Diamondbacks Re-Sign Tommy Henry To Minor League Deal
The Diamondbacks and left-hander Tommy Henry have reunited on a minor league deal, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com. The southpaw underwent Tommy John surgery in June, so it’s possible this is a two-year deal, though the tracker doesn’t specify that.
Henry, now 28, has been in the Diamondbacks’ organization since being drafted in 2019. He made it to the big leagues in 2022 and has spent the past few years serving as an optionable swingman, working both as a starter and a reliever.
He exhausted his final option in 2025, which was going to make it tougher for him to hold a roster spot going forward, even before his surgery complicated things. The Snakes designated him for assignment last month in order to open roster space for prospects they wanted to protect from the Rule 5 draft. A few days later, Henry was non-tendered. That sent him to free agency without being exposed to waivers and allowed the Diamondbacks to bring him back in a non-roster capacity.
Henry will spent at least the first half of 2026 rehabbing. He could be back on the mound late in the year but missing the entire season is also a possibility. It’s anyone’s guess what the Arizona pitching staff will look like in the future. Currently, they definitely need arms, as guys like Corbin Burnes, A.J. Puk and Justin Martínez are also facing lengthy surgery rehabs at the moment. The team still has an entire offseason to make moves and then the 2026 campaign could go any number of ways.
Whenever Henry is recovered, he can try to earn his way back onto the roster. In his career, he has logged 181 big league innings, allowing 5.07 earned runs per nine. He has struck out 17.4% of batters faced, given out walks at a 9.4% clip and induced grounders at a 39.3% rate. If he gets a roster spot at some point down the line, he is out of options but has just barely two years of service time, meaning he is still cheap and controllable.
Photo courtesy of Mark J. Rebilas, Imagn Images
Twins To Sign Grant Hartwig To Minor League Deal
The Twins are going to sign right-hander Grant Hartwig to a minor league deal, reports Darren Wolfson of KSTP. The ACES client will also receive an invite to major league camp in spring training.
Hartwig, 28 this month, has a limited big league track record. He tossed 42 innings for the Mets over the 2023 and 2024 seasons. He allowed 24 earned runs, giving him a 5.14 ERA. He struck out 18% of batters faced and issued walks at a 10.1% rate, both subpar figures, but induced grounders on 46.5% of balls in play. He averaged in the mid-90s with his four-seamer and sinker while also mixing in a cutter, slider and changeup.
In June of the latter campaign, he required surgery to repair a meniscus tear in his left knee. He was non-tendered at the end of the year and re-signed on a minor league deal. In July of 2025, he headed overseas to play for Hanshin Tigers of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. He posted a 3.65 ERA for the Tigers in a small sample of 12 1/3 innings.
As a minor leaguer, Hartwig has generally been able to get strikeouts but hasn’t featured pristine control. Dating back to the start of 2023, he has thrown 94 2/3 innings on the farm, mostly at Triple-A. In that time, he has a 4.47 ERA, 25.6% strikeout rate and 11.3% walk rate. In 2025, he was out to a good start, having tossed 23 2/3 innings with a 3.42 ERA, 29.2% strikeout rate and 8.8% walk rate.
That was enough to get him interest in Japan but he didn’t make the most of the opportunity there. In his limited sample of work with the Tigers, he only struck out 15.1% of batters faced while giving out walks at a 13.2% clip. It’s always tough to find meaning in that kind of sample size but that should be especially true about a guy making a midseason move from MLB to Japan.
For the Twins, they stripped down their bullpen at last year’s deadline. They sent out Jhoan Duran, Griffin Jax, Louis Varland, Brock Stewart and Danny Coulombe. It’s unclear whether they plan for 2026 to be a sort of reset year or if they plan to reinvest in the roster in an attempt to compete. Either way, they will need some fresh bullpen arms. If Hartwig can crack the roster, he is still optionable and has less than a year of service time. That means he can provide roster flexibility and affordable control for the foreseeable future.
Photo courtesy of Reinhold Matay, Imagn Images
Reds Re-Sign Emilio Pagán
December 4th: The Reds officially announced the Pagán signing today.
December 3rd: The Reds are reportedly bringing back closer Emilio Pagán on a two-year, $20MM contract. The deal, which is pending a physical, allows the Ballengee Group client to opt out after next season. Cincinnati’s 40-man roster count will climb to 39 once the signing is finalized.
Pagán returns on another two-year deal after one of the best seasons of his career. The Reds surprisingly signed him to a $16MM contract over the 2023-24 offseason. There was obvious risk in adding a fly-ball pitcher to work in high-leverage spots at one of the sport’s most hitter-friendly parks. Pagán didn’t post great numbers and missed a couple months with a lat injury in 2024, so he had an easy call to bypass an opt-out and return to Cincinnati.
This year went a lot more smoothly. Pagán took over the closer role from Alexis Díaz and recorded a career-high 32 saves. He did blow six save chances but had a strong season overall, pitching to a 2.88 earned run average across 68 2/3 innings. He punched out 30% of opponents against a solid 8.1% walk rate. Pagán avoided any injuries and pitched well against left- and right-handed batters alike. He got swinging strikes at a strong 14.6% clip while sitting in the 95-96 MPH range with his fastball.
Pagán has always had an elite strikeout and walk profile. He hasn’t had the year-by-year consistency of the sport’s best closers, though. The fly-ball approach still leaves him vulnerable to the home run ball. Pagán has only had one season in his nine-year career in which he has allowed fewer home runs than the average reliever. He has surrendered 85 home runs since entering the league in 2017. That’s 19 more than any other reliever over that stretch.
The longball is always going to be an issue, but Pagán sticking around as a high-leverage reliever despite the homers is a testament to his effectiveness in other areas. He’s a reliable control artist with above-average velocity. His splitter gives him an option to attack opposite-handed hitters, while he mixes in a cutter as his main offspeed pitch versus righty batters. Pagán has generally been durable outside of the aforementioned lat strain. He has topped 50 innings in every other full schedule of his career, including six years with 60+ frames.
Pagán’s strong walk year earns him a nice contract for his age 35-36 seasons. The guarantee narrowly beats our two-year, $16MM prediction. Pagán also gets the upside of the out clause, which allows him to get back to free agency if he has an equally strong ’26 season. Another two-year deal at age 36 would be rare but not unprecedented, so it’s not out of the question that he pitches well enough to consider that route.
Assuming Terry Francona slots Pagán back in the ninth inning, he’ll pitch behind a solid setup group that includes Tony Santillan, Connor Phillips and Graham Ashcraft. Cincinnati should add a left-hander at some point. The only southpaw who’d be in their bullpen at the moment is Sam Moll, who was up and down from Triple-A Louisville throughout the year.
Cincinnati has $32.275MM in guaranteed contracts to six players: Pagán, Hunter Greene, Ke’Bryan Hayes, Jose Trevino, Ben Rortvedt, and Moll. They owe $15MM in dead money ($12MM salary and a $3MM option buyout payable after the World Series) to Jeimer Candelario. Cincinnati has a sizable arbitration class which MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projects to cost around $45MM. They’d owe another $8-10MM in minimum salary players, which puts their current commitments in the $100-105MM range. President of baseball operations Nick Krall said he expects payroll to be around the $116MM at which they opened the 2025 season.
That’d leave them with roughly $15-20MM to spend. They’re in the market for an impact bat and reportedly trying to bring Kyle Schwarber back to the Cincinnati area. That would surely cost more than $20MM annually. It’s possible ownership would make an exception for someone like Schwarber or Pete Alonso. The front office could also look to trade a player or two from the arbitration class to free up more spending capacity if they feel they’ve got a strong chance to sign an elite hitter.
Ken Rosenthal and C. Trent Rosecrans of The Athletic first reported that the Reds and Pagán had reached a two-year, $20MM deal with an out. Image courtesy of Imagn Images.
Padres Sign Ty Adcock To Major League Deal
The Padres announced that they have signed right-hander Ty Adcock to a one-year deal for the 2026 season. The Friars have multiple 40-man vacancies and don’t need to make a corresponding move.
Adcock is still a bit of a project, even though he was drafted over six years ago and will turn 29 years old in February. The Mariners selected him in the in eighth round of the 2019 draft but he wouldn’t make his professional debut for a few years. The pandemic wiped out the minor leagues in 2020 and then Adcock required Tommy John surgery in 2021. He has been back on the mound but has also spent time on the minor league injured list in each of the past three seasons.
Those stops and starts have limited his ability to rack up innings and have also pushed him into a fringe roster position. The M’s called him up in 2023 but he got bumped off the roster the following year. He went to the Tigers and Mets via waivers in 2024. The Mets released and re-signed him later that season. He was added back to the roster in 2025 but was later outrighted. He was able to elect free agency at season’s end.
Around all of that, he has thrown 23 major league innings, allowing 14 earned runs for a 5.48 ERA. He has thrown 94 innings in the minors with a 4.40 ERA. Those numbers may not leap off the page but the Padres are probably more interested in the stuff. Adcock’s fastball averaged over 97 miles per hour in his limited big league action this year. He also averaged over 93 mph on his cutter while mixing in a splitter, sinker and slider.
That stuff hasn’t yet translated into results but it’s still a small sample of work. He has a 20.4% strikeout rate in his major league innings but a more robust 25.2% rate in his slightly larger collection of minor league innings.
Adcock has exhausted his three option years but the Padres could be in position to apply for a fourth. A team can apply for a fourth option when a player has played fewer than five full seasons. In these instances, a “full season” involves spending 90 days on an active roster, either in the majors or minors. It’s also possible to be credited with a full season with 30 active days and then 90-plus days on the roster total when combined with injured list time. As mentioned, Adcock didn’t make his professional debut until 2022, so he would seem to qualify.
More clarity on his option status will perhaps be revealed in time. For now, he adds a wild card arm to the Padres’ bullpen, likely at minimal cost. Adcock has less than a year of service time and will probably make something close to the $780K league minimum.
That’s surely attractive for the Padres, given their ongoing financial crunch. Their bullpen has lost Robert Suarez to free agency and they also might end up moving Mason Miller and/or Adrián Morejón to the rotation. If Adcock thrives with the Padres, he can be retained until he gets to six years of service time and he is still years away from qualifying for arbitration.
Photo courtesy of Gregory Fisher, Imagn Images
Dodgers To Re-Sign Miguel Rojas
Miguel Rojas will play his final season as a Dodger. The World Series hero is reportedly in agreement with Los Angeles on a one-year, $5.5MM contract. Rojas, a client of Beverly Hills Sports Council, announced in October that he would retire after the 2026 season. He’ll reportedly jump right into a player development position with the Dodgers once his playing career is finished. That’ll push the team’s 40-man roster count to 38 once it’s official.
It’ll be Rojas’ fourth consecutive season in L.A. and his fifth as a Dodger overall. He broke into the majors with the team in 2014 but was traded to the Marlins after his rookie year. Rojas spent eight seasons in Miami, much of it as an everyday shortstop, until the Fish traded him back to the Dodgers over the 2022-23 offseason. He has worked in a utility role for the past three seasons and has been a strong contributor off the bench for Dave Roberts in the most recent two years.
Rojas owns a .273/.328/.404 batting line across 654 plate appearances in the past two seasons. He remains one of the toughest players in the league to strike out. Rojas is no longer an everyday shortstop but can back up Mookie Betts while logging more time between second and third base. He remains a quality utility piece who has also been regarded as a clubhouse leader in Miami and Los Angeles. The Dodgers intend to keep him in the organization beyond his playing days, which reflects his clearly strong relationship with the coaching staff and front office.
That all made it likely that the Dodgers would bring Rojas back regardless of what happened in the postseason. He then cemented himself in franchise lore and baseball history with one of the most dramatic, improbable home runs of all time.
Roberts penciled Rojas into the starting lineup for Games 6 and 7 of the World Series. He came up with one out in the ninth inning of the decider against Jeff Hoffman. With the Dodgers trailing by one, Rojas (who has never hit more than 11 home runs in a season) took Hoffman deep to left field to tie the game. It was one of the most impactful single plays ever, and the Dodgers went on to win in extras when Will Smith homered off Shane Bieber.
That one swing probably doesn’t have much bearing on Rojas’ contract. His $5.5MM salary is narrowly above the $5MM that he made in both 2024 and ’25. The Dodgers were very likely to bring him back to continue playing a utility role regardless. He’ll offer a right-handed complement to lefty hitting Max Muncy and Hyeseong Kim around the infield. The Dodgers could look to re-sign Kiké Hernández for a similar job, though that again wouldn’t leave much playing time for well-regarded prospect Alex Freeland.
The Dodgers have a projected payroll of $337MM for next season, according to RosterResource. A good portion of that money is deferred, of course. Their competitive balance tax number — which adjusts for contracts’ post-deferral values — sits at an estimated $319MM. They’re already in the top tax bracket and pay the highest fees as three-time repeat payors, meaning they’re hit with a 110% tax on any additions. They’ll pay $6.05MM in taxes on this deal, bringing the overall investment to $11.55MM. That’s not much by Dodgers standards, and they’ll hope Rojas plays a role in becoming the first team to win three straight titles since the 1998-2000 Yankees.
Daniel Álvarez-Montes of El Extrabase first reported the signing and terms. Image courtesy of John E. Sokolowski, Imagn Images.
Sam Hilliard Signs With KBO’s KT Wiz
The KT Wiz of the Korea Baseball Organization announced the signing of outfielder Sam Hilliard to a $1MM contract. He’ll collect a $300K signing bonus and make a $700K salary. Hilliard elected minor league free agency after being outrighted by Colorado in July.
A lefty-hitting outfielder, Hilliard has played parts of seven seasons in the big leagues. Most of that time has been with the Rockies, for whom he logged separate stats sandwiching a 2023 season in Atlanta. Hilliard has plus raw power and speed but has never made enough contact to stick as a regular. He has yet to appear in more than half a team’s games or top 238 plate appearances in an MLB season.
The 31-year-old Hilliard is a lifetime .218/.298/.437 hitter in a little under 1000 career trips to the plate. The former 15th-round draftee has punched out in 34.3% of those plate appearances. He’s a much more accomplished Triple-A performer. Hilliard has a .275/.356/.563 slash over six Triple-A campaigns. That includes a .288/.367/.565 showing with 17 homers in 91 games for Colorado’s top affiliate this past season.
This is Hilliard’s first trip to Asia, where he’ll take home a stronger salary than he’d have received on a minor league deal. Hilliard completes the Wiz’s trio of allotted foreign-born players. The team signed right-handers Matt Sauer and Caleb Boushley earlier in the offseason.
Jose Ruiz Signs With NPB’s Yokohama BayStars
The Yokohama DeNA BayStars of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball announced yesterday that they’ve signed reliever José Ruiz. MLBTR’s Steve Adams reports that it’s a one-year deal with a 2027 club option. The OL Baseball Group client is guaranteed $1.2MM and can collect another $200K per season in incentives.
Ruiz, 31, split last season between the Phillies and Braves. He opened the year in Philadelphia’s big league bullpen but was hit hard, giving up 13 earned runs across 14 1/3 innings. They designated him for assignment and lost him on waivers to Atlanta at the beginning of June. Ruiz didn’t get much of a look from the Braves, who dropped him after he gave up three runs to the Rockies in his second appearance. He cleared waivers that time around and spent the rest of the season in Triple-A.
Atlanta flipped Ruiz to the Rangers as a salary offset in the Dane Dunning deal a month later. He didn’t make it back to the majors with Texas. The Venezuelan righty pitched well in Triple-A, though, combining for a 2.73 ERA in 33 innings. He struck out 24% of opponents against an excellent 5.4% walk percentage.
Ruiz has logged some big league action in each of the past nine seasons. He spent most of his career with the White Sox but was a useful middle reliever for the Phillies as recently as 2024. This is his first stint in Asia. The $1.2MM guarantee is better than he would’ve received had he sought minor league opportunities in affiliated ball. He’s young enough to explore a return down the line if he pitches well in Japan.
Mets Sign Devin Williams To Three-Year Deal
December 3: The Mets have officially announced their signing of Williams.
December 1: Another free agent reliever has come off the board. The Mets are reportedly in agreement with Devin Williams on a three-year deal that guarantees the Klutch Sports client $51MM, though the net present value is knocked down by $15MM in deferrals.
Williams receives a $6MM signing bonus that’ll be paid in $2MM installments. He receives $15MM annual salaries, $5MM of which is deferred each season. (Signing bonuses are paid even in the event of a work stoppage, while players would not receive salaries for any games lost to a 2027 lockout.) There’s also reportedly a $1MM assignment bonus in the event of a trade.
A second-round pick by the Brewers in 2013, Williams took a while to climb through the minor leagues as a starting pitcher. He took off after being moved to the bullpen in 2019, climbing from Double-A to the big leagues by the end of that season. Williams emerged as one of the sport’s best late-game weapons by his first full big league season. He turned in a 0.33 ERA across 27 innings during the shortened 2020 schedule and claimed the National League Rookie and Reliever of the Year Awards.
The righty continued to dominate over the next few seasons, forming a lethal back-end duo with Josh Hader. Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns had a front row seat as Milwaukee’s front office leader for most of that tenure. Williams stepped into the ninth inning when Milwaukee sent Hader to San Diego at the ’22 deadline. He reeled off 36 saves in 40 tries with a 1.53 ERA to win his second career Reliever of the Year honors a year later.
Over his first four full seasons, Williams pitched to a 1.75 ERA while striking out 40.5% of opposing hitters. Heading into 2024, there was a decent argument for him as the best reliever in MLB. He hit his first real setback that Spring Training, as testing revealed two stress fractures in his back. He didn’t make his season debut until shortly before the trade deadline. Williams looked every bit as dominant during the regular season, reeling off 21 2/3 frames of three-run ball with 38 strikeouts to finish the year. His season ended in heartbreak fashion, as he surrendered a go-ahead homer to Pete Alonso in the final game of the Wild Card Series.
That wound up being Williams’ final action in a Milwaukee uniform. Before his last year of arbitration, the Brewers flipped him to the Yankees for starter Nestor Cortes and rookie infielder Caleb Durbin. The Yankees felt they were acquiring one of the ten best relievers in the sport. Williams’ results, at least, didn’t come close to those expectations.
The 31-year-old righty had an inconsistent lone season in the Bronx. He was terrible early on, giving up multiple runs in three of his first 10 appearances. Consecutive poor outings at the end of April led the Yankees to move him to a setup role and put Luke Weaver back into the ninth inning. Williams had one more rough appearance in early May before settling into a groove over the next few weeks. He returned to closing when Weaver landed on the injured list at the beginning of June.
Williams was lights out from that point through the All-Star Break. He gave up runs in seven of his first nine appearances of the second half, though, and the Yankees pushed him out of the closer role for good when they acquired David Bednar at the trade deadline. Williams posted a 5.06 ERA in the second half despite striking out nearly 40% of batters faced — the second-best rate among qualified relievers behind Mason Miller. He worked in a setup capacity late in the season and into the playoffs. Williams tossed four scoreless frames with four strikeouts in the postseason.
The end result was a career-worst 4.79 earned run average over 67 appearances. The Mets are placing a decent sized bet that the poor run prevention was a fluke. Opponents had a .339 batting average on balls in play when runners were on base. That’s easily the highest mark in Williams’ career (aside from his brief 2019 debut). He had a very difficult time stranding runners as a result. While relievers certainly need to be able to work out of tough situations, that had never previously been an issue.
Batted ball metrics can be volatile, especially for relievers who only throw 60-70 innings in a season. Williams’ stuff still grades out extremely well, and he remains capable of missing bats at a level that few other pitchers can match. He struck out 34.7% of opponents behind a 16.8% swinging strike rate. Those are down slightly from his usual marks but remain among the best in MLB. Among relievers with 50+ innings, Williams finished eighth in strikeout rate and 10th in whiffs.
Williams has two pitches which he has used at roughly equal rates over the past couple seasons. His fastball sits around 94 MPH and while it’s a good pitch, his standout offering is his unique “Airbender” screwball/changeup. The pitch still moves unlike any other changeup in the league, and opponents have hit below .200 against it in every full season of his career.
The underlying numbers made Williams a popular “buy-low” target among teams and fanbases. That is borne out in the contract to an extent. Williams might have been in the running for a $100MM deal had he posted another sub-2.00 ERA season. It didn’t force him to settle for a pillow contract, as he’s still being paid as a high-end reliever. Williams falls well short of the four years and $72MM which Tanner Scott commanded last winter, but he’s within the $46-58MM range in which closers Robert Suarez, Liam Hendriks and Raisel Iglesias have found themselves over the past few offseasons. He came up shy of the four years and $68MM which MLBTR had predicted in ranking him the second-best reliever in the class.
While an ugly walk year ERA still has some impact on a pitcher’s market, Williams is the third example this offseason of teams placing a decent amount of emphasis on stuff and whiffs in spite of that. Dylan Cease commanded a seven-year deal from the Blue Jays coming off a 4.55 ERA over 32 starts. Ryan Helsley pulled $14MM annually from the Orioles on a two-year contract with an opt-out despite a brutal finish to his 2025 season with the Mets. It’s easier for clubs to place that kind of bet on pitchers coming from a different team. The Mets were never likely to bring back Helsley, and while the Yankees reportedly kept in contact with Williams’ camp, they also opted not to issue him a $22.025MM qualifying offer that probably would have kept him around on a one-year deal.
The Mets obviously don’t feel that Williams is incapable of succeeding in New York. He’ll slot into a key late-inning role in Carlos Mendoza’s bullpen. He projects as the closer for now but could slide back into a setup capacity if the Mets bring back Edwin Díaz, which they’re reportedly still considering. If the Mets allow their longtime closer to walk, they’ll need to bring in multiple right-handed setup arms to bridge the gap to Williams in the ninth.
RosterResource projects the Mets’ 2026 payroll and luxury tax commitments in the $277-280MM range. They’re likely to end up beyond the $304MM final surcharge threshold by the time they address the rotation, bullpen, and/or first base and the corner outfield. The estimate from FanGraphs currently has them in the second tier of penalization — just below the $284MM cutoff for Tier 3. They’re taxed at a 62% rate for spending between $264MM and $284MM, so the Williams signing comes with an approximate $8-10MM tax hit depending on the calculation of the net present value. They’ll pay a 95% tax on spending between $284MM and $304MM and a 110% bill on any money beyond $304MM.
Will Sammon of The Athletic reported that the Mets and Williams had agreed to a three-year deal. ESPN’s Jeff Passan noted that the guarantee was above $50MM, while Jon Heyman of The New York Post had the salary/bonus/deferral breakdown. The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal was first on the assignment bonus.
Image courtesy of Wendell Cruz, Imagn Images.
Braves Sign Austin Pope To Minor League Deal
The Braves have signed right-hander Austin Pope to a minor league deal, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com. The Beverly Hills Sports Council client has been assigned to Triple-A Gwinnett for now but will presumably receive an invite to big league spring training.
Pope, 27, joins a new organization for the first time in his career. The pontiff was drafted by the Diamondbacks back in 2019. He climbed the minor league ladder and got to make brief major league debut in 2025. He was added to the roster in the final week of the regular season and got to make one appearance. On September 25th, with the Snakes down 8-0 to the Dodgers, Pope tossed two scoreless innings of mop-up duty. He allowed two hits and a walk while striking out one.
The righty was outrighted off the roster at the end of the season and was able to elect free agency, which has allowed Atlanta to scoop him up. They are presumably placing stock in Pope’s minor league results. Over the past three years, he has thrown 160 1/3 innings in the minor leagues, mostly with the Triple-A Reno Aces. His 4.55 earned run average in that time isn’t especially impressive but the Aces play in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League. His 9.4% walk rate in that time was pretty close to average while his 27.6% strikeout rate was quite strong.
Pope still has a full slate of option and just a handful of service days. If he gets added to Atlanta’s roster at any point, he can give the club a depth arm with roster flexibility and years of cheap control. For now, he can provide them papal depth without taking up a spot on the 40-man.
Photo courtesy of Rob Schumacher, Imagn Images
Guardians, Connor Brogdon Agree To Major League Deal
The Guardians and right-hander Connor Brogdon have agreed to a major league deal, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. Brogdon will make a salary of $900K next year, per Zack Meisel of The Athletic. The Guardians have 40-man vacancies and don’t need to make a corresponding move.
It’s a bit surprising to see Brogdon, 31 in January, secure himself a big league deal. He settled for a minor league deal with the Angels last winter. He was added to the roster a couple of times during the season, but was later passed through waivers in both instances. He tossed 47 innings for the Halos around those transactions, allowing 5.55 earned runs per nine.
Those were obviously not great results but the Guardians are presumably seeing something attractive under the hood. Brogdon’s 24.6% strikeout rate and 9% walk rate were both close to league average. His ERA was inflated because he allowed 11 home runs, almost doubling his previous career high of six. There are some ERA estimators which consider home run spikes to be fluky. Brogdon’s SIERA, for instance, was just 3.86 this year.
It’s also perhaps worth pointing out that Brogdon’s velocity came back. He averaged 95.5 miles per hour on his fastball in 2025. In 2024, he had battled plantar fasciitis and only tossed three big league innings. In that small sample of work, his fastball was down to 92.8 mph.
The Guardians presumably feel there’s a path to get Brogdon back to his previous results. From 2020 to 2022, then with the Phillies, Brogdon tossed 113 innings with a 3.42 ERA, 25.1% strikeout rate and 7.3% walk rate. He earned three saves and 16 holds. He also tossed 8 2/3 postseason innings with a 2.08 ERA in 2022, as the Phils made it all the way to the World Series. His fastball velo was in the 95-96 mph range for those seasons.
In 2023, his results backed up. He posted a 4.03 ERA with a 20.5% strikeout rate and 10.2% walk rate. His average fastball velo fell to 94.7 mph. The following year, he bounced to the Dodgers and battled the aforementioned plantar fasciitis situation. With the Angels in 2025, his results weren’t fully back but the velo and strikeouts were close to his best years in Philadelphia.
The Guards generally have pretty good bullpens and that was the case in 2025. Even though they lost Emmanuel Clase to a gambling investigation in July, the club’s relief corps still finished the season with a collective 3.44 ERA, third in the majors behind the Padres and Red Sox. Brogdon will jump into that mix as the Guards try to coax better results out of him than the Angels did in 2025.
Brogdon is out of options, meaning he can’t be sent to the minors without being exposed to waivers. If the Guards pass him through waivers at some point, he would have the right to elect free agency as a player with at least three years of service time. However, since he has less than five years of service, he would have to forfeit his remaining salary commitments in order to exercise that right.
The $900K salary isn’t that high, considering the MLB minimum will be $780K next year. However, it is perhaps enough to dissuade other teams from claiming Brogdon. It’s also very unlikely Brogdon choose to leave that money on the table. Perhaps the Guardians are planning on having Brogdon in Triple-A as non-roster depth at some point in the future. If he is holding a roster spot at the end of the 2026 season, he can be retained via arbitration for 2027.
Photo courtesy of Ed Szczepanski, Imagn Images