The deadline to tender a contract to arbitration-eligible players is tonight at 7:00pm CT. Here’s a rundown of fairly minor players on National League teams who have been non-tendered today. This post will be updated as more decisions are revealed. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projected salaries for all players eligible for arbitration last month.
All players who are non-tendered before this evening’s deadline go directly into free agency without being placed on waivers. They’ll be eligible to sign with any of the league’s 30 teams. It’s not uncommon to see non-tendered players almost immediately return to their previous organization on a minor league deal.
The transactions:
Latest Moves
- The Giants non-tendered pitchers Thomas Szapucki, José Cruz and Cole Waites, reports Maria Guardado of MLB.com (X link). None of that trio had been eligible for arbitration.
- No team had a higher percentage of non-tenders than the Braves, who cut seven players loose. As reported by Mark Feinsand of MLB.com (on X), they’re moving on from pitchers Yonny Chirinos, Kolby Allard, Penn Murfee, Angel Perdomo and Michael Tonkin, catcher Chadwick Tromp and infielder Luke Williams. Murfee and Perdomo were recently claimed off waivers.
- San Diego’s non-tenders are covered here.
Earlier
- The Reds have non-tendered relievers Derek Law and Reiver Sanmartin. Cincinnati also confirmed the previously reported non-tender of Nick Senzel.
- In addition to Rowdy Tellez and Brandon Woodruff, the Brewers have non-tendered right-hander J.C. Mejía. He failed a PED test in September, the second such result of his career, and was suspended for 162 games.
- Former Rookie of the Year winner Kyle Lewis was non-tendered by the Diamondbacks. He played in only 16 games after being acquired from the Mariners last offseason.
- The Cubs non-tendered relievers Ethan Roberts, Brandon Hughes and Codi Heuer. All three are recovering from surgeries.
- Right-hander Tommy Doyle was non-tendered by the Rockies. Colorado designated him for assignment when acquiring Cal Quantrill this morning.
- The Cardinals have non-tendered catcher Andrew Knizner, first baseman Juan Yepez and starting pitchers Jake Woodford and Dakota Hudson. St. Louis reportedly tried to deal Hudson this afternoon but evidently did not find a taker.
- The Mets have non-tendered relievers Jeff Brigham, Sam Coonrod and Trevor Gott. New York also cut loose infielder Luis Guillorme and confirmed the reported non-tender of Dan Vogelbach.
- Left-hander Josh Fleming was non-tendered by the Phillies, the team announced. Philadelphia just snagged the southpaw off waivers from the Rays a few weeks ago.
- The Marlins have non-tendered catcher Jacob Stallings and infielder Garrett Hampson, per a club announcement. Stallings spent two seasons as the primary catcher after being acquired from the Pirates at the 2021-22 offseason. Hampson signed a minor league deal with the Fish last season.
- The Pirates non-tendered Osvaldo Bido and Hunter Stratton, tweets Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Neither had yet been eligible for arbitration. Both right-handers made their big league debuts in 2023; Mackey suggests the Bucs will try to bring them back on minor league pacts.
- The Nationals announced they’ve non-tendered first baseman Dominic Smith and right-hander Cory Abbott. Both players were designated for assignment earlier in the week, making this an inevitability.
Garrett Hampson doesn’t seem half bad.
Maybe 1/3 bad?
A decent option as a versatile backup and pinch runner, if you can get him for not much more than the league minimum.
Stallings won’t have much trouble finding a job as a backup, but his days as a starter are clearly behind him.
And if he’s amenable to doing that, the Pirates should be calling him 5 minutes ago to come back and tutor Endy Rodriguez.
Actually I prefer Stallings over Delay as the backup but the former would cost more money and whatever money Cherington is being given to sign free agents, it won’t be used to sign Jacob
To be fair, I would be fine with Delay, but I’d also be fine with Delay in AAA.
Pirates were smart to sell high on Stallings. I personally don’t want to see another “defensive” catcher who can’t hit his weight. Even as a backup.
Martin Maldonado say that he can absolutely be a starter and for many years lol
I’m missing someone? Marlins only have 1 catcher on the 40 man?
@Four4fore
With or without Stallings, the Marlins still only had one catcher on the 40-man. Stallings is just a warm body at this point.
Can Stallings have a batter hit for him every time he plays a game?
One positive thing I’ll say about Stallings. He was one of the Marlins best relievers during his time with us. Not as good as Sandy Leone, but he was close. Too bad neither of them could close games for us.
Pirates: “Happy birthday Hunter! We know you did pretty well for us last year, so we’re not going to offer you arbitration anyways. Now make a wish… and if it’s to come back in a minor league deal, it just might come true!”
Minimum wage for Hunter. No arbitration.
Oops, I read that but then forgot. Thanks.
It’s a cold world.
I remember watching that QB documentary on Netflix, and on the day Marcus Mariota’s wife gives birth to their first child, the Falcons tell him he’s lost his job. Talk about your dick moves!
All this tender talk is making me hungry.
I first read your name as subatomicBLUNT, so naturally I got an extra LOL out of your comment.
That’s what my username SHOULD have been actually..
> All this tender talk is making me hungry.
When my belly starts a-rumblin’
and I’m Jonesin’ for a treat,
I close my eyes for a big surprise
the Tender Crisp Bacon Cheddar Ranch
I love the Tender Crisp Bacon Cheddar Ranch
The breasts they grow on trees
and streams of bacon ranch dressing
flow right up to your knees
There’s tumbleweeds of bacon
and cheddar paves the streets
Folks don’t front ya ’cause you got the juice
there’s a train of ladies coming with a nice caboose never get in trouble, never need an excuse
That’s the Tender Crisp Bacon Cheddar Ranch
I love the Tender Crisp Bacon Cheddar Ranch
No one tells you to behave (behave)
Your wildest fantasies come true
Dallas cheerleaders give you shaves
Red onions make you laugh instead
and french fries grow like weeds
You get to veg all day
all the lotto tickets pay
there’s a king who wants you to have it your way,
That’s the Tender Crisp Bacon Cheddar Ranch
the Tender Crisp Bacon Cheddar Ranch
Kniz, Dak, Yepez, and Woodford. Wow. The organizational red headed step children get the boot. Best of luck men. I enjoyed watching all of you at various times.
Knizner is the only one surprising me. I think he had trade value as a backup catcher.
Exactly my thought. Hudson was worthless as a trade commodity, but Knizner was quite serviceable in ‘23.
Sign one A Nola, get one free?
@CardsFan57 @bassrun: Apparently not. If he had trade value, he would’ve been traded.
I bet Knizner has a new team before Hudson.
@Blue Baron: Did they even try to trade Knizner? On the other hand, there were reports that they were trying to trade Hudson.
I certainly don’t know. I just assume that at deadlines like these, players with trade value get traded rather than being let go for nothing.
Knizner won’t be out of work long, the others……
Knizner put up a .712 OPS for 241 PAs in 2023. Okay, it was his highest OPS ever, but that number will look good to some team that needs catching help. He’ll be 29 next year, so it’s not like he’s finished. And his defensive grades have generally been decent.
Among his problems is Knizer can’t hit LHP at all, so you’ll have a weak backup catcher you have to platoon. I suppose it’s better than him not being able to hit RHP, but he had some luck on balls in play and it wasn’t because he developed a new trick in the box. That makes him a post-peak age catcher who needs to be platooned, whose entire career hinges on a somewhat lucky year in 2023.
He’ll play in the majors in 2024, but it’s not clear he’ll go north with an MLB club in April.
Yepez may still have a chance to be a productive hitter. Jake was pretty good in ’22. A better coaching staff/catcher/defense might get more quality innings. I’m not real hopeful for Dak, but as I mentioned in the other thread, I think the Dodgers could fix him.
I personally hope they’re all hugely successful.
I think the Cardinals should have shopped Knizner instead of Hudson before the deadline.
Yepez is going to bust out for a few years like Luke Voit did and make them look dumb again.
My thoughts exactly @CardsFan. They should’ve at least been able to get a lottery ticket for him.
Stupid Cards forgot to shop him and lost him for nothing! Amateurs.
@CardsFan57: How do you know they didn’t shop him and come up empty? They’re thorough and not stupid.
He obviously had no trade value, or he would’ve been traded.
What you’re saying is completely reasonable. But I think you’re wrong. They aren’t thorough. They’re emotional. Stupid might be a strong word, but they are incompetent. I think 57 has it right. They believed Hudson had more value and spent their time and energy trying to put together a trade involving him. They meant to non-tender Kniz all along.
You might be correct, but I find it difficult to believe that executives at a certain level got where they are by failing to be accurate and thorough.
Generally speaking, I agree with you 100%. But all sports fans have seen examples of coaches and executives who got to their position with little to no qualification. Read Mo’s Wikipedia page. I get it. Wikipedia is Wikipedia. He got his start is baseball because he knew of a good fishing spot near Denver. But background aside:
Look at the Contreras situation for example. Mo believed he needed a stronger replacement for Yadi than what he had on hand. He wanted Murphy, but didn’t like the price, so he pivoted to Contreras. He gave Contreras an ill advised contract. You can argue that teams often overpay to get the guy they want and that is just the nature of the business, so we’ll ignore the contract.
Now I’ll admit that I’m not a baseball scout. I don’t have the luxury of having enough time to watch other teams enough to develop a well formed opinion of other teams’ players. But there were plenty of Cubs fans who chuckled at the idea of Contreras replacing Yadi. If Mo were thorough, he would have known about Contreras’ defensive short comings. He would/should have talked with scouts, pitchers who played with Contreras, coaches who worked with him, etc, etc, etc. But apparently he didn’t.
Early in the season when it was becoming obvious there was a problem, a thorough leader would have been proactive and stepped in. He chose to ignore the problem until the pitching staff threw it in his face and refused to continue pitching until the problem was addressed.
When he was finally forced to confront the reality of his own blunder he chose to blame the player in a public way instead of forming a plan to quietly address the issue.
When he took criticism for the public humiliation of his expensive free agent, and Contreras pushed back, he immediately changed course and tried to sweep the entire situation under the rug.
My point is, the entire situation provides no evidence of thoroughness or competence. Just arrogance, cowardice, and a general refusal to take accountability for anything.
The end.
People here in NY certainly have accused the Yankees’ Brian Cashman of being like that.
I semi-follow the Yankees and I can’t get a read on Cashman. There have been years I was very impressed and years where I felt the Yankees won in spite of him rather than because of him. I’m sure a baseball front office is a much more complicated situation than any fan can comprehend. But like I said before there have been enough examples in sports where incompetence has been exposed as just that. So you just never know.
I stopped giving Mo the benefit of the doubt years ago. I don’t blame Yankees fans for feeling the same way about Cash.
There’s a lot of talk here about how they haven’t won much since 2009, when the Core 4 was still active.
The Yankees appear to have arrogantly stuck with a strategy of building the lineup with right handed power hitters like Donaldson, Judge, Sanchez, and Stanton in a park that favors left handed hitters at the expense of higher average contact hitters and small ball.
They strike out too much and consistently fail in the postseason against top pitching.
Totally agree. I see it the exact same way. That’s another example of why I question the value of titles. Do they really know something we don’t? Or are they just egotistical?
Some of their fans certainly are, and they act like all those championships make them superior human beings.
Haha. Of course, I was talking about the Yankees front office, not Yankees fans. But that was a clever move.
All you have to do is attend a Mets-Yankees subway series game.
Yankees fans act all superior and use the 27 championships to stop any argument as to which team is better in any given year.
When they put Pages on the 40 man, every team that would have had interest knew they were going to be able to get him for nothing. We will see him in Jupiter after the Marlins sign him.
Don Osbourne- You’re 100% correct in how the Contreras situation was handled. He signed him and expected him to become Yadi 2.0 and that was never gonna happen. I was one of the Cubs fans who said that that contract was HUGE mistake. There was a reason John Lester demanded that the Cubs go get David Ross to catch him was that Lester hated Contreras. Lester’s best pitch was a down and in slider to RH hitters and Contreras backhanded catching style sweeps the ball out of the strike zone and thus is always a ball. Other Cubs P’s followed suit. I’m sure the Cardinals P’s found his bouncing around behind the plate and throwing the ball all over the place as annoying as Cubs P’s did. His only attribute is his bat, Which is good for a C, But bad for a DH is the reason the Cubs were more than happy to get a Comp pick for him which turned into Jaxson Wiggins who was a first round talent they basically got in the 3rd round because of TJ surgery. Then the whole situation was blown up in the media which I never understood. Why not just sit the guy and let it play out? They certainly weren’t going to walk away from 80 million bucks so why humiliate the guy in the first month? It was a strange situation they made much worse than it had to be. It’s their fault they didn’t know he was a bad C, When the whole rest of the league knew and didn’t offer the Cubs anything in a trade. Good luck the next 4 years.
How on earth did Moises Gomez avoid the ax?
@eatonculo
Gomez is not arbitration eligible. I’m sure he’d be gone if he were eligible.
Waiting for Patrick Wisdom to join the KBO
Or the French Foreign Legion. Maybe he could hit something with a sword.
Boo! He’s not worth what he got.
Juan Yepez could be a nice addition. If the Tigers didn’t already have too many similar type players I’d be lobbying for them to give his bat a try. Or they could CUT TYLER NEVIN and sign him anyway.
Similar as in guys who can’t hit? He would look like Barry Bonds in that lineup.
Can’t be worse than AAAA Nevin. This year will be better with Canha, Keith and Malloy in the lineup and hopefully another impact bat in trade or free agency.
He really doesn’t have a position other than hitter. Defensively he’s a liability everywhere.
Sounds like Malloy who is a better hitter but with less power.
A good start for the Cardinals. Letting Knizner go means that Hererra will be our backup (maybe primary) catcher next year. This points to an internal knowledge that changes must be made.
Agree on Herrera. Disagree on changes being made. Look at the history. The organization never liked any of these guys. They only got opportunities when they had no one else to turn to.
All Woodford ever did was pitch well, before 2023, but they kept him on the Memphis shuttle. I guess they were right doing so but time will tell.
A lot of Austins looking for new teams today. (Not Austin Slater though.)
Well Heuer might be done and Roberts is back from TJ. Hughes was slightly surprising but with Little, Horn and Smyly I guess maybe not. Where is Wisdom? Cmon Jed. Get rid of your nephew. He stinks.
I’ve heard Wisdom agreed to a contract and I have no idea why. Hughes is a head scratcher for sure, the other two maybe the Cubs think they can re-sign. Heuer is a huge red flag and Roberts didn’t show anything to begin with really.
Or maybe they sign Minor League deals with the Cubs. They’re probably better off in the Cubs Minors than elsewhere. At least they don’t count against the 40 man. Wisdom should have never been offered a contract. There are some deals coming. I think the Cubs will sign more than 3 FA’s. They need more spots. Wouldn’t mind signing Woodruff as a future ala Smyly. 2 year deal. Might even help late next year depending. Then he can slide into Hendricks spot in 25
Really hoping Cody Heuer isn’t done with Cubs
He fractured his elbow coming back from TJ with an internal brace. That doesn’t sound like something you come back from.
I’m a bit surprised about Louie Louie being let go by the Mets. He wasn’t due to get a big salary and he’s a great utility infielder. I understand they need spots for the young guys but he’s good to have around.
Luis is a good guy and a decent fielder, but not worth a 40 man spot at this point. I’m sure they’ll be happy to give him a minor league contract if he’s willing to take one. Otherwise he can wind up in Oakland or Pittsburg on a MLB deal. I expect to see him as a minor league coach soon enough, and eventually a MLB coach.
In baseball, one needs to hit the ball with the bat. I’m more surprised about Gott. He’s not all that good but they need arms in the pen.
I’m sad to see him go, but there just really isn’t room for him unfortunately. He’s out of options so it’s not even a 40-man move. He would need to be on the 26-man or he would go through waivers and get outrighted anyway if he cleared (which is unlikely). Maybe they could bring him back on a minor league deal but I’m sure a small market team will have a bigger role available for him. He’ll always have a place in Mets lore with some of his epic moments such as the 21 pitch at bat and the crazy bat catch in the dugout.
I hate to see Knizner go.
I don’t like the Cubs giving up on Ethan Roberts this soon. He was excellent in his ML in 2022.
If Woodruff wants a salary for next season while he rehabs, he’s going to have to sign a 2 year, backloaded contract. 2/$30M is my guess. $5M for 2023 plus incentives for any innings pitched (should he come back at all). Then $25M for 2025. I guess some team could offer him a 4 or 5 year deal, but that’s risky given that they don’t know what he’ll be like once he recovers from his surgery.
No way he gets that type of rehab deal with his injury. This isn’t TJ where history suggests that a positive return is worth gambling on a TOR guy. His injury is the type they tends to end careers or at the very least, is so uncertain of a recovery they no team in their right mind sets up 25 – 30 mil or anywhere close to that + rehab expense.
Gott and Guillorme are surprising non tenders for the Mets
Luis will be 29 and he fell off a lot in 2023. If the Mets saw his reflexes going and felt that they’d need to replace him as the defensive-first backup IF, this makes sense. He’s too expensive to be the backups backup, especially in a year the Mets brought a bunch of infielders into the system, and despite the happy OBP most years, his OBP is less productive than most players with similar on base skills. Or they might just think Zack Short’s a hair more promising, and can fake the OF as well. .
As for Gott, 31 in 2024, he was lucky on HR balls. Normalize that number and his 1.414 WHIP, already weak for a reliever, looks even sadder. He’s not a guy worth $2m for 2024. They may bring him back on a minor league deal or even a split deal, but like Luigi he probably wasn’t an absolute unanimous ‘no,’ but both are definitely on the wrong side of the line.
Braves have a 30-man roster as of now. Hey good lookin’, whhaat you got cookin’. How about cookin’ something good for me….
The Braves have churned a lot of players off their roster. Makes you wonder if something big is coming or if they just see something in the 2 players they acquired that no one else sees. I understand the injuries and reasons to trade some of the players, but the Braves are even thinner in pitching depth than they started the off-season. AA does well with roster construction, but these moves are very confusing.
I don’t think they lost anything to even think about. They could find as good or better on waivers the next 4 months. Obviously will have free agents and trades.
Agreed. The guys they tossed overboard will have some appeal to the A’s or Nats or Tigers, but they aren’t going to be useful members of a team aiming for the 2024 WS.
@Trade: If you got your crazy wish granted—-you know, hint hint….your screen name——-they could fill those 10 empty roster spots rather quickly. Acuna would bring back an entire farm system. Thank goodness AA doesn’t think like you.
The Braves technically never won the WS with Acuna on the roster if you want to play that game.
Acuna wasn’t on the 25 man at the time of the WS, but he WAS on the 60 day IL, thus he was on the 40 man. So yeah—-he was on the roster. C’mon Trade—-just having a little fun w/you. Don’t get your tail in a knot. We Braves fans should have a sense of humor today w/AA on his early Black Friday spree…………
He didn’t play, so he was not part of the team. If he didn’t get hurt, one of Soler or Rosario would not have been on the team (or both). Just saying.
Curious why the braves would claim Penn Murphy just days ago only to non tender him today? Anyone know the logic behind that? Just trying to gain more baseball knowledge. Thanks.
Guessing here but there were questions early on with his ucl that nerve impingement might be involved in addition to ucl tear. Might be bad medicals driving it. Or, he just isnt pitching at all in 2024 and Braves didnt want to roster him.
The Mets didn’t keep him in their roster either, despite having plenty of room. I think you are likely correct @Cleon Jones
Sometimes teams do things like that just to block another team from claiming them. It’s possible that they just didn’t want him to clear waivers and get stashed in the minors by the Mets.
Same goes for the Mets as well. Maybe they were hoping to sneak him through waivers to stash him or they were just blocking another team.
Pedomo as well.
Yepez was the second piece to every Cardinals fans trade scenario for a good pitcher. Oneill and Yepez had almost a year of being the cardinals fan equivalent of andujar and frazier.
Now they need a new garbage player to plug into their absurd trade scenarios. I see Luken Baker getting the garbage on a pedestal treatment.
Dakota Hudson should be hollered at by White Sox appropriate time
Forgot about Sanmartin. After a nice start, never could get a handle on the control problems. Kiss of death in that ballpark.
Law was no surprise either. No clue why Barrero still around.
I thought for sure Knizner would be kept and Herrera would be used to procure a pitcher. That makes me worry about the quality of pitchers we are going to end up with. I believe the FA market is going to run hot on salaries. Guys will get paid higher than pundits apre predicting, though there are some good estimates by this staff.
As half of the other players listed here that will play for minimum for good ole Uncle Jerry. I watched Harry Caray getting drunk every night pounding down Falstaff beer during the broadcasts on WSNS 44 back in the day. Those were all losing teams. The difference now is that I will have to be drunk to watch any more White Sox games for the foreseeable future…..SAD
Stallings non-tendered? I’m shocked! Who could’ve seen that coming? It wasn’t like that was predictable the day the Marlins announced that Sandy would need TJS and miss all of 2024.
Absolutely shocking!
Bye bye Stallings. Thanks for your…um…outings in relief.
When the Marlins traded for Stallings, their defensive catching was not fit for purpose and there were pitchers to develop. Stallings made a great contribution to that development and raising the standard for Nick Fortes.
In the last 2 years his hitting has gone from bad to worse and he seems less able to meet the physical demands. Maybe Marlins pitching wouldn’t have developed so much without him, but I don’t think the Marlins can get to the next level with him.
I think Jacob could be a great coach. Maybe he should make that move sooner than later
That trade never made sense. Could have used those guys in deals for pieces they actually needed, like high leverage bullpen arms. They would have been better off going with Fortes and sticking with Alfaro at that time, on both sides of the ball, and that was also coming off the timing of having lost Austin Nola, who they refused to give an opportunity to for years, and even after they converted him to a catcher, and he immediately brokw out for Seattle and was flipped for value
Stallings was liked by Sandy. He did nothing else. They kept avoiding scoring him for passed balls for his arbitrary record, and his receiving was poor, as was his overall defense, and then I never expected anything with the bat anyway
Seemed like a good dude. Won’t say anything else besides that, so in that respect, good luck to him
Andrew Kizner will be starting for some team next year. Probably in a 50/50 split with another catcher. He’s decent behind the plate isn’t terrible with the bat for a catcher. He’s what you get when you think you would give a little offense to increase a catchers defensive abilities. So now Herrera will fill in as the next Knizner. The Cardinals have 4 catcher in the top 30 prospect rankings. So a Herrera move may still be coming. It’s not like he’s going to get in more than 40 games barring a Contreras injury. Now the cardinals farm system is down right now so those catchers may not be deserving a top 30 spot for most other teams, but they would still just break glass in case of emergency guys as Contreras will still see almost the load of games behind the plate. Or they could sign a cheap veteran like a stallings as their back up. They’ve been known to go that route a few times too.
Im a bit curious as to why the braves claimed Murfee and Perdomo and immediately non-tendered them. I know Murfee is hurt but Perdomo had some insane strikeout numbers last season with ok results. I trust AA but it’s kind of puzzling putting in those claims in the first place haha.
I think you have to claim a player to look at his medicals. They looked, they paled, they fled.