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Jack Flaherty Undecided On Player Option For 2026

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Following the Tigers’ 15th-inning loss to the Mariners in Game 5 of the ALDS, right-hander Jack Flaherty (who pitched two scoreless innings late in the game) spoke to members of the media about how much he enjoyed returning to Detroit this season. “I came back here for a reason, to be with these guys, play with them, and be part of this team. I didn’t want to leave it last year,” he explained (per MLB Network’s Jon Morosi).

Flaherty, 30 next week, signed a two-year, $35MM guarantee with the Tigers in the offseason. Earlier this season, he increased that guarantee by reaching the 15-start threshold and escalating his 2026 player option from $10MM to $20MM. In a few weeks, he’ll have a decision to make: Will he opt in for 2026 or return to free agency for a third year in a row?

According to Morosi, Flaherty has not yet decided what he’s going to do. In an MLBTR poll at the end of September, more than 60% of readers said he should stay with Detroit, but Tigers beat writer Evan Woodberry of MLive.com claims “it would be a surprise” to see Flaherty pick up his option.

Flaherty signed a one-year, $14MM deal with the Tigers in his first offseason as a free agent. He was two years younger than he is now, but he was coming off a mediocre season (144 1/3 IP, 4.99 ERA, 4.53 SIERA, 1.8 fWAR) and had dealt with significant injuries in both 2021 and ’22. Following a much stronger 2024 campaign (162 IP, 3.17 ERA, 3.10 SIERA, 3.3 fWAR), he re-entered free agency but failed to land the long-term deal he was surely looking for, ultimately settling for his aforementioned two-year deal in February. That contract initially came with a $17.5MM average annual value, which he increased to $22.5MM. Now another year older and coming off a less impressive season (161 IP, 4.64 ERA, 3.67 SIERA, 2.5 fWAR), it’s worth wondering if he’ll want to risk another disappointing foray into free agency.

Because he was traded to the Dodgers ahead of the deadline in 2024, Flaherty was not eligible to receive a qualifying offer last offseason. It’s certainly possible he opts for free agency, only to receive a qualifying offer (projected to be worth around $22MM) and take it, earning himself an extra $2MM. The righty is precisely the type of player whose earning power could be hamstrung by a qualifying offer, so he might prefer to accept it, play another season with Detroit, and try to enter free agency in a stronger position the following winter. It seems like a safe bet that Flaherty could out-earn $22MM on a multi-year deal this offseason, but the AAV would likely be lower. If he believes he can produce a stronger campaign in 2026, he could maximize his total earnings by taking the $22MM and looking for a more lucrative long-term contract a year from now.

If Flaherty returns next season, the Tigers might run with a very similar rotation to the group they used in 2025, featuring Tarik Skubal, Casey Mize, and a hopefully healthy Reese Olson. As things stand, Troy Melton, Keider Montero and Sawyer Gipson-Long could compete for the final spot, although president of baseball operations Scott Harris would be wise to look for some outside help.

Seven Players Elect Free Agency

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Now that the season is over, we’ll start seeing several players choose to become minor league free agents. Major League free agents (i.e. players with six-plus years of big league service time) will hit the open market five days after the end of the World Series, but eligible minor leaguers can already start electing free agency.

To qualify, these players must have been all outrighted off their team’s 40-man rosters during the 2025 season without being added back. These players also must have multiple career outrights on their resume, and/or at least three years of Major League service time.

We’ll offer periodic updates over the coming weeks about many other players hitting the market in this fashion. These free agent decisions are all listed on the official MLB.com or MILB.com transactions pages, for further reference.

Infielders

Outfielders

Pitchers

Bryan Woo Expected To Be Part Of Mariners’ ALCS Roster

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After an epic 15-inning win over the Tigers in Game Five of the ALDS, the Mariners are advancing to their first AL Championship Series since 2001.  The club’s hard-worked pitching staff will likely be getting some major reinforcements, as M’s president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto told reporters (including the Seattle Times’ Adam Jude) that right-hander Bryan Woo is expected to added to the Mariners’ roster for the next round.

Woo probably won’t pitch until closer to the midpoint of the series, Dipoto said.  This means Woo is being lined up for a start when the ALCS shifts to Seattle for Games 3-4 and (if necessary) 5.  It also leaves open the question of who exactly will be starting for the Mariners in the first two games in Toronto, as the M’s used starters Logan Gilbert and Luis Castillo out of the bullpen during last night’s 15-inning marathon.  Gilbert threw 34 pitches over two innings of relief, and Castillo threw 15 pitches over 1 1/3 frames.

Dipoto told Shannon Drayer of Seattle Sports 710 radio last night that “probably Bryce [Miller] and friends” would be the plan for Game 1, “but for a couple of days we may have to be creative…simply because so many guys had to pitch in today.”  Miller would be working on three days’ rest if he started Game 1, so as Dipoto implied, the bullpen may be leaned on again in what would probably be a limited start for the righty.  Castillo is probably the favorite to go in Game 2 with Gilbert’s availability also a question, and in theory, this could line up Gilbert for Game 3, George Kirby in Game 4, and Woo in Game if the M’s chose to deploy their full rotation.  This assumes that Woo will be used in a normal starting capacity, and holding him off until the middle of the series would give the right-hander more time to fully ramp up.

Woo posted a 2.94 ERA over 186 2/3 innings during the regular season, but he developed pectoral tightness in a start on September 19 that forced him out of the game after five shutout innings.  Woo hasn’t pitched since, though he wasn’t placed on the 15-day injured list, and he was able to throw a bullpen session and a simulated inning prior to the start of the ALDS.  Jude wrote prior to Game 5 that Woo threw close to 30 pitches during a bullpen session on Friday, and “appeared to be throwing at roughly 75 percent effort” before kicking things up “closer to 100 percent” for the final few pitches of the session.

Seattle and Toronto don’t have to reveal their ALCS rosters until tomorrow, so we’ll get the final word then on Woo’s involvement and whose spot he’ll be taking on the 26-man.  The move to a seven-game series likely means the Mariners will carry an extra pitcher after using 14 position players and 12 pitchers in the ALDS, so a rookie like Ben Williamson or Harry Ford could be the odd man out.

Gleyber Torres To Undergo Sports Hernia Surgery

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With the Tigers’ season now over, Gleyber Torres is planning to undergo sports hernia surgery, the second baseman told reporters (including the Detroit News’ Tony Paul) in the aftermath of the club’s loss in Game Five of the ALDS.  Torres revealed that he has been dealing with the injury for several months, and praised the Tigers’ training and medical staff for helping him keep playing.

“It was not good from the [start of the] second half,” Torres said.  “It was a lot of pain.  But we do a really good job keeping me playing….It’s not about the numbers, it’s just about playing every day.”

A look at Torres’ numbers, however, clearly reveals something was amiss.  Torres hit .281/.387/.425 over 359 plate appearances in the first half of the season, and was performing well enough to earn a starting nod as the American League’s second baseman in the All-Star Game.  Once the All-Star break was over, however, Torres hit only .223/.320/.339 over his final 269 PA of the regular season.  He seemed to rediscover his stroke over Detroit’s first seven postseason games, but an 0-for-6 showing in yesterday’s 15-inning marathon with the Mariners dropped Torres’ playoff slash line to .235/.316/.382 over 38 PA.

Torres’ slide mirrored the Tigers’ own fortunes.  One of baseball’s better clubs for much of the season, Detroit went 9-22 over its last 31 games and barely squeaked into the postseason field in the final AL wild card slot.  If the Tigers had retained their healthy AL Central lead, Torres likely would’ve gotten more opportunity to rest down the stretch, and yet the mutual struggles of player and team led to the Tigers led to an unfortunate Catch-22 situation.  The Tigers still needed Torres in the lineup as much as possible as their top-choice second baseman, yet Torres’ struggles kept adding to the team’s woes (though Torres was far from the only Detroit player to under-perform in September).

The injury adds context to Torres’ second-half decline, and adds a wrinkle to his upcoming free agent market.  Firstly, sports hernia surgeries usually take at least two months of recovery time and closer to 12 weeks on the longer end, so the procedure shouldn’t impact his readiness for the start of Spring Training.  Interested suitors might now wait until Torres is fully recovered before diving too deeply into his market, so it is possible he might not sign until late December or early January.

For the season as a whole, Torres hit .256/.358/.387 with 16 homers over 628 PA, with below-average glovework (though better public defensive metrics than his 2024 work as the Yankees’ second baseman).  This works out to 2.6 fWAR, which was still eighth-best among all second baseman in 2025.  Looking at the free agent second base market, Torres is still arguably the best option available, since Jorge Polanco’s time at second base was also impacted by injury.

Torres’ reps at Octagon will clearly make the case that their client’s first-half performance is a better reflection of what a healthy Torres can bring.  Detroit signed Torres to a one-year, $15MM contract last winter that was essentially a pillow deal for the second baseman, as he was looking a shorter-term deal and a better platform year in 2025 that would allow him to re-enter the market with a stronger set of numbers.  Torres hit .257/.330/.378 with 15 homers over 665 PA (with a 105 wRC+ and 1.8 fWAR) for New York in 2024, so while he did improve in Detroit, it wasn’t the leap ahead he was hoping to achieve.

Could a return to Motown be possible?  Torres is open to it, saying “hopefully we get a really good conversation here.  I feel really good with this group….It was really special this year.”  Retaining Torres would be a logical way for the Tigers to keep a right-handed hitting bat within their lefty-tilted lineup.  On the flip side, a longer-term deal with a second baseman might not appeal to a Tigers team that has some notable minor league infielders (Hao-Yu Lee, Max Anderson, and star prospect Kevin McGonigle) nearing MLB readiness.

Munetaka Murakami To Be Posted This Offseason

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Japanese slugger Munetaka Murakami is going to be posted by the Yakult Swallows of Nippon Professional Baseball, reports Mark Feinsand of MLB.com. It has long been expected that this would be the case, as it was reported three years ago that the plan was for Murakami to make the MLB move after 2025, but this report confirms that Murakami will be a key free agent to watch this winter.

The timing of the posting is not a coincidence. Under major league baseball’s international free agency rules, a player is considered an “amateur” if he is under the age of 25. These “amateur” players are subject to the international bonus pool system, wherein teams are hard-capped by annual budgets of roughly $4MM to $9MM. This was the case when Roki Sasaki was posted prior to his age-23 season. He eventually signed with the Dodgers and received a $6.5MM signing bonus, far less than he would have received with more open bidding. He is also treated like a minor leaguer, in that he will be making around the league minimum until he qualifies for arbitration and will be under club control until he accrues six years of big league service time.

Murakami won’t be in the same situation as Sasaki. He turned 25 in February will therefore be considered a professional under the current rules. Once he is officially posted, he will be free to negotiate with all 30 clubs for a period of 45 days and will have no restrictions on the kinds of offers he can receive. This situation is more analogous to that of Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who also signed with the Dodgers. His 12-year, $325MM deal was in a far different stratosphere compared to Sasaki.

Sasaki was eager enough to come to Major League Baseball that he came young, despite the clearly lesser earning power with that path. Murakami has understandably waited until after his 25th birthday and should be in line for a nice payday.

What remains to be seen is exactly how strong his market will be. In his NPB career, he has shown massive power potential but also real strikeout concerns. He has generally been good for 30 to 40 homers per year, though he had a massive 56-homer season in 2022. This year, he missed a large chunk of the season due to an oblique injury and only got into 56 games, but he managed to launch 22 balls over the fence in that small sample.

He was also punched out 64 times in 224 plate appearances this year, a rate of 28.6%. He had that down to 20.6% during his amazing 2022 season but he’s been above 28% for three straight years now. Overall, he has hit .270/.394/.557 in his NPB career. Since MLB pitching features greater velocity and generally higher quality than NPB pitching, it’s possible his strikeout rate would increase with the move. For reference, the MLB average was 22.2% this year and there were only nine qualified hitters above 28%.

Murakami has primarily been a third baseman during his time with the Swallows. He has also dabbled at first base and even got a brief look in left field this year. Scouting reports have generally pegged him as a middling fielder who will likely end up at first base in the long run.

That will put more pressure on his bat but some clubs may be more comfortable with him playing third base for a few years. Teams will also have varying opinions about how he will be able to adapt to MLB pitching.

For players coming over from Japan, there have been all sorts of different results. As mentioned, Yamamoto had so much strong interest that he was able to secure a 12-year pact with opt-outs. Shota Imanaga got a creative four-year guarantee with a multi-year club option and player option structure after two seasons. Seiya Suzuki and Masataka Yoshida got straight five-year deals worth $85MM and $90MM respectively. Both of those hitters had better NPB batting averages than Murakami but without the same power ceiling.

Since the Dodgers have landed many Japanese stars, many fans expect that to be the outcome here. However, it’s not a perfect roster fit. The Dodgers have Freddie Freeman at first base and Shohei Ohtani in the designated hitter spot. They have an affordable $10MM club option to keep Max Muncy around as their third baseman next year. Signing Murakami can’t be totally ruled out but it may require them to move on from Muncy, who has been a cornerstone of the club for years and is still putting up good numbers, or perhaps try Murakami as an outfielder. Even if Muncy’s option is picked up, he’s slated for free agency after 2026, with Freeman only signed through 2027, so the long-term fit is better than in the short term.

The Red Sox would be a cleaner fit now, since Alex Bregman is likely to opt out of his deal and the club has questions at first base. The Mets have first base open with Pete Alonso set to opt out and they don’t have a clear answer at third base either. The Yankees could put him at first base, with Paul Goldschmidt becoming a free agent and Ben Rice capable of catching. The Cubs have Matt Shaw at third but almost signed Bregman last winter, so perhaps they are still willing to go after an external option there. The Tigers currently have Zach McKinstry at third but he’s capable of playing elsewhere. The Angels don’t have a long-term third base solution due to the ongoing injuries of Anthony Rendon. The Mariners are about to lose Eugenio Suárez to free agency. The Reds don’t have a definite answer at first base.

Over time, his market will become more clear. Whichever club signs him will also owe a posting fee to the Swallows. The posting fee is calculated as 20% of the contract’s first $25MM, 17.5% of the next $25MM, and 15% of spending above $50MM.

Photo courtesy of Sam Navarro, Imagn Images

Miguel Rojas Intends To Retire After 2026 Season

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Dodgers infielder Miguel Rojas plans to retire after the 2026 season, he told Doug McKain of Dodgers Nation following last night’s series-clinching win over the Phillies. The 36-year-old Rojas is an impending free agent and said he hopes to remain in Dodger blue for the final season of his career.

“I’ve been giving it everything that I have every single night for the four years that I’ve been here,” Rojas said. “Hopefully I can finish my career here next year because I’m going to retire after next year.” That’ll be Rojas’ 13th season in the big leagues overall, and he has accrued more than 11 full years of service time.

It stands to reason the Dodgers would be happy to keep him around on another cheap one-year contract. Rojas is in his second stint with Los Angeles. He debuted there in 2014 and was traded to the Marlins the following year. Rojas spent eight seasons in Miami, most of it as the starting shortstop. The Fish dealt him back to the Dodgers over the 2022-23 offseason.

Rojas was in the final year of his contract with Miami. The Dodgers immediately signed him to an extension for the 2024 season that came with a ’25 club option. They exercised the $5MM option after he hit .283/.337/.410 last year. Rojas has been almost as productive this season, batting .262/.318/.397 over 317 trips to the plate. While he isn’t going to hit for much power, he still reliably puts the ball in play and provides good defense at second or third base. Rojas’ days as an everyday shortstop are behind him, yet he has chipped in 10 starts and logged 117 innings at the position this year.

The Dodgers have used Rojas in five of their six postseason games. He started at second base for the clincher of the Wild Card Series against the Reds and was at the hot corner for Game 2 of the Division Series in Philadelphia. Rojas is a decent complement to left-handed hitting Max Muncy at third base. He has been more productive this season than fellow impending free agent utilityman Kiké Hernández. It’d make sense for the Dodgers to let Hernández walk and bring Rojas back on another deal in the $5MM range. If they let both players depart to open at-bats for Hyeseong Kim and/or rookie Alex Freeland, Rojas shouldn’t have a hard time finding a semi-regular utility role elsewhere.

Previewing The 2025-26 Free Agent Class: Third Base

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A number of teams (and their fanbases) have already turned their attention towards the offseason. Identifying free agent targets is a big part of that prep work, so it’s worth taking a look at the players who’ll be available at each position.

We’re moving to third base, where the eligibility cutoff is players who either logged at least 50 innings at the position this season or have primarily played there in their careers. Most shortstops could theoretically handle the hot corner. Some teams might have interest in Jorge Polanco and/or Ha-Seong Kim at third base — the Mariners played Polanco there for 43 innings — but Polanco was covered in our second base preview and Kim will be highlighted more prominently in our shortstop preview. Ages listed are for the 2026 season.

Previous entries in this series: catcher, first base, second base

Regular Third Basemen

Alex Bregman (32)

Bregman can opt out of the final two years and $80MM of his contract this offseason. Deferred money in the contract reportedly knocks the present-day valuation of that sum down by around $10MM annually. Even absent the deferrals, Bregman would feel like all but a lock to opt out. He secured that contract last year when he was saddled a qualifying offer, which won’t be the case this season, as players can only receive one QO in their careers.

Early on, Bregman played like a borderline MVP candidate, hitting .299/.385/.553 with 11 homers, 17 doubles, a 9.7% walk rate and an 18.6% strikeout rate through May 23. A quad strain shelved him for close to two months at that point. There’s a narrative that Bregman floundered down the stretch after that injury, but it doesn’t accurately paint the whole picture. Bregman slashed an outstanding .325/.408/.518 with more walks (11.5%) than strikeouts (8.5%) in his first 130 plate appearances off the injured list. Chief baseball officer Craig Breslow said this week that Bregman was activated at less than 100% and perhaps wasn’t running full speed for much of that time. Be that as it may, he was still quite productive.

Bregman tanked for the next three weeks or so, hitting .151/.223/.215 in 103 plate appearances. He struck out at only a 10.7% clip in that time but was dogged by a .159 average on balls in play. Over the final 10 days of play, Bregman emerged from his slump to hit .276/.417/.414 in 36 plate appearances.

The notion that Bregman’s second-half “swoon” was driven by his quad injury doesn’t really seem to hold up. Based on Breslow’s comments, we can assume he wasn’t 100%, but it’s a tougher sell that playing at “80%” (as Breslow suggested) really impacted Bregman’s bat. If the quad were that much of a problem, would he have come back hitting even better than he did pre-injury for about a full month? This seems like a good hitter had a bad three weeks because of some ugly results on balls in play. That happens.

On the whole, Bregman hit .273/.360/.462 (125 wRC+) with a revitalized walk rate and improved batted-ball metrics. His defense, even with an ailing quadriceps, graded out better than average. Both FanGraphs and Baseball-Reference peg him at 3.5 WAR in only 114 games. There’s a pretty easy case that Bregman is a bankable four- to five-WAR player, and while talk of veteran presence/clubhouse leadership/intangibles is often overstated, it seems genuine that front offices are captivated by his leadership skills and personality.

Long-term deals beginning at age 32 aren’t common, but Bregman’s a better 32-year-old free agent than most and can probably find five or even six years in free agency. Even if that were to fall through, a two- or three-year pact comparable to the one he signed last winter would probably be there to provide a soft landing.

Eugenio Suarez (34)

Suarez’s strikeout rate crept back up close to 30% this year after a welcomed dip in 2024. He struggled, rate-wise, after a trade sending him back to the Mariners, and this year’s defensive grades at third base were the worst of his career.

He also hit 49 home runs.

Suarez’s .228 average and .298 on-base percentage aren’t going to stand out — not for good reasons, anyhow — but he slugged .526 and tied a career-best in home runs six years after previously belting 49 dingers for the Reds in 2019’s juiced-ball season. Suarez has game-changing power, second only to Kyle Schwarber among free agents, and is still playable at third base, even if he’s below average there now. He’ll strike out too much, but he’s one of only three reliable sources of 30-homer pop in free agency this winter alongside Schwarber and Pete Alonso. Unlike those two, he has at least some defensive utility. (A below-average third baseman is more valuable than a below-average first baseman or a pure DH with occasional outfield reps.)

Age will probably keep Suarez’s contract to a maximum of three years, and he might even be capped at two, but that will oddly make him even more appealing to some teams. Clubs are increasingly reluctant to hand out long-term deals, so having his contract length inherently limited by his age should lead to a broad market that allows Suarez to command a weighty average annual value.

Yoan Moncada (31)

Admittedly, “regular” is something of a misnomer when it comes to a player who’s tallied all of 292 games in the past four seasons combined. Still, when Moncada has been healthy enough to take the field, he’s been a pure third baseman, and a quietly solid one at that. Over the past two seasons, he’s hit .240/.338/.441 with a dozen homers in 334 turns at the plate. He was roughly league-average at the plate in about a half season with the White Sox in 2023, too.

Moncada isn’t the star he looked to be early in his career. Injuries have regularly worn him down and kept him off the field. Any team signing him will have to expect more of the same at this point, but that team can also expect Moncada to be relatively productive when he’s on the diamond. The switch-hitter won’t turn 31 until late May next year. A team hoping to catch lightning in a bottle with a low-cost acquisition at third base will probably sign him to a one-year deal. For whatever period of the season he’s healthy, it’s reasonable to expect Moncada to be about 10% better than average at the plate, and there’s upside for a bit more than that if things really click.

NPB Stars Who Are Expected To Be Posted

Munetaka Murakami (26)

It’s an open question whether Murakami can handle third base in the major leagues, but it’s been the star slugger’s primary position with the Yakult Swallows in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. He’s also played plenty of first base and even cameoed in right field for three games this season. Scouting reports feel a move to first base will eventually be necessary, but it’s certainly plausible that a team might be willing to let Murakami have a go at the hot corner for at least the first few years of a contract.

After all, Murakami’s calling card isn’t his glove, but rather his age and his legitimately prodigious power. The two-time NPB MVP missed multiple months with an oblique strain in 2025 but homered nearly once every 10 plate appearances when healthy, bashing 22 round-trippers in just 224 plate appearances while hitting .273/.379/.663. Murakami has slam-dunk 80-grade power on the 20-80 scale. He’s been more pull-heavy in 2025’s injury-shortened season, but Murakami has all-fields power with blistering exit velocities. It’s the type of left-handed raw power in line with countryman Shohei Ohtani and NL home run leader Kyle Schwarber (as you can see in this early-October home run, clocked at 117 mph off the bat).

Murakami has seen his contact rate drop and his strikeout rate climb in the three seasons since his being named NPB MVP in consecutive seasons back in 2021-22. He’s fanned in around 28% of his plate appearances since 2023. However, he’s also walked in nearly 16% of his plate appearances during that time and is currently homering at an even more rapid pace than his ’22 campaign, when he belted a career-high 56 home runs in 141 games.

Murakami has the power ceiling and youth to command a long-term contract, likely with at least one opt-out opportunity. Strikeout and defensive concerns notwithstanding, he’s likely going to rank prominently on our Top 50 free agent rankings based on the earning power created by that blend of youth and rare power.

Kazuma Okamoto (30)

As is the case with Murakami, Okamoto is a plus hitter in NPB whose 2025 season has been shortened by injury (elbow, in his case) and who comes with concerns about a potential move across the diamond. His right-handed bat has plus raw power but not to the extent of Murakami’s top-of-the-scale thunder. However, Okamoto’s hit tool is vastly superior, as evidenced by a tiny 11.3% strikeout rate in 229 plate appearances this season (and a 15.9% mark in a full 2024 campaign).

Make no mistake, though. Just because Okamoto’s doesn’t have as much power as Murakami doesn’t mean his power won’t be coveted. He rattled off six straight 30-homer seasons from 2018-23, topping out at 41 dingers in ’23. He “slipped” to 29 home runs in 2024, but his 2025 pace would have him in line for one of his highest career totals; he’s swatted 15 homers in 293 plate appearances. Overall, Okamoto is hitting .327/.416/.598.

If Okamoto were a lock to stay at third base, his earning power would be considerably higher. He was regarded as a below-average defender at the hot corner even before this year’s elbow injury, however, and the injury now creates further concern about his defensive outlook. The offensive bar to clear for a righty-swinging first baseman is much higher than that of a third baseman. Still, Okamoto’s bat and incredibly consistent track record in NPB will draw plenty of interest and should earn him a notable contract — if he’s posted. He’s the captain of the Yomiuri Giants, a team that rarely posts players for MLB clubs. However, Okamoto has asked the team to post him and is only one year away from becoming a true international free agent. The Giants’ options are to hold him for a year and lose him for no compensation, or to post him now and receive potentially tens of millions of dollars from an MLB club via posting.

Multi-Position Players

Willi Castro (29)

The versatile Castro’s bat tanked following a deadline trade from the Twins to the Cubs, but his overall track record across the past three seasons is strong. The switch-hitter is a .244/.328/.386 hitter dating back to 2023, and he’s comfortable at second base, third base, shortstop and in the outfield. He’s not a plus defender at any of those spots, but he’s capable enough and runs well. He’s a nice bench piece for any contender and could potentially get a look as a semi-regular for a team with needs at second base/left field.

Miguel Rojas (37)

Rojas has minimal power and doesn’t walk much, but he’s a high-contact hitter who consistently posts quality batting averages and provides slick defense around the infield. He has plus grades at shortstop, third base and second base in his career and has continued to show he can play all of those positions at a high level.

Isiah Kiner-Falefa (31)

Like Rojas, Kiner-Falefa is a versatile, high-contact, low-power utility player. His right-handed bat has produced a career .262/.311/.349 line, and he’s an annual threat for 15 to 20 steals. “IKF” doesn’t walk much and has never topped eight homers in a season, but he’s a well-regarded defensive player who can handle multiple spots in the infield and outfield. Kiner-Falefa has particularly strong grades at second and third but is solid enough at shortstop and even logged a combined 567 innings between center field and left field in 2023-24.

Luis Rengifo (29)

The switch-hitting Rengifo looked like he was trending toward a nice multi-year deal from 2022-24 when he hit a combined .273/.323/.431 (111 wRC+) and struck out at just a 16.3% clip. His bat flopped with a .238/.287/.335 output (73 wRC+) in his platform season, however. Rengifo can play second base and third base, though he’s better at the former and not a consistently plus defender at either. (He did post strong second base grades in 2025.) He’s probably looking at a one-year deal, though perhaps his youth and track record could earn him a modest two-year pact.

Amed Rosario (30)

Rosario’s days as a starting shortstop — or a shortstop, in general — are likely behind him. The former top prospect never blossomed into stardom, but he’s a useful utility player who can handle multiple positions and beat up left-handed pitching. Rosario can play second base, third base or the outfield corners, and he has enough experience at shortstop that he can handle the spot in a pinch (even though his defensive marks have reached worrying levels). He posted a solid .276/.309/.436 line in 191 plate appearances this season (106 wRC+) and is a career .298/.336/.464 hitter against lefties. He should get a big league deal and fill a bench role again in 2026.

Minor League Deal Candidates

Cody Bellinger To Opt Out Of Contract With Yankees

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Cody Bellinger will decline his $25MM player option and become a free agent, reports Jorge Castillo of ESPN. That was never much in doubt, as the outfielder will hit the open market after one strong season with the Yankees. He’ll collect a $5MM buyout, half of which will be paid by the Cubs.

The Yanks had been tied to Bellinger in free agency and trade rumors for years. That finally came to fruition last offseason with what amounted to a salary dump trade with Chicago. Bellinger was coming off a relative down ’24 season (.266/.325/.426) and passed on his first opt-out chance in his three-year deal. The Cubs pulled off the Kyle Tucker trade to add a needed impact bat in the middle of the order. That left them without an outfield spot for Bellinger, so they sent him to the Yankees for essentially no return.

New York absorbed $47.5MM of the $52.5MM remaining on Bellinger’s contract. The Cubs paid $2.5MM of his $27.5MM salary this season and are responsible for the other $2.5MM on the buyout. The Yankees wound up paying $27.5MM for one year — $25MM in salary and the remaining half of the buyout.

That proved a worthwhile investment even if the team had a disappointing exit in this week’s Division Series. Bellinger played about as well as could be expected. He hit .272/.334/.480 across 656 plate appearances. Bellinger hit 29 homers, his best single-season total since he connected on 47 longballs during his 2019 MVP season. He swiped 13 bases while cutting his strikeout rate to a career-low 13.7% clip.

Bellinger’s left-handed swing seemed tailor made for Yankee Stadium. He hit 18 homers with a .302/.365/.544 batting line at home. His road numbers were essentially league average, as he slashed .241/.301/.414 outside the Bronx. That could give some teams pause about how the bat will play if he signs elsewhere. Bellinger didn’t find the robust market he wanted when he was a free agent during the 2023-24 offseason, nor was there significant trade interest when the Cubs shopped him last winter. If there were, the Yankees would’ve needed to give up more than journeyman righty Cody Poteet to acquire him.

That’s largely because of Bellinger’s pedestrian batted ball metrics. He has been in the bottom quarter of the league in average exit velocity in each of the past three seasons. He doesn’t have a ton of bat speed and certainly doesn’t hit the ball as hard as he did early in his career — before he suffered a shoulder injury that tanked his numbers between 2021-22. Bellinger has compensated for the drop in bat speed by cutting his strikeouts every season, and he carries a .281/.338/.477 line in nearly 1800 plate appearances over the past three years.

Bellinger returns to the market a few months after his 30th birthday. He’s young enough to seek a five- or six-year deal. Bellinger is a better defender and arguably superior all-around hitter than Anthony Santander, who signed for five years with a net present value around $69MM last winter. There’s little reason Bellinger shouldn’t beat that contract fairly handily. It wouldn’t at all be surprising if his camp starts out with an asking price in the $100-150MM range.

The Cubs issued Bellinger a qualifying offer after the 2023 season. That makes him ineligible to receive a QO for the rest of his career. The Yankees would not receive any kind of compensation if he signs elsewhere, nor would another team forfeit a pick. New York can and probably will make a qualifying offer, which would land around $22MM, to Trent Grisham. They’re also set to have Luke Weaver, Devin Williams, Paul Goldschmidt and a handful of role players hit the open market. Williams entered the season as a qualifying offer candidate, but the Yankees are probably content to let him move on after an uneven season in pinstripes.

Offseason Outlook: Washington Nationals

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The Nationals hoped the 2025 season would represent a step forward in their rebuild, but the opposite took place. The results were discouraging enough that ownership fired not only manager Davey Martinez but longtime president/general manager Mike Rizzo, who'd run the team's baseball operations for nearly two decades. A new front office regime will try to turn things around for a club that won more games in 2024 (71) than in 2025 (66).

Guaranteed Contracts

Other Financial Commitments

Total 2026 commitments: $49MM
Total long-term commitments: $79MM through 2030

Option Decisions

  • None

Arbitration-Eligible Players (service time in parentheses; salary projections via MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz):

Non-tender candidates: Alfaro, Garcia, Thompson, Adams

Free Agents

The Nationals' summer ousting of Rizzo kicked off an executive search while longtime Rizzo lieutenant Mike DeBartolo ran baseball operations through the trade deadline and the end of the season. Washington spoke with executives from multiple clubs and ultimately settled on Red Sox assistant general manager Paul Toboni to head up the organization. Because he was in the running to be promoted to Red Sox general manager under chief baseball officer Craig Breslow, Toboni was hired with the title president of baseball operations. The Nats could hire a GM to work underneath him at some point, but it wasn't framed as an immediate priority at Toboni's introductory press conference.

Changes in the front office have already begun. The Nats will retain DeBartolo in a yet-to-be-announced role, but assistant GMs Eddie Longosz and Mark Scialabba are set to depart the organization amid further changes in the scouting department. Even if Toboni doesn't immediately add a general manager, it seems likely that he'll bring on some new hires to take over some of the AGM and scouting responsibilities (particularly if DeBartolo is moved to a role other than assistant general manager).

The Nats will also need to hire a new skipper. Interim manager Miguel Cairo is a candidate in the team's ongoing search, Toboni indicated this week, but the Nationals are also in the process of interviewing candidates from outside the organization. Washington is one of an incredible seven teams looking for a new manager and one of an even more remarkable nine clubs that will have a different manager on Opening Day 2026 than on Opening Day 2025.

Of course, beyond the broader changes at the highest levels of the organization, fans are more concerned with what the offseason will look like under the new regime. Toboni naturally didn't delve into specifics at his introduction. He spoke in general terms, repeatedly mentioning the desire to build a "scouting and player development monster" that eventually stands as the envy of the industry.

Even more pressing, however, is what the future holds for some of the organization's key young players. While emerging outfielders like James Wood and Daylen Lile are controlled for another five-plus seasons, many of the team's other most important contributors are already halfway -- or more -- through their original level of club control. That'll put Toboni in an interesting spot this winter as he looks to determine whether some of his core players are building blocks or whether they're best used as trade currency to further stock a farm system that, even after picking No. 1 overall in July and trading several players at the 2025 deadline, ranked 21st in the majors at Baseball America and 23rd at MLB.com.

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Angels, Albert Pujols Discussing Managerial Deal

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6:22pm: Bob Nightengale of USA Today writes that the Angels have not yet made Pujols an official offer, though he confirms that the interview went well.

6:00pm: It seems the Angels have made up their mind about their next manager, though he still has to agree. According to a report from Sam Blum and Katie Woo of The Athletic, the job is going to go to Albert Pujols as long as he wants it. Per the report, Pujols met with general manager Perry Minasian last night and the meeting went well. Discussions on a deal are in the works but there’s not yet an agreement in place.

It was reported just over a week ago that Pujols would interview for the job and would be a frontrunner. That was just a few days after it was reported that neither Ron Washington nor Ray Montgomery would be back in the job. Washington opened the 2025 season as the skipper but was away for most of the year due to quadruple bypass surgery, with Montgomery covering for him on an interim basis. Torii Hunter has also been reported as a candidate but today’s reporting indicates that Hunter would only be a real consideration if things fall through with Pujols.

Per Blum and Woo, the Angels hope to make an official announcement before the World Series, though there are still some contractual things to work out. The report suggests that Pujols’s personal services contract could be a factor.

The ten-year, $240MM contract he signed with the Angels in 2011 included a ten-year, $10MM personal services contract for after his retirement as a player. He finished his playing career after the 2022 season. He had been released by the Angels and then spent some time with the Dodgers and Cardinals. In February of 2023, he rejoined the Angels as a special assistant to honor that personal services pact. Since he’s only three seasons into that deal, there are seven years left. It’s not clear how the existing contract would impact whatever is being negotiated for him to take the skipper job.

Pujols has previously expressed an interest in becoming a manager but has no experience in affiliated ball, either as a manager or as a coach. He managed Leones del Escogido, a Dominican winter ball team, last offseason. The Leones won the Serie Final over Tigres del Licey in seven games. Pujols is slated to manage the Dominican Republic national team in the upcoming World Baseball Classic but would presumably have to bow out of that gig if he signs with the Angels.

Assuming the sides are able to cross the T’s and dot the I’s, then Pujols will be in the Angels dugout yet again. It feels like a fait accompli at this point, as Blum and Woo report that the coaching staff negotiations are also already in motion. The report notes that former big leaguer Ramón Martínez, brother of Pedro Martínez, is Pujols’s top choice for pitching coach. Barry Enright has been the Halos’ pitching coach for the past two years but it’s fairly common for new managers to make some coaching changes.

The Halos haven’t had a winning season since 2015. Mike Scioscia had a long run as the club’s skipper, from 2000 to 2018. Since then, as the club has struggled, there has been a lot more turnover. Brad Ausmus, Joe Maddon, Phil Nevin, Washington and Montgomery have been at the helm in recent years. It seems Pujols will likely be the next guy to get a chance to turn the ship around.

Photo courtesy of Kevin Jairaj, Imagn Images

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