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Dave Morehead Passes Away

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Former big league pitcher Dave Morehead passed away last week, according to a report from J.P. Hoornstra of Newsweek. He was 82.

Morehead was a San Diego native who signed with the Red Sox as a 17-year-old. He was in the big leagues two years later, winning 10 games and pitching 174 2/3 innings in his age-19 season. The 6’1″ righty threw a complete game shutout with 10 strikeouts to beat the Washington Senators in his MLB debut. Morehead would go on to record 136 punchouts with a 3.81 earned run average in what was arguably the best season of his career.

He’d hold a rotation spot in Boston for the next two seasons. Morehead’s ERA spiked north of 4.00 in each of the next two years, though he started 30+ games and topped 130 strikeouts in both seasons. The highlight of his career came at the end of the ’65 season. Morehead fired a no-hitter in a 2-0 win over Cleveland that September. He fanned eight and only allowed one baserunner (a second-inning walk to Rocky Colavito) to outduel Luis Tiant. It was the 14th no-hitter in franchise history.

Morehead battled injuries and was limited to a combined 33 regular season appearances over the next three seasons. The Sox won 92 games to claim the AL pennant in 1967. Morehead got into two games during the Fall Classic, working around four walks to toss 3 1/3 scoreless frames. Boston came up just short of a title, as Bob Gibson won three times to push the Cardinals to a seven-game Series win.

After the ’68 season, Morehead went to Kansas City in the expansion draft. He pitched two seasons with the Royals to finish his career. Morehead pitched to a 4.15 ERA with 627 strikeouts over 819 1/3 innings in parts of eight campaigns. MLBTR sends our condolences to Morehead’s family, friends and loved ones.

Latest On Giants’ Offseason Targets

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The Giants are among the teams looking to upgrade at second base, write Ken Rosenthal and Katie Woo of The Athletic. The keystone and right field are the obvious needs on the position player side for Buster Posey’s front office.

Tyler Fitzgerald entered the season as San Francisco’s starting second baseman. He’d hit .280/.334/.497 over 96 games during an impressive 2024 rookie campaign. A 32% strikeout rate always made him a clear regression candidate, however, and the Louisville product stumbled to a .217/.278/.327 line this past season. Fitzgerald lost his hold on the starting job by the end of June and spent most of the second half in Triple-A.

Casey Schmitt now holds the top spot on the depth chart. Schmitt had a league average .237/.305/.401 slash line over 348 plate appearances. That’s carried largely by a scorching two-week stretch in June, and he hit .227/.282/.402 after the All-Star Break. Light-hitting utility player Christian Koss is the only other option on the 40-man roster. Giants second basemen had a .217/.273/.343 showing on the season overall.

There’s not a whole lot available in free agency. There’s a clear roster fit for Bo Bichette if he’s willing to move to the other side of the second base bag, but the Giants already have three long-term deals in the infield for Matt Chapman, Willy Adames and Rafael Devers. They could make a run at Ha-Seong Kim, who declined a $16MM player option and is one of the better shortstops available in a barren class.

Jorge Polanco’s knee injuries make him an iffy bet for everyday playing time at second base. The Giants won’t have many designated hitter at-bats available barring a surprising Bryce Eldridge trade. Luis Arraez would be an offensive upgrade but has been pushed mostly to first base over the past two seasons because of his lack of range. Utility pieces Willi Castro, Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Luis Rengifo and Adam Frazier have limited upside.

There’s a little more available on the trade market. The Rays are willing to consider offers on Brandon Lowe, who’ll make $11.5MM in the final year of his contract. More than half the league should have interest in Cardinals utilityman Brendan Donovan. The Giants have an interesting group of controllable but not quite proven arms (e.g Landen Roupp, Hayden Birdsong, Trevor McDonald, Blade Tidwell, Carson Whisenhunt) that could get the ball rolling in talks with the Cards, who are focusing on pitching in their trade returns. That’s theoretically also true if they want to make a push for Ketel Marte, though it’d be shocking if the Diamondbacks deal him within the division.

San Francisco is balancing the positional questions against their needs on the pitching staff. Posey called pitching the priority at the beginning of the offseason. Chairman Greg Johnson and general manager Zack Minasian each subsequently downplayed the team’s desire to make a long-term investment on the pitching side. ESPN’s Buster Olney suggested over the weekend that the club was more involved on mid-tier free agent starters.

This afternoon, Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic also downplayed the likelihood of a huge splash for a starter. Baggarly writes that the Giants do not expect to sign Tatsuya Imai and are unlikely to make a nine-figure commitment to any other top-tier starter (e.g. Framber Valdez, Ranger Suárez). That aligns with Olney’s reporting about the Giants playing in the middle of the market.

Baggarly adds that the Giants are also looking to rebuild a bullpen that was hit hard this summer. They traded away Camilo Doval and Tyler Rogers (though the latter would have been a free agent anyhow) and lost breakout righty Randy Rodríguez to Tommy John surgery. Their only acquisition so far this offseason has been a one-year flier on lefty reliever Sam Hentges, who hasn’t thrown an MLB pitch since July 2024 because of shoulder and knee surgeries.

The Best Fits For Bo Bichette

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Each offseason at MLBTR, we take a look at the potential markets for some of the top names in free agency. Steve Adams examined which clubs should be in the running for #1 free agent Kyle Tucker earlier this week.

We now move to the consensus #2 hitter in the class, Bo Bichette. The two-time All-Star is coming off a .311/.357/.483 showing with 18 homers across 628 regular season plate appearances. A sprained left knee ended his regular season and cost him the first few rounds of the playoffs. Bichette made it back for the World Series. Despite clearly being limited and having gone a month without the benefit of live at-bats, he came back to hit .348 in the Fall Classic. His towering three-run homer off Shohei Ohtani in Game 7 would have gone down as one of the biggest moments in Toronto sports history if not for the Dodgers' ninth-inning comeback.

Bichette is one of the younger free agents in the class. He'll turn 28 a few weeks before Opening Day. He's a middle infielder who has been a well above-average hitter in all but one season of his career. The lone exception (2024) was a year in which he had three stints on the injured list. He has otherwise posted an OPS above .800 in every season and owns a lifetime .294/.337/.469 slash line. He has twice led the American League in hits and would have done so again this year if not for the knee injury.

The lingering question is how long Bichette can stick at shortstop. He's a below-average runner with middling arm strength who rates as one of the weakest defensive shortstops in MLB. The glove was an issue even before the knee sprain, which could increase some teams' concerns about his lateral quickness even if it's expected to heal without surgery.

The Blue Jays used him at second base in the World Series to limit his defensive workload. Most or all 30 clubs would project him as a second baseman by the end of a long-term deal. There are some for whom he'd only fit as a second baseman already. Bichette hasn't tipped his hand publicly about whether he'd be open to a position change, but that'd create more opportunities that would drum up interest.

Bichette rejected a qualifying offer. A signing team would give up draft compensation and/or international signing bonus space to add him. That's not much of a factor for a free agent of this caliber. MLBTR predicted Bichette to command an eight-year, $208MM contract -- joining Tucker as the only players for whom we're predicting $200MM+ this winter.

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Cardinals Have Had Preliminary Extension Talks With Manager Oli Marmol

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The Cardinals and manager Oli Marmol have opened early extension conversations, writes Derrick Goold of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch. It seems likely that some kind of multi-year agreement will be reached this offseason. Marmol is headed into the final guaranteed year of his contract. Most teams prefer to have their skipper and top front office personnel signed beyond the upcoming season.

This is the first year atop baseball operations for Chaim Bloom. He immediately confirmed that Marmol would be back for his fifth season at the helm. Bloom said in late September that the sides had yet to begin extension talks but noted those were likely to take place over the offseason.

The Cardinals have gone 325-323 in the regular season over the first four seasons of Marmol’s tenure. They won 93 games and an NL Central crown in 2022, his first year at the helm. Philadelphia swept them in the Wild Card Series and they haven’t returned to the playoffs since then. The Cardinals had a dismal 71-91 showing in 2023 and played right around .500 ball over the past two seasons.

Marmol’s managerial record is unlikely to improve in the short term. The Cardinals are cutting payroll and more fully committing to a rebuild after doing very little last offseason. They’ve already sent Sonny Gray to Boston. Nolan Arenado has probably played his final game in a St. Louis uniform as well. Brendan Donovan is one of the prizes of the offseason trade market. Willson Contreras, JoJo Romero, Lars Nootbaar, Nolan Gorman and Alec Burleson have all come up in trade rumors. The Cardinals aren’t going to move everyone from that group, but Gray was the first of what should be multiple dominoes to fall.

Bloom and ownership clearly believe the 39-year-old Marmol remains the right choice to oversee the team’s next phase. Their main focus for at least the next season or two is on player development. They’ll need someone to join Masyn Winn and Iván Herrera among their core position player group, but the biggest factor is whether they can reinvigorate a pitching staff that has not missed enough bats. Only the Rockies have a lower strikeout rate over the last three years.

Ironing out an extension with Marmol would be the team’s final bit of coaching business for this offseason. Their 2026 staff is in place, as they announced the full slate of hires this afternoon. Casey Chenoweth and Kyle Driscoll join the group as assistant hitting coach and assistant pitching coach, respectively.

Chenoweth, 33, is promoted to the MLB staff after spending three seasons coaching minor league hitters in the organization. He has spent the last two seasons at Double-A Springfield, where he worked with notable prospects including JJ Wetherholt, Joshua Baez and Leonardo Bernal — the latter two of whom were added to the 40-man roster last week. The 31-year-old Driscoll is a former college relief pitcher (Rutgers) who spent the ’25 season as a minor league pitching coordinator with the Diamondbacks. He’d previously worked in the Mets’ system as a Triple-A pitching coach. This is his first job on a big league staff.

The rest of the group are holdovers from a largely unchanged 2025 staff. Bench coach Daniel Descalso, pitching coach Dusty Blake, hitting coach Brant Brown, base coaches Stubby Clapp (first) and Pop Warner (third), outfield coach Jon Jay, assistant hitting coach Brandon Allen, bullpen coach Julio Rangel, and assistant coach Jamie Pogue are all back. Former assistant pitching coach Dean Kiekhefer and game planning coach Packy Elkins will respectively work as pitching and offense strategists to bridge the gap between the analytics department and on-field staff, Goold writes.

George Altman Passes Away

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Former All-Star outfielder George Altman has passed away at age 92. The news was announced last night by Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.

Altman was a dual sport athlete (baseball and basketball) at Tennessee State University. He began his professional career with the Negro American League’s Kansas City Monarchs in 1955. Altman played for Hall of Fame player-manager Buck O’Neil that year. The Cubs hired O’Neil as a scout in 1956. On the legendary evaluator’s recommendation, Chicago signed the 6’4″ Altman to a minor league contract.

After his first minor league season, Altman was forced to pause his career upon being conscripted into the Army. He returned to professional baseball in 1958 and made his big league debut the following season when he started in center field on Opening Day. Altman hit .245 with 12 home runs as a rookie but would improve over the next few years.

His average ticked up to .266 in year two before a career season in 1961. Altman batted .303/.350/.560 with a personal-high 27 home runs across 573 trips to the plate. He led the National League with 12 triples and tied for 19th in the majors in homers. Altman finished 14th in MLB in average, 12th in slugging percentage, and tied for 16th in OPS (min. 500 plate appearances). He drove in 96 runs, leading a Chicago team that — despite finishing 64-90-2 on the year — had future Hall of Famers Ernie Banks, Ron Santo and Billy Williams in the lineup.

Altman was named to both the midseason and postseason National League All-Star teams. (Between 1959-62, Major League Baseball played two All-Star Games annually.) He finished 14th in MVP voting. Altman had an equally impressive ’62 campaign, batting .318/.393/.511 with 22 homers and 74 RBI to earn another All-Star nod. He was one of 13 qualified hitters with a combined OPS above .900 over that two-year run. Eight of those players would eventually wind up in Cooperstown, and the group of non-Hall of Famers included star hitters Norm Cash, Rocky Colavito and Roger Maris.

Obviously, Altman didn’t maintain that star pace into his 30s. His numbers dropped off as he played through injuries after he was traded to the Cardinals over the 1962-63 offseason. Altman wound up playing parts of five more MLB seasons between the Cards, Mets, and a second stint with the Cubs.

The second half of his big league career wasn’t especially impressive, but he seemed reinvigorated by a move to Japan in 1968. Altman had a second act as a star hitter in Nippon Professional Baseball, where he hit .309 while slugging 205 homers over eight seasons. He played through age 43 and might have been an even more accomplished NPB player were it not for a colon cancer diagnosis in 1974. Altman beat the disease and lived another five decades, working as a commodities trader in Chicago before moving to the St. Louis area in retirement.

Altman finished his MLB career with a .269 average in just under 1000 games. He topped 100 homers and 400 RBI and stole 52 bases. He was among the best hitters in the game over a two-year peak and played professionally for 20 years between the Negro League, the National League, and NPB. MLBTR sends our condolences to his family, friends and loved ones.

Sean Newcomb Receiving Interest As Starting Pitcher

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Free agent left-hander Sean Newcomb has gotten attention from teams both as a starter and reliever, write Will Sammon, Katie Woo and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. The 32-year-old began the season in the Red Sox’s rotation but moved to relief after five starts.

Newcomb is coming off his best season in at least six years. A former first-round pick who held a rotation spot with the Braves between 2017-18, Newcomb moved primarily to the bullpen in 2019. He pitched well that year but struggled with both injuries and a lack of command over the next few seasons. He combined for 98 2/3 MLB innings between 2020-24 and took a minor league contract with Boston last winter.

The Massachusetts native surprisingly nabbed the fifth starter spot out of camp. He only once completed five innings and allowed four-plus runs in three out of five outings. The Sox moved him to a long relief role when Lucas Giolito returned from a hamstring injury in late April. Newcomb was solid out of the bullpen but was nevertheless pushed off the roster. The Sox traded him to the Athletics, for whom he’d logged some time as a depth reliever in 2023-24.

Newcomb turned into an unexpectedly important bullpen piece for Mark Kotsay. He fired 51 1/3 frames of 1.75 ERA ball while working 1-2 innings at a time. Newcomb punched out a quarter of opponents against a career-best 7% walk rate. He worked in the 93-94 MPH range with both his four-seam fastball and sinker while using a low-80s curveball as his best secondary pitch. Newcomb dabbled with a cutter and changeup against right-handed batters, but the fastball/curve combination was where he found most of his success.

The 6’5″ southpaw pitched particularly well down the stretch, turning in a 0.96 ERA over 28 innings after the All-Star Break. His season ended a couple weeks early because of elbow inflammation, but there’s no indication that’ll be an issue going into next season. Durability has generally been a concern, albeit mostly with lower half injuries. Newcomb missed time with a sprained ankle in 2022 and battled knee problems over the following two seasons.

Newcomb’s strong year was enough to land a big league contract this time around. A one-year deal seems likely, though it’s not out of the question he commands a modest two-year guarantee. Sixth starters and swing types like Griffin Canning, Joe Ross, Jakob Junis, Colin Rea and Michael Lorenzen landed contracts between $4-7MM last winter. Newcomb’s former teammate Michael Soroka pulled a $9MM deal from the Nationals at the higher end of that range, though he’s five years younger and had shown more strikeout potential in the bullpen.

Astros Hire Ethan Katz As Assistant Pitching Coach

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The Astros finalized their 2026 coaching staff. Ethan Katz has been hired as an assistant pitching coach, which was first reported by Chandler Rome of The Athletic. Houston also hired Tim Cossins as catching coach, a move that Brian McTaggart of MLB.com reported last week.

The rest of Joe Espada’s staff had been previously reported. Victor Rodriguez comes over from the Padres as hitting coach, with Anthony Iapoce tabbed as his assistant. Dan Hennigan has officially been hired as director of hitting/offensive coordinator, which GM Dana Brown announced alongside the Iapoce hiring.

Josh Miller will be the team’s sole lead pitching coach after jointly holding that role with Bill Murphy for the past three seasons. Murphy left to take the same job with the Pirates last month. Bench coach Omar Lopez, base coaches Dave Clark (first) and Tony Perezchica (third), quality assurance coach Jason Bell, and game planning coach Tommy Kawamura are back in their previous positions.

Katz, 42, heads to Houston after five seasons as the top pitching coach with the White Sox. He’d previously worked in the minors with the Angels and Mariners and spent one year as an assistant pitching coach with the Giants. Chicago got excellent seasons from Dylan Cease and Lucas Giolito early in Katz’s tenure. They’ve predictably gone downhill since kicking off a rebuild in 2022. Only the Angels, Athletics, Nationals and Rockies have a higher ERA than the White Sox’s 4.61 mark over the past three seasons.

The Sox parted ways with Katz at the end of the ’25 campaign. Second-year manager Will Venable tabbed Royals assistant Zach Bove as their new pitching coach. Cossins, who’ll work with Yainer Diaz and quite likely an outside acquisition behind the plate, has spent the past seven seasons with the Orioles as catching instructor/field coordinator. He was dismissed in May 2025 when the Orioles fired manager Brandon Hyde.

Mets Sign Robert Stock, Nick Burdi To Minor League Deals

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The Mets have agreed to minor league contracts with pitchers Robert Stock, Nick Burdi and Anderson Severino and with outfielder Jose Ramos, according to SNY. Mike Rodriguez reported the Severino agreement a couple weeks ago, while Burdi’s deal first appeared on the MLB.com transaction log. Stock has confirmed his signing on social media. All four players receive invitations to big league camp.

Burdi and Stock each spent the 2025 season in the Red Sox organization. They both got brief looks in Alex Cora’s bullpen. Burdi tossed 5 1/3 scoreless innings with five strikeouts and a pair of walks over four appearances. The 32-year-old has good stuff but has never been able to stay healthy. He missed a couple months with a foot injury this year and has previously had thoracic outlet syndrome, two Tommy John surgeries, appendicitis, and hip issues. Burdi has a career 3.05 ERA with a 31.3% strikeout rate in 76 2/3 Triple-A innings. He has pitched in parts of six MLB campaigns but has yet to reach even 10 big league innings in a season because of the injuries.

Stock, 36, made two appearances for the Sox this year. He walked four batters and gave up three runs over 2 2/3 innings. Stock has worked as a reliever in MLB but started 15 of 19 outings at Triple-A Worcester. He tossed 85 innings with a 3.92 ERA while punching out an above-average 26.2% of batters faced. Stock hasn’t found much MLB success since turning in a 2.50 ERA over 32 appearances as a rookie with the 2018 Padres. He still sits in the mid-90s with his fastball and has intrigued various teams as a depth signing. Stock previously spent time in the Mets’ system, starting four Triple-A games for the organization in 2021.

Severino is a 31-year-old lefty reliever who pitched six times for the White Sox in 2022. He has spent the past two seasons pitching in the Mexican League. Severino has tossed eight innings of two-run ball with 11 punchouts in the Dominican Winter League to get back to affiliated ball. Ramos, 25 in January, has never played in the majors. He spent seven seasons in the Dodgers’ system and combined for a .251/.326/.456 batting line between their top two minor league affiliates in 2025. The right-handed hitter changes organizations for the first time as a minor league free agent.

Kenta Maeda Signs With NPB’s Rakuten Eagles

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The Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball announced they’ve signed Kenta Maeda. The 37-year-old righty said in August that he planned to return to his home country next year. A report from Japan’s Sankei Sports indicates he signed a two-year contract.

This will all but officially close the book on Maeda’s career in the major leagues. He pitched in nine MLB seasons, turning in a 4.20 earned run average while coming up a little shy of 1000 innings pitched. Maeda spent the first four seasons of his career with the Dodgers after signing an eight-year deal to join Los Angeles over the 2015-16 offseason. His rookie year was his best in Dodger blue, as he won 16 games and turned in a 3.48 ERA over a career-high 175 2/3 frames. Maeda struggled in the postseason that year but rebounded with 10 2/3 innings of one-run ball in October 2017 to help the Dodgers to a pennant.

L.A. shipped Maeda to Minnesota for Brusdar Graterol and Luke Raley over the 2019-20 offseason. Maeda’s first season in Minnesota was shortened by the truncated schedule but arguably the best of his career. He turned in a 2.70 ERA while averaging more than six innings per appearance over 11 starts, earning a runner-up finish behind Shane Bieber in AL Cy Young voting. Maeda remained in the Twin Cities for another three seasons, though he missed the 2022 campaign rehabbing Tommy John surgery.

The Tigers signed him to a two-year, $24MM free agent deal going into 2024. While it was a sensible bet on Maeda’s strong strikeout and walk profile, his diminishing stuff led to significant home run issues. Maeda was hit hard to the tune of a 6.09 ERA in 2024. He didn’t find any better results early in the ’25 campaign while pitching out of the bullpen, leading the Tigers to release him in early May. That wound up marking the end of his MLB career. Maeda pitched in Triple-A with the Cubs and Yankees, posting a 5.40 ERA across 20 starts through the end of the year.

Maeda returns to Japan, where he starred for the Hiroshima Carp for eight seasons before making the move to MLB. He owns a 2.39 ERA in a little more than 1500 career NPB innings. He’ll be teammates with former big leaguers Luke Voit and Roansy Contreras, each of whom have already signed with the Eagles for the 2026 season.

A’s, Wander Suero Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Athletics reached agreement with veteran reliever Wander Suero on a minor league contract, per the MLB.com transaction log. He’ll presumably get a non-roster invite to big league Spring Training.

Suero, 34, pitched in five MLB games with the Braves this past season. He also had a pair of stints on the Mets active roster late in the year but never made it into a game. Suero was hit hard in his limited look with Atlanta, allowing eight runs across 6 1/3 innings. He had a much better showing in Triple-A between the two organizations, combining for 48 2/3 frames of 1.29 ERA ball. Suero struck out 32.5% of opponents against a 6.6% walk rate in that excellent year against minor league hitters.

A solid middle reliever earlier in his career, Suero won a World Series with the 2019 Nationals. He posted a sub-4.00 ERA in two of his first three seasons in Washington but has been in journeyman territory for a few years. Suero has gotten to the big leagues in each of the past three seasons, totaling a cumulative 11 appearances between the Dodgers, Astros and Braves. He has never had huge velocity, instead relying on a 92-93 MPH cutter as his primary pitch.

The A’s have added a few relievers on non-roster deals within the first couple weeks of the offseason. Suero joins Nick Anderson, Geoff Hartlieb, Matt Krook and Ben Bowden as minor league acquisitions. The A’s don’t have a single reliever on the 40-man roster with even two years of MLB service. They’re likely to add one or two MLB relievers this offseason and are clearly trying to stockpile non-roster depth in a hitter-friendly setting at Triple-A Las Vegas.

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