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Royals, Reds Among Teams With Interest In Jake Meyers

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The Astros are known to have made center fielder Jake Meyers available in trade conversations as they pursue starting pitching. Brian McTaggart of MLB.com reports that the Reds, Royals, Dodgers and White Sox are among the clubs that have shown interest.

Meyers, 29, is an excellent defender who is coming off the best season of his career at the plate. He hit .292/.354/.373 with a personal-best 17.6% strikeout rate. He made dramatically more contact while cutting his chase rate on pitches outside the strike zone. Meyers had entered the season with a career .228/.292/.371 batting line. This year’s production was mostly supported by the process improvements, but that came in a fairly small sample. Meyers took fewer than 400 plate appearances thanks to a right calf injury that nagged him throughout the second half.

Even if Meyers regresses offensively, his glove is good enough to make him a useful player at the bottom of a lineup. He’d be one of the better all-around center fielders in MLB if he can maintain a league average bat. Meyers also chipped in on the bases with a career-high 16 steals in 21 attempts this year. He’s under arbitration control for two seasons. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projects him for a $3.5MM salary that makes him a strong asset — particularly with a dearth of free agent options at the position.

Kansas City is seeking multiple outfielders, one of whom they hope to acquire on the trade front. President of baseball operations J.J. Picollo has already said he’s open to dealing from his rotation for outfield help. Left-hander Kris Bubic has been floated as a trade candidate, though he’s a tricky player to value after suffering a season-ending rotator cuff injury. Bubic pitched like a #2 caliber starter before the shoulder injury but has a history of arm issues. He’s projected for a $6MM salary and is a year from free agency. 26-year-old Noah Cameron could also be available in the right deal, but the Royals would have a high ask for six years of his services.

Cincinnati doesn’t need a center fielder, as TJ Friedl is already locked into the position. They saw righty-hitting outfielder Austin Hays hit free agency, though, and they don’t have anyone established in left field. The Reds arguably have a rotation surplus as well and could entertain offers on veteran righty Brady Singer, though his $11.9M arbitration projection could be rich for Houston. The Reds are unlikely to part with two years of control over lefty Nick Lodolo for Meyers.

The Dodgers don’t have anyone established in center field. Andy Pages could slide over to left, where there’s an opening. Tommy Edman can play center field or second base. The Dodgers are reportedly reluctant to block any of their top outfield prospects with a long-term free agent signing. Meyers makes sense as a trade target. Los Angeles presumably wouldn’t trade Roki Sasaki, Emmet Sheehan or Justin Wrobleski for Meyers, so it might be difficult to line up a deal.

It’s even more challenging to see a fit on the White Sox. Chicago is still firmly in rebuild mode and unlikely to compete for a playoff spot within the next two seasons. They’re light on established starting pitching and shouldn’t be trading controllable arms for short-term help. It’s tough to see a deal coming together even if the Sox like Meyers as a player quite a bit.

Astros, Rays Have Discussed Shane Baz

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The Astros and Rays have had conversations involving Tampa Bay starter Shane Baz, report Chandler Rome and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. There’s no indication that a deal is close to fruition, nor is it a lock that the Rays trade him at all. Baz is presumably one of a number of targets for a Houston team that is trying to add a starter — ideally via trade, given their payroll constraints.

Baz, 26, would fit the bill from an affordability perspective. He’s in his second of four trips through the arbitration process, but early-career injuries kept him from accruing significant earnings in year one. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projects him for a modest $3.1MM sum next season, and he’s under club control through 2028.

A first-round pick out of high school by the Pirates in 2017, Baz was traded to Tampa Bay in the lopsided Chris Archer deal a year later. The 6’3″ righty developed into one of the sport’s top pitching prospects but has yet to reach the mid-rotation or better ceiling for which he was lauded. He dealt with multiple elbow issues over the early part of his MLB career. Those culminated in September 2022 Tommy John surgery. He missed the following season and spent some time in Triple-A in ’24, so he didn’t return to Kevin Cash’s rotation until around the All-Star Break that year.

Baz turned in a 3.06 earned run average across 14 starts down the stretch. That was aided by a .229 average on balls in play that papered over league average strikeout and walk numbers. The results swung in the opposite direction this year. Baz held a rotation spot all season and made 31 starts, but he surrendered 4.87 earned runs per nine. His strikeout rate actually climbed three percentage points to a solid 24.8% clip, but a spike in the BABIP and an uptick in home runs led to much worse overall results.

Despite the uneven year, Baz would have a lot of trade value. Controllable starting pitching is very difficult to acquire. That’s especially true when it’s a former top prospect who averages 97 MPH on his fastball. Baz has a four-pitch mix and did a solid job handling left-handed hitters. His command isn’t elite but close enough to league average to stick as a starter. He has so far been held back by a lack of start-to-start consistency. Baz allowed one run or fewer 10 times (including seven scoreless appearances) but also had 10 outings in which he gave up five or more runs.

Tampa Bay is under no pressure to trade Baz, but they tend to be open to conversations on almost anyone on the roster. There’d be some parallels to last summer’s deadline deal in which they shipped Taj Bradley to Minnesota (though he’d fallen far enough in their view that they’d optioned him to Triple-A shortly before trading him). They swapped Bradley for a controllable high-leverage reliever in Griffin Jax and would presumably want to build a Baz return mostly around MLB pieces as well.

The Astros have one of the weakest farm systems in the game. Speaking broadly about the team’s trade conversations, general manager Dana Brown acknowledged to The Athletic that opposing clubs have focused more on their big league roster. Center fielder Jake Meyers is reportedly available in talks for a starter.

While there’s no firm indication that Meyers is a target for the Rays specifically, he’d make sense given their outfield questions. Tampa Bay did sign Cedric Mullins to a one-year deal last week, but he could factor into an uncertain corner outfield mix if the Rays acquired a superior defender in Meyers. It’s unlikely that Tampa Bay would agree to a one-for-one swap given the scarcity of starting pitching, however. Rome and Rosenthal report that the Rays like High-A pitching prospect Anderson Brito, who could be a secondary piece in a larger deal.

The Astros are expected to lose Framber Valdez, leaving them with plenty of questions behind ace Hunter Brown. They’ll slot Cristian Javier in the mix and have the likes of Spencer Arrighetti, AJ Blubaugh, Jason Alexander, Ryan Weiss, Nate Pearson and Lance McCullers Jr. competing for spots. It’s not nearly deep enough for a team that intends to compete for the AL West title.

Houston has been linked to some free agent possibilities (Ranger Suárez, most notably). They’re reportedly reluctant to surpass the $244MM luxury tax line, though, and RosterResource has them less than $25MM from the threshold. They could also use a left-handed hitting utility infielder and a backup catcher, and they’ll want to keep some payroll space aside for midseason additions. That might inhibit their ability to add a mid-rotation arm in free agency. Relatedly, Brown told reporters (including Rome) this evening that the club would prefer not to sign a free agent who rejected a qualifying offer and would cost them draft compensation. That lists includes Suárez, Michael King and Zac Gallen.

Rangers Notes: Langford, Carter, Smith, Dorton

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The Rangers will have a new-look outfield after non-tendering Adolis García and swapping Marcus Semien for Brandon Nimmo. The pair of moves seemingly positions Wyatt Langford to move from left field to the opposite corner. While that might still be the case, manager Skip Schumaker left open the possibility of using Langford as a center fielder in 2026 (relayed by Evan Grant of The Dallas Morning News).

Langford has some experience up the middle. He has started 50 games and logged 414 1/3 innings there in the big leagues. Both Defensive Runs Saved and Statcast’s Outs Above Average have liked his work. It’s a limited sample, but Langford has posted excellent marks in nearly 1700 innings in left field. He’s an excellent runner underway and has gotten solid grades from Statcast for his first-step reads. Langford’s arm isn’t spectacular but also isn’t poor enough to limit him to left field.

It’s rare for a college corner outfielder to move up the defensive spectrum in pro ball. Langford played left at the University of Florida as well, though that was in deference to two players whom scouts regarded as plus defenders up the middle. He hit his way to the big leagues so quickly that the Rangers didn’t have time to get him much minor league work in center. Texas used Leody Taveras as their center fielder in 2024 and gave Evan Carter the majority of the reps there this past season.

Carter is back and could certainly stake a claim to the center field role. He has battled injuries and been a little up-and-down since his sensational debut late in 2023. The Rangers have also used Carter in a strict platoon capacity, giving him a total of 68 career plate appearances versus lefty pitching. He has all of five MLB hits against southpaws. Schumaker suggested they could open up a few more left-on-left looks for Carter this season — even if they try to ease him in against less imposing arms.

“In this league, you earn your stripes, but you have to give them opportunity to earn their stripes,” Schumaker said (video via DLLS Sports). “There are elite, ace-type lefties who are challenging for lefties and righties, and then there are some lefties you feel really comfortable letting them hit against — whether it’s a starter or maybe a middle reliever.”

If Carter finds success against southpaws, the Rangers could have him flanked by Nimmo and Langford. The latter could slide over to center field against the toughest left-handed opposition, opening the door for Texas to mix in another righty bat off the bench. Fourth outfielder Michael Helman popped five home runs over 38 games in a late-season look, but he’s approaching his 30th birthday and had a .294 on-base percentage in Triple-A this year.

Adding a right-handed bench bat would make some sense, though the Rangers appear to be up against a very tight line financially. They need to add at least a part-time catcher, a starting pitcher, and an entire bullpen. Upgrading on Jake Burger at first base would be ideal, but that might not be within the budget. Luis Arraez has been a speculated target based on his ties to Schumaker from the Marlins and the Rangers’ desire to make more contact. However, Will Sammon and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic wrote last week that Arraez might be out of their price range even on the heels of a down year in San Diego.

For similar reasons, Texas expects to replace Semien at second base internally. Utilityman Josh Smith should enter camp as the favorite. Shawn McFarland of The Dallas Morning News relayed word from Schumaker that Smith has a decent chance to win the job, though Cody Freeman and Ezequiel Duran are also in the mix. The lefty-hitting Smith has been a little better than average at the plate over the past two seasons. There has been some in-season volatility, as the LSU product has been much better in the first half in consecutive years.

In one bit of non-playing news, the Rangers are hiring Eric Dorton as a third hitting coach (as first reported by Jeff Wilson of DLLS Sports). He’ll work alongside Alex Cintrón as an assistant to lead hitting instructor Justin Viele. It’s an internal promotion. The 36-year-old Dorton has been in the organization since 2019 and was previously a minor league hitting coordinator. This is his first MLB coaching job.

Nationals Hire Matt Borgschulte As Hitting Coach

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The Nationals announced what appears to their full coaching staff at this afternoon’s Winter Meetings (relayed by Andrew Golden of The Washington Post). The hiring of Matt Borgschulte as hitting coach is now official, after TalkNats reported six days ago that he had accepted the job. The Nats also added Victor Estevez as third base/infield coach and Dustin Glant as assistant pitching/bullpen coach.

Borgschulte spent the 2025 season as Minnesota’s hitting coach. The Twins moved on from him after one year following a managerial switch from Rocco Baldelli to Derek Shelton. Minnesota hitters ranked 23rd in scoring and finished between 16th and 22nd in all three slash stats. They were a middle-of-the-pack group in strikeouts and walks while tying for 11th in home runs.

It was a step back from a ’24 season in which they finished 10th in the majors in runs and were narrowly better than average in every slash category. The usual caveats about separating coaches from their personnel apply, of course. The 35-year-old Borgschulte had spent the prior three season as a co-hitting coach with the Orioles. He replaces Darnell Coles in the nation’s capital.

Estevez gets his first job on a big league staff. The 37-year-old had spent more than a decade coaching and managing in the Milwaukee farm system. He has seven seasons of minor league managerial experience, the past two of which have been at the High-A level. Estevez has also managed in the Dominican Winter League. He’ll have his work cut out for him with a Washington infield that ranked 28th in MLB with -60 Outs Above Average over the past three seasons.

Glant jumps to the professional ranks after spending four seasons at Indiana University. He’d been the Hoosiers’ pitching coach since 2022. Glant had spent the prior six seasons at Ball State as their pitching coach. The 44-year-old pitched parts of six seasons in the Arizona farm system in the 2000s.

The remainder of Blake Butera’s first staff, all of which had already been reported: bench coach Michael Johns, pitching coach Simon Mathews, assistant hitting coach Andrew Aydt, assistant pitching coach Sean Doolittle, first base/outfield/baserunning coach Corey Ray, catching coach Bobby Wilson, field coordinator Tyler Smarslok, and development coach Grant Anders. It’s almost an entirely new group after the managerial change. Doolittle is the only holdover from Dave Martinez’s and Miguel Cairo’s 2025 group.

A’s Not Inclined To Move Luis Severino Solely For Salary Relief

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The Athletics made Luis Severino the highest-paid player in franchise history last winter. The first season of his three-year, $67MM free agent contract was mixed at best. The veteran righty had a poor first half, allowing a 5.16 ERA over 20 starts. He was at the center of controversy in late June after he bemoaned pitching at Sacramento’s Sutter Health Park in a conversation with The Athletic’s Brendan Kuty.

Those comments reportedly didn’t sit well with A’s brass. There was speculation that the team would try to move Severino before the deadline, but his contract and poor performance made that easier said than done. Severino rebuilt some value with a better showing after the All-Star Break. He concluded the season with a 3.10 ERA over his final nine appearances. He struck out a solid 21.8% of opponents while holding them to a .226/.289/.333 batting line over that stretch.

Aside from a three-week injured list stint due to an oblique strain, the second half performance was what the A’s front office had in mind when they signed Severino. As they enter another offseason that’ll be focused on pitching, they seem less inclined to move him than they had been a few months ago. Will Sammon and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic write that the A’s are not interested in trading Severino in a pure salary dump. While they’re not taking him off the table in talks, it seems they’re demanding a legitimate return on top of another club taking his contract off the books.

Severino is still owed a $5MM signing bonus, which will be paid next January 15. (The A’s would be responsible for that even if they traded him within the next month.) He’ll make a $20MM salary next year and has a $22MM player option for the 2027 campaign. It’s a total commitment of two years and $42MM with the possibility that Severino opts out after the first season. He received and rejected a qualifying offer from the Mets last winter, so the A’s would not be able to make him another QO if he retests the market.

It’s not a terrible contract, but it’s also not one that has much upside for the team. Severino is coming off a 4.54 ERA with a below-average 17.6% strikeout rate across 162 2/3 innings overall. There’s been a lot of attention to the three-run gap in his ERA (6.01 vs. 3.02) at home versus on the road. However, Severino’s 17% strikeout rate and unsustainably low .249 average on balls in play during his away starts suggest his road ERA is a bit of a mirage. There’s a much narrower gap in his FIP (4.34 vs. 3.87) in his home/road splits. The overall picture looks like that of a league average starter.

The ideal outcome for the team is that Severino pitches like a #3 starter next season and opts out. He’d only exercise the player option if he pitched poorly enough that he doesn’t feel it’d be smart to walk away from a $22MM salary. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t appear teams are willing to offer the A’s a strong trade package. Sammon and Rosenthal write that interested clubs would only take on Severino’s contract if they don’t need to give up significant talent.

That doesn’t achieve a whole lot for the A’s, assuming the front office and ownership aren’t shopping him solely because of his criticism of the temporary stadium arrangement. Severino and Jeffrey Springs are their only returning starters who topped 100 innings. The rotation had a 4.85 ERA overall, the fourth-highest mark in MLB. Rookies Jacob Lopez and Luis Morales showed promise, but starting pitching remains the team’s biggest need. That’s particularly true given how hitter-friendly the Sacramento park plays — putting a greater toll on the A’s young arms. They may face similar challenges to last offseason in convincing free agent starters to sign there.

Severino, Springs, Brent Rooker and Lawrence Butler are the only players on guaranteed deals. They have one of the lightest arbitration classes in MLB. RosterResource projects their luxury tax number around $105MM, which was their reported target last winter to avoid a revenue sharing grievance. Their actual payroll estimate sits at roughly $75MM. That’s also right around where they opened the ’25 campaign. In addition to their rotation need, they’re aiming to add a high-leverage reliever and could pursue second and/or third base help.

Mariners Finalize Coaching Staff

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The Mariners announced their 2026 coaching staff on Friday morning. There are three news additions to Dan Wilson’s group: bullpen coach Austin Nola, third base coach Carlos Cardoza, and field coordinator Jake McKinley. MLBTR covered Nola’s hiring last month.

Cardoza, 39 in January, gets his first job on an MLB staff. The Puerto Rico native has coached professionally for a decade, spending the majority of that time working in the Texas farm system. He served as a minor league manager and has led the Rangers’ Double-A affiliate for the past three seasons. Seattle needed a new third base coach to replace Kristopher Negrón, who departed to take over as Don Kelly’s bench coach with the Pirates.

McKinley is also making his debut on a big league staff. He makes the jump from the college ranks after spending the past three seasons as the head coach at the University of Nevada. (Kendall Rogers of D1 Baseball reported that McKinley was leaving the Wolfpack to join the M’s as field coordinator earlier this week.) The 2025 Mountain West Coach of the Year, McKinley led Nevada to a 19-11 record within conference play to win the regular season conference championship. He’d previously worked in the professional ranks as part of Milwaukee’s player development department.

The rest of Wilson’s staff returns on the heels of the ALCS berth. Bench coach Manny Acta, senior director of hitting strategy Edgar Martinez, hitting coach Kevin Seitzer, assistant hitting coach Bobby Magallanes, pitching coach Pete Woodworth, assistant pitching coach Danny Farquhar, director of pitching strategy Trent Blank, first base coach Eric Young Jr., and infield coach Perry Hill are all back in their previous roles.

Latest On MacKenzie Gore Trade Talks

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Nationals left-hander MacKenzie Gore is one of the biggest names to watch as the Winter Meetings approach. The All-Star southpaw is Washington’s biggest trade chip, and they’re unsurprisingly getting plenty of calls.

Will Sammon and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic write that the Nationals have heard from upwards of 15 teams with interest. Buster Olney of ESPN relays that executives from multiple front offices expect a Gore trade to come together within the coming days. ESPN’s Jeff Passan and Kiley McDaniel wrote earlier this week that the Nats had a high asking price — as one would expect for a mid-rotation starter who comes with two affordable seasons of club control.

Gore, who turns 27 in February, took the ball 30 times this year and posted a 4.17 earned run average. That’s not all that impressive in aggregate, but he flashed the talent that once made him a third overall pick. Gore’s first half was excellent: 110 1/3 innings of 3.02 ERA ball with a 30.4% strikeout rate. Things unraveled down the stretch. He was tagged for a 6.75 ERA in 11 starts after the All-Star Break. His strikeout percentage plummeted by 10 points as the whiff rates on his curveball and slider dropped. Gore struggled to throw strikes and twice landed on the injured list. He missed the first couple weeks of September with shoulder inflammation, then was scratched from his final start because of an ankle impingement.

The ankle is unlikely to be a concern moving forward. The shoulder could raise a little more alarm, but his velocity wasn’t much affected when he returned. His fastball averaged 94.8 MPH in September, only marginally below its 95.3 MPH mark for the season. Gore’s scattershot command and start-to-start inconsistency are the bigger questions. There’s nevertheless going to be ample interest in a lefty with plus stuff who pitched like a #2 starter for the first three months of the season.

Gore ranked as MLBTR’s top trade candidate entering the offseason. That reflected both his value and the likelihood that he’d be on the move. The Nationals don’t appear close to coming out of their rebuild. They fired GM Mike Rizzo midseason and are starting fresh with president of baseball operations Paul Toboni. Gore is two seasons away from free agency. The Nats almost certainly won’t be competitive next season and face an uphill battle to making the playoffs in 2027, making it difficult to envision Gore remaining in D.C. beyond next year’s deadline at the latest.

MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projects Gore for a $4.7MM salary in his penultimate arbitration year. That’s unlikely to climb beyond $8-10MM in 2027. An acquiring team would be getting two years of a mid-rotation arm for a total around $12-15MM. That’s a bargain even if Gore never reaches another level, but there are surely clubs that believe they can coax a better full season than he has shown so far.

The Padres reportedly made the strongest push to bring Gore back at last summer’s deadline. They still need controllable starting pitching, though a deal could be difficult to manage after they moved top prospect Leo De Vries to the A’s for Mason Miller instead. The Cubs were also linked to Gore at the deadline and remain on the hunt for a high-end starter.

The Giants, Yankees, Tigers, Red Sox and Rangers could all pursue a top arm in trade. The rotation isn’t necessarily a need for the Mariners, but they’re in win-now mode and have the kind of farm system that could allow them to jump in on any available trade candidate. The Orioles and Mets are also chasing rotation upside, but a huge trade with the Nationals could be complicated. The O’s and Nats have long had a contentious relationship related to their decade-plus long dispute over TV rights, while the Mets face the challenge of pulling off a trade within the division.

Diamondbacks Sign Jacob Amaya, Taylor Rashi To Minor League Deals

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The Diamondbacks signed infielder Jacob Amaya and relievers Taylor Rashi and Gerardo Carrillo to minor league contracts, as announced by their Triple-A affiliate in Reno. All three players will get non-roster invitations to Spring Training.

Amaya joins the system after spending the 2025 season with the White Sox. He appeared in a career-high 36 games but only batted .106 with one extra-base hit (a double) in 73 trips to the plate. The 27-year-old spent the rest of the season with Triple-A Charlotte. He hit .250/.352/.420 with nine homers across 219 plate appearances. He posted decent batted ball metrics but struck out in 29% of his trips to the dish.

A former 11th-round pick of the Dodgers, Amaya is a light-hitting utility player. He has nearly 5000 professional innings at shortstop and has logged more than 1100 frames at second base. Amaya has played some third base as well and should provide a solid glove around the infield. He’ll compete with Tim Tawa for the utility job in camp but is probably ticketed for Reno to begin the season.

Rashi returns after being non-tendered a couple weeks ago. The Snakes dropped him from the 40-man roster to make room for James McCann, whom they re-signed that day. The 29-year-old righty pitched 10 times this past season, allowing eight runs across 16 1/3 innings. He recorded 22 strikeouts while issuing eight walks. Rashi only throws 90 MPH but turned in an impressive 3.48 ERA while striking out a quarter of opponents over 67 1/3 innings in the Pacific Coast League this year.

Carrillo has yet to pitch in the majors. A former Dodgers prospect who was traded to the Nationals as part of the Max Scherzer/Trea Turner deal in 2021, he topped out at Double-A in the Washington system. The 27-year-old righty briefly got to Triple-A last year with the Rangers but spent the bulk of the season at Double-A Frisco. He posted a 3.69 ERA with a 26.8% strikeout rate against generally younger competition.

Latest On Michael King’s Market

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Michael King is one of the bigger risk-reward plays in the starting pitching class. He’s arguably a top 10 pitcher in MLB when healthy but is coming off a platform season that was wrecked by a nerve injury in his throwing shoulder. He’s also attached to draft compensation after rejecting a qualifying offer from the Padres.

That hasn’t deterred plenty of teams from expressing interest. King was already known to be a target for the Cubs, Tigers and Yankees, while even the Marlins checked in as a long shot suitor. Mark Feinsand of MLB.com and Joel Sherman of The New York Post each write that the Mets are involved. Feinsand adds the Orioles, Angels and incumbent Padres as teams on the periphery of the market. Sherman reports that the Red Sox have also shown interest in the 30-year-old righty.

King converted to the rotation late in the 2023 season as a member of the Yankees. He pitched well enough to stick as a starter after being traded to San Diego as the centerpiece of the Juan Soto deal. King finished seventh in NL Cy Young voting in 2024, pitching to a 2.95 ERA while striking out 201 batters over 31 appearances. He’d pitched even better over the first six weeks of the ’25 campaign. King reeled off 10 starts with a 2.59 earned run average and punching out 28% of opponents before the injury.

Durability is the big question. The shoulder issue wasn’t structural but proved a lot more problematic than initially expected. He wound up missing almost three months and showed signs of rust when he returned late in the season. King gave up 12 runs while tallying all of 17 1/3 innings over five starts in the second half. His velocity was fine but he only managed 12 strikeouts while issuing nine free passes.

King appeared on track for a nine-figure contract amidst his hot start. That’s tougher to envision now, as the 2024 campaign remains the only season in which he has reached even 105 innings. That’s largely because of his usage with the Yankees, but he also missed a couple months in 2021 with a finger injury and suffered a season-ending elbow fracture the following year.

MLBTR predicted King to receive a four-year, $80MM contract. It’s also possible he prefers a two- or three-year deal with an opt-out to get back to free agency next winter. King declined the straight one-year qualifying offer, but a multi-year deal with an out clause would give him a little more security than the QO would have provided. Jeff Passan of ESPN wrote this morning that King is willing to sign for a shorter term than the top free agent arms (e.g. Framber Valdez, Tatsuya Imai, Ranger Suárez). That wouldn’t necessarily rule out a four-year deal, as the best starters are expected to command five or six-year contracts. Dylan Cease already pulled a seven-year guarantee.

The Mets should come away with a mid-rotation or better arm via free agency or trade. They stayed away from the top of the rotation market last winter. That worked out early in the year but collapsed down the stretch. Only the Rockies, Nationals and Angels had a higher second-half ERA from their rotation than the Mets’ 5.31 mark. Nolan McLean looks like a budding frontline starter, but he’s their only pitcher who allowed fewer than 4.20 earned runs per nine after the All-Star Break.

Baltimore, Boston, San Diego and the Angels have all been in the rotation market. The Red Sox should probably focus elsewhere after acquiring Sonny Gray and Johan Oviedo in trade. The Angels have landed a pair of starters this offseason as well, but Grayson Rodriguez and Alek Manoah both have significant health questions. They still need a starter and are also in the mix for Zac Gallen. The O’s are involved on Valdez and Suárez; no pitcher seems to be off the table for them. The Padres are unlikely to spend what it’d take to bring King back, though they’ll need multiple rotation adds after also losing Cease to free agency and Yu Darvish to elbow surgery.

Tigers Have Shown Interest In Brad Keller As Starter

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The Tigers are among the teams that have expressed interest in free agent righty Brad Keller as a starting pitcher, Evan Petzold of The Detroit Free-Press wrote this afternoon. That report preceded Detroit’s agreement with swingman Drew Anderson, but it’s unlikely a one-year deal with a pitcher who hasn’t appeared in MLB since 2021 would take them out of the mix for starting pitching.

Keller is coming off a breakout year working out of the Cubs bullpen. The 30-year-old righty fired 69 2/3 innings of 2.07 ERA ball. He emerged as Craig Counsell’s most trusted leverage arm by the end of the season. Keller recorded 25 holds and a trio of saves while relinquishing just three leads all year. He was fantastic in the second half, allowing one run while striking out 35 hitters across 27 2/3 frames. He picked up two more saves and a hold while tossing 5 2/3 innings of one-run ball in the playoffs.

While the underlying metrics weren’t quite so dominant, Keller posted solid peripherals across the board. He punched out 27.2% of opponents against a manageable 8% walk rate. Keller got ground-balls at a 56.5% clip, the 10th-highest rate among relievers with 50+ innings. The only slight area of concern was a modest 10.8% swinging strike rate that checked in a little below the 11.5% league average.

Keller’s performance was obviously going to have plenty of teams interested in him as a reliever. As we noted on our writeup of the Top 50 Free Agents, it made sense that some clubs would view him as a rotation conversion candidate. Keller has plenty of starting experience. He was a starter for most of his six seasons as a member of the Royals. The 6’5″ righty found some early-career success as a grounder specialist at the back of the K.C. rotation.

His numbers tanked between 2021-23, and he underwent surgery to correct thoracic outlet syndrome before the ’24 campaign. Keller didn’t find much success in limited MLB looks with the White Sox and Red Sox that year. He was forced to settle for a minor league contract with the Cubs last winter. Keller looked rejuvenated in a relief role, earning a roster spot out of camp and pitching his way to the top of the bullpen hierarchy before long.

While the thoracic outlet surgery could give some clubs trepidation, there’s reason for optimism if he does return to starting. He has continued to use a five-pitch mix out of the bullpen. He had no issues handling left-handed hitters this year, holding them to a .223/.293/.277 slash with a 26% strikeout rate over 123 plate appearances. Keller doesn’t have pristine command but has shown good enough control to work into the middle innings as a starter. While he obviously wouldn’t maintain this past season’s 97.2 MPH average fastball velocity in longer stints, it’s not unreasonable to imagine him sitting 94-95 over five-plus innings.

MLBTR predicted Keller for a three-year, $36MM contract. That baked in the possibility that he could sign somewhere as a starter. ESPN’s Jeff Passan wrote this morning that Keller indeed seems on track to pull a three-year deal. The Tigers have yet to sign a free agent for more than two seasons under fourth-year president of baseball operations Scott Harris.

Keller would nevertheless fit their general operating procedure of targeting the middle tiers of free agency. Detroit has also been linked to Michael King and Zac Gallen and have been more loosely floated as a potential Ranger Suárez suitor. They also reportedly kicked the tires on a reliever to starter move with Ryan Helsley, but he’s off the board on a two-year deal to close for the Orioles.

The rotation currently lines up with Tarik Skubal, Reese Olson, Jack Flaherty and Casey Mize in the top four spots. Rookie Troy Melton is probably the in-house favorite for the fifth starter role. He’d compete with Anderson, Keider Montero and Sawyer Gipson-Long for that job. They can certainly use another starter, and Keller would have the fallback to pitch in high-leverage relief if he doesn’t win a rotation spot out of camp.

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