"I want to give the Chiefs a good opportunity, whether I come back or not -- or whether they want me back or not," Kelce said. "I'd like to make that decision before they've got to get draft picks and free agency opens to fill the roster appropriately. "All that will be at the end of the season. I won't be thinking about it until then."
"Yeah. I grew up there. I played for Dynamo," Ovechkin said. "Of course, I want to play maybe one or two games. We'll see. You never know what's going to happen, right? Right now, I'm here and I'm enjoying my days here. We'll see."
It's been just under a week since Shane Bieber decided he wanted to have a second shot at winning in Toronto and exercised his contract option to remain with the Blue Jays in 2026. The $16 million deal will get the 30-year-old through the 2027 season on a team friendly deal, in the hopes that he can cash in big time the following year.
He's a player who will consistently get on base and make pitchers work with his .337 OBP. That's incredibly important when you have a bat like Vladimir Guerrero Jr.'s in your lineup. Bichette adds a solid layer of protection for Guerrero, which was shown as recently as Game 7 of the World Series, when Guerrero got intentionally walked and Bichette smacked a three-run home run immediately after.
The Mets announced their full slate of option decisions, including the previously-unreported (but completely unsurprising) news that Frankie Montas won't be triggering the opt-out clause in his contract. The two-year, $34MM contract Montas signed last offseason allowed the right-hander to walk away from the deal after the first season, but Montas will stay put and earn another $17MM salary in 2026.
Veteran reliever Wandy Peralta will forgo the opt-out in his contract, reports Annie Heilbrunn of the San Diego Union-Tribune. Peralta's four-year, $16.5MM contract contained opt-out opportunities after each season. He's exercising a $4.45MM player option for the 2026 season and will have one final player option for the same amount next offseason. Peralta effectively has two years and $8.9MM remaining on his contract, with an opt-out at the midway point.
The winning regimen they've put up over the last five years, or really, since they entered the league, is attractive. They have such a competitive team every year.
