Major League Baseball

Major League Baseball

Most notable is the hiring of Thomas Whitsett as an assistant pitching coach under Bill Murphy. Whitsett has ties to Murphy from the Houston organization. He had coached in the Astros system as a pitching coordinator and was most recently their Triple-A pitching coach in 2024. Whitsett had come through the college ranks after working at the University of Arizona. This is his first job on a big league staff.

Free agent left-hander suffered an Achilles rupture while working out this week, he announced on social media. He underwent successful surgery yesterday. Means didn't specify a recovery timeline but seems likely to miss the entire 2026 season. It's another devastating injury for a former All-Star whose career has been sidetracked by health issues. Means has made a total of 10 MLB appearances since the end of the 2021 season.

I would probably stick with AJ. But what Doc [Dave Roberts] did this postseason was super impressive. So I would give it a 1A and 1B, because everybody talks about the rosters that Doc has had, and yes, he has unbelievable talent. But what he did this postseason - and honestly the previous one, too, with how he navigated that Padres series - I give him a whole ton of respect.

Flexen, 31, parlayed his first KBO stint into a two-year, $4.75MM contract with the Mariners. That contract included a club/vesting option that Flexen vested at $8MM with a strong performance in 2021-22, when he tossed a combined 317 1/3 innings of 3.66 ERA ball. His 16.5% strikeout rate was well below average, but Flexen showed good command (6.8% walk rate) and did a decent job avoiding hard contact.

Major League Baseball revealed its 2025 post-season bonus pool for players on Thursday, with the back-to-back World Series-champion Los Angeles Dodgers earning 36 per cent ($46.15 million) of the total $128.2 million pool, per Sportico's report. The Toronto Blue Jays, who were dealt a heartbreaking loss in Game 7 of the World Series at Rogers Centre last month, received 24 per cent ($30.76 million) of the post-season bonus pool.

2004 - Two days after trading pitching ace Tim Hudson (17-8, 4.43 ERA) to the Braves, the A's deal Mark Mulder to the Cardinals for starting pitcher Dan Haren, reliever Kiko Calero and minor league catching prospect Daric Barton. Five of the six players obtained by giving up two-thirds of the team's "Big Three" are expected to be part of the opening day roster for Oakland.

The 6'0″ righty made 15 starts for the Samsung Lions after signing in June. Garabito pitched well, turning in a 2.64 earned run average with a 26% strikeout rate. That makes it a bit surprising that the sides didn't work out an agreement for the 2026 season. Garabito instead will try to pitch his way back to the big leagues in Spring Training.

The Los Angeles Dodgers addressed their bullpen by adding All-Star closer Edwin Díaz on a three-year, $69 million contract that includes more than $13 million in deferrals and a $9 million signing bonus. The $23 million average annual value (AAV) of the contract set a new record for relievers, surpassing the $20.4 million mark Díaz received in his last deal with the New York Mets.

Sullivan is a depth option behind the plate. He has appeared in the big leagues in each of the past three seasons. He made it into 33 games for the Padres in 2023 but has been limited to 10 combined appearances in the last two years. The 31-year-old (32 in February) has hit .204 with a .250 on-base percentage and two home runs in 112 career plate appearances.

We've started to see some top free agents come off the board as the MLB offseason has gotten rolling: Kyle Schwarber back to the Philadelphia Phillies, Pete Alonso to the Baltimore Orioles and Dylan Cease to the Toronto Blue Jays. The closer market also moved quickly: Devin Williams to the New York Mets, Edwin Diaz then ditching the Mets for the Los Angeles Dodgers, Robert Suarez to the Atlanta Braves and Ryan Helsley to Baltimore.

Another slow Tuesday on the news front calls for a continuation of our Atlanta Braves player review series. This week, we take a look at Ozzie Albies, who ended his season with an unfortunate hand injury. Our draft target series continues with shortstop Eric Becker out of the University of Virginia. Gabe Burns of the AJC reported that Aaron Schunk will be in camp as a non-roster invite.

On Dec. 17, 2004, the Los Angeles Dodgers backed out of making a blockbuster trade with the New York Yankees and Arizona Diamondbacks that would have seen Shawn Green, Brad Penny and Randy Johnson switch teams. The trade was set to send Johnson and Kazuhisa Ishii to the Yankees, Green and Penny to the Diamondbacks, with Jose Vazquez and other prospects going to the Dodgers. The deal was nearly completed until it seemingly fell apart at the 11th hour.

They've already added some of the pieces with which they'll try to do that, bringing in Marcus Semien as the return for Nimmo and following that up by signing Jorge Polanco, but there's clearly more work to do. It's with that backdrop that reporting yesterday indicated the Mets could look to trade infielder Mark Vientos this winter, perhaps while eyeing the addition of a big bat to the lineup.

Situations such as this one tend to benefit all parties. The Yankees will lose some depth, but Winans wasn't a lock to last the whole offseason on their 40-man roster anyhow - particularly since he's out of minor league options. Japanese teams typically pay a release fee of a few hundred thousand dollars to a player's MLB club in order to facilitate the release.

For much of the past two weeks, fans of the Los Angeles Dodgers have dreamed about acquiring reigning Cy Young winning starting pitcher Tarik Skubal in a trade with the Detroit Tigers. With one year remaining on his contract with the Tigers, the team could decide to deal the two-time Cy Young winner rather than letting him walk next season. However, given Skubal's pedigree, it would take a vast amount of resources for any team to convince the Tigers to part ways with their ace.

Broadcaster Joe Davis was put in a bit of a pickle the last two seasons. The lead broadcaster for FOX, he had the task of calling the last two World Series featuring the team he covers on a daily basis in the Los Angeles Dodgers. Despite his young age relative to the profession, Davis is a pro - and is undeniably objective in calling games even when he has immense familiarity/relationships with the Dodgers organization.

They have re-signed right-hander Raúl Alcantara, who pitched for the Heroes in 2025. They have also added first baseman Trenton Brooks, right-hander Nathan Wiles and Japanese right-hander Yuto Kanakubo. Alcantara will earn a $700K salary with $200K in incentives available. Wiles gets a $910K salary. Brooks gets $700K plus $150K in incentives. Kanakubo gets $100K with $30K in incentives available.

Vientos looked like a lineup building block at this time last year. The righty-hitting infielder was coming off a 27-homer season in which he'd hit .266/.322/.516 across 454 regular season plate appearances. He was even better in the playoffs, blasting five homers and a pair of doubles while hitting .327 across 13 games. Vientos was a huge reason the Mets made it to the 2024 NL Championship Series.

the Braves were in desperate need of a shortstop and Ha-Seong Kim (a Scott Boras client) was looking to cash in on being one of the highest-profile free agent shortstops in a particularly weak market for shortstops this offseason. He would've made $16 million had he accepted his player option but instead, he's managed to get the Braves to pony up an extra $4 million for this upcoming season.