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The 2025-26 Offseason Begins

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A thrilling World Series came to an end in Game 7 last night. The Dodgers won in an extra-inning affair after Miguel Rojas hit a game-tying home run in the ninth inning, while World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto came out of the bullpen to finish off the Blue Jays despite starting Game 6.

The offseason is officially underway. Last year, the Braves and Angels lined up on the Jorge Soler deal within the first few hours of the reopened trade window. Another Day 1 trade of that significance might be too much to ask, but the moves will be flooding in before long. There’ll be a host of waiver claims as clubs clear space from their 40-man rosters, largely in tandem with the necessary reinstatement of injured players from the injured list. Clubs and players have five days to decide whether to exercise any contractual options.

Free agency technically opens today, but there’s a five-day window for exclusive negotiation between teams and their own free agents. We’re not getting a Kyle Tucker signing anytime soon, but we could see a smaller extension or two as teams try to keep players from testing the open market. The Royals and Michael Wacha worked out a three-year, $51MM contract within this five-day period last winter.

MLBTR’s winter coverage will kick off later today with our preview of the Top 40 Trade Candidates. We’ve already released projected arbitration salaries from MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz and taken a position-by-position look at the upcoming free agent class while previewing the qualifying offer decisions for pitchers and position players. MLBTR’s Offseason Outlook series for Front Office subscribers is also nearly complete. We’ll publish the entries for the two World Series teams within the next few days, while we’re awaiting the Rockies’ GM hire before finalizing the Colorado version.

Our Top 50 Free Agents post will be published on Thursday evening after the finalization of option and QO calls.

NOVEMBER 2: Free agency begins for eligible players, but they aren’t permitted to sign with other teams for at least five days. Free agents no longer count against their previous teams’ 40-man rosters. Trades of players who were on the 40-man roster reopen for the first time since last summer’s deadline.

NOVEMBER 2: Gold Glove winners announced.

NOVEMBER 6: Free agents are eligible to sign with any team. All players or teams with contractual options/opt-out clauses must make their decisions by this evening. Teams have until 4:00 pm Central to decide whether to issue qualifying offers to eligible free agents.

NOVEMBER 6-7: Silver Slugger winners announced. The National League winners will be revealed on the 6th, while the American League honorees will be awarded on the 7th.

NOVEMBER 10-13: General managers meetings in Las Vegas, Nevada. The GM Meetings typically lay the groundwork for the offseason rather than spurring much roster movement in themselves. They’re nevertheless significant as an opportunity for media to speak with high-level executives, which can shed some light on teams’ goals for the winter.

NOVEMBER 10: Rookie of the Year award winners announced.

NOVEMBER 11: Manager of the Year award winners announced.

NOVEMBER 12: Cy Young award winners announced.

NOVEMBER 13: MVP award winners announced.

NOVEMBER 13: Reliever of the Year, Comeback Player of the Year and Hank Aaron award winners announced. All-MLB teams revealed.

NOVEMBER 18: Players have until 3:00 pm Central to decide whether to accept the qualifying offer. If they accept, they’ll return to their previous team on a one-year, $22.025MM contract. Players who accept a QO, like all major league free agent signees, cannot be traded without their consent until June 15. Those who decline the QO are tied to draft compensation. MLBTR’s Mark Polishuk recently covered what each team would receive for losing a qualified free agent and the penalties that teams would pay to sign a player who declined a QO.

NOVEMBER 18: Rule 5 protection deadline. Teams have until this date to add players who would otherwise be eligible for the Rule 5 draft to their 40-man roster to keep them out of the draft.

NOVEMBER 18-20: Quarterly owners meetings in New York. Commissioner Rob Manfred typically speaks with reporters at this time.

NOVEMBER 21: Non-tender deadline at 7:00pm Central. Teams must decide whether to offer contracts to the arbitration-eligible and pre-arbitration players on their 40-man roster. They do not need to agree to salaries by this date, but there’ll be a flurry of salary agreements as players who might otherwise be non-tender candidates often lock in deals at slightly lesser than projected salaries to avoid being cut loose. Players who are non-tendered immediately become free agents without going through waivers.

DECEMBER 7-10: Winter Meetings in Orlando, Florida. The Winter Meetings are the offseason’s busiest few days and annually feature ample free agent and trade activity.

DECEMBER 7: Hall of Fame Contemporary Baseball Era Players Committee announcement. Formerly known as the Veterans Committee, the 16-person panel votes on eight candidates who were not previously inducted into Cooperstown by the Baseball Writers Association of America. The eight candidates under consideration are usually announced in early November; those who receive at least 12 votes on December 7 are elected to the Hall of Fame. This year’s committee will consider only players whose greatest contributions came in the 1980s or later.

DECEMBER 9: Amateur draft lottery. The White Sox have the best chance of securing the first overall pick at 27.8% (h/t to Baseball America). The Rockies, Nationals and Angels are not allowed to pick higher than 10th. The CBA prohibits teams from having lottery picks in three straight years, which rules out Colorado. Clubs that do not receive revenue sharing cannot pick in the lottery in consecutive seasons, ruling out Washington and Los Angeles.

DECEMBER 10: The Rule 5 draft will conclude the Winter Meetings. Players selected must stay on their new teams’ active rosters for the entire ’26 season or be offered back to their original organization.

DECEMBER 15: Closing of the 2025 signing period for international amateurs.

JANUARY 8: Teams and arbitration-eligible players exchange salary filing figures. They’re free to continue negotiating beyond this date, though virtually every team treats this as an unofficial deadline to avoid an arbitration hearing unless they sign a multi-year contract.

JANUARY 15: Opening of the 2026 signing period for international amateurs. The majority of the international signings for the year will be announced on this date, as virtually all the top prospects have reached handshake agreements by this point.

JANUARY 21: Baseball Writers’ Association of America Hall of Fame announcement at 5:00 pm Central.

EARLY FEBRUARY TBA: Arbitration hearings. Arbitrators must choose either the team’s or player’s filing figure, not a midpoint.

FEBRUARY 11: Voluntary report date to Spring Training for pitchers and catchers.

FEBRUARY 15: Voluntary report date to Spring Training for other players.

FEBRUARY 20: Mandatory report date. Spring Training play begins.

MARCH 5-17: 2026 World Baseball Classic.

MARCH 25: Yankees @ Giants standalone game on Opening Night.

MARCH 26: Opening Day for the other 28 teams.

Lucas Gilbreath, Aaron Schunk Elect Free Agency

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The Rockies outrighted infielder Aaron Schunk and lefty reliever Lucas Gilbreath off their 40-man roster, according to the MLB.com transaction tracker. Both players had been outrighted before in their careers and exercised their right to elect free agency.

There’ll be plenty of waiver movement as soon as the World Series ends. Teams need to activate everyone from the injured list and get their roster counts down to 40. The Rockies were already positioned to do so with Germán Márquez, Thairo Estrada, Kyle Farmer and Orlando Arcia hitting free agency. They’ll only need to reinstate Kris Bryant and Jeff Criswell from the injured list.

Colorado had also tried to sneak reliever Dugan Darnell through waivers this afternoon, but the Pirates intervened. Dropping Schunk and Gilbreath gets them down to 37 players. There could certainly be a few more cuts once they finalize a GM hire. Colorado has top priority on the waiver wire, which they should leverage to churn the back half of the roster next week.

Schunk and Gilbreath will each look for the second teams of their careers. Colorado drafted Schunk in the second round in 2019. The Georgia product has had brief MLB stints over the past two seasons. He has fanned 41 times in 131 trips to the plate, batting .222/.246/.302 over 55 games. The righty hitter owns a .291/.348/.468 line over parts of three seasons at Triple-A Albuquerque.

While that’s a solid line on the surface, it’s below average after accounting for the extremely hitter-friendly environment. The 28-year-old Schunk is a good defensive third baseman with a plus arm but hasn’t found much consistency at the plate. He was a two-way player with a mid-90s fastball at Georgia but hasn’t pitched in pro ball. Speculatively speaking, it’s possible another team would be intrigued to see if he’s willing to try his hand on the mound again.

Gilbreath, 30 in March, was a seventh-round selection back in 2017. He had a couple productive seasons as a middle reliever/setup man between 2021-22. He underwent Tommy John surgery in Spring Training ’23 and has barely been a factor since returning from the operation. Gilbreath made three MLB appearances late last year. He only pitched once in the big leagues this past season, striking out two while allowing an Alexander Canario home run in a mop-up inning in Pittsburgh on August 22.

Colorado optioned Gilbreath back to Albuquerque at the end of that game. He gave up a 7.59 earned run average with poor strikeout and walk numbers over 42 2/3 innings in the minors. Before the surgery, Gilbreath had a 93-94 MPH fastball and an 81-82 MPH slider that served as an excellent secondary pitch. The fastball dropped to 92 in 2024 and backed way up this year, as he was in the 89-90 MPH range. The breaking ball has also lost nearly three ticks relative to the pre-injury level.

Robinson Chirinos Will Not Return As Orioles Bench Coach

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The Orioles will not retain bench coach Robinson Chirinos for the 2026 season, reports Andy Kostka of The Baltimore Banner. Kostka writes that Chirinos technically remains under contract but is pursuing opportunities elsewhere.

That’s common practice when teams make managerial changes. Chirinos was hired just last offseason to replace Fredi González as Brandon Hyde’s top lieutenant. That lasted all of six weeks into the regular season. Baltimore fired Hyde after starting the season with a 15-28 record. While many teams promote their bench coach to interim manager after a midseason firing, the O’s opted for third base coach Tony Mansolino in that role.

This was Chirinos’ first season on an MLB staff, so it’s not surprising that the Orioles opted for a fifth-year coach in Mansolino for the rest of the year. They tabbed Guardians associate manager Craig Albernaz as their permanent skipper earlier this week. An external managerial hire usually results in an overhaul of the coaching staff. The O’s already moved on from assistant hitting coaches Sherman Johnson and Tommy Joseph. There hasn’t been official word on the statuses of any others.

The 41-year-old Chirinos should be able to find a coaching position with another club. The former catcher was a respected clubhouse leader over a playing career that spanned parts of 11 seasons. Chirinos played for six teams, including the Orioles, and spent the majority of his career with the Rangers.

Bo Bichette Doesn’t Expect To Require Offseason Knee Surgery

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Bo Bichette has played through a sprained PCL in his left knee during the World Series. He’s clearly physically limited but has picked up five hits (all singles) with three RBI in 18 trips to the plate.

Of course, Bichette’s focus for the next day or two will be fully on the World Series. He did address the injury before tonight’s Game 6, telling Ben-Nicholson Smith of Sportsnet that he does not expect he’ll need to undergo offseason surgery. Bichette suffered the injury in a collision at home plate with Yankees catcher Austin Wells on September 6. He was out of action for almost seven weeks before making his return for the Fall Classic.

Bichette would clearly still be on the injured list if this were the regular season. However, he has gotten to a point where he can hit and make routine defensive plays. The Jays moved him to second base while keeping Andrés Giménez at shortstop to slightly reduce his defensive workload. They used him as a designated hitter in Game 5 after George Springer tweaked his side. However, Springer has improbably returned for tonight’s game and is back at DH. Bichette heads out to the keystone again.

The 27-year-old infielder (28 in March) is days away from becoming a free agent for the first time in his career. He’s widely viewed as the second-best player in the class behind Kyle Tucker. The knee injury might add to the already present questions about how long he can be expected to stick at shortstop. There’ll be teams that prefer Bichette as a second baseman, but he’s an annual threat to lead the league in hits and is coming off a .311/.357/.483 batting line in the regular season.

Bichette spoke with Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic about his decision to play through the injury earlier this week. He acknowledged that he’s “not really expecting to make huge progress” in the healing process while he’s playing. Bichette nevertheless stated that he’d “risk it all” to win a World Series. He demurred on the free agency question this evening. Bichette admitted at today’s pregame media scrum that while he has thought about his future at times this season, he has “got a World Series to win” right now (video via TSN).

Front Office Subscriber Chat Transcript

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Anthony Franco

  • Good afternoon everyone, hope you've had a good week! Another one that I'll keep around an hour as we put the finishing touches on offseason prep, let's get rolling

Guest

  • The Yankees need both rotation and bullpen help but I believe the offense is their biggest need.  I would love to see them sign Tucker but find that unlikely. So, if not Tucker then who?  Thanks as always for the chats!

Anthony Franco

  • I don't see why Tucker wouldn't be in play unless you're assuming they re-sign Bellinger before Tucker comes off the board. I wouldn't rule them out on any free agent hitters really
  • First base might be tough because they've got Rice internally and can't use the DH spot. Beyond that, any outfielder seems viable. They could make a run at Bichette and trade Jazz, or just roll with a Bo/Jazz middle infield tandem for a year and make Volpe play his way back into an everyday role

Snelling

  • Snell said the Jays got lucky. Was he just making excuses for a unsuccessful performance?

Anthony Franco

  • I mean, it obviously wasn't a great performance. He gave up homers on two of the first three pitches and issued four walks. It's also true that he would've had 6 2/3 innings of three-run ball with seven strikeouts if Edgardo Henriquez had done his job behind him, which doesn't look nearly as bad as five earned runs do

Yes. Savage.

  • 12Ks. No walks. Still a rookie next year. How amazing was that outting? Also, does make Trey the default prediction for rookie of the year next year?

Anthony Franco

  • Of course it would not have mattered because this was happening on the other side of the ball
  • I don't know that I'd pick Yesavage to win ROY over Kevin McGonigle or something, but yeah, incredible performance. Insane that the dude was in A-ball a few months ago

DJ Clutch

  • How would you resolve the weird roster jam the Astros are facing for position players?  Is it ridiculous to think Correa could handle 2nd if Paredes can't?

Anthony Franco

  • I don't see why Correa couldn't play second base.  It'd still be a weird logjam because you need Paredes at third with Yordan/Altuve splitting LF without the fallback of moving Altuve back to second if he's still bad in the outfield
  • I think they just need to eat part of the Walker deal and move on

Dipoto

  • I'm wondering how you see the 1st base market developing in free agency this offseason.  Will I be able to keep Naylor?  If I can't, how will the two Japanese 1B/3B coming over impact the marketplace and what's a reasonable cost estimate for Okamoto?

Anthony Franco

  • Yeah I don't think they'd be so openly putting out there that they want to keep Naylor if they weren't serious about making a competitive offer. Payroll's going to be up a little bit from where they opened last season (as it should be) and they could hear teams out on Castillo again
  • I can't imagine they'd pay Murakami. I think we're going to end up with Okamoto at four years in the $60M range. Tim seems open to the possibility that he pushes to five years, which I don't see at his age. If Okamoto turns out to be a four-year deal guy, Seattle should probably just pay the few extra million annually to get Naylor done

Michael

  • Gleyber Torres to Washington make any sense?

Anthony Franco

  • Eh, they need to do better than García but I don't think Gleyber's netting them much at the deadline and they're still rebuilding
  • If he takes something similar to this year's 1/15, I'd rather just spend that money on a starter who has a better shot to be an in-demand trade chip. You'll be able to pitch starters to almost every contender in July but there'll only be a couple teams that want a second baseman without defensive flexibility
  • And if Gleyber commands three-plus years, I wouldn't be a fan of it for any team

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Giants Notes: Vitello, Hyde, Coaching Staff

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The Giants officially introduced new manager Tony Vitello at a press conference on Thursday. San Francisco hired the 47-year-old away from the University of Tennessee, where’d been arguably the best college baseball coach in the country. He signed a three-year contract that reportedly pays $3.5MM per season and comes with a vesting option for 2029. According to Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area, the option would vest if the Giants make the playoffs in 2028.

The hire will cost the Giants quite a bit more than $3.5MM in the first season. Maria Guardado of MLB.com was among those to note that the Giants also covered Vitello’s $3MM buyout to get out of his contract at Tennessee. John Shea of The San Francisco Standard observes that they’re also eating $4MM in dead money after exercising their 2026 option on Bob Melvin’s contract in July.

Moving on from Melvin to Vitello will wind up costing the Giants $10.5MM in year one. Of course, firing Melvin and hiring Vitello were two separate decisions. Pavlovic writes that president of baseball operations Buster Posey had decided to move on from Melvin well before the end of the regular season, even though they didn’t make the move until the first day of the offseason.

The Giants picked up Melvin’s option on July 1 but went into a tailspin over the next six weeks. They sold at the deadline after a 9-15 showing in July, and it seems that more or less sealed Melvin’s fate. Pavlovic suggests that the Giants might have made a change even if they’d manage to snag the final Wild Card spot (though one imagines a deep playoff run would have changed the calculus). The Giants finished the season at .500, and the Mets’ collapse allowed an 83-win Reds team to sneak into the postseason.

Posey credited general manager Zack Minasian with first suggesting the possibility of making a run at Vitello. “There were some rumors (in 2024) that teams were wanting and trying to talk to him, and I thought about it for us just as we started to get to work on building the list,” Minasian told reporters, including Pavlovic. “It was a name that I thought would be interesting to talk to Buster about individually, as opposed to just sending over ’here are the 30 names we have.’ I mentioned to him that I think Tony would be really interesting to talk to. I don’t think it took him long to respond with, ’Yeah, I think he would be.'”

That didn’t ensure Vitello would get the job. The Giants are known to have also interviewed Rangers special assistant Nick Hundley, Royals third base coach Vance Wilson, and future Angels managerial hire Kurt Suzuki. Shea reports that they also conducted a formal interview with former Orioles skipper Brandon Hyde. It was already known that Posey and Hyde had spoken but wasn’t clear until today whether that was an official managerial interview or a chat about some other potential role. Hundley was widely viewed as the early favorite, but he took himself out of consideration because of family commitments.

Vitello told reporters that he has had preliminary conversations as he puts together his first MLB coaching staff. Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic covers a few possibilities. He notes that Vitello was a college teammate of Twins bench coach Jayce Tingler, who’d managed the Padres between 2020-21.

Tingler was Rocco Baldelli’s top assistant in Minnesota for the past four seasons, but the Twins fired Baldelli and tabbed Derek Shelton as their manager. Meanwhile, Baggarly relays that the Giants could look to bring back former outfield/first base coach Antoan Richardson. Richardson held that role for four seasons before leaving to take the first base coach job with the Mets in 2024. It was reported this week that he would not be back in Queens because the sides were unable to agree on a new contract.

A’s Could Pursue Relievers With Closing Experience

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The A’s go into the offseason prioritizing starting pitching and help at one or both of second and third base. They might also be in the market for a late-game reliever. Martín Gallegos of MLB.com writes that the A’s are likely to target a pitcher who has closing experience.

Manager Mark Kotsay used a committee approach in the ninth inning after the A’s traded Mason Miller at the deadline. Hogan Harris, Sean Newcomb, Michael Kelly and Tyler Ferguson each picked up at least one save. Osvaldo Bido got one as well, but that was of the ’three innings to finish a blowout’ variety.

The patchwork relief group pitched well. Only the Guardians had a lower bullpen ERA than the A’s 2.99 mark over the final two months. They surrendered only three leads, tied with Miller’s new team in San Diego for the fewest in MLB. It’s nevertheless understandable that the front office would prefer a more proven arm at the back end.

The quartet of Harris, Kelly, Newcomb and Ferguson had a combined four career saves before August. Newcomb, who had two of them, is headed to free agency. The A’s don’t have many relievers with significant big league experience of any kind. They won’t have a single reliever with even two years of MLB service time once Newcomb, José Leclerc and Scott McGough hit free agency.

The A’s tried to add a proven back-end arm last offseason, signing Leclerc to a one-year deal with a $10MM salary. He was supposed to be the team’s top setup man in front of Miller. Leclerc made 10 appearances before suffering a shoulder injury that required season-ending surgery. He’s highly unlikely to be back. It stands to reason they’ll try to retain Newcomb, who pitched to a 1.75 ERA in 51 1/3 innings after being acquired from the Red Sox. He’s got a shot at a two-year contract after that strong showing but won’t command much on an annual basis. The A’s aren’t going to sign Newcomb as a closer, though, so there should be room for a bigger move in the ninth.

There are no shortage of free agent relievers who have closing experience. The A’s aren’t signing Edwin Díaz, of course. It’s highly unlikely they’ll win the bidding for Robert Suarez either. Any of Kyle Finnegan, Raisel Iglesias, Emilio Pagán, Kenley Jansen or Ryan Helsley should be within the price range. There’s a chance Devin Williams settles for a pillow contract. Each of Seranthony Domínguez, Gregory Soto, Kirby Yates, Taylor Rogers, Paul Sewald and Michael Kopech have past closing experience as well. No one from the latter group seems likely to sign as a closer this offseason, however.

The A’s could have issues selling some of those pitchers on signing with a fringe contender that plays its home games in a hitter-friendly minor league stadium. They’d have no such need if they trade for a closer, so players like Pete Fairbanks, JoJo Romero and Dennis Santana could be targets on that front.

Staff Notes: Rockies, Baker, Kiekhefer, Tigers

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The Rockies’ search for a front office leader will drag into the offseason. Patrick Saunders of The Denver Post reports that the Rox don’t intend to announce their baseball operations hire until next week. The World Series will end on Saturday at the latest, but the Rockies are apparently content to go at least a few days into their offseason activity without a GM in place.

Colorado doesn’t have any free agents who’d receive consideration for a qualifying offer. Their option decisions are easy calls to buy out Kyle Farmer and Thairo Estrada. It’s not a big deal not to have a GM for either of those moves. However, the first five days of the offseason see plenty of waiver activity as teams are required to get their rosters down to 40 without the injured list. Colorado has top waiver priority as the worst team in the league. It would be ideal to have a permanent baseball operations leader for those opportunities, but it doesn’t appear they’ll be in place for that rush. The GM will also need to oversee a managerial search process that could take weeks. Guardians assistant general manager Matt Forman and Diamondbacks AGM Amiel Sawdaye are among the finalists to replace Bill Schmidt in the GM chair.

While we await Colorado’s decision, let’s turn to a few teams that have made minor front office or coaching moves.

  • The Pirates parted ways with vice president of player performance John Baker, reports Jason Mackey of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. A former big league catcher, Baker had been with the Bucs for the past five seasons. He spent his first four years as the organization’s farm director before moving to the more nebulous player performance role last winter. Michael Chernow replaced Baker as the player development director in January.
  • There are a couple changes coming to Oli Marmol’s coaching group with the Cardinals. Katie Woo of The Athletic reports that assistant pitching coach Dean Kiekhefer and game-planning coach Packy Elkins will be reassigned to strategist roles. Woo notes that the Cards intend to hire an assistant pitching coach and an assistant hitting coach later in the offseason. She also writes that the club will add new hires in international scouting and player development. Cardinals fans will want to read the full column, which includes quotes from new president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom on building their front office infrastructure without replacing most of the key staffers from the John Mozeliak era.
  • The Tigers are hiring Alex Smith away from the Cubs to work as their vice president of baseball strategy, report Sahadev Sharma and Patrick Mooney of The Athletic. Smith had been on Craig Counsell’s staff with the somewhat vague title of strategy coach. Smith had spent three seasons on Chicago’s MLB staff — one under David Ross and two with Counsell. Sharma and Mooney write that he was largely tasked with helping the coaches integrate data into their preparation. The Cornell product returns to a front office after working in the Cubs’ analytics department between 2015-22, overlapping with Detroit president of baseball operations Scott Harris for two years. Harris had worked as Chicago’s assistant general manager in 2018-19.

Super Two Cutoff Expected To Be Around 2.140 Years Of Service

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This offseason’s cutoff for Super Two arbitration eligibility is likely to land around two years and 139 or 140 days of service time, MLBTR has learned. MLB should finalize the cutoff within the next few weeks.

The Super Two this year should be a slight increase from last offseason, when the cutoff was 2.132 service years. Players automatically qualify for arbitration when they reach three years of service time and don’t already have a guaranteed contract. The top 22% of players in service between two and three years also qualify (so long as they spent at least 86 days of the preceding season on the active roster or MLB injured list).

Qualifying for early arbitration is a nice boost for a player’s earning potential. He gets to earn a salary above the MLB minimum a year earlier than most other players in the 2-3 year bracket. Arbitration salaries are also designed to escalate as a player builds service, so there are compounding benefits in future years from working off a bigger platform.

Here are the official thresholds from prior offseasons:

  • 2024: 2.132
  • 2023: 2.118
  • 2022: 2.128
  • 2021: 2.116
  • 2020: 2.125
  • 2019: 2.115
  • 2018: 2.134
  • 2017: 2.123
  • 2016: 2.131
  • 2015: 2.130
  • 2014: 2.133
  • 2013: 2.122
  • 2012: 2.140
  • 2011: 2.146
  • 2010: 2.122
  • 2009: 2.139

Matt McLain is the only player in MLB who ended the year with exactly two years and 140 days of service. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projects the Cincinnati second baseman for a $2.6MM salary. Next year’s league minimum is $780K, so it’s likely McLain will earn close to an extra $2MM by a matter of days (to say nothing of the escalating benefit if the Reds tender him contracts in future years).

There are three pitchers at 2.139 service years: Cincinnati starter Brandon Williamson, Seattle reliever Jackson Kowar, and Tampa Bay reliever Manuel Rodríguez. Their status won’t be known until MLB finalizes the cutoff, but none of those players are going to command much more than the league minimum regardless. They all spent most of this past season (all of it, in Williamson’s case) on the injured list.

No one in MLB has exactly 2.138 or 2.137 service years. It thus appears that the three players at 2.136 years — Lucas Erceg, Patrick Bailey, and Ryan Walker — will be the closest misses. They were each projected between $1.9MM and $2.5MM had they been eligible for arbitration. That’d be a nice development for the Giants, who would save around $4MM from an already light arbitration class if Bailey and Walker indeed are in for another season around the minimum.

Blake Perkins, Kody Clemens, Bryan Hoeing and Zack Kelly are the other players who would’ve qualified for Super Two at last year’s cutoff but are likely to fall short with the slightly higher threshold. Grayson Rodriguez (2.129), Reese Olson (2.123), Bryan Woo (2.121), Andrew Abbott (2.119) and Elly De La Cruz (2.118) are among the notable players who came up a couple weeks short.

Notable players who did qualify for Super Two status beyond McLain include Zach Neto (2.170), Maikel Garcia (2.168), Mason Miller (2.166), Brice Turang (2.165) and Francisco Alvarez (2.164). MLBTR’s projections for all arbitration-eligible players are available here.

Twins Hire Derek Shelton As Manager

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October 30: The Twins officially announced Shelton as their new manager this morning. The team will introduce Shelton at a press conference on November 4.

“Derek brings a tremendous amount of experience from his many years coaching and managing at the Major League level,” Derek Falvey, Twins president of baseball operations, said in a statement. “He cares deeply about this community and our fans, and he’s genuinely driven to take on the challenge of bringing winning baseball back to Minnesota.

“We’ve seen firsthand the trust and respect he earns from players and how he helps them reach their best,” Falvey’s statement reads. “His journey, through both the successes and the tough stretches, has given him real perspective as a leader. That balance and his connection to what this place means to people will serve our players and staff well as we work to build something lasting for our fans and for Minnesota.”

October 29: The Twins are hiring Derek Shelton as their new manager, reports Jon Heyman of The New York Post. The team will not announce the hire tonight, as MLB discourages clubs from revealing personnel news on playoff game days. Dan Hayes of The Athletic reports that Shelton will be officially introduced sometime next week.

Shelton returns to the Twin Cities, where he previously spent two seasons as bench coach. He held that role between 2018-19, working one season apiece under Paul Molitor and Rocco Baldelli. His familiarity with the front office surely gave him a boost in the managerial search. Shelton was a finalist during the 2018 hiring process that led to Baldelli. While he didn’t get the job at that point, he only needed to wait one more year before he got a managerial opportunity. Shelton landed the top job with the Pirates going into 2020.

Pittsburgh was coming off a 69-93 season that had led ownership to fire manager Clint Hurdle and GM Neal Huntington. They brought in Ben Cherington to run the front office and Shelton to oversee a rebuilding roster. Pittsburgh went 19-41 in the shortened season, then posted consecutive 100-loss records in 2021-22.

Things appeared to be trending up by 2023. The Bucs improved to a 76-86 record. The next season, they hovered around .500 for a while and were very soft deadline buyers. Pittsburgh finished with a 21-33 performance in the final two months, leaving them 10 games under .500 for the second straight year.

The poor finish carried into the ’25 season. The Bucs began the year with a 12-26 record and were more or less locks for another last place showing when they fired Shelton in the second week of May. Pittsburgh played .500 ball under Don Kelly the rest of the way, so they’re sticking with a Cherington/Kelly tandem going into 2026.

Overall, Shelton holds a 306-440 career record. That’s heavily weighed down by the first three seasons in which no manager stood a chance of posting good results with such a poor roster. The Bucs stalled before they ever pulled out of the rebuild, however.

Pittsburgh especially struggled to develop young hitters. Highly-touted talents like Ke’Bryan Hayes, Henry Davis, Endy Rodríguez, Nick Gonzales and to a lesser extent Oneil Cruz did not click the way the organization needed. That’s not entirely the fault of any one coach or manager, of course, but Shelton came up as a hitting coordinator in Cleveland and spent parts of seven seasons as an MLB hitting coach with the Rays before getting the bench coach position in Minnesota.

Shelton’s experience working with a rebuilding roster should come in handy with the Twins. They’re amidst at least a retooling effort after trading Carlos Correa and essentially their entire bullpen at the deadline. The Pohlad family ownership group has pulled back spending since the Twins won 87 games and an AL Central title in 2023. They’re coming off a 70-92 showing that had them above only the White Sox in the American League. That resulted in them firing Baldelli after seven seasons. Any or all of Joe Ryan, Pablo López and Ryan Jeffers could be traded this offseason.

The Twins landed a couple upper level starting pitchers (Taj Bradley and Mick Abel) at the deadline, and they have some interesting young hitters to build around Byron Buxton. Maybe there’s a path back to competitiveness by 2027, but this is likely to be one of the worst teams in the AL next year. They need to overhaul the bullpen and have too many holes in the bottom half of the lineup to fix in an offseason that is likely to be more about which players they trade away than the ones they bring in.

Shelton was reportedly one of four finalists for the Minnesota job. Yankees hitting coach James Rowson (another former Twins staffer), Cubs bench coach Ryan Flaherty, and Padres special assistant Scott Servais were the others. There are now four teams still searching for a new skipper: the Padres, Braves, Rockies and Nationals.

Flaherty and Servais have each been floated as potential candidates for the San Diego position, which is expected to be filled by the end of the week. Rowson has only publicly been linked to the Twins position. Atlanta and Washington have played their searches close to the vest. (Baldelli is reportedly of interest to the Nats.) Colorado has yet to even get the process underway as they focus on hiring a new GM. It’s possible that any of the three other finalists gets a look from one of those teams.

Image courtesy of Charles LeClaire, Imagn Images.

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