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Cubs right-handed pitcher Cade Horton placed runner-up the 2025 BBWAA Jackie Robinson National League Rookie of the Year Award, the league announced Monday night. Horton pitched 118 innings of sparkling ball for the Cubs, with a 2.67 ERA, and he blossomed into their ace in the second half. By finishing in the top two of the voting for this award, he earns a full year of service time for 2025, despite the fact that he debuted on May 10 and accumulated just 142 of the 172 days usually required to qualify for that. This means that Horton (who debuted six months ago) will be a free agent after the 2030 season, the same juncture at which Pete Crow-Armstrong (who debuted 26 months ago) will do so. The league's rules about service time and club control have never seemed more farcical, and perhaps they really are so, but either way, the incentive is a major factor for Horton in shaping his long-term earning power. Any extension with which the Cubs approach him this winter will have to take into account that he will be a free agent five winters hence. For Chicago, it's a small price to pay for the dominance Horton gave them, especially in the second half. The team was 15-8 in his starts, including 8-3 over his last 11. Opponents had a .447 OPS against him after the All-Star break. The season ended in frustrating fashion for the young ace, as he broke a rib and was unable to take the mound in the playoffs, but Horton showed the ability to overpower and overwhelm hitters. He projects as their ace heading into 2026. Matt Shaw also received two down-ballot votes from participating BBWAA writers, good for a 10th-place finish. On balance, the Cubs might have hoped they would see more development from Shaw this season, but their sophomores (Crow-Armstrong, Michael Busch and Daniel Palencia, especially) were very good, and Horton was great. Jed Hoyer's goal of a winning team built more around homegrown talent and less around free-agent splurges is coming into view on the horizon. Horton is the emblem of that progress, and received a rich reward for that Monday. It should incrementally increase the Cubs' urgency, as they try to make the most of their young core by supplementing it this winter. View the full article

For a blink or two during midsummer, it looked like the Brewers would have to swallow the slightly bitter pill of a lost year of team control over Jacob Misiorowski. That would have been ok, on balance, because the mechanism by which it menaced them was the new rule whereby a player who finishes first or second in the Rookie of the Year balloting at the end of each season gets a full year of service time for that year, even if they were called up too late to earn that much service time in the usual way. Misiorowski was looking so good, just a month after he debuted, that he made the All-Star team, and he seemed to have the inside track on winning the award and earning that boost to his earning power. The regular season ended very unevenly for Misiorowski, though, and he became an afterthought in Rookie of the Year voting. He made such a thrilling resurgence in the playoffs that it almost feels like that was the best-case scenario: he remains a potential ace for the Crew beginning in 2026, but they won't lose him via free agency after 2030. Even better, though, they had a whopping four players receive Rookie of the Year votes this season, and while Caleb Durbin was the highest finisher (third) when the winners of each league's newcomer award were announced Monday night, the Brewers feel very much like a collective winner. Durbin finished third, so he, too, missed out on that extra service time via special incentive. Isaac Collins finished right on Durbin's heels, in fourth. Chad Patrick (who had a semi-star turn of his own in October) appeared on six ballots and finished seventh, while Misiorowski drew just one fourth-place vote. Relatively little was at stake, from the Brewers' perspective, in the finishing places of Durbin and Collins. Durbin will turn 26 in February, and his skill set isn't the kind that normally prompts a team to extend a player into their early or mid-30s. The Crew wouldn't have minded losing the sixth year of service on Durbin, and Collins exceeded one year of service this year, anyway. He's 28 years old, so it's even less likely that he'll be a Brewers regular in the 2030s than it is with Durbin. Far more important, rather, is the fact that the Crew had four fairly serious candidates for this award, in a year when they weren't even going out of their way to push prospects into vacant roles. The long-term viability of what is already a regional dynasty hinges on the Brewers' ability to keep getting great production from young, cheap players, and they did that as well as ever in 2025. Next season, Misiorowski and Patrick figure to play much larger roles for them. It's less clear that the same will be true of Durbin and/or Collins. Better health or a more active winter could displace each of them, not from the roster (in all likelihood) but from the everyday lineup. By the end of the year, each looked a bit worn down by their long season of duty, and the positions they each play are the obvious places where the Brewers have paths to upgrades this offseason. They were fine players, but arguably the worst regulars on a very, very good team. Milwaukee figures to have better luck wheh the Manager of the Year Award is announced Tuesday night. In the meantime, the team can savor the pleasure of this four-piece affirmation of their scouting and player development, and be glad that they didn't lose any years of team control along the way. View the full article

Since the start of the 2023 season, the Boston Red Sox have operated under the belief that Triston Casas was their first baseman of the present and future. Unfortunately, injuries in 2024 and 2025 have raised doubt, and the team now appears unwilling to commit to Casas in 2026 as he rehabs from a torn left patellar tendon. With there being more than a few options available on the free-agent market this offseason, it would be wise for the Red Sox to at least do some perfunctory checking in with various players. Admittedly, however, when you look at the list of available first basemen, it gets rather thin after the top shelf. While the obvious big catch of all first basemen will be New York Mets slugger Pete Alonso, the other big names that stand out are Josh Naylor, Munetaka Murakami, and Cody Bellinger. Beyond them, there is a vastly different option available—one who is viewed as one of the more divisive players in baseball as his style of play feels more and more archaic by the year. Known for his lack of power and low exit velocities, contact-maven Luis Arráez could be in play for Boston depending on how the market falls. With a potential bidding war looming for Alonso along with Seattle already planning to go all-in on retaining Naylor, Arráez could be a cheaper option for the Red Sox to plug in at first (and, potentially, second base). The Good: Right away, we can immediately state that Arráez is not someone to miss time. Since making his major league debut in 2019 (and excluding the COVID shortened 2020 season), there have only been two seasons where he has played less than 140 games: 2019 and 2021. Since 2022, he has played the following amount of games each season; 144, 147, 150, and 154 this past year. This would be an improvement alone, as the Red Sox have dealt with injuries across their infield these past few seasons, especially at first base with Casas. And along with playing first base, Arráez has also played quite a bit of second base in his career, making the All-Star team in 2023 with the Miami Marlins as a second baseman. Such versatility would allow the Red Sox to mix and match their lineup depending on the starting pitcher by plugging Arráez in at either position depending on the need. Where he would be most useful, however, is at the plate. Despite having one of the lowest exit velocities in the game and impossibly-low barrel rates, Arráez rarely misses when he swings. His ability to put the ball in play nearly every at-bat is something that could be extremely useful, especially during a low-scoring playoff series. In 2025, his whiff rate sat at just 5.3% and his strikeout rate was 3.1%, numbers that placed him in the 100th percentile league-wide. It gets even more impressive when you look at his career. In 3244 career at-bats, Arráez has struck out only 215 times, a feat that feels almost impossible with the way pitchers can rack up strikeouts in today’s game. The left-handed hitter has also displayed some slugging capabilities, though more in the sense of gap-to-gap thanks in part to his 30 doubles this past season. And while he may not hit the ball hard, Arráez possesses perhaps the best bat control in all of baseball—his squared-up percentage in 2025 was 42.6%, also placing him in the 100th percentile. Currently, Arráez is projected to earn a contract worth around $25 million over a period of two years, according to MLB Trade Rumors and The Athletic. There's no doubt there will be teams who will look to him as a starting first base option, especially once Alonso, Naylor and Ryan O’Hearn sign elsewhere. If the Red Sox could convince him to come to the east coast, he could provide a steady presence in the lineup. The Bad: Let’s discuss the biggest issue right away. Despite an incredible bat-to-ball skillset, Arráez has a clear lack of power when it comes to his game. While the first baseman can provide doubles and the occasional home run (he had six last season), when you think of a first baseman you think of a power hitter. Of course, should he slide back to second base, the amount of power you need is more negotiable, but it's still more than what he provides. As mentioned previously, Arráez ranked near the bottom of the league in exit velocity, barrel percentage and hard-hit rate, the latter two sitting in the lowest percentile at 1.1% and 16.7%, respectively. His bat speed was also nonexistent, averaging 62.6 mph this past season, the slowest swing speed in the sport. And despite a season that ended a stat line of .292/.327/.392, Arráez saw his OPS drop for the third straight season as it went from .861 in 2023 to .739 in 2024 down to .719 this past season. He also finished with an OPS+ of 99, the first time in his career it was ever below 100. There is a chance that a ballpark change could see a slight increase in power for Arráez, as in his career, he’s driven balls in the air to the opposite field 25% of the time and could pepper the Green Monster with his hits. In 2025 alone, he went to the opposite field on all batted balls 38.2% of the time. Despite that, his already low home run numbers would drop even more. Had Arráez played every game at Fenway Park this season, he'd have produced just two home runs. Of course, he would only play 81 games at home and there’s no telling how many home runs he could hit away from Fenway, but the expectation for Arráez would be more towards putting the ball in play and aiming for doubles. Defensively, he also just isn’t very good. He had one of the lowest Outs Above Average at the position at -9 and his Fielding Run Value was at -5 this season. While he only committed one error at first base this season, he isn’t the defensive stalwart the team would like to have manning first base. The Verdict: Personally, I like a player who can get on base and not strike out. Despite the importance of having high-OPS guys in the middle of lineups, I still feel a team needs one or two guys who put the ball in play often and produce high averages. Unfortunately for Arráez, I don’t think he would work out as a first baseman with the Red Sox. As mentioned before, first basemen are expected to be power hitters and Arráez clearly does not fit that mold. And even if you were to slot him in at second base instead, $12-15 million a year for a second baseman is a lot when you could realistically split the position between Marcelo Mayer and Romy González for a lot less money. With guys like Alonso and Naylor available who have shown the ability to hit for a lote more power in their careers, it would make more sense for the Red Sox to try and sign one of them first, and should they fail in that endeavor have Arráez as their backup plan. If the Red Sox could get him to sign a pillow contract—maybe a one-year deal with a mutual option—to prove he’s better than the hitter he was in 2025 (first time in his career he would be considered below league average), I don’t see why they shouldn’t offer it, especially if they invest the money they saved into upgrading other parts of the lineup. But for right now, with bigger names available and the options currently in-house, it doesn’t make a lot of sense for the Red Sox to invest a lot of money into a league-average hitter who’s really good at just putting the ball in play. Despite his contact skills, it isn’t worth the price he’s going likely to command, especially after the Red Sox lacked power in their lineup for most of 2025. View the full article

In their 33-year history, the Florida/Miami Marlins have produced four National League Rookie of the Year winners—all between 2003 and 2013. Dontrelle Willis claimed the franchise’s first in 2003, followed by rising star Hanley Ramírez in 2006. Three years later, outfielder Chris Coghlan took home the award after hitting .321. The most recent winner was the late José Fernández, who earned 95% of first-place votes following his dominant debut season in 2013. Several Marlins have appeared on NL ROY ballots since Fernández, including Justin Bour (2015), Brian Anderson (2018), Sixto Sánchez (2020) and Eury Pérez (2023). Three different Marlins—Agustín Ramírez, Jakob Marsee and Heriberto Hernández—received votes in 2025, though none of them placed higher than sixth. The closest that the club has come to producing another winner was in 2021, when Trevor Rogers finished second to Jonathan India. All 30 award voters had Rogers on their ballots, but he received only one first-place vote. It’s now been 12 seasons since a Marlin has captured the honor. The 2026 campaign could change that. Several top prospects with impressive track records at the upper minor league levels are expected to debut and will have ample opportunity to make their case. Here are four Marlins who could contend for the next NL Rookie of the Year award. LHP Robby Snelling The 39th overall pick in the 2022 MLB Draft, Snelling has developed into one of the premier left-handed pitching prospects in baseball. Along with prospects Adam Mazur, Graham Pauley, and Jay Beshears, he was acquired from the San Diego Padres in exchange for pitchers Bryan Hoeing and Tanner Scott at the 2024 trade deadline. That year proved challenging for Snelling—he went 4-10 with a 5.15 ERA across 24 starts. His 2025 season, however, told a completely different story. Across 25 starts between Double-A and Triple-A, Snelling posted a 9–7 record with a 2.85 ERA, striking out 166 batters in 136 innings (11.0 K/9) while holding opponents to a .222 average. His most dominant stretch came from August 7 to September 17, when he went 5–1 with a 0.86 ERA over 42 innings and struck out 58 hitters. Fish On First’s No. 3 prospect is expected to debut early in the 2026 season (most likely during the month of May), giving him a long runway to contend for National League Rookie of the Year honors. With a fastball that sits 93–96 mph, impeccable command, and a 60-grade curveball, Snelling offers both polish and upside. The 6'3" southpaw will play the entire season at just 22 years old. Expect him to become a mainstay in Miami’s rotation shortly. C Joe Mack Joe Mack has put together back-to-back excellent all-around seasons in the upper minors at a premium defensive position and appears all but big league-ready. In 112 games across Double-A and Triple-A in 2025, Mack slashed .257/.338/.475 with 21 home runs while providing elite defense behind the plate nearly every day. Fish On First ranks him as the No. 2 prospect in the system. For the first time in recent memory, the Marlins actually possess solid depth at catcher. Agustín Ramírez, who led this year's NL rookies in both hits and homers, is expected to enter 2026 as the primary option. Rule 5 selection Liam Hicks could also push for a roster spot after a promising rookie campaign. By early May, Marlins fans could see a tandem of Ramírez and Mack anchoring Miami’s catching corps for both the season and perhaps the decade, giving Mack plenty of opportunity to put himself in the NL ROY race. LHP Thomas White Thomas White is widely regarded as the best left-handed pitching prospect in all of Minor League Baseball. The only reason he’s No. 3 on this list is because the 21-year-old likely won’t be a call-up candidate until at least midway through the 2026 season. Standing 6-foot-5, White features a fastball that sits in the mid-90s and reaches 100 mph, complemented by a diabolical sweeper and a devastating changeup. The consensus No. 1 prospect in the Marlins system, White has dominated at every level since being drafted 35th overall in the 2023 MLB Draft. In 45 career minor league games, he’s recorded a 2.65 ERA over 190 innings, allowing just 146 hits while striking out 272 batters. White helped Low-A Jupiter capture its first Florida State League title in 2023, then earned Midwest Prospect of the Year honors and an invitation to the All-Star Futures Game during his first full professional season in 2024, then again in 2025. To go along with the jump in velocity and movement on his pitches, however, White’s command took a step back this season, as he walked more than five batters per nine innings. He also spent part of the season working on the shape of a new cutter, which may have contributed to his control inconsistencies. Once he reaches the big leagues in 2026, White has the chance to get off to a José Fernández-type start to his career that could be enough to earn him the franchise’s fifth Rookie of the Year award. OF Kemp Alderman The power-hitting outfielder was selected in the second round of the 2023 MLB Draft. Despite a relatively slow finish, 2025 was a breakout season for the 23-year-old, who became one of the biggest risers in the Marlins’ system. In 130 games across Double-A and Triple-A, the right-handed slugger slashed .285/.338/.482 and led all Marlins minor leaguers with 22 home runs. Alderman has also continued to make strides in plate discipline, trimming his strikeout rate to a near league-average 23%. He’s expected to be a non-roster invitee to big league spring training in 2026 and is on track to make his MLB debut at some point during the regular season. Given that Miami projects to open the year with a left-handed-heavy outfield group—featuring Kyle Stowers, Jakob Marsee, and Griffin Conine—Alderman could find an opportunity sooner rather than later. If he carries his 2025 success into the majors, he has an outside shot to log enough playing time to insert himself into the Rookie of the Year conversation. View the full article

That Kyle Hendricks started Game 7 of the 2016 World Series—that it was he who first scooped up the baseball for the Cubs on the night that 108 years of waiting finally ended—is just trivia, really. It didn't have to be. Joe Maddon could have trusted him more, if he'd so chosen, and Hendricks would have met the moment. Maddon was on tilt by the end of the Series, though, and the Cubs' survival in that game ultimately had little to do with Hendricks. He was there. He mattered. But he wasn't the man who drove the bus. A week and a half earlier, though, he sure was. By pure happenstance, really, he was the man who took the ball in Game 6 of the NLCS. Jon Lester was the ace of that Cubs team, and he'd started Game 1 of the NLDS. Hendricks got the nod over Jake Arrieta for Game 2, but that was more because Hendricks pitched much better at home than away that year than because Maddon believed Hendricks was materially better than Arrieta. Hendricks left that NLDS start early, after being hit by a comebacker. He avoided major damage, but that game wasn't going his way, anyway. He only recorded 11 outs and surrendered two runs; he didn't strike out anyone. If things had gone a bit differently in San Francisco, for that team, Hendricks might have landed in any of several very different places in the team's rotation for the NLCS. Chicago nearly finished a sweep when they took Game 3 to extra innings. They nearly had to come home to face the Giants in a decisive Game 5, until a winning comeback in Game 4. As things panned out, though, Hendricks got the ball in Game 2 of the NLCS, and he was very much his usual self again. That night, though, Clayton Kershaw outdueled him, evening that series 1-1 as it headed to Los Angeles. Hendricks didn't participate in the West Coast segment of the series, but when it returned to Wrigley, he was slated to start, and his team held the 3-2 series edge. This time, there would be no telling comebackers. There would be no duel. There was just Hendricks, taking a moment baseball history dropped on him like an anvil and heaving it heroically into place. That weight became no obstacle to Hendricks. It became, instead, the killing stone on which the team ritually destroyed the curse of the billy goat. Hendricks was the tip of the spear. Baseball history contains two postseason games in which one side retired the other in 27 batters, winning and facing the minimum in the process. One is Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series. The other was the night that Hendricks became a legend of Cubs lore, and of the 27 outs, 22 were his. It didn't start smoothly. Andrew Toles lined Hendricks's first pitch into right field for a single. No matter. Hendricks is unflappability personified, a low cap and a drooping chin and all the physical expressiveness of a department-store mannequin—with exactly the same capacity to be intimidated as a department-store mannequin. That first pitch had all the nerves he would show all evening in it. It was 89 miles per hour, which meant he'd overcooked it, and it ran right down the middle. His second pitch was a sinker to Corey Seager, perfectly placed, running to the outer edge at 87 MPH. Seager hit a ground ball up the middle, on which Javier Báez picked the ball on the run and made a brilliant tag en passant on Toles, then threw to Anthony Rizzo in one motion for the double play. Justin Turner gave Hendricks his first real batter. Hendricks started the late-blooming slugger with a pair of cutters down and away, one a ball and one a called strike. Then came three sinkers in a row: ball low, foul, foul, each pitch working farther in on Turner, trying to speed him up and get him looking there. He tried a dipping changeup to get the strikeout, but Turner laid off. Finally, on 3-2, he went up and away—a hole in Turner's swing, but only if you get him looking everywhere else before going there. It worked. Turner flied lazily to right fielder Albert Almora Jr. Three up, three down. When Hendricks took the mound again, he had a 2-0 lead, and the biggest challenge was not to let the excitement or a relatively long sit in the dugout take his edge off. No problem. He started Adrián González with a cutter that started on the outside edge and ran into the white of the plate. That took guts, because González had taken Hendricks deep for the Dodgers' only run against him six days earlier, to left-center. Hendricks knew, though, that González would take the first pitch unless it looked fat out of the hand. It didn't; it only looked fat once it was in Willson Contreras's mitt. González tried to get aggressive on the next offering, a changeup that tumbled down to his knees on the same line on the outer third, but whiffed. Hendricks ran a cutter way inside on him, then tried two changeups down and away. On the second of them, González hit a soft, floating liner up the middle, which reached a shifted Addison Russell on a leisurely bounce for an easy out. That brought up Josh Reddick, on whom Hendricks again began with a cutter running into the middle of the plate. Called strike one. His next pitch, this time, was not the changeup but his little-used curveball, and its big, slow arc induced a fooled Reddick to hit a topspin bouncer to the right side. It was so mishit, though, that it fooled Báez, just as it had fooled Reddick. It hit the second baseman in the chest, and Reddick got first on the error. No matter. They say Hendricks doesn't have explosive stuff, but he certainly did on the first pitch to Joc Pederson. Just as he threw a fading outside-corner changeup, fireworks went off in the distance, somewhere near the lakeshore, and Pederson tried (far too late) to step out and call time. All he got for his pleas was strike one. Strike two followed, the same changeup but a little bit off the edge, a little low, fouled away by the anxious Pederson. No anxiety afflicted Hendricks. The next pitch was a high fastball, so rare a sighting from Hendricks that it beat Pederson handily for a strikeout. Hendricks then went to work on Yasmani Grandal, but also on Reddick at first base. The Dodger right fielder was looking runnerish, and Hendricks always excelled at thwarting the running game with his quick feet. He nibbled against Grandal, with a changeup that just grabbed the outside edge for strike one and one buried in the dirt for ball one. A backdoor cutter stole him strike two and encouraged Reddick to get a little more. Lengthen that lead, try the steal, there are two strikes, anyway. Bang. Hendricks fired his 'A' pickoff move over, with that sudden turn of the hips and shoulders and that brilliantly light bit of footwork. Reddick was out by as much as any runner you've ever seen, on a pickoff by a righty pitcher. Technically, it was six up, six down. The Cubs tortured Kershaw again for a while in the second, and scored a third run. All Hendricks had to do was keep the train running. He did face an immediate challenge, though: how to get out Grandal a second time in a row, more or less. The answer was: cutter inside (ball one), then back to the outside corner (strike one, called) changeup fading away (ball two), changeup elevated (called strike two). That four-pitch sequence set up a battle. Grandal, one of the most patient hitters in the league and one of its toughest outs, had seen seven pitches already against Hendricks. Hendricks tried a perfect change on the outer edge, but this time, Grandal spoiled it. Hendricks went farther down and away; spoiled. He tried his more cutting changeup, at the bottom edge over the middle of the plate; spoiled. The high fastball that had disposed of Pederson didn't work on Grandal, because he missed too high with it. That brought the count full, but on 3-2, he went back to the cutter, down at the biottom of the zone. Strike three, on a swing that said Grandal expected the changeup. Chase Utley was due next. Though at the end of his career by then, Utley was a great hitter, and wasn't going to give away an at-bat. Hendricks took one from him by the force of precision: backdoor cutter, strike one; changeup down, on the same edge, ball one; sinker away, drawing X's on the outside corner. Utley lined the pitch to left field, but Ben Zobrist caught it with ease. Hendricks didn't mess around at all with Kershaw: three fastballs in the zone, three strikes. Nine up, nine down. Unwilling to give Toles a second chance to hit the first pitch hard somewhere, Hendricks looped in a curveball on the outer black for strike one. The next pitch was a changeup low and away, nibbling the same edge, and Toles put a very good swing on it—but the only thing it was ever going to hit was the end of his bat. Almora made another easy catch. Seager got ahead 2-0, as Hendricks tried the front-hip sinker and the backdoor curve with insufficient precision. Retreating to his bread and butter, though, Hendricks ran the sinker off the outer edge, and Seager grounded out up the middle again. This time, Hendricks cut it off himself and threw to Rizzo. Hendricks stole a strike with a backdoor sinker to Turner, then missed away with that high fastball that worked the previous at-bat. He came back with a changeup diving down and in on him for a swinging strike two, though, and ahead 1-2, he got a weak grounder to Rizzo by running the two-seamer right at Turner's hands. Twelve up, 12 down. It was when Contreras homered off Kershaw to lead off the bottom of the fourth that Wrigley went from loud and excitable to a true cauldron of sound and fearsome joy. It pretty much stayed that way, and that might have startled or overexcited a different player. Hendricks, for his part, got González on a first-pitch cutter at the bottom of the zone, inducing a sharp but manageable grounder to Russell. He started Reddick with a low cutter, for a called strike. He lost an attempt to throw another backdoor curve, but when he came back from that with a changeup in the middle of the plate, Reddick just popped it up. Báez went over and took the ball away from Rizzo, but whichever of them caught it, the play was going to be easy. Home plate umpire Ted Barrett missed what should have been strike one to start Pederson, on a high cutter, but Hendricks came back with a lower one to even the tally. He missed away with another curve (really, he didn't have great feel for that pitch for most of the night, but all his misses with it were far beyond the areas where he might have gotten hurt), then got strike two with a balloon ball of a changeup away. After that floater, when he threw a sharper, tumbling change in the dirt, Pederson had no chance. It was a swinging third strike. Fifteen up, 15 down. Anthony Rizzo made it, officially, a blowout with a fifth-inning homer. Kershaw tried to get cute with a dropdown slider against him. Rizzo did decidedly non-cute things to that ball. Hendricks had only been expected to give the team about five innings in this contest, and he'd done that. The lead was five. If his night had ended there, no one would have blinked. Instead, he took the hill again, facing Grandal—who had already seen 12 pitches against him in the game. He tried a high cutter to start him, but missed up. He went back to that floating, slightly slower high changeup away, to even the count, but then failed to get the chase when he threw a curve (executed correctly, this time, but to no avail) ankle-high over the inner third. For the first time, he started to look ever-so-slightly tired. He tested the outside corner with a cutter, but released it a hair early and missed high and away with it. For the first time all night, he was meaningfully behind in a count, 3-1. No matter. He threw two gorgeous cutters, one down and in and one that found that upper, outer edge, both drawing whiffs from the sharp-eyed Grandal. Eighteen pitches weren't enough for Grandal to figure him out; none of the other Dodgers would get anything close to that many chances. His command was still a bit compromised. He started Utley with a good cutter down and in, but his impression of a backfoot curveball proved unconvincing, and a 1-1 backdoor cutter didn't reach the plate. No matter. A 2-1 pitch that must have looked like a hittable sinker to Utley was really a changeup that ran off the plate away, and the aging star tapped a grounder to Báez. Kershaw's night ended with Andre Ethier pinch-hitting for him. Hendricks missed with a cutter, then a changeup down and away, but then he stole a strike with a low cutter. He tried to go even lower with a sinker, but missed. Another 3-1 count. No matter. Ethier was trying to buy a walk, and so Hendricks filled up the zone with a cutter. On 3-2, he landed another perfect backdoor cut-piece, and Ethier became the first Dodgers batter all night to hit the ball to Kris Bryant, at third base. It was an easy grounder. Eighteen up, 18 down. Toles had clearly been looking down and out over the plate in each of his first two turns, and he'd been aggressive, too. That made Hendricks's job the third time easy. He threw him a cutter up and in, tying him up badly and inducing a pop-up to Russell. He fired a first-pitch cutter to Seager to jump ahead 0-1, then went sinker-sinker, down and away. One of them missed off the edge; Seager fouled off the other. On 1-2, he tried a change of eye levels with a high fastball, but Seager fouled that off, too. Having set him up, Hendricks went for two straight buried changeups. but Seager laid off them, filling the count. No. Matter. Hendricks had one more changeup to offer, and it was a thing of beauty. He turned it over hard, got two-plane fade on it, and Seager tried to kill it. No luck, no contact, and a strikeout where a walk could have been but was never going to be. Like every other Dodgers batter, Seager was more anxious than Hendricks. He threw Turner another surgical first-pitch, backdoor sinker. He tried to get another whiff with that changeup slicing in under his bat path, but Turner laid off it for ball one. He tried again, but the pitch hung. Turner had been looking for the cutter, though, and even a slightly elevated change brought a weak foul pop-up to Rizzo. Twenty-one up, 21 down. González looks to do damage on the ball down and away, so much that Hendricks tried a first-pitch bender below the zone to start the eighth. It missed. He tried a cutter up and in; it missed. He then went for three straight cutters starting on the outer edge and running in, trying to get weak contact to bail him out of the bad count. Even with five runs of cushion, he wasn't going to walk González. He wasn't pitching for strikeouts or glory, but for the team. On a 3-1 pitch, González obliged him with a fly ball to center field, where Dexter Fowler got his first action of the game. Hendricks's first pitch to Reddick was a cutter that didn't start as far out on the edge as he'd meant, and which ended up right down the middle. Reddick hit a clean single to center, two balls in a row for Fowler, and that ended Hendricks's night. No matter. Aroldis Chapman would finish the job, with two double plays leading to a four-up, five-down save. Before that, though, came the ovation of a lifetime. Hendricks left Wrigley Field with the crowd in as true a frenzy as has met the departure of any starting pitcher in the stadium's history. Báez tugged at the name on the back of his jersey as he started away. Maybe Hendricks wanted to absorb the adulation head-down, brow stoic, but his teammates wanted none of that. They'd just watched him knit them all together, pick them all up when they wobbled, and carry them to the end of the curse, if not quite the end of the night. As great as Kerry Wood's 20-strikeout mega-gem was, it's not the best and greatest pitching performance in Cubs history. This was. Officially, the Dodgers collected two hits against Hendricks that night, and they reached on one error. No matter. That night, that team was perfect, and their starting pitcher made them so. Destiny chose Kyle Hendricks, a nobody eighth-round pick with a fastball from the wrong generation and a changeup from Hell, to be the one who ended sport's most famous droughts. On the night when he made baseball history, the man who famously lived at 88 miles per hour threw 88 pitches. He was masterful, and unshakable, and such a team guy that (even though it took until the very end) he leaned on every teammate to assist or record at least one out, but he was also a towering individual performer in that game. Hendricks won't go to the Baseball Hall of Fame, but he's a shoo-in for the Cubs Hall of Fame. He'll retire, it was reported Monday, so we've seen the last of him in the major leagues. No matter. For most Cubs fans, he'll live and pitch forever, over and over, whenever they close their eyes or go to YouTube to savor the highlights. There might be no more ideal image to capture one player's career in one picture than that moment when, surrounded by teammates and a manager somewhat awestruck by the massiveness and the beauty of his performance, Hendricks handed the ball to his skipper, with Báez tugging at that name to make sure everyone in the park knew just who had dominated on the biggest stage in Chicago sports history. View the full article

On Monday, MLB.com Royals writer Anne Rogers reported via her sources that the Royals would be filling out their hitting coaching staff by hiring Marcus Thames, who recently was the hitting coach for the Chicago White Sox. As Rogers pointed out on Bluesky, Thames has coaching experience with multiple MLB teams and has held the title of hitting coach with the Yankees, Marlins, Angels, and White Sox. Thames is a former MLB player who played in 640 games with the Tigers, Yankees, Rangers, and Dodgers from 2002 to 2011. He has hit 115 career home runs and has a career batting average of .246. Last season, Chicago struggled offensively under Thames, ranking 27th in OBP and runs scored, and 28th in OPS. However, the White Sox saw the growth of some young hitters under Thames' tutelage, including top prospect Colson Montgomery, who hit 21 home runs and posted an .840 OPS, Kyle Teel, who hit eight home runs and posted a .786 OPS, and Miguel Vargas, who hit 16 home runs and posted a .717 OPS. Thames will join Connor Dawson on the staff, who comes over from the Brewers organization. Dawson is a KC native who attended Olathe North High School and coached at St. Thomas Aquinas High School before matriculating to the Mariners organization and then the Brewers in 2021. Alec Zumwalt remains the Royals' lead hitting coach for 2026. Photo Credit: © Matt Marton-Imagn Images View the full article

In his latest USA Today column, MLB insider Bob Nightengale insists that the Miami Marlins have modified their stance regarding veteran right-hander Sandy Alcantara. "The Marlins never got the offer they wanted to move their former Cy Young winner," Nightengale writes referring to trade talks that took place during the 2025 season, "but this winter, are set to accept the best offer they receive, believing now is the time." Nightengale continued by noting that Alcantara's salary will be a team-high $17.3 million in 2026 and that his contract includes a $21 million club option for the 2027 season, as if this would be a financially motivated trade. But that's preposterous—the Marlins carried the league's lowest payroll this past year and they're currently projected to so again. Miami's front office is actually weighing whether Alcantara's overall mediocrity coming off Tommy John surgery (5.36 ERA in 174.2 IP) is indicative of how he'll perform moving forward, or if his substantial improvement during the second half of the season is more relevant. Also, the Fish must factor in the potential that top pitching prospects Thomas White and Robby Snelling have to fill the 30-year-old's shoes. Snelling, in particular, should be making his major league debut by next June, if not sooner. Edward Cabrera "has never had more trade value than now," Nightengale adds in the same column. Cabrera overcame a late-season elbow injury scare to end 2025 on a high note. He is two and a half years younger than Alcantara and considerably cheaper (projected for $3.7 million in 2026). View the full article

The Twins are (pardon the pun) short at the shortstop position. Brooks Lee is, frankly, the only player in the organization who has shown any indication that he may be a viable MLB shortstop in 2026, and even he has played at replacement level across 712 plate appearances in two seasons, slashing .232/.279/.357, with middling-at-best shortstop defense (-3 OAA across 803 innings, about 90 games’ worth). Behind him are a slew of semi-viable backup shortstops who have proved even less. Ryan Fitzgerald made his big-league debut late in 2025, posting an OPS 10% above league average (at .758) in 52 plate appearances. He plays shortstop, but he’s not great defensively. The Twins recently claimed Ryan Kreidler, a 28-year-old with a good glove but no bat, who has 211 plate appearances across four big-league seasons. Those 211 plate appearances are 211 more than Twins fans’ folk hero Payton Eeles has, and although many are clamoring for him to take a utility role in 2026, scouts are mixed on him at shortstop. There’s always Kaelen Culpepper, who rose quickly through the Twins’ farm system and is poised to open the 2026 season in Triple A, or at least reach that level early. Scouts see him as able to stick at shortstop, at least early in his career. His bat was impressive, with an .844 OPS across High A and Double A. He may be the Twins’ shortstop before long, but he doesn’t appear ready now. His late-season struggles could carry over into 2026, and he shouldn’t be counted on as depth yet. Thus, even in a year like this—when payroll room seems tight once again—the Twins would benefit from bringing in a veteran shortstop as a utility infielder, since there’s a reasonable chance that none of the four aforementioned names are even on the 40-man roster on Opening Day. Beyond that, though, are the questions about Lee. The Twins might not just need a utility infielder; they might need someone to play more like every day. If they have any genuine interest in competing in 2026, it would behoove the team to have someone else who wouldn’t be an outright disaster as a starting shortstop, even if they aren’t above average. Unfortunately, starting shortstops aren’t easily obtained in free agency. A player like Bo Bichette or even Ha-Seong Kim is priced out of the Twins’ market. And speaking of Bichette, many viable MLB players age out of shortstop viability by the time they hit free agency in their late 20s or early 30s. Free agents like Willi Castro, Luis Rengifo, Chris Taylor, Amed Rosario, or Kyle Farmer have their shortstop days in the rearview mirror. Those who can still play shortstop often don’t hit much. Did you know Farmer played more at first base than shortstop this season—and that he was the designated hitter twice as often as he was the shortstop? I learned that doing this research. Father Time comes for everyone. Here are the two names that fit in the happy medium space the Twins might be trawling. If it’s not one of these two guys, or someone acquired via trade, they’re going to have to roll with what they’ve got. Isiah Kiner-Falefa It’s the return of the king! The Twin-for-a-Day is probably the most reasonable candidate for this role. He’s getting older, but his performance really hasn’t changed much since the Twins originally acquired him ahead of 2022 to act as their placeholder shortstop. He was approximately the same caliber of fielder at shortstop as Lee in 2025, and both were roughly 25% worse than league-average hitters—though Lee’s profile was more dependent on slugging, while Kiner-Falefa’s was fueled by on-base ability. That Lee compares so closely to Kiner-Falefa is probably an indictment of Lee’s play early in his career, but it also puts into perspective the shallowness of the organization’s shortstop ranks. Kiner-Falefa is a known commodity whom the Twins have shown interest in before. He’s spent much of his career in a utility role and has played every position except first base in the majors. However, he’s going into his age-31 season, and his once dependable (if slightly below-average) defense at shortstop may be slipping. On the bright side, he’s looked fine at second and third. His ceiling has never been high, and once the floor is gone, it’s gone. Still, at the price the Twins would be willing to spend, he might be the best line of defense they can afford. Miguel Rojas No, seriously, that’s how thin this market is. After this point, the Twins will be sifting through a collection of sub-replacement-level players who appeared in fewer than 60 games this season, such as Jorge Mateo, Paul DeJong, Zack Short, or Orlando Arcia. MLB Trade Rumors lists 10 free-agent shortstops heading into 2026, and one of them is Tim Anderson. Tim Anderson had 17 hits this season and started 11 games at shortstop. Rojas was a Game 7 hero, and will be written into Dodgers lore forever. He was a part-time player this season. He managed to play a solid shortstop in limited action, but was an excellent second baseman. Depending on who you talk to, he’s either a great leader and beloved in the clubhouse or the worst teammate imaginable, but he could be a veteran presence. He intends to play in 2026 and then retire. Alas, he has made it clear he wants that 2026 season to be in Los Angeles. Jumping into a clubhouse of strangers on a team that might be rebuilding isn’t how most players envision their final year. So, yeah, even if the Twins wanted to, it seems like a long shot. So maybe it’s truly Kiner-Falefa or bust, if the Twins decide they need infield depth. But how many other teams are in the same position and don’t want to spend big on Bichette or Kim? Could Kiner-Falefa see a fairly robust market? I don’t know. This seemed like a more interesting topic when I signed up for it. I suppose it’s more “interesting” in the Minnesota vernacular. The trade market could be more interesting, but as Derek Falvey noted at last week's press event introducing Derek Shelton, trades for role players like these can be tricky, too. View the full article

When you think of the great teams in Twins history, you quickly think of outstanding and iconic hitters who anchored the lineup from the three-hole: Tony Oliva in 1965. Kirby Puckett in 1987 and 1991. Joe Mauer in 2006. Nelson Cruz in 2019. In the modern MLB landscape, the distinction of a No. 3 hitter as beacon of the lineup has diminished, with managers increasingly plugging their best bats second or even leadoff (e.g. Byron Buxton). But across the league, the third spot in the order is still home to the game's best offensive players on balance. It produced the highest OPS of any lineup spot this past season, at .780, and that was true in 2024 as well. The lack of a standout No. 3 hitter has become a signature shortcoming for Minnesota. In 2025, the third spot in their order produced a lower OPS (.656) than any other, including ninth, which was typically occupied by the likes of Christian Vázquez, DaShawn Keirsey Jr. and James Outman. It's an astonishing stat that's almost hard to believe, but really gets to the root of how broken this lineup was. As Derek Shelton takes over the Twins, one of his first priorities will be sorting out the offense and figuring out who's actually going to carry this lineup forward. I'd be surprised if he messed around with Buxton's role as leadoff man, given how well that was working, and either way, Buxton is 32. Somebody needs to emerge and headline the next generation of the Twins offense. Who's it going to be? Here are five candidates for the short (and long?) term. Trevor Larnach I know, not the most exciting name. I lead with Larnach because he is the incumbent and de facto choice; he topped the 2025 Twins in three-hole appearances with 26. That's not a high number, and it reflects the constant churn of Rocco Baldelli's lineups — which I think says as much about his options as his managing style. Twelve different players appeared as No. 3 hitter. Larnach led the pack, and he also led the Twins in starts as No. 2 hitter, while ranking second in starts at leadoff and cleanup. No Minnesota hitter was written into the top four spots of the lineup more. Was this a big reason for the offense's letdown, given how Larnach languished? Yeah. But it does say something about his esteem as an offensive talent. With a new manager aboard and a directive for "fast-paced baseball" in place, the lumbering Larnach could be on his way out. But, the whole idea of this refresh in leadership is to wash away last season's disappointment, and rejuvenate the talent that's already in place. Why not him? A longtime hitting specialist like Shelton can surely see the raw ability of Larnach, who flashed impressively in 2024. If he does stick around, I could easily envision Larnach as the No. 3 hitter on Opening Day. He'd be one of the most experienced and highly paid hitters on the team. But I can't imagine he'll have a strong grip on the job. Luke Keaschall When you bat .302 with an .827 OPS through your first 207 plate appearances in the majors, at age 23, you're going to be in the conversation for batting third. He might be, at this moment, the odds-on favorite for most appearances as No. 3 hitter in 2026. Unfortunately, Twins fans know better than to assume a successful rookie season will carry forward. Keaschall's plate approach and speed are not in doubt, but his power is, and he's already had a hard time staying healthy. If he can't add more pop, he probably profiles better as a No. 1 or 2 hitter, which is hardly a knock. The question becomes: who's gonna drive him in? Royce Lewis Lewis has the power you want from a No. 3 hitter. The problem is, these days he offers little else. Eighteen doubles and 13 home runs in 403 plate appearances isn't bad, albeit not amazing, but Lewis's lack of patience and consistency led to a .237 average and .283 on-base percentage. He was well below average as a hitter, but everyone knows his track record. At his peak Lewis was the prototype for a No. 3 hitter, and he fulfilled the duty admirably in the 2023 playoffs when he lifted the Twins lineup in the ALDS. It's been a long time since we've seen that form but he's only 26, and surely more determined than ever to get his career back on track. The idea of Royce locking back in, batting third behind Buxton and Keaschall, is something you can really dream on for 2026. On September 28th, the final day of this past season, Lewis hit third for the Twins, his first appearance in that spot since May 21st. Maybe a statement of some kind? They know how important it is to hype him up and build his confidence. I'll be fascinated to see Shelton's approach with Lewis, assuming he's not traded. Brooks Lee The Twins would surely love for Lee to be occupying the No. 3 spot regularly. In theory, he's a switch-hitter who can make contact and slash the ball everywhere with 20-HR power, a born run producer and ignitor. In practice, though, he's been a light-hitting, replacement-level infielder prone to lengthy production slumps, and best suited for the bottom of the lineup. He's been unable to break through so far in 189 major-league games, but Lee turns just 25 in February and has plenty of time to figure things out, especially with the Twins taking a step back competitively. I would be surprised to see him hitting near the top of the lineup next April, barring an overwhelming spring, but he'll have a quick path to prime time if he can find what's missing in his offensive game. The vision for Lee as a multi-year lineup centerpiece is fading, but it's not gone. Walker Jenkins If all goes according to plan, Jenkins will be the guy. THE guy. He's one of the top hitting prospects in the minors, and he's on the precipice of major-league readiness after reaching Triple-A in 2025. I don't think it's out of the question that he's batting third for the Twins on Opening Day next year but that certainly isn't the expectation right now. More likely he'll start back with the Saints with a midseason ETA. Whenever he arrives, Jenkins will be angling to bat third. He's got all the tools to become a premier offensive player, and in many ways, the premise of a return to relevance for the Twins hinges on him being The One. He exhibited all the traits this past season, cruising through three levels while slashing .286/.399/.451 in 84 games. Not to jinx anything, but this has been a Mauer-esque ascent thus far. We'll see if Jenkins can unlock at least a fraction of the awesome potential he's shown. If not, the Twins will need some of the above players to lead the charge ... or, they'll perhaps have to pivot and pin their hopes on whichever player they take at the top of next year's draft. By and large, great teams have great No. 3 hitters. That's clearly been the case in this franchise's history. So, which hitter is going to catalyze the next great Twins team? As Shelton and the front office aim to steer the franchise back to a better place, it's one of the main questions they need to answer. Luckily, they do have some legitimate candidates to work with. Who'd I miss? Arguments can be made for Matt Wallner, Emmanuel Rodriguez, Gabriel Gonzalez, Kaelen Culpepper and others. Let us know who you think will be the star hitter on the next exceptional Minnesota Twins team. View the full article

The Padres have a few needs to address this offseason, but a front-end starter is the top priority. Budget limitations leave around $52 million in Competitive Balance Tax Space (25th among MLB teams), so they must be selective in their free-agent signings. This offseason, the Padres lost Dylan Cease and Michael King (who opted out) to free agency. The current starting rotation consists of Nick Pivetta, Joe Musgrove, Yu Darvish (who will miss the 2026 season), Randy Vásquez, and JP Sears. Musgrove missed all of 2025 while rehabbing from Tommy John surgery, which he needed after an injury in the 2024 postseason. Darvish and Sears, meanwhile, struggled with ERAs above 5.00. The depth behind these pitchers is thin. Their inexperience and struggles make adding a reliable starter critical, especially given the team's financial constraints and Darvish's pending absence. So, where can the Friars turn to ensure their rotation stays attached through a 162-game grind in 2026? Re-signing Michael King or Dylan Cease Re-signing both pitchers is unlikely, but bringing back either is sensible. King, with ERAs of 2.95 and 3.44 over the past two seasons, has twice exceeded 100 innings in his seven-year career. There are durability concerns after injuries chopped him down in 2025 (and the fact that he was a reliever before joining the Padres). Still, when healthy, he's a frontline starter. Cease, despite a 4.55 ERA in 2025, has been consistent the last five seasons, logging at least 165 innings and 214 strikeouts each year. Both pitchers will be 30 years old in 2026 and are projected to cost around $24-30 million annually. Zac Gallen Gallen finished this past season far from his stellar 2022 and 2023 form, when he finished in the top five for the Cy Young Award. In 2025, he posted a 4.83 ERA and a 175:66 strikeout-to-walk ratio, allowing over 100 earned runs for the first time in his nine-year career, all with the Arizona Diamondbacks. At 30, his value is lower than Cease's or King's (likely in the $18-22 million per year range). Despite a rough season, his experience in the NL West could aid the Padres, and he may be the best chance for the team to add a frontline arm at a discount, if he can bounce back. Merrill Kelly Another former Diamondback is available in Kelly. He was traded to the Texas Rangers at the trade deadline, posting a 4.23 ERA while striking out 46 batters in 55 1/3 innings with his new team. Before the trade, he had a 3.22 ERA with 121 strikeouts over 128 2/3 innings. Over his seven-year career, he's failed to reach 150 innings only once (excluding the shortened 2020 season). Kelly is older than the three pitchers mentioned above (37), so he could serve as a one-year option that won't break the bank ($15-20 million). The one-year deal could be a smart gamble considering he also has experience within the NL West, and the fact that's made at least 30 starts in three of the past four campaigns. His ceiling is lower than everyone else here, but reliability is arguably more of a need than pure talent in San Diego's rotation. Ultimately, whichever arms the Padres pursue this winter, strategically adding a frontline starter who balances performance, durability, and budget will be key to their aspirations for 2026. Their offseason decisions at the top of their rotation may well determine how far this team goes next year. View the full article

Jason Wang and Jake McKibbin fire up our first Offseason Live pod, discussing which free agents on the 2026-2026 market are a good fit for the Milwaukee Brewers. Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-brewer-fanatic-podcast/id1740648724 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5CY8mWsQayqjDXqw9OT2Td iHeartRadio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-the-brewer-fanatic-podcast-166534588/ Pocket Casts: https://pca.st/ommzz627 Watch On YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@brewerfanatic View the full article

Entering the final week of his Dominican Winter League stint, Marlins outfielder Griffin Conine speaks with Kevin Barral and Isaac Azout about his unique experience playing with Tigres del Licey.View the full article

Red Sox pitching prospect Dalton Rogers talks about his time in college, going from a two-way player to strictly a pitcher, along with how his time in the Red Sox organization has been since getting drafted. Discussing the use of a piggyback system to allow the many starters in the organization to get their innings in, and also discussing how the Red Sox help work on developing pitches. View the full article

One of the strengths of the 2025 Chicago Cubs lied in their bullpen, despite it being entirely redone on the fly. Finishing with a top-five ERA after May 1, the unit provided a foundation for the Cubs and gave them a good chance to close out any early lead they could secure. However, by way of how the Cubs have built their bullpens in recent years, most of their pieces will not be returning in 2026. Andrew Kittredge has already been traded, instead of having his option picked up, while Caleb Thielbar, Brad Keller, Drew Pomeranz and others are all slated to hit free agency. As the Cubs enter free agency, they will need to replace these pitchers. Some will come through internal means; perhaps Porter Hodge rediscovers his 2024 magic, or someone like Luke Little or Ben Brown pulls a Daniel Palencia and discovers improved command and control. Regardless, they will need to shop outside of the organization as well, as they look to replicate their success. Our own Matt Trueblood outlined some of the biggest options on the market the other day, and while those players would really shore things up, recent reporting from The Athletic's Sahdev Sharma suggests they may not look to go big-game hunting. The Cubs are pretty savvy when it comes to reliever acquisitions, and below are four under-the-radar pickups that I think may interest the Cubs as they look to fill out their bullpen: 1. Gregory Soto, LHP Formerly of the New York Mets in 2025 The North Siders are losing both of their best left-handed options from the 'pen and will need to find a few options from that side. In addition, one thing the Cubs' bullpen last year lacked was swing and miss. Enter Gregory Soto, a left-handed reliever who struck out over 25% of hitters he faced last year. Coming off a season where his ERA sat a tick over four, he shouldn't break the bank for any team looking to sign him. Soto kills lefties, with a 3.53 xFIP against them and just a .232 wOBA against in the 2025 season, but he struggled more against right-handed hitters. The Cubs have taken pitchers such as Colin Rea and swapped out a sinker for a four-seam fastball, and I wonder if they would look to do that with Soto as well. The 2022 campaign was the last season his ERA sat under 4.00, and it was the highest his four-seam usage has been for a while. The Cubs have also had success splitting pitches like they did with Cade Horton, who throws cutter-change to lefties and sinker-slider to righties, and perhaps just getting Soto to throw the four-seam-fastball in on right-handers is the key. This feels like a buy-low candidate that the Cubs can turn into a "two-birds-one-stone" situation by solving both their lack of left-handed pitching in the bullpen and adding swing and miss. 2. Tim Mayza, LHP Formerly of the Pittsburgh Pirates and Philadelphia Phillies in 2025 If the Cubs choose to go "under the radar" with their bullpen choices, Tim Mayza feels like a pitcher they may think they can help. Mayza offers a 94mph fastball from the left side and has had success with Toronto in 2021 and 2022, where, over the course of 155 innings, he was able to put up a 2.67 ERA and a 2.94 xFIP. The wheels fell off for the lefty in 2024 and he had a pretty serious lat injury that cost him most of the season. The lefty came back and featured for the Phillies late in the season and the velocity looked most of the way back, but he clearly struggled with rust. His walk rate was way up (courtesy of a few bad outings) and he struggled to the tune of a near-five ERA in that month. If the Cubs feel like Mayza suffered from a lack of game action and that they can get him back to his previous self, he'd very much fit into their philosophy for building a bullpen of cheap, underrated reclamation projects. They have had success with Caleb Thielbar and Drew Pomeranz, two pitchers of the same mold, and they could find another success story here. 3. Luke Weaver, RHP Formerly of the New York Yankees in 2025 Luke Weaver would help add something the Cubs need more of: strikeouts. The righty struck out 27% of opposing hitters in 2025 and the Cubs really need some more swing and miss in their bullpen. Entering his age-32 season, Weaver has established himself as a useful reliever with the Yankees and is now looking for a new home. The righty uses his fastball a lot and the Cubs were a team who enjoy having pitchers throw their four-seam fastball, so it could be a match made in heaven. Weaver has two things in his profile that may scare teams off, the first being that the righty is an extreme fly-ball pitcher, giving up under 30% of batted balls last year as "groundballs" according to FanGraphs, but this could be something mitigated by Wrigley Field and how pitcher-friendly it has played in recent seasons. The second is that his fastball was almost a full mph down last year, however this seemed to be an early season issue—it tracked upwards as the season went along. You could do a lot worse than going with the former Yankee as a seventh or eighth +inning bridge in 2025 and once again, he's unlikely to break the bank. But if you're going to pass on the Edwin Diaz, Ryan Helsley, Devin Williams tier of relievers, Weaver offers an intriguing option further down the pecking order that could stabilize the backend of a bullpen. 4.Tyler Kinley, RHP Formerly of the Atlanta Braves in 2025 Tyler Kinley isn't going to be at the top of many reliever free agent lists, but there's a really good seventh-inning arm here that is quite reminiscent of Andrew Kittredge. The reliever features a slider that grades out as a 116 on FanGraphs Stuff+ shape rating, and was a +12 in terms of run value. The pitch also generated a 33.3% whiff rate. He probably isn't as good as Kittredge on paper, but there's enough here that you can find to get excited about. Hidden for most of his career in Colorado, and entering his age-35 season, Kinley probably isn't going to break anyone's bank this offseason. There's a pretty good chance that you can acquire Kinley for one year and for less than the $9m Andrew Kittredge is slated to make in 2026 with (now) Baltimore. He probably shouldn't be the best reliever added to the bullpen, but as a secondary addition, he would make a lot of sense and would fit in well with any contending bullpen. What do you think of these four options? Do you think any of them could make sense in the 2026 bullpen? Let us know in the comments below! View the full article

Lucas Giolito put together a strong season for the Boston Red Sox in 2025 - a year removed from UCL surgery. Given his productivity, he declined his side of a mutual option, and days later, he learned that the Red Sox would not tender him a qualifying offer, effectively making him a free agent. However, Giolito is very open to coming back. On Rob Bradford's 'Baseball Isn't Boring' podcast, Giolito stated, "I made it clear to everybody. I would love to come back here and continue to play for the Red Sox." Giolito pitched 145 innings during the regular season across 26 starts. He had an impressive 3.41 ERA, though his FIP was 4.17 and could indicate some negative regression. Additionally, his K-BB% settled at a lowly 10.6% due to an elevated walk rate of 9.1%. Giolito was sidelined late in the year due to an elbow injury, keeping him off the Red Sox postseason roster. Of the injury, Giolito said, "There’s no injury, or whatever injury there was is gone. It was a weird, freak thing that popped up at the worst possible time..." MLBTR projects him to make $32 million over two years on the open market. Do you think the Red Sox should look to bring him back? View the full article

The downside of hiring Derek Shelton—a former organizational soldier who remains a close friend of the just-ousted Rocco Baldelli—was that the Minnesota Twins risked sending the message to their fans that the foregoing 15 months had been acceptable. Whatever differences of perspective Shelton might bring, he comes from the same philosophical lineage as the front office, which hired him once before, and his closeness to Baldelli will lead some fans to paint the two with the same brush. Derek Falvey knew that. Thus, entering the club's interview with Shelton for the managerial job, he and his staff ensured that they also realized the upside of engaging with him. "I think we were harder on [Shelton] than maybe we were on other candidates, because when you spend three rounds of interviews (6-8 hours each time among groups, there's a lot of time when you're interviewing somebody that you spend a lot of time getting to know the person," Falvey said at Shelton's introductory press conference Tuesday. "How's the fit? Can we work with this [person]? How do they feel about this organization? "With Shelty, it was easy to cut through all that. 'I know you. We know you.' We can talk about the challenges and what is similar to what you would do to what we've done historically, but how you'd do things differently." In other words, the very familiarity that made Shelton somewhat suspect in the eyes of many outsiders permitted a much-needed frankness between the once-and-future colleagues. Specifically, Shelton has a long track record as a hitting coach; that's the side of the runs ledger on which his greater expertise lies. He worked in the Cleveland organization at the same time as Falvey, before moving on to become the hitting coach for the Rays. When the time came for those harder questions, therefore, Falvey and the Twins front office asked Shelton the same thing so many Twins fans asked, starting in August 2024 and almost without stopping until the end of this September: What's going wrong with these hitters? The answer, as Shelton rendered it, will be maddening for some Twins fans, but it remains true. In brief: it's complicated. Falvey said that Shelton, who took a gig on SiriusXM MLB Network Radio over the summer and got more accustomed to watching the whole league again and asking objective questions. focused his analysis of Minnesota's long slumps at the plate on approach. "He said the most important thing is to understand what the player's intent was, right?" Falvey recalled. "To know a little bit of what they were trying to do. Because you can watch a game, you can watch an at-bat, and go, 'Man, why was he doing that?' I was like, 'I don't know what his game plan was. I don't know what his approach was. I could judge it because he was 0-3. But like, was he actually, did he actually have a good approach and a good plan, and it just didn't execute that night?' That happens too. So, he has said he wants to get to know how our people operate and what they do to better assess, is it a plan issue? Is it an execution issue?" Predictably, both Falvey and Shelton said they don't yet have those answers hammered out, in each individual case or at the broader team level. But Shelton was asked a specific question about Brooks Lee, who is hitting .232/.279/.357 over his first 712 career plate appearances, and he did have at least a partial (and perhaps a telling) answer for it. "I talked to Drew MacPhail a little bit about it, and we’ll continue to talk about it, but players get to the big leagues so fast these days," Shelton observed, "and then when players get to the big leagues the competition they go through in terms of amateur baseball is different, and they end up jumping from team to team, and it becomes almost more of a showcase than what’s actually going on in the game." That explanation widens the lens far beyond Lee, and it offloads the blame for his slow or uneven development to entities beyond the Twins. Shelton doesn't yet have a specific remedy in mind for his switch-hitting infielder, because he doesn't yet know Lee deeply enough to evaluate his process. However, the answer he gave Falvey still tells us something, because of what he didn't do: he didn't denigrate or question the fundamental moves of any of the hitters there. Shelton takes a holistic and intellectual tack to hitting, but he also has the eye of a coach who has to correct and adjust bad mechanics or essential failures of timing. That wasn't his focus in the meeting with Falvey, and it's not a crisis-level, organizational problem. In Shelton's view, the Twins do have talent, and their hitters are doing things he considers plausibly correct; he just didn't have the access to them to test those plausible options. As he looks ahead to the time when he will have more complete information, Shelton believes the first part of his work in reforming struggling hitters is done: they've failed. For most big-leaguers, it takes some failure to open the doors to change. From there, the question becomes one of information management—which sometimes means figuring out what voices the player is hearing, besides his own. "I think the second, and probably just as important, thing is you have to figure out where they are getting their information," Shelton said. "Players get their information from so many different people today that we all have to be working in the same direction. The communication lines—sometimes, that’s the manager. Sometimes that’s the pitching coach. It’s definitely a hitting coach in today’s world. I know. I lived it at one point. You have to find out where they’re getting their information and is it counterproductive? With today’s player, you have to prove to them this is why we’re doing it. I think that is important." Most hitters work with some private hitting instructor or trainer. Shelton was quick to say that that's often a good thing. The wrinkle comes in the form of whatever confusion it might cause, as the team and the player try to communicate clearly about the best way for that hitter to be their best self. "If you tell someone right away, 'Hey, we’re not going to allow you to do this,' and they have a feeling that it helps them, then we’re damaging the relationship from the get-go," he said. "The biggest part is making sure there are open relationships in terms of the information you’re getting. That may not directly be made to that other coach, but at least to the player, hey, if you’re getting that, can you give me a little bit of a glimpse into what you’re doing?" Every team strives for this, of course, but not every team achieves it. Baldelli took a delegatory approach to the job, and left any sorting out of messaging from coach to player between those parties. Shelton will take a more direct role, not only in those conversations about hitters' approaches, but in the follow-up and in the discovery of underlying theory in everything his hitters do. That could be the way he separates himself from Baldelli, and it could make him the right man for this job. If there's one thing the Twins must do better going forward than they've done over the last half-decade, it's develop and transition talented young batters to the majors. Falvey bought into Shelton's ability to do that. It's up to Shelton to prove (not merely to Falvey, but to Twins Territory) that that faith was warranted. View the full article

Munetaka Murakami is a powerhouse slugger who has broken homer records in a dead-ball era and was posted by his NPB team, the Tokyo Yakult Swallows, and will have 45 days to sign with an MLB team. Murakami will be 26 years old in the 2026 season, which makes it more likely he will get a longer-term deal, as he has not yet reached his physical prime. Murakami’s calling card is obvious; he absolutely demolishes baseballs. In seven NPB seasons, he hit 246 homers, including a shortened 2025 season where he was shelved early with an oblique injury in March. Murakami’s best season came in 2022, when he broke the record for most home runs by a Japanese-born player with 56, posting a 225 wRC+. He walked over 19% of the time and struck out a little over 20% of the time; however, it was below average, only within the 25th percentile, as NPB hitters typically strike out much less. After that season, a pressure-filled WBC tournament got the better of Murakami, where he notably struggled to live up to his vaunted 2022 season, which carried over into the next two seasons. The prodigious slugger’s low water mark for ISO (Isolated Power) was .228 in 2024, which was a “down” year for him as he “only” had a 156 wRC+. His strikeout rate ballooned from during that stretch to nearly 30%. On a rate basis, when healthy, Murakami was remarkably similar in 2025, but his strikeout rate continued to hover above 28% which was the bottom third percentile. Although he strikes out a ton, his plate discipline is firm, with an above-average chase rate and a 99th percentile walk rate. His strengths are glaring, but so are his weaknesses. As we saw, his strikeout rate was one of the worst in NPB, and that is more concerning given that he’s coming to MLB, where pitchers throw harder and have more advanced stuff overall. Murakami also struggled heavily with “velocity,” as James Schiano noted, “Murakami had a .095 batting average against pitches 93 MPH or harder last season in NPB.” Of course, that’s still a small sample, as NPB doesn't have many pitchers who throw that hard, but adding in Murakami’s contact issues and strikeout concerns will give teams pause in how they evaluate his ability to hit MLB pitchers, where the average fastball velocity clears 94 mph. His contact issues cannot be overblown either, as his contact rate of 63.9% and Swinging Strike Rate of 17.3% would be the worst among all qualified hitters in MLB. In addition to the concerns on the offensive end, Murakami also has significant concerns on the defensive end. He was a third baseman with the Swallows, but had a -8.4 Total Zone Rating (position adjusted), which was significantly below average. If the Jays were to sign him, his positional fit would immediately come into question, as the Blue Jays value defense quite highly, and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. also occupies first base for the next 13 years. George Springer and Anthony Santander are also more likely to fill the designated hitter role in 2026, which means that Murakami will be forced to play mostly at third base. The Jays will do their due diligence and check in on Murakami as a free-agent target. Still, concerns about his offensive game will be a significant problem for a team trying to compete for a World Series title, as they may not have the time to let him figure out major league pitching. Although he does have 70 grade power that most teams would love, the margins of error are very slim for him, as evidenced by Joey Gallo, who went from a solid above-average hitter to out of the league in just a few seasons. Given the youth and productivity in NPB, Murakami will most likely seek a longer-term contract, which may also be harder for the Jays to swallow in terms of risk mitigation. ZIPS projects Murakami to have a 126 wRC+ with a 3.4 fWAR, but the range of outcomes is going to be super-high, depending on whether he can adjust to velocity and if his strikeout rate can be managed. With the poor defensive fit, however, the Jays may look to other free-agent options to fill a defensive need. Still, they also have the defensive flexibility to hide Murakami’s shortcomings. The Blue Jays would love an injection of power, and the potential for Murakami's massive power is intriguing; however, the concerns may outweigh the benefits for the Jays' front office. The Jays prioritize defensive flexibility and strong bat-to-ball skills, which Murakami cannot fit into, but which may, in turn, allow them to handle Murakami’s shortcomings. The ultimate question is whether Murakami’s youth and potential will spark a bidding war or whether the Jays can get him on a reasonable contract if they choose to pursue him, thereby mitigating the risk. View the full article

Aroldis Chapman is a historically good relief pitcher who delivered a historically good campaign in 2025, even relative to his own standards. So, even if he weren't a 37-year-old reliant on his four-seam fastball, there'd be reason to worry about potential regression for the Boston Red Sox's closer, especially considering he had recorded a 3.68 ERA in the three years prior to his legendary maiden campaign in Beantown. He was so good this past season that the front office saw it fit to give him an extension before the year even came to an end. It's a one-year deal that offers a slight raise over his $10 million salary in 2025, and it also comes with a $13 million vesting option if he throws enough innings in 2026. It's hardly a long-term commitment, but it is one that suggests the front office is content to continue rolling Chapman out there in the ninth. And, let's acknowledge something here: Nothing in Chapman's body of work in Boston necessarily suggests a drop-off is imminent. His expected ERA (2.09) was nearly a full run worse than his actual mark (1.17) and still ranked in the 100th percentile across the league. His fastball velocity, despite being a few ticks down from its peak, still averaged nearly 99 mph as opposing batters hit just .159 against it; his sinker was even better, producing a .115 batting average against while brushing up against triple digits on the radar gun. Tie it all together with elite chase (34.6%) and whiff rates (35.8%), and you have the profile of one of the best relievers in baseball. I'm not coming armed with any information to suggest that Red Sox fans should expect Chapman to revert back to his 2022-24 form. Instead, I'm merely here to remind everyone that said version of Chapman existed, and that, prior to 2025, it had been five seasons since the fireballing southpaw displayed anywhere close to this level of dominance. Set to turn 38 before Opening Day in 2026, the franchise can hope to rely on their closer once again, but planning on it may be more of a fool's errand. For some recent examples, the last two relievers to finish top-five in Cy Young voting (a feat Chapman should accomplish this year) were Emmanuel Clase (2024) and Zack Britton (2016). Clase followed up his historically dominant 2024 campaign with a 3.23 ERA in 47 1/3 innings this season (and may be permanently banned from the league for gambling); Britton's ERA jumped from 0.54 to 2.89 and he missed time with forearm and lower body issues. Now, Chapman hopefully won't caught in some illegal pitch-throwing scheme, but those two relievers were a decade younger than the Red Sox's closer at the times of their peak. Even though Clase's 2025 season (pre-suspension) and Britton's 2017 season were solid enough, they hardly approximated the dominance they showed just a year prior. Luckily, Chapman has always been better in the ninth inning — his career ERA in the final frame (2.33) is significantly lower than his work in the eighth (2.82) or seventh innings (4.56) — and barring injury, there isn't much need to acquire another closer. That's especially true since breakout set-up man Garrett Whitlock remains under contract for 2026, as is the case for Justin Slaten, who secured three saves in 2025 and has closing experience in the minor leagues. If track record is something you fancy (and you can look past significant struggles in the recent past), Jordan Hicks has 35 saves on his major league résumé. He's far less of a sure thing than Chapman, but he's the only one in the bullpen (and one of few arms in the league) who can approximate the lefty's velocity. Instead, the team needs to focus on bringing in a couple of high-leverage relief arms who can help bridge the gap to Chapman, or, if needed, fill in should injury arise. That is definitively not the class of reliever that players like Edwin Diaz or even Devin Williams fit in, but someone like Brad Keller (who just experienced a career resurgence in Chicago under Craig Breslow's old bosses) or Raisel Iglesias (who had a 1.25 ERA from mid-June until the end of the season) could insulate the late-inning group and help ensure Whitlock doesn't have to pitch 70+ innings again. If the budget is really tight, Gregory Soto brings big velocity from the left side like Chapman, and Emilio Pagán just locked down 32 saves for a playoff team. Those are older veterans with bigger flaws in their game than the elite relievers on the high-end side of the market, but the same was true for Chapman last year, and look how that worked out. It's not necessarily advisable to build your bullpen with a cache of arms with heavily mileage seeking to reclaim the glory days, but the Red Sox don't need a bullpen as good as the Padres or the Brewers. The rotation, with one more significant addition, is strong enough to carry the team for stretches, and the offense could be really good if Roman Anthony is healthy for a full season. This is simply about hedging your bets. Boston ranked second in the league in bullpen ERA (3.41) in 2025 and backed that up with top-five finishes in xERA (3.76, fifth) and FIP (3.69, fourth). Chapman did a lot of that heavy lifting — he and Whitlock combined for more than 70% of the team's reliever fWAR this past season — and at his age and with his recent, pre-2025 track record, banking on a repeat performance could prove perilous, even if the advanced metrics wholeheartedly support an encore. Insofar as your focus extends only to the 2026 season, the Red Sox should be fine in the backend of their bullpen thanks to the presence of Chapman. But, if doubt lingers in your mind about a 38-year-old who throws 100 miles per hour, perhaps you too think the team should be wary about entrusting so much of their success in one man. View the full article

Last week, the Miami Marlins parted ways with former international amateur free agent signings George Soriano (2015), Luis Palacios (2016) and Dalvy Rosario (2016). The vast majority of you reading this are familiar with Soriano, who spent parts of three seasons in the Marlins bullpen. Palacios and Rosario both got tastes of the Triple-A level, but their progress stalled there due to a lack of velocity and hit tool, respectively. And then there were two. The only players acquired by the Marlins during Jeffrey Loria's ownership tenure who remain with the organization today are Edward Cabrera (2015 int'l signing) and Braxton Garrett (2016 draft pick). Despite obvious stylistic differences, their MLB production has been remarkably comparable—4.07 ERA in 431 ⅔ innings pitched for Cabrera and 4.03 ERA in 326 ⅓ innings pitched for Garrett. Neither are safe bets to stick with the Marlins for the start of the 2026 season as the front office contemplates potential trades. They may look to "sell high" on Cabrera coming off the best campaign of his career, or cut their losses with Garrett if they don't trust him to vigorously rebound from his second career Tommy John surgery. Both Cabrera and Garrett are entering their second year of arbitration eligibility with club control that extends through 2028. On Sunday in fall/winter ball, Karson Milbrandt pitched a scoreless inning as the National League starter for the AFL Fall Stars Game. Starlyn Caba went 1-for-2. The American League won, 5-4. Deyvison De Los Santos (Dominican Republic) went 0-for-3 with a walk. Maximo Acosta (Venezuela) went 3-for-3 with his fifth home run of the season. Through 21 games, Acosta has a slash line of .345/.417/.571 to go along with eight stolen bases. Jared Serna (Mexico) went 1-for-4 and scored the only run of the game. Serna played left field, the fifth different position he has started at during this winter ball season. Chris Arroyo (Puerto Rico) hit a two-run homer to propel Leones de Ponce to victory. Arroyo continues to make all of his starts in right field. Only 136 days until Marlins Opening Day. 🔷 M.J.S created his own Marlins offseason blueprint in a similar format to my own. Perhaps the most polarizing move? Trading Edward Cabrera and Calvin Faucher to the New York Yankees for Ben Rice. 🔷 Robby Snelling reflected on his awesome 2025 season, which included winning Minor League Baseball's Gold Glove Award for best defensive pitcher (via Christina De Nicola, MLB.com). 🔷 Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium posted more details about the new Jupiter Medical Center Champions Club that's scheduled to open for spring training. Tickets for the field-level "Hot Corner" start at $30, while the upper-level club is a members-only area starting at $85 per ticket. 🔷 Inspired by next year's World Baseball Classic, Son Los Marlins constructed "Marlins Team USA," featuring 18 of the best American players to ever suit up for the Fish. 🔷 In his 2025 season takeaways, Cristian Crespo of Just Baseball wrote about the Marlins' surplus of starting rotation candidates and the need for an additional bat in the lineup. 🔷 Baseball America's Jacob Rudner ranked his top 10 Marlins prospects entering 2026. The list has a lot in common with our own Fish On First rankings, with the exception of outfielder Brandon Compton (#8), who doesn't even crack the FOF Top 30. "The Marlins bet on Compton’s power when they selected him in the second round," Rudner wrote. "For him to meet those expectations, continued refinement of his approach will be key." 🔷 Elsewhere around baseball, Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz were indicted on charges that they intentionally threw balls in certain counts to win prop bets. They face up to 65 years in prison if convicted on all charges. Regardless of how the legal process plays out, it seems inevitable that they'll receive lifetime bans from MLB. Japanese power hitter Munetaka Murakami was officially posted by the Tokyo Yakult Swallows, opening a 45-day negotiating window with MLB teams. View the full article

Marlins prospect Karson Milbrandt pitched a scoreless bottom of the first inning in Sunday's AFL Fall Stars Game. His fastball velocity peaked at 99.0 mph.View the full article

One way or another, the Boston Red Sox will be looking to spend a lot of money (again) this offseason. Who they spend the money on remains to be seen. Just a week into the 2025-2026 offseason, and they have been linked to top free agents Alex Bregman, Bo Bichette, Pete Alonso, and Kyle Schwarber. In fact, Ian Browne of MLB.com recently provided insight into the team's preferences. In an AMA thread on Reddit, Browne said the Boston Red Sox prefer Pete Alonso to Kyle Schwarber. Browne cited the fact that Schwarber was tendered a qualifying offer, meaning the Red Sox will lose a draft pick if they sign him. Additionally, they prefer Alonso's right-handed bat in Fenway Park. Alonso appeared in all 162 games for the New York Mets, recording 38 home runs and scoring 87 runs. He raised his OPS nearly 90 points from 2024 to 2025, finishing with a mark of .871 this season. Overall, he posted a wOBA of .368 and a wRC+ of 142. Defensively, Alonso recorded a -9 Outs Above Average (OAA) and a -9 Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) over the course of the season. MLBTR projects him to get a four-year, $110 million deal. Schwarber recorded 56 home runs, scored 111 runs, and added 10 stolen bases. His performance resulted in a .928 OPS, .391 wOBA, and a wRC+ of 153. He was primarily used as a designated hitter, appearing in left field for only eight games throughout the season. MLBTR projects him to get $135 million over five years. Do you think the Red Sox should target Alonso or Schwarber? View the full article

Twins 5: A rundown of a handful of recent Minnesota Twins news items. Among the topics discussed are what Derek Shelton's hiring as manager signals, celebrating LaTroy Hawkins' hiring as bullpen coach, the Twins moving on from Jose Miranda, losing Cody Laweryson to waivers, and how I see the bullpen shaping up.View the full article

Traditionally, this is the time of year when the Brewers put on their work boots and their gloves. They bundle up against the first biting winds of November and they head to the dump, where the league leaves its scraps. There, they find treasure. Each November, the Brewers make some forays into minor-league free agency. It's not a place where stars can be found, but the occasional gem can be mined by taking the time to study what looks like a piece of ordinary rock from a new angle. Few teams in the league do this better than the Brewers, but traditionally, the Crew has also had some advantages in this regard. Timing is everything, when one is shopping in the minor-league free agent class. Whereas the top free agents in the game often wait a month or two to find their homes, the best minor-league free agents tend to sign right away. These are players with low ceilings and limited markets, who were left (or tossed) off their previous club's 40-man roster at the end of the season. They've been in professional baseball a long time, but no one believes in them. That's not quite true, of course. Someone believes in at least some of the 574 players who became minor-league free agents on Thursday. If you need evidence of that, consider Joe La Sorsa, a lefty reliever who ended the season on the fringes of the Mets roster but was jettisoned this week. He's already signed with the Pirates, on a minor-league deal that will pay him $800,000 for the season if he makes the Pittsburgh roster next spring. La Sorsa was one of a dozen or so priority names on my own early list of potential targets from this huge pool of players. He's a low-slot lefty with a sinker-sweeper combination that can be devastating, when it's right. The challenge will merely be to find a way to more consistently keep him right. Players like La Sorsa don't linger on the market until Christmas or beyond, though, because they're not waiting to see if someone will bid $10 million for their services. They know the drill. They live on the cliff's edge, barely in contact with the major leagues. La Sorsa is a fairly typical case. He's pitched 46 times for three different teams over the last three seasons, but ended the season in the minors—an insurance policy against all-out injury disaster for a team on the outskirts of the playoff race. Just as often, though, they're guys who have never played in the majors at all. Thus, getting a guaranteed roster spot—placement on the 40-man roster, with the relative security that brings and the higher salary level even if one is in the minor leagues—is like hitting the jackpot for these guys. When the Brewers targeted Blake Perkins in November 2022, they got him not by bidding any significant amount beyond the league-minimum salary, but by giving him a place on the 40-man roster. Those spots are precious, though. A team in a rebuild or a transition between competitive phases can sometimes offer one even to a fringy player, but the majority of the league has to guard those places closely. The Brewers are a bit more of an old-growth competitive forest right now, and they don't have a slot on their 40-man that will be easy to allocate to a player like this. Of course, La Sorsa (again, a relatively typical priority target) didn't get such a prize from the Pirates. What he did get is the open lane to an eventual roster spot, which comes with signing up with a team short on money, talent, or both. Jared Koenig signed with the Brewers as a non-roster invitee in November 2023, and although he spent most of spring training in the most anonymous corner of the Maryvale clubhouse, he was in big-league camp. (That is a much easier thing to offer than a roster spot, and it's usually the table stakes for any team trying to woo a hidden gem they like.) They sold Koenig on joining them partially by being themselves: players and agents know the team is both good at player development and unlikely to sign big-name free agents who will block their path to a job. They also had the luxury, then, of being viewed as somewhat thin and open to change in the bullpen. Those days are gone. To their credit, the Pirates landed a priority target last November, too, re-signing righty reliever Isaac Mattson a fortnight after they'd cast him into minor-league free agency. Mattson had been bad for them in 2024, but he knew they would have room for him if he could make the minor adjustments required. He did, and they did, and he pitched 47 innings with a 2.45 ERA for the Bucs in 2025. Signing in November is a sign that a minor-league free agent is among the subset of that group viewed as potentially valuable. Some team prioritized them; they got one of those coveted spring invites or an inside track in a race for the final spot on the roster. Players who linger on the market, if they come from this demographic, are doing so because they're holding out for a real shot—but haven't yet been offered one. The Brewers are in a tougher position to lure top minor-league free agents, because they don't have the roster spot to expend or the obvious playing time to offer. Nonetheless, keep an eye on them this month. Small moves they make now might pay off in medium-sized ways in 2026. Ismael Munguia, 27, is a speedy left-hitting outfielder who moved from the Giants farm system to that of the Yankees last offseason. He has very little power, but his bat-to-ball skills are elite, and his swing decisions show some promise. He's the kind of player the Crew might snap up, and while he could easily spend the whole season stashed at Triple-A Nashville, if he signs with Milwaukee this month, it will probably be because they made a case to him that he will have a role with them next season. Ditto for Ryder Ryan, a right-handed reliever out of the Pirates system who switched out his tight slider for a better sweeper and added a cutter as a bridge pitch in 2025. Those were promising changes; he has a chance to be a very late-blooming but usable big-league arm. If he scraps his sinker and leans more on his four-seamer (off which the sweeper and cutter play better, anyway), he could take another step forward next year. With players of his ilk, the key is to identify a player whom the development group firmly believes they can improve; make that case to the player and/or their agent; and be frank with them about the opportunity they would find in the organization. Lefty Parker Mushinski, recently of the Guardians, is another potential addition. Minor-league free agents move based on factors like reputation and soft promises. The key, from a team's perspective, is to be honest enough to maintain a reputation for treating players like these well. Guys at this stage of their career are carrying a precious candle in a high wind. They have, in most cases, just one more chance to make their big-league dream come true. It's bad form to deceive them, and smart teams know better than that. Without expending undue resources, the goal is to get a few players to believe that their best hope at keeping that flame from being extinguished is to take shelter with you. The Brewers already have a crowded roster, full of good players. That makes it harder for them to pitch themselves to players like these. Because they spend little in big-league free agency, though, they have to keep making minor moves. It's a delicate balancing act, but few teams in the league do it better. View the full article

Let’s not pretend the split-finger fastball is anything new. It’s been part of baseball’s lexicon for decades, and it’s been a talking point seemingly every postseason for years now. But 2025 was different. Thanks to two World Series juggernauts making deep runs in the playoffs, the splitter was featured more in this year’s postseason (1,047 times) than in the last four combined (1,035). That’s bound to happen when splitter-heavy starting pitchers each make five-plus starts. Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Trey Yesavage, and Kevin Gausman combined to make 22 appearances on the mound, and the latter three each threw the splitter at least 25.4% of the time during the regular season. All four leaned on the pitch even more under the postseason lights. And it’s easy to see why. A good splitter can effectively miss bats when tunneled with a high-velocity fastball, and it can produce weak contact even when tracked by the hitter. Eno Sarris of The Athletic noted in a recent article that damage was limited in this year’s playoffs even when contact was made, and advancements in the pitch’s development have been significant in 2025. “While the slugging was up on the split-finger over the last few years, it was still only .250 for the postseason,” he said. “Our understanding of how the seams create movement took a step forward with Seam-Shifted Wake, and that's part of why Yesavage's splitter is so effective. So teams can create better splitters more effectively now than they could in past years.” With that in mind, teams should look to develop better splitters or add arms that already feature the pitch, as several clubs were lacking in that department in 2025. Minnesota Twins There are plenty of areas where the Twins need to improve as they head into 2026. While their pitching corps isn’t their most glaring need, it could benefit them to find arms that can throw an effective splitter. They’re known for developing significant velocity within their pitching pipeline—now they need to find a way to pair that heat with a true off-speed weapon. The best splitter on the 2025 team belonged to former closer Jhoan Duran before he was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies. Among likely returning pitchers, reliever Cole Sands owned the best version, throwing it 21.6% of the time and allowing only two extra-base hits all season. Simeon Woods Richardson added the split to his repertoire in 2025, throwing it 10% of the time and limiting opponents to a .137 batting average. He could increase its usage going forward in hopes of replacing his lackluster changeup. Joe Ryan was the team’s best overall pitcher this year, but his splitter results dipped; he threw it 11% of the time and allowed a .478 slugging percentage with a notable drop in whiff rate. San Diego Padres Yu Darvish will miss the 2026 season after undergoing elbow surgery this week. He was the only starting pitcher on the roster who featured a real splitter, and even he had mixed results with it. The good news is that Jeremiah Estrada and Yuki Matsui are both set to return to the bullpen, and each threw the splitter at least 23% of the time. Estrada, in particular, found great success with the pitch in 2025, holding hitters to a .127 batting average and just two extra-base hits while using it as his primary put-away offering. Matsui’s splitter was serviceable but led to four home runs and four doubles—far less effective than in his rookie season in 2024. The Padres will surely look to bolster their pitching staff if they hope to remain in contention behind the juggernaut Dodgers. There will be intriguing splitter-heavy arms on the free-agent market, led by Shota Imanaga, who could draw interest depending on price. Milwaukee Brewers The team with the best record in baseball did it without a standout splitter. Shelby Miller and his splitter came over at the trade deadline but failed to make a real impact, posting a 5.59 ERA across 11 appearances with the Brewers. He’s now a free agent and set to miss the entire 2026 season while recovering from UCL surgery. Tobias Myers added a splitter entering 2025 and found success, allowing just a .108 batting average and two doubles. He could have a shot at cracking the Opening Day bullpen. Rob Zastryzny also has a splitter in his arsenal, but he didn’t use it often. If the Brewers hope to build on their 2025 success, it would make sense for them to identify more arms capable of throwing split-finger fastballs—particularly in the starting rotation, where the club is stocked with young, high-octane pitchers. What do you think? Is splitter usage going to continue to grow league-wide? What else should these teams do to be proactive as these trends continue? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section, and as always, stay sweet. View the full article

Baseball America recently released a comprehensive look back at every organization’s top prospects dating to 1983, the first year it began ranking talent across the league. For the Minnesota Twins, the list provides an opportunity to reflect on the organization’s long history of developing and scouting talent. Some names have become franchise legends, while others faded before ever reaching Target Field or the Metrodome. Together, they tell the story of how the Twins have developed talent for more than 40 years. Minnesota Twins' Best Prospects As part of the retrospective, Baseball America created a “Mount Rushmore of WAR” for each organization. These are players who ranked as top prospects for that team and went on to accumulate the highest career Wins Above Replacement in the major leagues, even if that success came elsewhere. For the Twins, that list included Joe Mauer, Kirby Puckett, Byron Buxton, and Jay Bell. Mauer is the most iconic homegrown player of his generation. The former number one overall pick in 2001 was a local legend before he even signed, and his career lived up to the hype. Mauer became the face of the franchise, winning three batting titles, an MVP award, and three Gold Gloves while transitioning from catcher to first base late in his career. His 55.2 fWAR with the Twins cements his status among the greatest players in team history. Puckett’s arrival in the mid-1980s helped shape a golden era for Minnesota baseball. He combined leadership, charisma, and elite performance at the plate and in center field. A six-time Silver Slugger and six-time Gold Glove winner, Puckett’s postseason heroics in 1987 and 1991 are the stuff of Twins legend. Before his career was tragically cut short, he was one of baseball’s true stars and one of the most successful top prospects the organization ever developed. Buxton represents the modern version of that elite homegrown talent. Once Baseball America’s number one overall prospect, he has flashed game-changing ability on both sides of the ball when healthy. Injuries have prevented him from reaching his full potential. Still, his combination of elite defense, power, and speed keeps him in the conversation as one of the most talented players to ever wear a Twins uniform. The fourth name on the list, Bell, might surprise some Twins fans. Bell was the eighth overall pick in the 1984 MLB Draft out of high school, and while he never played a game for Minnesota, his inclusion highlights the ripple effects of prospect development. In August 1985, Bell was traded to Cleveland as part of the deal that brought Bert Blyleven back to Minnesota. Blyleven, of course, played a pivotal role in the 1987 World Series championship. Bell went on to enjoy an impressive big-league career, finishing with 37.9 fWAR, two All-Star appearances, a Gold Glove, a Silver Slugger, and multiple seasons of down-ballot MVP consideration. Worst Big-League WAR While some prospects became franchise cornerstones, others failed to meet lofty expectations. Among the Twins’ former top prospects, Bryan Oelkers, Billy Beane, and Dave McCarty posted the lowest big-league WAR totals. Oelkers was Minnesota’s first-round pick in 1982, a left-handed pitcher out of the University of Illinois. He made his debut in 1983 but struggled with command and never established himself in the rotation, finishing his brief career with a -1.7 fWAR. Beane’s name will always be associated with his front office success more than his playing career. Drafted by the Mets in the first round of the 1980 draft, he was a highly touted outfielder who could not translate his tools into consistent big-league results. His -1.7 fWAR as a player is a far cry from the analytical revolution he later spearheaded as an executive with the Oakland Athletics. McCarty, the third overall pick in the 1991 draft, had the type of smooth right-handed swing scouts dream about. Unfortunately, it never translated into sustained major league success. He bounced around several organizations and ended his career with a -2.6 fWAR, the lowest among the Twins’ former top prospects. Names You Likely Forgot Scrolling through Baseball America’s list also unearths names that may only ring a faint bell for longtime Twins followers. Will Bankes, Adam Johnson, and Rich Garces all appeared as top prospects during their respective eras but never made the impact many expected. Johnson, in particular, was a notable case as the second overall pick in 2000, ahead of future stars like Chase Utley and Adam Wainwright. His career unraveled quickly due to injuries and inconsistency. Garces, meanwhile, eventually found success elsewhere as a reliever for the Boston Red Sox, and Bankes’ name has long since faded into minor league obscurity. Two former top Twins prospects, Steve Gasser and Johnny Ard, never reached the majors. Gasser, a right-handed pitcher, was a second-round pick in 1985 but struggled with injuries that derailed his path. Ard, a first-round selection in 1988, had a powerful arm but could not find the command needed to move through the system. Both serve as reminders of how unpredictable prospect development can be, even for highly regarded talents. Looking Back (and Forward) Baseball America’s retrospective offers a fascinating window into the Twins’ player development journey. For every Mauer or Puckett, there have been players who never realized their promise. Yet across four decades of rankings, one consistent thread emerges: Minnesota has a long history of identifying talent capable of becoming elite at the major league level. Whether those players wore a Twins uniform for one day or a decade, their stories all began in the same place, as prospects with big dreams and the potential to shape baseball history. Now the Twins hope Walker Jenkins becomes the next prospect to join their Mount Rushmore. What stands out about Baseball America’s list? Leave a comment and start the discussion. View the full article