Orioles Claim George Soriano, Designate Daniel Johnson For Assignment
The Orioles announced that they have claimed right-hander George Soriano off waivers from the Marlins. Outfielder Daniel Johnson has been designated for assignment as the corresponding move.
There wasn’t any previous indication that Soriano had been designated for assignment or put on waivers, but roster maintenance is common at this time of year. The 60-day injured list goes away five days after the end of the World Series, which can often lead to roster crunches. RosterResource projects the Marlins to have 46 players on their 40-man roster. Soriano clears up one spot but further moves will be necessary this week.
Soriano, 27 in March, joins a new organization for the first time in his career. The Marlins signed him as an amateur out of the Dominican Republic way back in 2015. He climbed his way up the minor league ladder, initially as a starter but with more time as a reliever as he got to the higher levels. He was added to the 40-man roster in November 2022 to keep him out of the Rule 5 draft.
He has spent the past three years as an up-and-down arm, getting shuttled between Miami and Triple-A Jacksonville. He hasn’t had a ton of major league success so far. In 118 innings, he has allowed 5.95 earned runs per nine. His 22% strikeout rate is close to average but his 10.3% walk rate is high and his 38.7% ground ball rate is low. He did show some potential in Triple-A this year. He logged 42 2/3 innings for the Jumbo Shrimp with a 2.32 ERA, 28.8% strikeout rate, 8.8% walk rate and 55.7% ground ball rate.
Soriano has exhausted his option years and is therefore out of options going forward. That presumably led the Marlins to nudge him off the roster. The Orioles have a lot of work to do on the bullpen. They traded away a number of relievers at last year’s deadline and then lost Félix Bautista to a shoulder surgery. Soriano could compete for a bullpen job in the spring, though it’s also possible they look to pass him through waivers at some point in the offseason.
Some things last a long time but not Johnson’s most recent stint on Baltimore’s roster. The 30-year-old was claimed off waivers from the Giants in August. He has 152 big league plate appearances over four separate seasons, with a dismal .196/.243/.322 slash line. In the minors, he has generally performed better at the plate, with some speed to boot. Dating back to the start of 2023, he has a .266/.331/.464 line and 105 wRC+ with 54 stolen bases.
He’s a solid speed-and-defense depth outfielder but he exhausted his final option season in 2025. He was going to have a hard time holding onto a roster spot next year, so the O’s have bumped him off today in order to grab Soriano. Johnson has a previous career outright, so he will have the right to elect free agency if he is passed through waivers unclaimed.
Photo courtesy of Jerome Miron, Imagn Images
Rockies Claim Troy Johnston
The Rockies announced Wednesday that they’ve claimed infielder/outfielder Troy Johnston off waivers from the Marlins. Colorado also reinstated Kris Bryant and righty Jeff Criswell from the 60-day injured list, adding both back to the 40-man roster.
Johnston, 28, was a 17th-round pick by Miami back in 2019 and has been a career-long Marlin to this point. He made his big league debut this season after a lengthy run of productive campaigns n the upper minors. The Gonzaga product hit .277/.331/.420 with four home runs in 121 plate appearances during his first run at the MLB level.
In Johnston, the Rockies are adding an older but controllable player with a strong minor league track record. Johnston is a career .281/.367/.458 hitter in seven minor league seasons. His .267/.345/.438 slash in parts of four Triple-A campaigns is weighed down a bit by an awful debut there back in 2022 (116 plate appearances), but he’s been an above-average hitter with the Marlins’ top affiliate in Jacksonville each season since.
Though Johnston has primarily been a first baseman in the minors, with more than 4300 innings logged at the position, he’s also suited up for 826 innings in left field and 492 innings in right field. Since his contract was selected to the 40-man roster for the first time this season and he wasn’t optioned back down thereafter, he’ll join the Rox with a full slate of three minor league option years remaining.
It’s not entirely clear who’s making roster calls in the Colorado front office at the moment. The Rockies fired GM Bill Schmidt shortly after the season, and longtime assistant GM Zack Rosenthal left the club shortly thereafter. Owner Dick Monfort and his son, executive vice president Walker Monfort, have been conducting a search for a new baseball operations leader over the past month but have yet to announce a hire. It’s possible they’re making calls with input from some of the still-remaining midlevel baseball operations executives while continuing through a hiring process that as of last week was down to two finalists but once again appears more wide open.
Jorge Polanco Declines Player Option
Infielder Jorge Polanco is now a free agent, reports Jon Heyman of The New York Post. Heyman says Polanco is turning down an $8MM mutual option but Polanco actually converted that to a $6MM player option during the season. Regardless of the details, the larger point is that Polanco is heading back to the open market, collecting a $750K buyout on his way out the door.
The decision is not a surprise. Polanco is coming off a tremendous bounceback season. He stepped to the plate 524 times and hit 26 home runs. His .265/.326/.495 batting line translated to a 132 wRC+, his best offensive performance over a full season in his career.
It wasn’t a perfect season. Ongoing knee problems kept him mostly in the designated hitter spot, though he appeared to get healthier as the year wore on. He made just 34 starts at second base but most of those were after the All-Star break, including 15 in September.
He undoubtedly has more earning power now than he did a year ago, despite being a year older. The aforementioned knee problems limited him to just 118 games with a rough .213/.296/.355 slash line and 93 wRC+. He underwent knee surgery in October. Despite that poor showing and uncertain health status, the Mariners still re-signed him to a one-year deal with a $7.75MM guarantee. That came in the form of a $7MM salary plus a $750K buyout on an $8MM mutual option. Polanco could convert that to a $6MM player option with 450 plate appearances, which he easily topped.
His better platform season and improved health outlook should line him up for a better deal, likely with multiple years, so turning down one year and $6MM is an easy call. The Mariners have interest in bringing him back but he will have other suitors as well and Seattle may be prioritizing a Josh Naylor reunion.
Photo courtesy of Jordan Godfree, Imagn Images
Braves To Exercise Club Option On Chris Sale
The Braves are exercising their club option on left-hander Chris Sale, according to a report from Jon Heyman of The New York Post. Sale will make $18MM in 2026.
The call to pick up Sale’s option for the 2026 campaign is surely one of the easiest option decisions any team will make this offseason. Sale, 36, is one of the best pitchers of his generation and won the NL Cy Young award in 2024. He was on track to compete for the award again this year, with a 2.52 ERA and 2.71 FIP through 15 starts, but he found himself sidelined for ten weeks over the summer due to a ribcage fracture. He looked just as dominant as ever when he returned, however, with a 2.72 ERA and 2.58 FIP across six starts in August and September. His stuff looked just as good as ever down the stretch, and he struck out an eye-popping 36.4% of his opponents in his 36 1/3 innings of work.
That Sale is pitching well is hardly a surprise, as he’s put together a Hall of Fame-caliber resume over the years. A nine-time All-Star who placed in the top five for AL Cy Young award voting six times before winning the NL award last year, Sale’s career 3.01 ERA, 2.88 FIP, and 30.8% strikeout rate know few equals throughout the game. He’s seventh all-time in strikeout rate among starting pitchers, and his run prevention and peripheral numbers match up well with titans of the sport like Clayton Kershaw and Pedro Martinez despite some of his counting numbers being held back by a relative lack of volume.
Fortunately, that relative lack of volume also means a relative lack of mileage on his arm, as compared to other players in his age range. Even with his 37th birthday on the horizon in March, Sale figures to serve as the club’s ace once again in 2026. He’ll be at the front of an Atlanta rotation with a lot of exciting upside but precious little certainty. Spencer Strider has shown the capacity to be a Cy Young caliber arm in the past, but had a disappointing 4.45 ERA in 2025. Spencer Schwellenbach has a career 3.23 ERA but was sidelined after just 17 starts this past season. Reynaldo Lopez had a 1.99 ERA in 2024 but didn’t appear in a game after March 28th this year.
Adding at least one proven, reliable rotation arm to this group figures to be a priority for the Braves this offseason, though it’s possible they could look to do more than that given the group’s collective injury history and questions about Lopez’s ability to handle the workload of a starter long-term. Even with additions likely on the horizon, though, there’s little doubt that Sale will be making his seventh career Opening Day start (and second for the Braves) in 2026 as long as he completes Spring Training with a clean bill of health.
Yankees To Exercise Club Option On Tim Hill, Decline Club Option On Jonathan Loaisiga
The Yankees are exercising their club option on Tim Hill, according to a report from ESPN’s Jorge Castillo. Hill will return to New York on a $3MM salary in 2026. Castillo also reports that the Yankees are not picking up their club option on right-hander Jonathan Loaisiga. Loaisiga will head into free agency rather than collecting what would have been a $5MM salary next year.
Neither of these decisions are especially surprising. Hill, 36 in February, has turned in excellent production for the Yankees over the past two seasons with a 2.68 ERA in 111 innings since being acquired from the White Sox midway through the 2024 season. His peripheral numbers took a big step back in 2025 thanks to eight home runs surrendered that coincided with the highest barrel rate of his career (7.9%). That jump wasn’t helped by the fact that Hill has never been a strikeout artist, and his 13.9% punch out rate this year was actually his best since 2021.
Even so, Hill continues to generate ground balls at some of the highest rates in the league. That makes keeping him in the bullpen at a $3MM price tag something of a no-brainer, and he’ll enter the year as the club’s top left-handed relief option barring an external addition that supplants him on the depth chart. That could leave him in the mix for some high leverage opportunities next year, while David Bednar and Camilo Doval shut things down from the right side.
As for Loaisiga, the right-hander’s eighth year with the Yankees looks likely to be his final one. At one point in his career, the hard-throwing righty looked like a future closer as he posted a 2.50 ERA with a 3.03 FIP between the 2020 and ’21 seasons. Things have unraveled for Loaisiga since, however. He was only pedestrian in 2022 and then missed nearly two full seasons due to injuries. He did manage to make 30 appearances for the Yankees this year, but his 97 ERA+ was just below average and a 5.83 FIP suggested even that figure was aided by some good fortune. His season was cut short by a flexor strain, and he appears likely to enter the market this winter on the hunt for a minor league deal.
With Bednar, Doval, Fernando Cruz, Jake Bird, Ian Hamilton, and Mark Leiter Jr. all in the mix for next year, the Yankees look to be reasonably well set up in the bullpen on the right side. An addition beyond that group can’t necessarily be ruled out, however, as the departures of both Devin Williams and Luke Weaver in conjunction with shaky performances down the stretch from both Bednar and Doval could create a desire to bring in a more surefire closing option.
Shane Bieber To Exercise Player Option
Shane Bieber has surprisingly exercised his $16MM option to remain with the Blue Jays, reports Jon Heyman of The New York Post. He’s passing on a $4MM buyout, so he’ll pick up an extra $12MM to remain in Toronto for a second season.
The decision removes one of the better starting pitchers from the free agent market. Bieber was midway through a Tommy John rehab when he hit free agency for the first time in his career last offseason. He re-signed with the Guardians, then the only organization he’d known, on a two-year deal that allowed him to opt out after season one. Bieber was on a minor league rehab assignment when the trade deadline rolled around. Cleveland, then believing they were out of contention, traded him to Toronto for pitching prospect Khal Stephen.
The Blue Jays made one of the more fascinating risk-reward decisions of the deadline. They surrendered a legitimate prospect for a potential rental starter who hadn’t pitched in an MLB game in more than 14 months. It worked out well, as Bieber returned as the #3 caliber starter he had been with the Guards in 2023. He made seven regular season starts and turned in a 3.57 earned run average across 40 1/3 innings. Bieber fanned an above-average 23.3% of opposing hitters against an excellent 4.4% walk rate. He looked fully healthy and averaged 92.6 MPH on his four-seam fastball — his best velocity since 2021.
Bieber added another 18 2/3 frames over five postseason appearances. He pitched pretty well overall, allowing nine runs (eight earned) with 18 punchouts against six free passes. Bieber did surrender three playoff home runs, including the World Series-deciding Will Smith longball in extra innings of Game 7. It ended in disappointment, but Bieber was generally effective for the Jays both in the regular season and October.
That seemingly positioned him well for a return free agent trip this winter. Bieber turns 31 in May. While he’s unlikely to recapture the ace form that earned him the AL Cy Young award in the shortened 2020 season, he’d certainly have gotten plenty of interest as a mid-rotation starter who is still young for a free agent. A nine-figure deal didn’t seem entirely out of the question. At the very least, he looked set for a higher average annual value on a two- or three-year guarantee that allowed him to opt out after the first season.
The $12MM difference between the option price and the buyout is well below market value for a pitcher of Bieber’s caliber even if he were determined to take a one-year deal. As shown on MLBTR’s Contract Tracker, that’s less than Walker Buehler, Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, Alex Cobb, Charlie Morton and Tomoyuki Sugano pulled on free agent contracts last winter. It’s a few million dollars above the guarantees signed by Michael Soroka ($9MM) and Michael Lorenzen ($7MM).
Bieber will nevertheless lock that in and try to help the Jays get over the top in 2026 after their heartbreaking near miss. Only his camp knows the specific reasoning behind that decision. Speculatively speaking, it’s possible he’s hopeful of hammering out a longer-term deal with the Jays. He’s clearly comfortable with the city and the organization. However, there hasn’t been any reporting to suggest the sides have opened extension talks, much less made significant progress. That’s not to say it’s impossible that such conversations have taken place behind the scenes, but the option decision is a huge development for the team.
Toronto had been facing the free agent departures of Bieber, Max Scherzer and Chris Bassitt in the rotation. They’re balancing their starting pitching needs against their desire to retain Bo Bichette, who could command a $200MM+ contract that makes him the second highest-paid player in the free agent class. Bieber voluntarily locking in a below-market salary to rejoin Kevin Gausman, Trey Yesavage and José Berríos is a major boost. They’ll still look to add at least one more starter, but this could give the Jays more flexibility to make a competitive offer to Bichette and/or upgrade the late innings.
Image courtesy of John Sokolowski, Imagn Images.
Royals Sign Salvador Perez To Two-Year Extension
Salvador Perez will remain in Kansas City for at least another two seasons. The Royals announced an extension with the nine-time All-Star that covers the 2026-27 campaigns. It’s reportedly a $25MM guarantee for the Beverly Hills Sports Council client, though it actually amounts to $23MM in new money. Perez had been guaranteed a $2MM buyout on a $13.5MM club option for the upcoming season.
There’s a decent amount of deferred money that reduces the net present value. Perez receives a $7MM signing bonus that will be paid in annual installments between 2030-34. He makes $9MM salaries for the next two seasons, with $2.5MM annually deferred until 2030-34. The Royals will only pay Perez $13MM during the next two years. Meanwhile, the decent-sized signing bonus ensures he’d get that money even if a work stoppage threatens players’ salaries in 2027.
General manager J.J. Picollo said at the end of September that the Royals would bring Perez back, though he left open the possibility of a new contract rather than simply exercising the option. That’s indeed how things played out. Teams and players have until Thursday to decide on all option decisions. That presumably served as an unofficial deadline for the Royals and Perez to get a new deal in place. The deferrals save the Royals $7MM next year compared to the option value, while the catcher locks in more money down the line with some protection against a lockout.
Perez, 36 in May, is headed into his 15th full season in the big leagues. He’s obviously one of the most accomplished players in team history and seems likely to be a Royal for life. He’s seventh in franchise history in games played and trails only George Brett in both home runs and runs batted in. Perez isn’t going to make up the nearly 600 RBI he’d need to run down Brett, but he should become the franchise’s home run leader next season barring a significant injury. He has 303 longballs, placing him 14 behind the Hall of Famer’s career total.
A healthy Perez should still easily hit 15+ homers in 2026. He drilled 30 round-trippers this year and has eclipsed 20 homers in all but one full schedule dating back to 2014. The lone exception was the ’19 season which he missed due to Tommy John surgery. Perez trailed only Cal Raleigh, Shea Langeliers and Hunter Goodman in home runs among primary catchers this past season. Raleigh is the only other catcher who drove in at least 100 runs.
While Perez remains a legitimate power threat, the flaws in his game are equally well known. He has never been a patient hitter, and he’s coming off his third sub-.300 OBP in the past four seasons. Perez hit .236/.284/.446 across 641 trips to the plate. The overall slash line is a little worse than league average despite the gaudy homer and RBI tallies. It is still strong production from the catcher position, but Perez has begun to branch out to first base or designated hitter a little more often as he has gotten into his mid-30s.
The five-time Gold Glove winner still has a plus arm and did an excellent job shutting down the running game. Pitch framing metrics have panned his receiving work throughout his career. That remained the case in 2025. Statcast also graded him as the second-worst blocking catcher in the sport, better only than Marlins’ rookie Agustín Ramírez (who somehow committed 19 passed balls in 73 games).
There’s very little chance that Wins Above Replacement models are going to look favorably on this deal. Both FanGraphs and Baseball Reference had Perez only marginally above replacement this year. The Royals have long valued the player a lot more highly than public advanced metrics would suggest. He has always been a revered clubhouse presence and fan favorite, and he won the Roberto Clemente award in 2024 for his contributions in the community (both in Kansas City and his native Venezuela). He served as the bridge between their 2015 World Series team and the ’24 club that returned to the playoffs after a nine-year drought.
They weren’t able to get to October this past season. A lack of offense and some late-season rotation injuries combined to drop them to an 82-80 record. Perez will be back as the primary catcher and should split first base/DH work with Vinnie Pasquantino and Jac Caglianone. The Royals will want to work rookie Carter Jensen into the mix more frequently behind the dish. The 22-year-old was called up in September after K.C. traded longtime backup Freddy Fermin to the Padres at the deadline. Jensen hit .300 with three homers in his first 20 games, an impressive follow-up to a .290/.377/.501 season at Triple-A Omaha.
The Royals have around $140MM in estimated commitments for next season, according to RosterResource. Perez joins Bobby Witt Jr. ($19MM), Seth Lugo ($20MM), Michael Wacha ($14MM) and Cole Ragans ($7.5MM) as their players with contracts for 2027. They’re also locked in to at least a $2MM buyout on a club option for Carlos Estévez.
Anne Rogers of MLB.com first reported the $25MM guarantee, the $7MM bonus, and the presence of deferrals. The Associated Press had the specific deferral structure. Image courtesy of William Purnell, Imagn Images.
Padres Decline Options On Elias Díaz, Tyler Wade, Kyle Hart
The Padres have turned down options on three players, per Annie Heilbrunn of the San Diego Union-Tribune. They have declined a $7MM mutual option for catcher Elias Díaz, going for the $2MM buyout instead. Infielder/outfielder Tyler Wade‘s $1MM club option has been turned down in favor of a $50K buyout. Left-hander Kyle Hart‘s $5MM club option has been turned down in favor of a $500K buyout. All three will head to free agency.
None of the three moves comes as a major shock. The Padres signed Díaz last offseason, a one-year deal with a $3.5MM guarantee for his age-34 campaign. That took the form of a $1.5MM salary and a $2MM buyout on the $7MM mutual option. It’s been over a decade since both sides of a mutual option were exercised. They are usually a way for the team to kick part of the payment down the road. That appears to be the case here, as the option buyout was more than the salary in this case.
Díaz got into 106 games for the Padres, slashing .204/.270/.337 for a 74 wRC+. His defense was considered around par. With Díaz now removed, the Padres are down to two backstops on the roster. Freddy Fermin projects as the top option. Luis Campusano is still there but the club doesn’t appear to trust him behind the plate, as they opted to give playing time to older veterans like Díaz and Martín Maldonado, even though Campusano was crushing in the minors. It wouldn’t be surprising if Campusano were traded, now that he’s out of options, with the Friars circling back to Díaz or some other veteran.
Wade, 31 in November, has long been a glove-first utility guy in the majors. He got into 60 games for the Padres this year and played all the outfield slots as well as the three infield positions to the left of first base. However, he hit just .206/.309/.252.
The Padres signed Hart in February, hoping he could build off a strong year in Korea. Pitching for the KBO’s NC Dinos in 2024, he posted a 2.69 ERA in 157 innings. The Friars brought him back to North America on a one-year deal with a $1.5MM guarantee. That included a $1MM salary this year and a $500K buyout on a $5MM club option.
Unfortunately, his return to the majors didn’t go smoothly. He logged 43 big league innings with a 5.86 earned run average this year. His 20.7% strikeout rate and 7.3% walk rate were decent but he was mostly used in a low leverage swingman role. The Friars need pitching but they have a tight budget and Hart didn’t perform well, so it’s understandable that they haven’t given him a raise.
Photo courtesy of Denis Poroy, Imagn Images
Pirates Place Ji Hwan Bae, Liover Peguero, Jack Little On Waivers
The Pirates have placed three players on waivers. One of them is outfielder Ji Hwan Bae, per Danny Demilio of Pittsburgh Baseball Now. The other two are infielder Liover Peguero and right-hander Jack Little, per Colin Beazley of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
At one point, the now-26-year-old Bae was a high-profile international signing who ranked among the organization’s better farmhands. He’s appeared in parts of four big league seasons but has never found his stride. The South Korea native carries a meek .223/.294/.293 line in 514 trips to the plate at the MLB level. He’s a good runner, swiping 37 bags in 49 tries (75.6%) and sitting in the 82nd percentile of MLB players in terms of average sprint speed, but Bae has fanned in more than one-quarter of his plate appearances and sits well below average in terms of exit velocity, hard-hit rate and other batted-ball metrics.
Originally a middle infielder, Bae never developed into a passable option at shortstop due in large part to subpar arm strength. The Bucs have given him plenty of run at second base and in center field — more the latter in recent seasons — but he hasn’t drawn quality grades at either position. He’s continually posted strong numbers in Triple-A (.305/.389/.451 in 1109 plate appearances) and has a minor league option remaining.
Peguero was an even more highly touted prospect than Bae. Originally acquired from the D-backs in exchange for Starling Marte, he’s a former top-100 prospect whom the organization at one point viewed as a possible shortstop of the future. In an all-too-common refrain for Pirates position prospects, however, his bat never came around. Peguero has seen action in four big league seasons but has mustered only a .227/.278/.368 slash line in 315 turns at the plate.
Unlike Bae, Peguero has also looked overmatched at the top minor league level. Outside of a late-2023 cameo in Triple-A where he smacked a pair of homers in 30 promising plate appearances, Peguero has produced well below-average numbers with the Pirates’ top affiliate in Indianapolis. He’s a .253/.317/.403 hitter in 888 plate appearances there, including a career-worst .247/.313/.375 showing in 75 games with Indy this season. Baseball America and other outlets have lauded his quality defensive tools but also noted a penchant for slipping into poor mechanical stretches that lead to far too many throwing errors. Peguero is out of minor league options.
The 27-year-old Little came to the Pirates via waivers in August. He made his MLB debut with the Dodgers in 2025. Los Angeles selected Little out of Stanford with its fifth-round pick back in 2019. He’s pitched only three MLB innings and posted a 4.06 ERA with a 20.2% strikeout rate and 8.4% walk rate in 62 relief innings between the two organizations’ Triple-A affiliates in 2025.
Little sits 94 mph with his four-seamer and complements the pitch with a slider and splitter — both in the mid-80s. He’s never been a top-ranked prospect in L.A.’s system but does have a pair of minor league options remaining and decent track record in the minors.
Harrison Bader Declines Mutual Option With Phillies
The Phillies announced that Harrison Bader has declined his end of a $10MM mutual option for 2026. He will now return to free agency, collecting a $3MM buyout on his way back to the open market.
Bader, 32 in June, is coming off a strong season. One of the top outfield defenders in the game, his offense has been inconsistent. 2024 was his third straight season with subpar offense, by measure of wRC+.
He settled for a one-year, $6.25MM deal with the Twins coming into 2025. That broke down as a $750K signing bonus, a $4MM base salary and a $1.5MM buyout on a $10MM mutual option. He could also increase the value of the buyout via plate appearance bonuses. By making 501 appearances this year, he hit all the bonuses and added another $1.5MM to the buyout value.
Those plate appearances were split between the Twins and Phillies, as Minnesota fell out of the playoff race and turned into deadline sellers, flipping Bader to Philadelphia. Bader’s deal also had a $500K assignment bonus for getting traded, so he unlocked that as well.
Overall, he performed well. He hit .277/.347/.449 for a 122 wRC+. Thanks to that offense joining forces with his typically strong baserunning and defense, FanGraphs credited him with 3.2 wins above replacement on the year.
The offense probably isn’t wholly sustainable. He had a .359 batting average on balls in play this year. That’s higher than his .305 career rate and the .291 league average in 2025. Regardless, he may have played himself into a nice multi-year deal this winter. It’s possible that could come with the Phillies but they are reportedly looking to make an outfield shake-up, which figures to include moving on from Nick Castellanos. Whether Bader can fit into the plans might depend on how that shuffle plays out.
Photo courtesy of Bill Streicher, Imagn Images