 2026, so he won’t need a roster spot for quite a while.

Nick Nelson Signs With NPB’s Hanshin Tigers

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Right-hander Nick Nelson has signed with the Hanshin Tigers of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, per an announcement from Beverly Hills Sports Council, his agency. It’s a one-year deal worth $1MM plus incentives. Phillies Tailgate reported last week that the two sides were in negotiations.

Nelson, 29, pitched in each of the past five major league seasons but without sustained success. He logged 114 1/3 innings for the Yankees and Phillies, allowing 5.20 earned runs per nine. His 23.1% strikeout rate and 42.6% ground ball rate were both close to average but he gave out walks at a high rate of 12.9%.

As is often the case with players heading overseas, the minor league numbers are a bit more interesting. A starter for most of his minor league career, he worked primarily in relief in 2021. He tossed 52 Triple-A innings that year with a 3.81 ERA, 26.3% strikeout rate, 12.3% walk rate and 53.6% ground ball rate.

In 2022, he was kept in the majors, tossing 68 2/3 innings with a 4.85 ERA. The Phils tried stretching him out in 2023, which didn’t go especially well. He made 20 Triple-A starts but with a 4.35 ERA, 17.7% strikeout rate, 9.9% walk rate and 49.3% ground ball rate. A return to a primary relief role in 2024 didn’t immediately get him back on track, as he threw 54 1/3 Triple-A innings this year with a 6.13 ERA, 18% strikeout rate, 11% walk rate and 41.6% ground ball rate.

Nelson exhausted his final option year in 2024. The Phillies outrighted him off their 40-man twice late in the year, once in August and once in September. He didn’t have a roster spot at season’s end and elected free agency.

Had he stayed in North America for the 2025 season, he likely would have been looking at minor league deals, having to fight for a roster spot. By heading to Japan and joining the Tigers, he locks in a nice payday above the MLB league minimum, which will be $760K next year. If he takes advantage of his new opportunity, he could parlay that into a raise with the Tigers or perhaps attempt a return to North American ball down the line, following the path of guys like Miles Mikolas and Colin Rea.

Orioles, Jordyn Adams Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Orioles and outfielder Jordyn Adams are in agreement on a minor league contract, reports Robert Murray of FanSided. The CAA client and former top prospect will head to major league camp as a non-roster invitee this spring.

Adams, who turned 25 in October, was selected by the Angels with the No. 17 overall draft pick back in 2018. At the time, he was viewed as one of the best athletes in the entire draft class — a two-sport high school star who’d committed to play both football (as a wide receiver) and baseball at North Carolina. Pre-draft scouting reports touted Adams’ 80-grade speed (on the 20-80 scale) and a projectable frame that carried the potential to grow into more power.

While the speed has been on full display in the minors throughout his career — he’s gone 144-for-176 (82%) in stolen base attempts — Adams has yet to hit much at any stop. He’s a career .252/.333/.377 hitter in 2425 minor league plate appearances and, in 78 big league trips to the plate, mustered only a .176/.205/.216 slash with a 35.9% strikeout rate.

The speed is legitimate, as Statcast ranked him in the 98th percentile of big leaguers with a blazing sprint speed of 29.7 ft/sec. Even as he tumbled down the Angels’ prospect rankings at Baseball America, from No. 3 in 2020 to No. 23 this past season, BA called him a plus defender in center who “tracks fly-balls like a wide receiver” while showing elite closing speed.

In almost every other sense of the word, Adams is a project for the Orioles. However, he’s heading into only his age-25 season. He’s also joining an Orioles organization that has been far more successful than the Angels (and than most of the league, for that matter) when it comes to developing young position players. Adams may not ever be a star, but if the O’s can coax a bit more out of his bat, his speed and defense give him a path to at least being a viable fourth outfielder. Encouragingly, the righty-hitting speedster does have an OPS well north of .800 against lefties over the past three seasons in the minors.

Nationals Sign Michael Soroka

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The Nationals announced that they have signed right-hander Michael Soroka to a one-year deal, which reportedly comes with a $9MM salary. The club had 40-man vacancies and didn’t need to make a corresponding move. The ISE Baseball client will reportedly be used as a starter.

Soroka, 27, came into the offseason as one of the more interesting free agents available. He found success as a starting pitcher in his early 20s, back in 2019, but missed most of the 2020 to 2023 seasons due to injuries. In 2024, he struggled badly as a starter but then got moved to a bullpen role and finished the season in very strong fashion. It could have been argued that he earned himself another shot at a rotation job or that he found a role that worked for him and should continue as a reliever, though it seems he will take another shot at being a starter next year.

Prior to his 2019 breakout, Soroka was already a name to watch. He was a first-round pick of Atlanta in 2015 and found himself on top 100 prospect lists as he climbed through the minors. He debuted with five starts in 2018 and then fully cemented himself as a big leaguer in 2019, making 29 starts and logging 174 2/3 innings while allowing 2.68 earned runs per nine. His 20.3% strikeout rate was just below average but his 5.8% walk rate and 51.2% ground ball rate were both notably better than par.

That was Soroka’s age-21 season, so it seemed Atlanta had a rotation building block for years to come. Unfortunately, the baseball gods had a miserable fate in store for Soroka’s next chapter. In his third start of the shortened 2020 season, he had to be helped off the field with a leg injury, later revealed to be a torn right achilles tendon which required surgery. In 2021, he missed some time due to shoulder inflammation and later required another surgery on his achilles. He got back on the mound in 2022 and pitched in the minors, though that season was ended due to elbow soreness. In 2023, he was frequently shuttled between Triple-A and the majors and finished the season on the IL due to forearm inflammation.

After those four years in the injury wilderness, Atlanta seemingly didn’t have much faith in Soroka bouncing back. He was flipped to the White Sox in November, part of a five-for-one trade that saw Atlanta flip multiple spare parts for Aaron Bummer in a roster clearout move.

Unlike Atlanta, Chicago was aggressively rebuilding and had more bandwidth for being patient with Soroka, hoping for a bounceback. It didn’t materialize at first. Soroka started the season with nine starts but had a 6.39 ERA in those. His 46.9% grounder rate was strong but his matching strikeout and walk rates of 12.4% were both bad.

The last of those starts was on May 12. Soroka was moved to the bullpen at that point, which is when things became very interesting. He tossed 36 innings out of the bullpen in the remainder of the season with a 2.75 ERA. His 13% walk rate was oddly high and his grounder rate was just 26.5% but he managed to punch out 39% of batter’s faced.

That came with a significant change in his pitch mix. In those nine starts, he threw 22.5% four-seamers, 30.8% sinkers, 31.9% sliders and 14.7% changeups. After moving to the bullpen, he pushed towards a fastball/slider mix, with 43.2% of his pitches being the former and 41.6% the latter. His sinker and changeup rates dropped to 10.9% and 4.3%, respectively. Despite limiting his arsenal, he was effective against hitters on both sides of the plate. Righties hit just .197/.306/.296 against Soroka the reliever while lefties mustered only a .179/.299/.286 line.

Given the amount of success he had in that relief role, it might be tempting to suggest that he should stay there, but there are also counterarguments. For one thing, despite the many twists and turns in his career, Soroka is still young. He is currently 27 and won’t turn 28 until August. He might not want to give up on the possibility of being a starter just yet.

Furthermore, teams these days don’t tend to view relief success as any kind of reason to not try a guy in a starting role. In recent years, bullpen-to-rotation conversions have become all the rage, with guys like Seth Lugo, Michael King, Garrett Crochet, Reynaldo López, Jeffrey Springs and others making the move successfully. It doesn’t always work out, with A.J. Puk being one example, but even then the downside is pretty harmless as the pitcher just lands as a viable reliever as a fallback.

The Nats should be able to give Soroka a chance to earn a rotation job, at least for a while. They have some intriguing arms but most of them are fairly lacking in experience. The quartet of MacKenzie Gore, Jake Irvin, Mitchell Parker and DJ Herz all had decent results in 2024, with each posting an ERA of 4.41 or lower. However, Gore’s 372 2/3 career innings are the most of the bunch. Irvin is at 308 while Parker and Herz just debuted in 2024 and are below 200. Josiah Gray had UCL surgery in July and won’t be a factor until late in the 2025 season, if at all. Cade Cavalli missed all of 2023 and 2024 recovering from Tommy John surgery and it’s unknown what kind of workload he can take on next year.

Washington can give Soroka a rotation gig to start the year and see how things go. If he struggles out of the gate, they can push him to the bullpen and give those starts to one of the younger pitchers. But if things go well, he can be very valuable for the Nats. If they are able to emerge from their ongoing rebuild, he can be a part of that, but he could be a midseason trade candidate even if the club isn’t ready for that step yet. Even if he’s pushed to a relief role, he could still be an interesting deadline trade candidate.

It’s also theoretically possible that he pitches his way into consideration for a qualifying offer at season’s end, as even mid-rotation or back-end guys like Nick Pivetta, Luis Severino and Nick Martinez got QOs this year. In that scenario, Soroka could stay with the Nats all year and help them make a contending push while also providing some future value at the end of the year, though that will be a concern for another day.

At the start of the offseason, MLBTR predicted Soroka for a two-year deal worth $14MM. He has settled for a lesser guarantee but on a stronger annual value, with the chance to return to the open market a year from now. For him personally, that could be a lucrative bet, as it’s possible he will have much more earning power at the end of the 2025 season.

Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic first reported that the Nats and Soroka were in agreement. Robert Murray of FanSided reported that it was a one-year deal worth $9MM.

Rangers Sign Alan Trejo To Minor League Contract

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The Rangers announced the signing of infielder Alan Trejo to a minor league deal with a Spring Training invite. Texas also re-signed catcher Cooper Johnson and added reliever Nolan Hoffman as non-roster invitees.

Of that trio, Trejo is the only one with MLB experience. The righty-hitting utilityman has suited up for the Rockies in each of the last four seasons. He has hit .228/.276/.334 across 469 plate appearances in the big leagues. Colorado cut him loose in June. Trejo landed a minor league contract with the Dodgers. He finished the year with Triple-A Oklahoma City, where he hit .265/.346/.408 with six homers across 241 plate appearances.

Trejo isn’t going to provide much offensive upside. He can play anywhere on the infield, though, with solid grades for his second base defense in particular. He should open next season at Triple-A Round Rock. Trejo is out of options, so the Rangers would need to keep him on the MLB roster or run him through waivers if they call him up at any point.

Johnson is a 26-year-old catcher who played this year with Texas’ Double-A affiliate. The Ole Miss product hit .235/.355/.474 with 14 home runs in the Texas League. Hoffman, a 27-year-old righty, has pitched in the Seattle and Baltimore systems. He spent the ’24 campaign in Triple-A with the Orioles. Hoffman pitched to a 3.88 ERA while striking out 28% of opponents across 58 innings.

Diamondbacks, Cristian Pache Agree To Minor League Deal

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The D-backs and outfielder Cristian Pache have agreed to a minor league deal, reports Steve Gilbert of MLB.com. Pache, a client of MVP Sports Group, will head to spring training as a non-roster invitee and compete for a bench job.

The 26-year-old Pache split the 2024 season between the Phillies, Orioles and Marlins. A lights-out defender with an anemic bat, Pache posted a combined .200/.273/.279 batting line with an alarming 35% strikeout rate in 183 plate appearances on the season. He’s out of minor league options, so none of those clubs ever had the chance to send Pache down for additional work.

Once one of the game’s top prospects with the Braves, Pache was always regarded as an elite defender whose future would hinge on whether the bat would come around. That’s still yet to happen. He’s seen 610 plate appearances between the Braves, A’s, Phillies, Orioles and Marlins but managed only a .181/.243/.275 line (46 wRC+). Injuries have perhaps contributed — he had both elbow and knee surgery in 2023 — but that alone can’t explain away the extent of his struggles in the majors.

Though he’s never shown that he can hit in the majors — or even all that much in Triple-A — Pache has posted superlative defensive grades. Scouts and defensive metrics agree that he’s sensational in the field, evidenced by career marks of 12 Defensive Runs Saved and 17 Outs Above Average in just 1503 big league innings.

Pache’s glove alone would make him a sensible enough depth pickup for any team, particularly on a minor league deal like this one. He fits the D-backs better than most, however, as he offers a right-handed complement to Jake McCarthy, Alek Thomas and Corbin Carroll. Pache can play any of the three outfield spots, and while he’s not really a true platoon option, his career .230/.299/.370 (87 wRC+) against lefties at least makes him playable when there’s a southpaw on the bump.

The D-backs have drawn trade interest in outfielders like McCarthy and Thomas, though it seems unlikely there’s any correlation at play. Rather, the Snakes likely pounced on the opportunity to bring in a plus-plus defender who could complement their existing outfield nicely and do so at a negligible cost without any real risk.

Brewers, Bruce Zimmermann Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Brewers have agreed to a minor league deal with left-hander Bruce Zimmermann, reports Adam McCalvy of MLB.com. The Ballengee client will be in big league camp as a non-roster invitee this coming spring.

Zimmermann, 29, has appeared in parts of four seasons. All four of those came with the Baltimore native’s hometown club. From 2020-23, he pitched 158 1/3 frames for the Orioles, mostly out of the rotation, posting a 5.57 ERA along the way. He regularly showed plus command (career 5.2% walk rate), but Zimmermann’s 89-91 mph fastball proved too hittable and led to troubles keeping the ball in the park (2.27 HR/9).

While Zimmermann’s big league results have clearly been sub-par, he’s logged a more palatable 4.20 ERA in 306 1/3 innings across parts of five Triple-A seasons. Despite the lack of velocity, he’s punched out a solid 22.8% of his opponent at that level and coupled that with a similarly sound 8% walk rate. The 2024 season was the first since 2019 in which Zimmermann did not appear in the majors. He pitched 80 minor league innings with a 4.16 ERA on the year, splitting his time between the rotation and bullpen.

Zimmermann will give the Brewers some more affordable rotation depth behind the projected starting five of Freddy Peralta, Brandon Woodruff, Nestor Cortes, Aaron Civale and Tobias Myers. Southpaws Aaron Ashby and DL Hall are both on the 40-man roster and could get looks in the ’pen or as starters.

Other rotation candidates include Carlos Rodriguez, Logan Henderson and Chad Patrick, though the latter two have yet to actually make their MLB debuts. Top pitching prospect Jacob Misiorowski had a nice season between Double-A and Triple-A last year, and 2022 second-rounder should be in line for his MLB debut at some point during the 2025 campaign. Milwaukee has been on the hunt for extra rotation stability this offseason but doesn’t have much money to work with as they work toward that goal.

The Brewers picked up a plug-and-play mid-rotation arm, Cortes, in the trade sending closer Devin Williams to the Yankees, but they’re still likely to be in the mix for some more low-cost arms.

Reds Claim Roansy Contreras

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The Reds claimed right-hander Roansy Contreras off waivers from the Rangers on Thursday, per announcements from both clubs. Texas had designated him for assignment last week. Cincinnati had a pair of vacancies on its 40-man roster, so a corresponding move isn’t necessary.

Contreras, still just 25, will join his second organization of the offseason and third of the past calendar year. Once a top pitching prospect with the Yankees and Pirates — New York traded him to Pittsburgh in the Jameson Taillon swap — he’s begun to bounce around the league in journeyman fashion. Pittsburgh traded him to Anaheim for cash back in May, and the Rangers claimed him off waivers from the Halos on Halloween.

Back in 2022, Contreras looked like he was on his way to cementing a long-term place in the Pirates’ rotation. He pitched 95 innings with a 3.79 ERA, 21.1% strikeout rate and 9.6% walk rate in that rookie campaign. A year later, the right-hander lost more than a mile per hour off his heater and was trounced for a 6.59 ERA in 68 1/3 big league frames. His work in Triple-A Indianapolis was similarly shaky, with an ERA just under 5.00 in eight appearances (six starts).

Out of minor league options and losing his grip on a roster spot, Contreras was designated for assignment back in May. The Angels leaned on him for 52 innings of low-leverage relief following that cash swap, and Contreras held his own with a 4.33 ERA and more questionable rate stats (17.9 K%, 10.6 BB%). The full-time move to the ’pen didn’t get Contreras’ velocity back up to its previous 96 mph average; he sat 94.9 mph with the pitch in 2024.

If Contreras lasts the rest of the offseason on the Reds’ 40-man roster, he’ll compete for a bullpen spot this spring. He’d need to make the Opening Day club or else be designated for assignment once again, as he can’t be sent down to Triple-A without first clearing waivers. Alexis Diaz, Brent Suter, Fernando Cruz, Sam Moll, Emilio Pagan and Tony Santillan are all likely locked into spots (barring injuries or trades), but there could still be a couple openings up for grabs in camp, depending on how the front office proceeds for the remainder of the offseason.

Mariners Claim Nick Raposo

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2:20pm: The Mariners have now announced the claim. Their 40-man roster is up to 38 players.

1:00pm: The Mariners have claimed catcher Nick Raposo off waivers from the Blue Jays, MLBTR has learned. The latter club designated him for assignment last week. The Mariners had 40-man roster vacancies and didn’t need to make a corresponding move.

Raposo, 27 in June, still hasn’t made his major league debut. The Cardinals added him to their 40-man roster in June when both Willson Contreras and Iván Herrera were on the injured list, but Contreras was reinstated a few days later. Raposo was optioned to the minors without getting into a game. He was designated for assignment in July when the Cards added Erick Fedde and Tommy Pham in a deal just before the deadline. He was claimed by the Jays and stuck on their roster until last week, getting designated for assignment again when Toronto signed Yimi García.

Over the past four years, Raposo has taken 808 plate appearances in the minors. He has a combined batting line of .241/.321/.387 in that time, which translates to a wRC+ of 85. Baseball Prospectus has generally given him solid marks for his blocking and throwing in the minors.

The Mariners only really have one proper catcher on the 40-man roster right now in Cal Raleigh. They also have Mitch Garver, who they signed last offseason with the idea of using him as a full-time designated hitter. That plan didn’t work out as Garver struggled with the bat in 2024, so the M’s did eventually put him behind the plate a few times, either to try to extract some value from him or with the hope that returning to catching would somehow help get back in a groove offensively. Seby Zavala was the third backstop to play for the M’s in 2024 but he was outrighted off the roster in September and signed a minor league deal with the Red Sox last month.

It’s unclear how the M’s plan to tackle their catching situation in 2025, apart from Raleigh being the obvious mainstay. If Garver is the backup, then Raposo can serve as an optionable depth piece in Triple-A. If Garver is going to be heavily in the DH mix, Raposo could battle for the backup job. The nature of that battle will depend on who else the M’s bring in, whether that’s veterans on non-roster deals or perhaps other waiver claims such as this one.

Phillies, Nick Vespi Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Phillies have agreed to a minor league deal with free agent left-hander Nick Vespi, reports Matt Gelb of The Athletic. The Ballengee Group client will be in big league camp as a non-roster invitee this spring.

Vespi, 29, has seen big league time with the Orioles in each of the past three seasons. He’s tallied 53 1/3 innings along the way, pitching to a solid 3.88 ERA with a slightly below-average 20.9% strikeout rate and a very strong 5.9% walk rate. Vespi embodies the “finesse lefty” archetype, sitting 89 mph on his cutter, but he’s missed bats (12.9% swinging-strike rate) and kept the ball on the ground (44.7%) at clips that are slightly better than league average.

Despite the solid work in the majors, Vespi was designated for assignment in late August and passed through waivers unclaimed. A disastrous showing in Triple-A this year surely contributed to that outcome. Vespi pitched 42 1/3 innings down in Norfolk but was rocked for a 7.23 ERA. A sky-high .424 average on balls in play played a role in inflating his earned run average, but Vespi also walked a very uncharacteristic 14.6% of his opponents and plunked three more. A whopping 16% of his opponents in Triple-A reached via base-on-balls or hit-by-pitch.

If Vespi can get back to the solid command he showed both in Triple-A and in the majors, he’ll have a good chance of pitching his way into the Phillies’ plans. He may not throw hard, but he’s been good in three Triple-A seasons prior to 2024 and has had some solid big league results in Baltimore. Vespi generally limits hard contact well — career 87.9 mph average exit velocity and 37.7% hard-hit rate — and did so quite well in Norfolk this year even while struggling with his bottom-line results (85.7 mph average exit velocity, 27.6% hard-hit rate).

He’ll need to earn the opportunity with a strong spring or impressive early work in Triple-A Lehigh Valley, but if Vespi does land on the big league roster, he can be controlled not only for the 2025 season but an additional five years beyond that point.

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