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Twins Narrow Managerial Search To Top Four Candidates

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The Twins seem to have winnowed down their candidates for manager to a group of four. Dan Hayes and Brittany Ghiroli of The Athletic report that they’re still considering Derek Shelton, James Rowson, Ryan Flaherty, and Scott Servais. While Hayes and Ghiroli leave open the possibility the Twins could broaden the field, that seems to be a long shot.

All four of those coaches had been tied to the Twins’ search, though it hadn’t been previously reported that Servais and Flaherty had formally interviewed. Shelton and Servais have previous MLB managerial experience. Shelton led the Pirates for five-plus seasons. Pittsburgh never won more than 76 games and posted a 41% win percentage over his tenure. Shelton wasn’t working with the most talented rosters, of course, but the Bucs fired him in May after beginning this past season with a 12-26 record. They went 59-65 under Don Kelly the rest of the way.

Before moving to Pittsburgh, Shelton spent two seasons as Minnesota’s bench coach under Paul Molitor and Rocco Baldelli. The Twins interviewed him during the 2018 process that led to the Baldelli hiring. Rowson, who was Minnesota’s hitting coach at the time, also interviewed in 2018. He spent one season on Baldelli’s staff before departing to become bench coach in Miami. He also spent a season in Detroit and has worked as the Yankees’ hitting coach for the last two years. Hayes and Ghiroli write that Shelton and Rowson could be the frontrunners because of their previous ties to the Minnesota organization.

Servais managed the Mariners for parts of nine seasons. Seattle won 51.4% of their games and had five seasons with at least 86 wins during his tenure. The M’s stalled out in the second half of the ’24 campaign, leading them to fire Servais and hire Dan Wilson that August. The Mariners advanced to the ALCS in Wilson’s first full season at the helm. Servais worked as a special assistant for the Padres this year and has also gotten attention from the Orioles for their managerial opening.

Flaherty has worked as Craig Counsell’s bench coach with the Cubs for the last two years. He has also been mentioned as a candidate for the Baltimore and San Diego openings. Royals’ third base coach Vance Wilson, Red Sox’s bench coach Ramón Vázquez, and Padres’ coach Nick Punto had interviewed with the Twins but are now out of the running.

Offseason Outlook: San Francisco Giants

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The first year of Buster Posey's front office tenure saw the Giants add a pair of stars. The end result was the same league average record that defined the Farhan Zaidi era. That spurred a bold change in the dugout. The Giants fired three-time Manager of the Year Bob Melvin while turning to the college ranks with a splash hire of former University of Tennessee head coach Tony Vitello.

Guaranteed Contracts

Option Decisions

  • Team holds $4MM option on C Tom Murphy ($250K buyout)

2026 guaranteed contracts: $132.75MM
Total future commitments: $693.75MM through 2033

Arbitration-Eligible Players (service time in parentheses; projected salaries courtesy of MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz)

Non-tender candidates: Brubaker, Knizner, Lucchesi

Free Agents

After a few years of coming up empty on star pursuits, the Giants landed two impact hitters within the first nine months of Buster Posey's tenure atop baseball operations. They signed Willy Adames to a seven-year, $182MM free agent deal that represented the largest in franchise history. They made an even bigger commitment when they pulled off the Rafael Devers blockbuster in June. The Giants took on more than $240MM on Devers' contract over eight and a half seasons.

While the moves added much needed star talent to the San Francisco lineup, they didn't push the team to a playoff berth. On the heels of another .500 finish, they're now emphasizing a deeper pitching staff. "I think our focus is going to be on pitching, to try to fortify our starting staff. The same goes with the bullpen," Posey told Alex Pavlovic and Laura Britt of NBC Sports Bay Area. "I believe that pitching and defense wins, so that's where we'll probably start looking this offseason when free agency does happen."

That won't happen for another week or two, but the Giants didn't waste any time making significant changes. They fired manager Bob Melvin the day after the end of the regular season. A few weeks later, they zeroed in on Tony Vitello as their hire. There isn't any precedent for a top-tier college baseball coach jumping directly into MLB managing without any coaching or front office experience in pro ball.

There have been a few instances of teams poaching college pitching coaches. There are also examples of the "college to professional head coach" move in the NFL, NHL and NBA. Vitello will be the first test case in Major League Baseball. It remains to be seen how much of Melvin's staff will be retained. Bench coach Ryan Christenson and third base coach Matt Williams were out as soon as Melvin was dismissed.

The front office's focus now turns to the roster. They should have a good amount of payroll space with which to work. They have $132.75MM in guaranteed commitments for six highly-priced players. It's one of the game's lightest arbitration classes, though, with MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projecting the group for a little over $10MM. Non-tenders of JT Brubaker, Joey Lucchesi and Andrew Knizner would drop that below $5MM, as Patrick Bailey and Ryan Walker are their only two locks to be offered contracts.

That'd put their Opening Day payroll projection in the $150-155MM range if they filled the rest of the roster with minimum salaried players. RosterResource estimates their luxury tax number around $174MM, which is $70MM below the base threshold. The Giants ducked the luxury tax this year but had exceeded the threshold as recently as 2024. Even if they're not willing to go all the way to $244MM, they should be able to make multiple notable additions.

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Front Office Subscriber Chat Transcript

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Anthony Franco

  • Good afternoon, hope you're all well! Looking forward to another of these
  • Busy week for us with offseason prep so I'm going to keep this one at an hour. Let's get going

Bo nose

  • I sure hope Bichette's addition to the Jays' roster is not a sentimental move nor one anticipating contributions defensively. Ordinarily a plus bat, the area where, arguably, the Blue Jays are strongest as a team right now, he has been feeble against L.A. over the past two years. That's only six games but, combined with the lay-off, is his best usage more likely to be as a super-sub PH than in any starting defender capacity? I think the noise about using him at 2nd is just that, noise.

Duffy Scliff

  • Does Toronto realistically have a shot in this series? Does the fact that LAD hasn’t played in awhile hurt them?

Anthony Franco

  • Dodgers are favorites but it's like 55-45, they've definitely got a shot. L.A.'s bullpen still feels like a weakness and the Jays should put up a much better fight against the rotation than Milwaukee did
  • We'll see on Bo. Obviously if he can move at all, then playing him at second would be ideal. Use Clement at third with Barger in RF and IKF as a defensive sub late in games. If he's so hobbled that he can't field a ground-ball, well he's at least a better pinch-hitting option than Loperfido would've been

Hopeful Halo

  • What do you think the angels chances are to land a top starter like Valdez?

Anthony Franco

  • Would be out of character for Moreno and they've got so many other needs that I don't think using most of the budget on one top starter would be the wisest choice anyway
  • I could see them more in on Gallen or a boring innings eater like Littell. They'll need to spend something on a center fielder and a third baseman and should at least bring Kenley back to solidify the back of the bullpen

Japanese Players

  • Who do you think gets the highest contract for Japanese pitchers coming over this year? Imai seems to be the one getting most of the conversation now. I do wonder if he might be getting a little to hyped now? It does seem sometimes we get hyped for a player and they struggle coming over.

Anthony Franco

  • Yeah it'll be Imai. He's a bit of split camp guy but I'd be surprised if he signs for less than $130M
  • I think the recent track record for the top NPB starters is pretty good actually. Yamamoto's phenomenal. Tanaka worked out really well, Imanaga was excellent value at 4/53. Jury's still out on Sasaki but for even if he's only a late-inning reliever, that's well worth what the Dodgers paid with the hard capped bonuses

Rangers13

  • How much do you expect Okamoto to cost?

Anthony Franco

  • We all landed at three years and between $33-45MM but there's a really wide error bar on the predictions for players (especially hitters) coming over from foreign leagues
  • Seems like he's at least equally interesting as Jeimer Candelario or Jurickson Profar were though

Ding a ling

  • Has Dillon Dingler really changed his hit tool? Both FanGraphs and MLB gave him a 30 as a prospect, but this past season, he hit for a respectable average. Who's the real Dillon Dingler?

Anthony Franco

  • Yeah definitely think he's better than a 30 hit tool. Big step forward in his in-zone contact rate, fewer chases. Hits the ball hard enough to post decent results on balls in play, even if he's probably not turning in a .345 BABIP every year
  • Feels like a 50 hitter with average pop who plays really strong defense behind the plate. Good player

Mike Yastrzemski

  • Please find me a home?

Anthony Franco

  • I fully expect the Royals to bring him back on a one-year deal for $10-12M. He hit well there and it's obviously an ongoing need
  • If they go elsewhere, Philly, Pittsburgh or Cleveland would work. Wouldn't pick the Giants to do it after they traded him but it's not like Luis Matos/Drew Gilbert seized the RF job. If they focus most of their resources on the rotation and Yaz is out for $8M in February, I don't see why they wouldn't be willing to circle back

Arthur Dent

  • Any chance the Guardians will entertain offers in Steven Kwan? If so, what would Cleveland be looking for in return?

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Offseason Outlook: Los Angeles Angels

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The Angels pushed MLB's longest active playoff drought to 11 seasons. They've lost at least 89 games in four consecutive years. While general manager Perry Minasian will get a sixth season, there's another change in the dugout. Kurt Suzuki has a difficult task ahead of his first year as an MLB manager.

Guaranteed Contracts

Additional Financial Commitments

2026 guaranteed contracts: $126.5MM
Total future commitments: $289.5MM

Arbitration-Eligible Players (service time in parentheses; projected salaries courtesy of MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz)

Free Agents

The Angels are in an all too familiar position. They've shown no appetite for a rebuild without having the kind of depth on the MLB roster to compete over a 162-game schedule. They outperformed their run differential in the first half of this past season, allowing them to essentially sit on their hands at the trade deadline. Then they went 19-34 over the final two months -- a record better only than the Rockies and Twins -- to lose 90 games yet again.

GM Perry Minasian gets another opportunity to turn things around. He's going into the final guaranteed season of his contract. He has yet to win more than 77 games. The Angels' issues predate Minasian's hiring and can be laid largely at the feet of owner Arte Moreno, but the front office is surely under some pressure to get better results. The Angels opted not to bring back Ron Washington or interim skipper Ray Montgomery, so they're now on the fourth full-time manager of the Minasian era.

That'll be Kurt Suzuki, a first-time manager with no MLB coaching experience. Sam Blum of The Athletic reports that it's a one-year contract, an atypically short commitment to any manager. Suzuki was highly respected as a longtime big league catcher and has spent the past three seasons working as a special assistant in the Angels' front office. While the jury is out on that hiring, the search process didn't exactly point to the organization having a coherent plan.

As recently as two weeks ago, it looked like Albert Pujols would be the choice. The future Hall of Famer seemed to be Moreno's preferred candidate. Last week, The Athletic's Sam Blum reported that the team had reversed course and would at least interview Suzuki and Torii Hunter as well. Pujols was out a few days later. Jon Heyman of The New York Post reported that disagreements regarding the coaching staff and compensation were among the reasons the Pujols talks fell apart. Blum wrote that it was mostly a contractual dispute.

The Angels owe Pujols $1MM annually for the next seven seasons as part of the personal services contract that he signed when he retired as a player. It's unclear if the Angels hoped to incorporate that into Pujols' managerial salaries. In any case, it's not a great look for the organization that they were unwilling to meet the asking price of the person they considered the best candidate available. Pujols' salary demands aren't known, but even the most successful managers in MLB make around $8MM annually. That's barely more than the Angels are paying backup catcher Travis d'Arnaud.

None of that is meant as a slight at Suzuki. It's certainly not a given that Pujols would have been a better hire. Yet it's the latest example of Moreno valuing marginal short-term savings over what he ostensibly believed would have been the best choice for the team. That probably doesn't bode well for the more significant roster shakeup that should be in the cards.

Suzuki will have his work cut out for him with what is likely to remain one of the league's weakest rosters. The Angels have questions behind the plate, at both second and third base, and in center field. They have at most two reliable starting pitchers, neither of whom fit at the top of a rotation. Building Reid Detmers back up gives them another potential mid-rotation arm but leaves them with arguably one dependable reliever (Brock Burke). Minasian told Jeff Fletcher of The Orange County Register and other reporters earlier this month that Detmers "earned" another look as a starter and is expected to be in the Opening Day rotation.

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A’s Could Explore Second/Third Base Markets

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The A’s have around two-thirds of their starting lineup in place going into the offseason. While starting pitching should be the primary focus, they have some questions on the infield that may need to be addressed externally.

Second baseman Zack Gelof underwent surgery after dislocating his left shoulder with two weeks remaining in the regular season. Meanwhile, the team announced last week that third baseman Brett Harris underwent surgery to repair the UCL in his left thumb (link via Jason Burke of Sports Illustrated). The injuries cloud what were already the two weakest positions in the lineup heading into the winter.

Martín Gallegos of MLB.com writes that Harris is expected to be ready for Spring Training. General manager David Forst was noncommittal about Gelof’s timeline, telling Gallegos that they’ll need to “wait further in the offseason to know exactly what [that] is.” It doesn’t appear that Gelof is locked into the starting second base job even once he’s healthy. Forst told Gallegos that the A’s will “be open to a lot of possibilities” at each of second and third base.

That presumably includes looking outside the organization. The A’s don’t have great internal options at either spot. Darell Hernaiz got some late-season run at all three infield positions to the left of first base (including everyday shortstop work while Jacob Wilson was out with a broken arm). Hernaiz put a lot of balls in play but didn’t hit the ball hard enough to make an impact, batting .231/.292/.306 across 197 plate appearances.

[Related: A’s Offseason Outlook]

Former first-round pick Max Muncy had a tough rookie season, hitting .214/.259/.379 over 220 trips to the plate. He struck out in more than 30% of his plate appearances and lost most of the second half to a broken hand. The 27-year-old Harris got regular third base reps over the final six weeks of the season. He hit .274 with a .349 on-base percentage but didn’t connect on a home run in 32 games. Max Schuemann is the only other utility infielder on the 40-man roster. He’s coming off a .197/.295/.273 showing and isn’t guaranteed to hold his roster spot all winter.

Gelof has shown the most promise of that group. The former second-round pick hit 14 homers with a .267/.337/.504 slash line over 69 games as a rookie in 2023. He has followed that up with consecutive tough years. Gelof led the American League with 188 strikeouts in ’24, causing his average (.211) and on-base percentage (.270) to plummet.

Injuries limited him to 30 MLB games this past season. He sustained a wrist fracture on a Spring Training hit-by-pitch and underwent hamate surgery. A stress reaction in his ribs set him back when he was on a rehab assignment six weeks later. Gelof didn’t make his season debut until July 4. The A’s optioned him to Triple-A a week later and kept him in the minors until late August. He got a few weeks of run before suffering the dislocated shoulder. While the stop and start nature of his season didn’t do him any favors, Gelof’s contact issues worsened. He struck out 46 times in 101 plate appearances while whiffing on more than 40% of his swings.

Top prospect Leo De Vries, the centerpiece of the Mason Miller return, may be the long-term answer at second base. De Vries has come up as a shortstop but could eventually move to the other side of the bag to play alongside Wilson in the middle infield. He’s coming off a .255/.355/.451 showing as an 18-year-old between High-A and Double-A. De Vries has a chance to get to the big leagues next year, but it’s hard to imagine the A’s would carry him on the Opening Day roster. He only has 21 games at Double-A and has no Triple-A experience. A second half debut is more reasonable and would still be remarkable for a player who turned 19 two weeks ago.

The A’s will want to keep one long-term infield spot available for De Vries. Their needs at second and third base mean they could pursue a controllable infielder at one spot while looking for a stopgap at the other. Brendan Donovan and Ozzie Albies each have two years of club control remaining and could be available on the trade market. Josh Jung and Alec Bohm are change-of-scenery candidates at third base. Jung has three years of remaining control and is projected at a $2.9MM salary, though it’s possible the Rangers would prefer to trade him outside the division. Bohm is projected for a salary in the $10MM range for his last arbitration season.

This isn’t a great class for free agent infielders. The A’s obviously aren’t signing Bo Bichette or Alex Bregman. Each of Jorge Polanco, Gleyber Torres and Ha-Seong Kim (if he opts out) could be available for two or three years, but they’re all going to command eight-figure salaries on an annual basis. Willi Castro, Yoán Moncada, Luis Rengifo and Isiah Kiner-Falefa will be available on one-year or cheap two-year deals at most. Signing someone from that group would aim a little higher than last winter’s deals with Luis Urías and Gio Urshela but would be broadly similar pickups.

Previewing Qualifying Offer Decisions: Pitchers

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The World Series looms and the offseason will begin around two weeks from now. One of the first key decisions for teams is whether to issue a qualifying offer to any of their impending free agents. Clubs have until the fifth day after the conclusion of the World Series to make QO decisions.

The QO is a one-year offer calculated by averaging the 125 highest salaries in MLB. This year’s price is $22.025MM. Players who receive the QO have around two weeks to get an early feel for the market before deciding whether to accept. If they do, they cannot be traded without their consent until at least June 15 of the following season — as is the case for any MLB free agent who signs a major league deal.

If the player rejects and signs elsewhere, his former team would receive draft compensation. The signing club would forfeit a pick (or picks) and potentially international signing bonus space. The compensation and penalties vary depending on teams’ revenue sharing and luxury tax statuses. MLBTR’s Mark Polishuk recently examined what each team would receive if they lose a qualified free agent, and the penalties they’d pay to sign one.

Yesterday, MLBTR looked at a relatively light class of expected recipients on the position player side. There’s more intrigue with the pitching, which could feature a handful of borderline cases depending on option decisions and health questions.

No-Doubters

This group is straightforward. Valdez and Suárez should easily land nine-figure contracts. Cease will probably begin the offseason with a nine-figure ask of his own based on his durability, plus stuff, and excellent strikeout potential. His 4.55 ERA and general inefficiency in the second half might prevent him from cashing in to that level, but he’d at least be able to command a two- or three-year deal with opt-outs even if his market doesn’t materialize as hoped. There’s no reason for him to accept a one-year deal.

Díaz is expected to opt out of the remaining two years and $38MM on his contract. He wouldn’t do that only to accept a one-year offer at $22MM. He’ll decline the qualifying offer and could look for a four-year deal that pays around $20MM annually.

Likely Recipients

All of these pitchers seem like comfortable recipients as well, though it’s not 100% certain they’d each decline as the top tier would. Gallen had an up-and-down season that concluded with a 4.83 earned run average over 192 innings. His 21.5% strikeout rate was the lowest of his career, and he struggled with the home run ball for the first time in four seasons. It’s not an encouraging walk year, but he’s only 30 years old and is a few months removed from having a case for a $150MM contract. While he’s not going to get there now, he should be able to land a two-year deal with an opt-out if no team is willing to pay nine figures.

King and Woodruff would’ve been locks to reject the QO had they finished the season at full stride. King missed a couple months with a pesky nerve injury in his throwing shoulder, then lost a few weeks to a knee issue. He returned in the middle of September but didn’t make it beyond five innings in any of his final four starts. The Padres carried him on the playoff roster but had pushed him far enough down the depth chart that they turned to a diminished Yu Darvish to start an elimination game while keeping King in the bullpen. It’s still likely that he’ll decline the qualifying offer and command a multi-year deal, but it’s an uphill battle to the nine-figure money that once seemed to be in the cards.

Woodruff finished the season on the injured list with a lat strain. He’d missed all of 2024 and the first half of this past season rehabbing from a shoulder surgery. In between, he was one of the best pitchers on the planet. He turned in a 3.20 ERA with a 32% strikeout rate across 12 starts. Teams are always on the hunt for playoff-caliber starters, and Woodruff certainly has that kind of ceiling. The durability questions and his age (33 in February) are likely to keep him at two or three years, but he should command a multi-year contract that pays at or above the qualifying offer price.

Borderline Calls

Flaherty has a $20MM player option. He’ll only become a free agent if he believes he’s going to beat that on the open market. Would he decline the option just to accept a qualifying offer for an extra $2MM if the Tigers offered it? That seems unlikely but isn’t impossible. He’d have the approximate two-week window after receiving the QO to gauge the market, and if he’s not finding the kind of early interest he’d hope, it could make sense to accept the offer.

The Tigers would need to decide whether it’s worthwhile to take that chance. Flaherty is coming off a middling 4.64 ERA but took the ball 31 times and struck out 27.6% of opponents. There are some similarities to where Nick Pivetta was at this time last year: a reliable source of innings with a plus strikeout/walk profile but concerns about his home run tendency. It was a little surprising that the Red Sox made Pivetta a qualifying offer and even more so that he turned it down. That gamble ended up netting the Sox the #75 pick in the draft. The Tigers, as revenue sharing recipients, would get a pick after the first round if Flaherty declines a QO and still pulls a $50MM+ guarantee from another team (as Pivetta did).

Giolito lost the 2024 season to internal brace surgery. He began this year on the injured list after suffering a Spring Training hamstring strain. He posted an ERA near 5.00 in May before settling in as a productive mid-rotation arm over the next few months. Giolito turned in a 3.03 earned run average across 20 starts and 113 innings from June onward.

A sub-20% strikeout rate raised some doubts about the sustainability of that kind of run prevention. Still, he looked like a reliable third starter who would do well on the open market once he crossed the 140-inning threshold to convert a $14MM team option into a $19MM mutual provision. Luis Severino had a similar profile and commanded three years and $67MM with an opt-out after declining a qualifying offer last winter. While that contract was an overpay to get a free agent starter to pitch at Sutter Health Park, a three-year deal in the mid-$50MM range is still preferable to accepting a QO.

Then came another injury. Giolito suffered flexor irritation and a bone issue in his throwing elbow at the end of the regular season. He did not make the Wild Card roster and would not have been available even if the Red Sox had made a deep postseason run. Giolito told Chris Cotillo of MassLive that there’s no ligament damage and the issue should heal with rest. Whether to make the QO will come down to Boston’s risk tolerance on the elbow.

The Sox’s luxury tax status should also be a consideration. Unofficial public estimates have them narrowly above the $241MM base threshold. If that’s the case, they’d only get a compensatory pick after the fourth round if Giolito rejects a QO and signs elsewhere. It’d fall in the #75 overall range — like the Pivetta pick — if they had stayed below the tax threshold. That won’t be known publicly until MLB releases its final payroll tallies in December, but the team surely has an idea of where they stand.

Imanaga has a complex option setup that might keep him from getting to free agency. The Cubs first need to decide whether to exercise a three-year, $57MM option covering the 2026-28 seasons. If they decline, Imanaga has the right to opt out of the remaining two years and $30MM on his deal. If both sides decline their end of the option structure, he’ll be a free agent. The Cubs would then need to decide whether to make the qualifying offer or be content to let Imanaga walk.

The longstanding assumption has been that the team would exercise the three-year option. Imanaga was fantastic in 2024 and carried a 3.08 ERA over 20 starts through the end of August this season. Then he got torched in September (6.51 ERA) and gave up six runs over 6 2/3 innings during two postseason starts. He gave up at least one home run in each of his last nine regular season starts, as well as in both playoff outings. Imanaga surrendered an MLB-worst 20 longballs in the second half.

That’s likely to continue to be a problem. Imanaga’s fastball sits around 90 MPH and he’s an extreme fly-ball pitcher. After striking out more than a quarter of batters faced during his rookie season, that dropped to a slightly below-average 20.6% mark this year. There are a lot of red flags, but he also owns a 3.28 ERA over 318 MLB innings in the last two seasons. How much has the final six weeks soured the Cubs on his future projection?

Unlikely/Long Shots

This group gets a cursory mention largely because there’s often one or two long shot recipients each year. Pivetta and especially Nick Martinez fell into this bucket last winter. Still, it’d register as a major surprise if anyone from this group receives the QO.

Suarez probably has the best chance. He’s one of the game’s best closers and should command a strong two-year deal for his age 35-36 seasons. The Padres have been navigating short-term payroll questions for the past few years, though, and they have Mason Miller as an obvious alternative to handle the ninth inning. Even if they want to give Miller a chance to start, Jeremiah Estrada or Adrian Morejon could close. With bigger needs in the rotation and at first base, they should let Suarez walk.

Mahle had a sterling 2.18 ERA across 16 starts but didn’t miss many bats. He then suffered a rotator cuff strain that cost him three months between mid-June and September. He has battled various shoulder injuries over the past two seasons and underwent Tommy John surgery in 2023. The Rangers are cutting payroll and need to overhaul their lineup. Committing $22MM to Mahle wouldn’t make much sense.

Williams, Keller and Weaver are three of the top relievers in the class. Teams generally reserve the QO for established high-end closers (e.g. Josh Hader, Raisel Iglesias). Williams would’ve been in that group if he’d had a typical platform year, but he finishes his first and probably only season in the Bronx with an ERA near-5.00.

Ineligible

Players who have previously received a qualifying offer in their careers cannot be tagged with a second one. That rules out Bassitt, Iglesias, Martinez and Verlander. Teams can only make the offer to players who spent the entire preceding season on their roster. Bieber, Kelly and Littell (who would’ve been unlikely anyway) were all traded at the deadline.

Previewing The 2025-26 Free Agent Class: Designated Hitter

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MLBTR continues its position-by-position look at the upcoming free agent class. Before we move on to the pitching, we’ll wrap up the offensive group by looking at the designated hitters. Every position player technically could play DH, of course, but the vast majority of the class has been covered in one of our prior positional previews. We’ll limit this look to players who are either primary designated hitters or took at least 200 plate appearances at the position this year. Player ages, listed in parenthesis, are for the 2026 season.

Previous entries in this series: catcher, first base, second base, third base, shortstop, center field, corner outfield

Top of the Class

Kyle Schwarber (33)

With the exception of Shohei Ohtani, Schwarber is the top free agent designated hitter in years. He’s going to become the first pure DH to sign a nine-figure contract after blasting an NL-best 56 home runs and leading MLB with 132 runs driven in. Schwarber played in all 162 games and batted .240/.365/.563 over 724 trips to the plate.

Schwarber hit 38+ homers in all four seasons of the free agent contract he’d signed with Philadelphia. He’s going to strike out a lot, but he’s among the five best power hitters in the sport. He’s also adored in the Philly clubhouse, and president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski has made no secret about their desire to keep him. Schwarber is going to decline a qualifying offer and should be in position for a four-year contract that pays more than $25MM annually. There’s a non-zero chance that a team stretches to five years to push the overall guarantee above $130MM.

Regular DH Options

Josh Bell (33)

The ever streaky Bell alternated bad and excellent months throughout the season. He had a .730 OPS or below in each of April, June and August while posting an .860 or better in May, July and September. The end result was a .239/.326/.421 batting line with 22 home runs across 533 plate appearances. For all his inconsistency within seasons, Bell has reliably ended up as a slightly above-average hitter in each of the past three years. He should command another one-year deal.

Starling Marte (37)

After consecutive seasons of declining production, Marte had a bit of a rebound in a part-time role for the Mets. He hit .270/.335/.410 over 329 plate appearances. Marte only hit seven homers and isn’t the kind of power bat that teams will want as an everyday DH, but he can take 250-300 at-bats while playing a part-time corner outfield role.

Andrew McCutchen (39)

Cutch has signed a series of one-year, $5MM deals with the Pirates over the past few seasons. This year’s .239/.333/.367 line with 13 homers is his worst production of his three-year second stint in Pittsburgh. McCutchen still has a strong awareness of the strike zone, but he’s no longer a threat for 25-30 homers at this stage of his career. It seems likely he’ll work out another cheap one-year deal with the Bucs.

Marcell Ozuna (35)

Ozuna is the cheap alternative to Schwarber as a true everyday designated hitter. He’s only one season removed from being one of the sport’s best offensive players. Ozuna combined for 79 home runs with a .289/.364/.552 slash between 2023-24. He’s coming off an underwhelming walk year at age 34, as he regressed to a .232/.355/.400 batting line with 21 homers over 592 trips to the plate. It’s still above-average offensive output but not great production for a player who hasn’t logged a single inning on defense in two years.

The in-season trend lines were not encouraging. Ozuna hit .280/.426/.457 with nearly as many walks as strikeouts through the end of May. For a while, he looked as if he’d be one of the best rental hitters available at the trade deadline. He then went through a three-month slog in which he hit .185/.300/.362 over 278 plate appearances. That killed any chance of the Braves getting more than marginal salary relief, so they kept him for the stretch run. Ozuna rebounded somewhat to hit .261 in September, but he struck out at a 32% clip and only connected on one home run in the season’s final month. He’ll be limited to a one-year deal that might be half of the $16MM salary he collected this past season.

Jorge Polanco (32)

Polanco’s contract technically contains a $6MM player option, but he’s going to decline that and hit free agency. The Mariners surprisingly re-signed him on the heels of a disappointing 2024 season. Seattle attributed the down year to a knee injury through which he’d played that required postseason meniscus surgery. They’ve been proven right with a resurgent year from the switch-hitting infielder. Polanco drilled 26 homers and 30 doubles with a .265/.326/.495 line.

While Polanco can still hit, he’ll face questions about his defensive workload over 162 games. Seattle initially planned to play him at third base, believing that not needing to navigate the second base bag would be easier on his knee. That lasted five games before renewed soreness and an oblique injury led the M’s to use him as a full-time designated hitter for a while. He began mixing in second base work in June and played there regularly for the final three weeks of the season. He’s a long shot candidate for a qualifying offer but will likely hit free agency without draft compensation. He should get at least a two-year deal and has a chance for three.

Bench Bats

Wilmer Flores (34)

Flores got out to a strong start to the season, popping seven home runs with a penchant for clutch hits in April. He had a pedestrian .245/.315/.365 batting line from the beginning of May onwards. Flores has made a career as a versatile defender who hits left-handed pitching, but he’s essentially limited to DH and first base at this point. He only has a .228/.278/.371 slash against southpaws over the past two seasons and may need to take a minor league deal.

Mitch Garver (35)

Garver logged nearly 400 innings behind the plate as Cal Raleigh’s backup. The Mariners signed him with the expectation that he’d be their primary designated hitter, but he hit .187/.290/.341 in 201 games over two seasons in the Pacific Northwest.

Justin Turner (41)

Turner got $6MM from the Cubs last offseason to work as a veteran righty bat off the bench. He hit .219/.288/.314 over 80 games in his age-40 season and is probably looking at a minor league deal if he continues playing.

Jesse Winker (32)

Winker landed a $7.5MM guarantee to re-sign with the Mets last offseason. He’ll probably be limited to minor league offers this winter after oblique and back injuries limited him to 26 games.

Player Options

Joc Pederson (34)

Pederson will exercise a $16.5MM player option with Texas after hitting .181/.285/.328 over 306 plate appearances. The Rangers will need a huge rebound from a player who’d hit .275/.393/.515 with the Diamondbacks in 2024.

Previewing Qualifying Offer Decisions: Position Players

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The World Series looms and the offseason will begin around two weeks from now. One of the first key decisions for teams is whether to issue a qualifying offer to any of their impending free agents. Clubs have until the fifth day after the conclusion of the World Series to make QO decisions.

The QO is a one-year offer calculated by averaging the 125 highest salaries in MLB. This year’s price is $22.025MM. Players who receive the QO have around two weeks to get an early feel for the market before deciding whether to accept. If they do, they cannot be traded without their consent until at least June 15 of the following season — as is the case for any MLB free agent who signs a major league deal.

If the player rejects and signs elsewhere, his former team would receive draft compensation. The signing club would forfeit a pick (or picks) and potentially international signing bonus space. The compensation and penalties vary depending on teams’ revenue sharing and luxury tax statuses. MLBTR’s Mark Polishuk recently examined what each team would receive if they lose a qualified free agent, and the penalties they’d pay to sign one.

We’ll start with a look at the position players, with a preview of the pitchers to come later in the week. While there may be some close calls on the pitching side, there shouldn’t be a ton of intrigue with the hitting decisions. Many of this year’s top free agent hitters are ineligible for a qualifying offer, meaning there’ll probably only be four who receive it — each of whom would have a relatively easy decision to decline.

No-Doubters

There’s not much to say about this trio. They’ll all receive and reject a QO. Tucker could seek a contract north of $400MM, while Bichette should aim for $200MM+ despite a late-season knee sprain. Schwarber’s age and lack of defensive value will keep him below $200MM, but he’s going to easily beat $22MM per season on what should at least be a four-year contract.

Likely Recipient

Grisham is a safe bet to receive the qualifying offer as well, though that’s perhaps more of a 90-95% likelihood than the absolute locks of the top tier. It should be an easy call for him to decline on the heels of a 34-homer breakout that is supported by impressive batted ball metrics. Even with a dip in his typically strong defensive grades, Grisham has a shot at a four- of five-year deal going into his age-29 season. He’s the top center fielder in the class.

The only argument against the Yankees issuing the QO is that they’d receive the lowest compensation as a luxury tax payor: a pick after the fourth round. If they feel there’s even a 10% chance of Grisham accepting, maybe they’d rather not risk committing $22MM and an accompanying $24MM in luxury taxes within the first two weeks of the offseason. Still, one imagines they’d happily take Grisham back on the off chance that he were willing to accept a one-year guarantee.

Long Shots

Polanco has had a huge second season in Seattle. He hit 26 homers with a .265/.326/.495 slash across 524 regular season plate appearances. His .703 OPS in the postseason isn’t great overall, but he has drilled three more home runs (including two off Tarik Skubal in a Game 2 victory in the Division Series). It’s arguably the best offensive performance of his career after accounting for the difficulty of hitting at T-Mobile Park. All that said, it’s difficult to see the Mariners offering $22MM to a 32-year-old whose defensive home is in question because of knee injuries. There’s a strong chance Polanco would accept, as his age and durability issues should cap him at a three-year deal even if he’s not attached to draft compensation.

Torres was on track to receive a qualifying offer after hitting .281/.387/.425 in an All-Star first half. He subsequently hit .223/.320/.339 and underwent postseason sports hernia surgery. While the injury offers an explanation for the late-season drop in production, it’s likelier that Torres is who he is: an above-average but not great hitter who plays a mediocre second base. He finished his lone season in Detroit with a .256/.358/.387 line with 16 homers, similar numbers to those he posted (.257/.330/.378) during his walk year with the Yankees. That got him a $15MM free agent deal. It’s tough to see Detroit offering him an extra $7MM and potentially locking that money up by mid-November.

That’s essentially it for any hitters with an outside chance to receive a QO. The only other player who even received consideration in this tier is Luis Arraez. While he still has the game’s best contact skills and is a good bet to hit .300, there’s just not enough overall impact to justify a $22MM salary. Of the 32 first basemen who tallied 400+ plate appearances, Arraez ranked 19th in on-base percentage (.327) and 26th in slugging (.392).

Ineligible

Players who have previously received a qualifying offer in their careers cannot be tagged with a second one. That rules out Alonso, Bellinger, Bregman, Realmuto and Story (who seems unlikely to opt out anyway). Teams can only make the offer to players who spent the entire preceding season on their roster. Bader, Naylor, O’Hearn and Suárez were all traded at the deadline. The Braves claimed Kim off waivers from Tampa Bay in September.

Offseason Outlook: Texas Rangers

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The Rangers failed to score enough runs for the second straight year. After making a few unsuccessful changes around the core last winter, they should be up for a more radical overhaul of the lineup.

Guaranteed Contracts

Option Decisions

  • DH Joc Pederson haș $18.5MM player option (deal includes matching mutual option for '27)

2026 guarantees (assuming Pederson opts in): $146.25MM
Total future commitments: $416.25MM through 2031

Arbitration-Eligible Players (service time in parentheses; projected salaries courtesy of MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz)

Non-tender candidates: Heim, García, Sborz, Haggerty, Burger, Duran

Free Agents

The Rangers followed up their championship season with a 78-84 showing in which they finished 18th in scoring. They signed Joc Pederson and swapped out Nathaniel Lowe for Jake Burger, hoping to add some power and do more damage against fastballs. Neither Pederson nor Burger stepped up, and the Rangers dropped to 22nd in scoring this year. An improved pitching staff pushed them to .500, but they finished with a whimper despite buying at the trade deadline.

Bigger changes are in order. That already began in the manager's office. The Rangers parted ways with Bruce Bochy after three seasons. It took less than a week to hammer out a four-year contract with Skip Schumaker, a former NL Manager of the Year who returns to the dugout after a season working as a special assistant in the Texas front office. Schumaker should be working with a much different lineup than the one that closed Bochy's tenure.

The broad focus is to improve the offensive approach. Only the Rockies, Guardians, Angels and White Sox had a lower on-base percentage. Texas was in the bottom third of MLB in walk rate. At the end-of-season press conference, general manager Ross Fenstermaker said the team could prioritize "stable skills, on-base percentage, the ability to make contact, execute situationally" in their external additions (link via Shawn McFarland of The Dallas Morning News).

Before that can happen, they'll need to move on from a few players. Rowdy Tellez is their only impending free agent hitter of any note, so the significant work will happen via trades and/or non-tenders. They're unlikely to find a taker for Pederson, who'll exercise a $16.5MM player option after hitting .181/.285/.328 during his first season in Texas. It's hard to imagine they'd move Corey Seager, who remains the team's best hitter and whose contract (another six years at $31MM annually) would only work for a couple large-market teams. Wyatt Langford, Josh Smith and Evan Carter should be back as affordable building blocks.

The Rangers might try to get out from under a portion of the Marcus Semien contract. He's owed $72MM over the final three seasons of his seven-year free agent deal. Semien was phenomenal during the World Series season but has tailed off over the past two years. He's coming off a career-worst .230/.305/.364 slash line with 15 homers and ended the year on the injured list with a Lisfranc issue in his left foot.

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Previewing The 2025-26 Free Agent Class: Center Field

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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 center field, a position that has been weak in free agency for the past few years. That’s again the case this winter, as the handful of potential regulars face questions about their offensive consistency and/or how long they can play up the middle. Ages listed are for the 2026 season.

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

Everyday Players

Trent Grisham (29)

Grisham has gone from fourth outfielder to the top center fielder in the class within six months. He picked a great time for the best season of his career. Grisham connected on 34 home runs, doubling his previous season high. He pushed his already strong walk rate to a career-high 14.1% clip while cutting his strikeouts (23.6%) to the lowest mark in four years. The end result was a .235/.348/.464 slash line across 581 plate appearances. He spent most of the season hitting atop the Yankee lineup in front of Aaron Judge.

It’s not entirely fair to say that came out of nowhere. Grisham is a former top prospect who had a couple strong seasons with the Padres early in his career. He had hit just .191/.298/.353 in nearly 1300 trips to the plate from 2022-24, however, so almost no one would have seen a season like this coming.

The breakout was neither a product of batted ball luck nor Yankee Stadium. Grisham posted well above-average marks in hard hit rate, barrels and average exit velocity. Statcast’s expected batting average and slugging percentage (based on his plate discipline, exit velocities and launch angles) were even better than his actual production. That doesn’t necessarily mean the numbers are sustainable. Even if this year’s results were “deserved,” there’s no guarantee he’ll continue swinging the bat as well as he did.

While this was a career year offensively, Grisham’s defensive grades went the other way. Both Statcast and Defensive Runs Saved had graded him as an average or better defender in every previous season. That was not the case this year, with DRS (-11) particularly down on his work. Grisham’s speed has trended down over the past few seasons and he’s now one of the slower center fielders in MLB.

It leaves teams with a difficult evaluation. Will Grisham remain an impact bat at the top of a lineup? How much longer will he stick in center field? He’s one of the most high-variance players in the entire free agent class. The Yankees should make him a qualifying offer, which he’d almost certainly decline. That’d entitle them to a compensatory pick after the fourth round while costing a signing team draft (and potentially international bonus pool) compensation. A four- or five-year deal could be on the table.

Cody Bellinger (30)

Bellinger is opting out of the final year on his contract with the Yankees. New York won’t be able to make him a qualifying offer because he already received one from the Cubs after the 2023 season. Bellinger won’t be attached to draft compensation and should pull a larger contract than Grisham, potentially in the nine figures.

It’s unclear if any team would make that kind of offer for Bellinger to play center field every day. He hasn’t reached 500 innings at the position in either of the past two years. The Cubs split him evenly between center and right in 2024. The Yankees gave him 38 starts and a little over 300 innings in center while playing him more often in the corners. Bellinger still runs well and grades as a strong corner defender, though the hope would probably be for league average glovework if a team plays him in center.

Bellinger hit 29 homers while slashing .272/.334/.480 across 656 plate appearances. His left-handed swing seemed tailor made for Yankee Stadium, as he hit .302/.365/.544 with 18 longballs at home. His pedestrian road numbers (.241/.301/.414) could give some teams pause, and Belllinger’s middling exit velocities have been a talking point for the past few years. He very rarely strikes out, though, and he’s coming off his second well above-average offensive season in the past three years.

Harrison Bader (32)

Bader will decline his end of a $10MM mutual option in favor of a $1.5MM buyout. He hits the market for a third consecutive offseason. His past two trips resulted in one-year deals. Bader should find a multi-year pact this time around, and there’s an outside chance he commands a three-year deal.

A plus runner with excellent range and a strong arm, Bader has been a fantastic defender throughout his career. Even at 32, he’s the best defensive center fielder on the open market (assuming the White Sox pick up their option on Luis Robert). Bader split his 2025 season almost equally between left and center, but that was only because he spent the first half playing in the same Minnesota outfield as Byron Buxton. He was a full-time center fielder after being traded to the Phillies at the deadline.

The question is how much of this year’s personal-best offensive output is sustainable. Bader slashed .277/.347/.449 with a career-high 17 home runs in 501 plate appearances. He set new high water marks in batting average and on-base percentage. His slugging output was the second-best of his career behind his 2021 season with St. Louis.

Bader’s underlying offensive metrics are not as encouraging. He struck out at a 27.1% clip, his highest rate in five seasons. He made more hard contact than he had in prior years, but Statcast estimators feel he dramatically outperformed his expected batting average and slugging percentage. He’s unlikely to hit .359 on balls in play again. Teams will expect him to take a step back offensively. He should land somewhere in between this year’s production and the .239/.284/.360 slash he posted over the prior three seasons.

Low-End Regulars/Fourth Outfielders

Cedric Mullins (31)

A few months ago, Mullins had an outside chance at a nine-figure deal. He started the year on fire, hitting .278/.412/.515 with six home runs through the end of April. He was on pace for his best season since he was a top ten MVP finisher four years ago.

Things fell apart. Mullins had a sub-.650 OPS in four of the final five months. He hit .198/.263/.355 in 379 plate appearances from May 1 onward. A deadline trade to the Mets didn’t serve as the turning point they’d hoped. Mullins hit .182/.284/.281 over 42 games in Queens. He was essentially relegated to fourth outfield work as the team squandered a playoff berth.

Mullins still logged over 1000 innings in center field. Defensive metrics have been mixed on him throughout his career. Statcast grades him as a generally rangy defender but rates his arm as one of the worst in the league. He’ll probably find a team willing to play him every day, but he’s likely looking at a one-year deal.

Lane Thomas (30)

While Thomas is probably better suited for right field, the Guardians mostly used him in center. Cleveland paid a decent prospect price to acquire Thomas from Washington at the 2024 deadline. It didn’t work out (postseason homer off Tarik Skubal aside), as he hit .189/.258/.340 over 329 plate appearances with the Guardians. That includes a .160/.246/.272 slash over 39 games this season. Thomas dealt with a right wrist injury early in the season and tried to play through plantar fasciitis in his right foot. He had three separate injured list stints overall.

Thomas is only two seasons removed from hitting 28 homers and stealing 20 bases for the Nats. He was an above-average regular who feasted on left-handed pitching at his best. He’ll need to take a one-year deal after how poorly things went in Cleveland.

Team Options

Luis Robert Jr. (28)

Robert isn’t likely to get to the market. The White Sox hold a $20MM club option that comes with a $2MM buyout. The $18MM difference is substantial for a player who has been a below-average hitter in consecutive seasons. The White Sox maintained a high asking price on Robert in trade talks, though, and GM Chris Getz has implied that they’ll exercise the option. There’s another $20MM option for 2027, so there’s still some long-term upside if Robert recaptures the form he showed earlier in his career.

Minor League Deal Candidates

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