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Rays Acquire Nick Fortes From Marlins

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TODAY: Both clubs have officially announced the Fortes-for-Etzel trade.

JULY 28: The Rays and Marlins are reportedly in agreement on a trade that will send catcher Nick Fortes to Tampa Bay for minor league outfielder Matthew Etzel. Once completed, this will backfill the Rays’ catching depth. Tampa Bay traded Danny Jansen to the Brewers for an infield prospect on Monday evening. The Rays expect to announce the Fortes deal on Tuesday.

For the Rays, they often try to straddle a buy/sell line at the deadline and it seems that will be the play this week. They are 53-53 this year, three games back of a playoff spot. While they don’t want to punt their season, they seemingly want to strike a balance between doing things that work for the club now and in the future.

Jansen is a 30-year-old veteran on a one-year deal. He’s better than Fortes right now but Fortes is younger, cheaper and controllable for three more seasons after this one. Presumably, the Rays feel that going from Jansen to Fortes doesn’t significantly harm them in 2025, while adding a few seasons of Fortes and also grabbing Jadher Areinamo in the Jansen trade will help them in the long run more than Etzel.

Fortes, 28, doesn’t do a ton in the batter’s box. In 1,073 plate appearances, he has 25 home runs but a .225 batting average and a 5.2% walk rate. Overall, his .225/.277/.344 line translates to a 70 wRC+. Jansen, on the other hand, has 11 home runs this season alone and is drawing walks at a 12.7% pace. His .204/.314/.389 line in 2025 translates to a 99 wRC+.

Behind the plate, Fortes grades out well. He’s been credited with 17 Defensive Runs Saved in his career. Outlets like FanGraphs, Statcast and Baseball Prospectus all consider him a strong framer. Jansen gets strong marks from BP but not the other two systems. In short, Fortes might be a downgrade from Jansen at the plate but might be a slight upgrade defensively.

It’s certainly a cost-saving switch. Jansen signed a one-year deal with the Rays which guarantees him $8.5MM. He’s making $8MM in terms of salary and then there’s a $500K buyout on a mutual option for 2026. Fortes just qualified for artbitation for the first time after the 2024 season, as a Super Two player. He is making $1.86MM this year and is lined up for three further raises via arb.

For the Marlins, they don’t really need Fortes. They already have Agustín Ramírez and Liam Hicks on the big league roster. It’s possible that Ramírez might not have the defensive chops to stick behind the plate, but the Fish also have Joe Mack lurking. Mack has shown up on some top 100 prospect lists and is already at the Triple-A level. Perhaps he will get a big league look in the wake of this Fortes deal. Or if not now, maybe he could be a September call-up.

They Marlins have exchanged a light-hitting placeholder catcher for an outfield prospect. Etzel is a deadline pickup for the second year in a row. He went from the Orioles to the Rays last summer as part of the Zach Eflin deal.

A tenth-round pick of the O’s in 2023, he’s not ranked as one of Tampa’s top 30 prospects by either Baseball America or FanGraphs. MLB Pipeline has him in the #28 slot. Broadly speaking, he seems to be a contact-based hitter with speed. Since the start of 2024, he has 723 plate appearances, mostly at the Double-A level. He has just 16 home runs but a 12.2% walk rate, .259/.350/.404 line and 119 wRC+ in that time. He’s also stolen 62 bases, though while also getting caught 19 times.

Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic first reported that the Rays were working on a Fortes trade. Robert Murray of FanSided reported Etzel’s inclusion. Marc Topkin of The Tampa Bay Times confirmed the Fortes trade agreement was in place.

Photos courtesy of Katie Stratman and Sam Navarro, Imagn Images

Ryne Sandberg Passes Away

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Hall of Famer Ryne Sandberg has passed away at age 65. The Cubs announced the devastating news on Monday evening. Sandberg had battled metastatic prostate cancer since at least January 2024.

“Ryne Sandberg was a legend of the Chicago Cubs franchise and a beloved figure throughout Major League Baseball. He was a five-tool player who excelled in every facet of the game thanks to his power, speed and work ethic. Ryne earned 10 consecutive All-Star selections, nine straight Gold Gloves, seven Silver Sluggers and 1984 National League MVP honors,” MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement.

“Ryne remained active in the game he loved as an ambassador for the Cubs, a manager for the Phillies and in the Minor Leagues, and a frequent participant at the Hall of Fame. His many friends across the game were in his corner as he courageously fought cancer in recent years. We will continue to support the important work of Stand Up To Cancer in Ryne’s memory. On behalf of Major League Baseball, I extend my deepest condolences to Ryne’s family, Cubs fans everywhere and his admirers throughout our national pastime.”

Cubs owner Tom Ricketts released his own statement of condolences. “Ryne Sandberg was a hero to a generation of Chicago Cubs fans and will be remembered as one of the all-time greats in nearly 150 years of this historic franchise,” Ricketts said. “His dedication to and respect for the game, along with his unrelenting integrity, grit, hustle, and competitive fire were hallmarks of his career. He was immensely proud of his teammates and his role as a global ambassador of the game of baseball, but most of all, he was proud of Margaret, his children and his role as husband, father and grandfather.”

While Sandberg would become an iconic figure in Cubs history, he began his career in Philadelphia. The Phillies signed the Spokane native away from a commitment to Washington State after drafting him in the 20th round in 1978. Sandberg debuted with the Phils as a September call-up in 1981, going 1-6 while appearing in 13 games. His first hit, a single off Mike Krukow as a visitor at Wrigley Field, would be the only one of his major league career that did not come in a Cubs uniform.

During the 1981-82 offseason, the Phillies traded a 22-year-old Sandberg alongside veteran shortstop Larry Bowa to the Cubs for outfielder Iván de Jesús. It was one of the best moves in Chicago’s franchise history. Sandberg opened the season as their starting third baseman. He earned a sixth-place finish in NL Rookie of the Year balloting after hitting .271 with 33 doubles and seven home runs. The Cubs acquired six-time All-Star third baseman Ron Cey from the Dodgers the following offseason. Sandberg moved permanently to second base by 1983.

He’d go on to become one of the greatest ever at the position. Sandberg won a Gold Glove in his first full season at the keystone. While he was mostly a light-hitting defensive stalwart in ’83, Sandberg truly broke out offensively in his third year in the big leagues. He batted .314/.367/.520 while leading the National League in runs scored and topping MLB with 19 triples. He hit a matching 19 home runs, two of which were game-tying shots off future Hall of Famer Bruce Sutter in the so-called “Sandberg Game” against the Cardinals in June. He reached 200 hits for the only time in his career.

Sandberg won his second straight Gold Glove and led the Cubs to a 96-win season and an NL East title — the franchise’s first playoff berth in 39 years. Sandberg was resoundingly voted the Senior Circuit’s most valuable player. He hit .368 in what was then a best of five NL Championship Series, but the Cubs dropped three straight after taking a 2-0 series lead and fell a game shy of a World Series berth.

That was the first of 10 consecutive All-Star seasons for Sandberg. He won the Gold Glove nine straight times between 1983-91 while claiming the Silver Slugger in all but two years from 1984-92. He hit .306 with 26 longballs and a career-high 54 stolen bases as a follow-up to his MVP season.

After a trio of relatively average seasons with the bat in the mid-1980s, he had a four-year resurgence as one of the best hitters in MLB. Sandberg finished fourth in MVP balloting in both 1989 and ’90. He led the Cubs back to the playoffs in ’89, where he hit .400 in a losing effort against the Giants in the NLCS. The 1990 campaign was arguably the best of Sandberg’s career. He led National Leaguers with a career-high 40 home runs and paced the NL with 116 runs scored. He drove in 100 runs in consecutive seasons in 1990-91.

The Cubs signed Sandberg to a four-year, $28.4MM extension going into the ’92 season. That made him MLB’s highest-paid player at the time, and he responded with a monster .304/.371/.510 showing with 26 homers and 87 RBI. He hit .309 in 1993 but was off to a very slow start to the ’94 season. Sandberg shockingly announced his retirement that June, later explaining that he’d lost the drive to play every day and felt he’d be doing a disservice to the organization, fans and himself by playing at less than 100%. He sat out the ’95 season before making a comeback, finishing his playing career with two more seasons in Wrigleyville.

Sandberg retired for good after the 1997 campaign. He finished his illustrious career with a .285/.344/.452 batting line. Sandberg tallied 2386 hits, drilled 282 home runs, and drove in more than 1000 runs. He topped 400 doubles, hit 76 triples, and stole 344 bases. He ranks fourth in Cubs history in hits, fifth in homers, and seventh in runs batted in. According to Baseball Reference, only Cap Anson and Ron Santo had more Wins Above Replacement in a Cubs uniform among position players.

That kind of production from a middle infielder is almost unheard of — much less from as sure-handed an infielder as Sandberg was. Among second basemen, only Roberto Alomar topped Sandberg’s nine Gold Gloves. He still ranks fifth all time at the position in career home runs, surpassed only by Jeff Kent, Robinson Canó, Rogers Hornsby and Craig Biggio. Sandberg is 11th among second basemen in bWAR and by Jay Jaffe’s JAWS score, which measures a player’s career value and peak seasons as a proxy for his Hall of Fame candidacy.

Sandberg’s numbers compared favorably to other Hall of Famers at the position. It took three years on the ballot, but he was deservedly voted into Cooperstown in 2005. The Cubs retired his #23 not long after his Hall of Fame induction. Sandberg took a managerial position in their farm system a year later, hoping to eventually work his way up to manage the franchise with which he’d starred.

While that never came to pass, Sandberg did get an opportunity to manage his former team in Philadelphia. The Phillies hired him on an interim basis after firing Charlie Manuel midway through the 2013 season. Sandberg signed a three-year contract to take the position permanently the following offseason. He resigned during the 2015 campaign when the rebuilding club had a 26-48 record, finishing with a 119-159 record overall. He returned to the Cubs in a part-time instructional role and worked with the team as recently as this past Spring Training.

On top of his laundry list of on-field accomplishments, Sandberg was held in high esteem by teammates, fans and colleagues for his work ethic and humility. The Cubs will wear a jersey patch honoring him for the remainder of the season. His legacy will live on far beyond this year in the memories of generations of fans within and outside Chicago. MLBTR joins others throughout the game in sending condolences to Sandberg’s family, loved ones, friends and the countless people whose lives he impacted.

Image courtesy of David Banks, Imagn Images.

Brewers Have Interest In Ryan O’Hearn

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The Brewers are among the teams with interest in Orioles first baseman Ryan O’Hearn, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. He adds that Milwaukee was one of the clubs in contact with the Diamondbacks about another lefty-hitting first baseman, Josh Naylor, before Arizona dealt him to Seattle.

O’Hearn is arguably just behind Naylor as the next-best impending free agent lefty hitter on the trade block. The 32-year-old O’Hearn was a first-time All-Star this season. He tore the cover off the ball for the season’s first two months, batting .333/.420/.542 with nine homers and eight doubles through the end of May. He’s down to a far less impressive .215/.318/.331 slash since the beginning of June. O’Hearn has been plagued by a meager .245 average on balls in play over this most recent stretch. His strikeout and walk profile remains strong, but his power output has dropped significantly. He only has three longballs over the past two months.

The slump is naturally a slight hit to O’Hearn’s trade value as Thursday’s deadline approaches. He’ll nevertheless be a popular target for teams looking for a boost against right-handed pitching. O’Hearn has a patient plate approach and has good if not elite batted ball metrics. He carries a strong .283/.348/.463 batting line when holding the platoon advantage going back to the start of 2023.

Baltimore is all but guaranteed to trade O’Hearn, who is a couple months from free agency. They presumably wouldn’t want to make him a qualifying offer, and they could give 23-year-old Coby Mayo everyday first base reps for the stretch run. O’Hearn is playing on an affordable $8MM salary, leaving roughly $2.5MM to be paid from the deadline on.

That should be a manageable sum for Milwaukee. They took on some money to fortify the backup catcher spot with tonight’s Danny Jansen trade. Jansen is another right-handed bat on a team that skews a little bit towards that side of the plate. They’re without lefty-hitting first baseman/corner outfielder Jake Bauers right now due to a shoulder impingement. O’Hearn is a better hitter than Bauers regardless. Andrew Vaughn has been playing first base every day with Rhys Hoskins also on the injured list. Vaughn has raked through his first 14 games in a Milwaukee uniform but hit .189/.218/.314 across 48 contests with the White Sox earlier in the year.

Brewers Acquire Danny Jansen

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The Rays and Brewers announced a trade sending catcher Danny Jansen from Tampa Bay to Milwaukee in exchange for infield prospect Jadher Areinamo. The Rays are including some cash to help pay down the remaining $2.667MM on Jansen’s one-year, $8MM contract. It’s a homecoming for Jansen, who’s a native of Appleton, Wisconsin. The Rays’ changes behind the plate don’t stop there, as they’re reportedly in agreement to acquire Marlins catcher Nick Fortes in a separate trade (full breakdown on that swap available here).

Catching wasn’t a prominent need for the Brewers entering the season. William Contreras has emerged as one of the best backstops in the sport, slashing .283/.363/.472 from 2022-24. His once-panned defense has improved to premium levels in Milwaukee. However, Contreras has been playing through a fracture in his left middle finger and struggled considerably at the dish this season, slashing just .242/.342/.340 this season. Backup catcher Eric Haase hasn’t picked up the slack with the bat. Over the past month, Contreras and Haase have combined to hit .228/.294/.289.

As the Brewers’ catchers have struggled to increasing levels, Jansen has picked up the pace. He’s hitting just .204/.314/.389 on the season overall, but that’s dragged down by a brutal start to the year. Since May 11, he’s batting .232/.321/.486 in 163 trips to the plate.

Notably, while Jansen is hitting only .197 against lefties, he’s still getting on base against them at a big .356 clip and slugging .465 versus southpaws. Contreras is hitting .223/.373/.266 against lefties on the season. Haase is batting only .160/.192/.280 in his 26 plate appearances against left-handers. Jansen struggled against lefties mightily early in his career but has above-average on-base and power numbers against them each year since 2022. In that time, he’s slashing .216/.344/.442 when holding the platoon advantage

Jansen has graded as a plus defender in the past, but his framing and throwing grades have dwindled in recent years. Milwaukee has a knack for vastly improving catcher defense — framing in particular — which could bode well for a Jansen rebound in that regard. He’ll presumably move into a timeshare behind the plate with Contreras, who is penciled into tonight’s Brewers lineup. That could spell the end of Haase’s time on the roster, but it’s certainly possible the Brewers will carry three catchers or that they’ll give Contreras some extended downtime to allow his ailing left hand to heal.

Areinamo, 21, was an amateur signee out of Venezuela during the 2021-22 international signing period. Baseball America ranked him 10th among Milwaukee prospects on their latest midseason update of the system. He sat 17th at FanGraphs in mid-May and is currently 24th at MLB.com.

Though he’s primarily been a shortstop in High-A this season, Areinamo has more experience at second base than at short. He’s also dabbled at the hot corner. He’s turned in a .297/.355/.463 batting line in 415 plate appearances and popped 11 home runs on the year. Areinamo also has 24 doubles, a pair of triples and 15 stolen bases — albeit in 23 tries (65.2% success rate).

Scouting reports on Areinamo tout his plus hit tool but question an overaggressive approach that could be exposed as he moves up the ladder and faces more advanced pitching. Accordingly, he’s fanned in just 11.6% of his plate appearances in what is his second run through the High-A level. Listed at just 5’8″ and 160 pounds, Areinamo unsurprisingly possesses what scouts feel is below-average power. He has a chance to develop into an everyday option at second base, where his average arm profiles better than it does on the left side of the infield. He could also wind up being a contact-oriented utilityman who bounces between several positions.

ESPN’s Jeff Passan first reported that the Rays and Brewers were finalizing a Jansen trade. Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times reported that the deal was done and that the Rays were in the process of adding another catcher. MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand reported that Areinamo was the prospect return for the Rays and that Tampa Bay was including some cash in the swap.

Nationals’ Travis Sykora To Undergo Tommy John Surgery

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Nationals announced to reporters today that pitching prospect Travis Sykora will require Tommy John surgery. He will miss the remainder of this season and probably all of 2026 as well. Mark Zuckerman of MASNsports.com was among those to relay the news.

It’s a brutal development for both Sykora and the Nats. The young righty was a third-round pick in the 2023 draft. Since then, he has raised his prospect stock with some strong results in the minors. Last year, he tossed 85 innings over 20 Single-A starts as a 20-year-old. He had a 2.33 earned run average, 8.2% walk rate and massive 39.2% strikeout rate. This year, he made another 12 starts across multiple levels, getting as high as Double-A. He had thrown 45 1/3 innings with a 1.79 ERA. His 10.1% walk rate was a bit high but he pushed his strikeout rate even higher to 46.7%.

Those numbers have pushed him up prospect boards. Baseball America currently ranks him the #36 prospect in the league, FanGraphs #28 and MLB Pipeline #24. Since he had already climbed to Double-A by the end of June, it was possible to imagine him being a key part of Washington’s roster next year. That won’t happen now. He could perhaps be a factor by 2027, but that will come with concerns about his workload and effectiveness after the long surgery layoff. He’ll be eligible for the Rule 5 draft in December of 2026, so the Nats will have to add him to the 40-man before that to protect him.

The Nats haven’t had a winning season since their 2019 championship campaign. They’ve largely been mired in a rebuild since then. It has been hoped in recent years for them to turn a corner but they haven’t been able to do that. This year’s 43-62 record is the worst in the National League, apart from the lowly Rockies. The struggles became magnified enough that both president of baseball operations Mike Rizzo and manager Dave Martinez got fired recently.

The club’s rotation outlook already had plenty of question marks before this. DJ Herz and Trevor Williams required Tommy John surgery this year. Josiah Gray is still recovering from last year’s Tommy John. Michael Soroka is an impending free agent and should be traded this week. MacKenzie Gore has established himself as an ace but he’s only under club control through 2027. Mitchell Parker, Jake Irvin and Brad Lord are back-end types. Cade Cavalli is posting mixed results in the minors.

Getting guys like Sykora and Jarlin Susana up to the big leagues would have been a huge help but now Sykora will be out for over a year. Susana missed a few months due to a sprain of his UCL, though he recently returned to the mound.

Put it all together and it’s less than ideal for the Nats. They clearly recognize changes are required, given the aforementioned firings. In the most recent offseason, they decided not to heavily invest in the team because they decided that they weren’t ready to take the next step. Time will tell if they stay in that lane or want to get more aggressive. Perhaps this news will impact that decision.

Photo courtesy of Henry Huey, Imagn Images

Tigers Acquire Chris Paddack

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The Tigers turned to a division rival for rotation help on Monday afternoon. Detroit acquired righty Chris Paddack and took on the contract of minor league pitcher Randy Dobnak in a deal that sent catching prospect Enrique Jimenez to the Twins. Detroit placed Reese Olson on the 60-day IL with a shoulder strain, shedding some extra light on their decision to acquire a back-end starter.

Paddack, 29, has had an up-and-down career and has been inconsistent this year as well. He debuted with the Padres back in 2019 and had arguably his best season that year. He tossed 140 2/3 innings with a 3.33 earned run average, 26.9% strikeout rate and 5.5% walk rate. In the next two seasons, his strikeout rate fell to 23.7% and then 21.6%. His ERA climbed to 4.73 and then 5.07. He was traded to the Twins but then Tommy John surgery in May of 2022 wiped out most of that year and the following season.

He was back on the mound last year but made multiple trips to the injured list due to ongoing issues with his throwing arm. He logged 88 1/3 innings over 17 starts with a 4.99 ERA, 20.6% strikeout rate and 5.5% walk rate.

This year, Paddack has at least avoided the IL. Though as mentioned, his results have been wobbly. Overall, he has a 4.95 ERA in 111 innings over 21 starts, with a 17.6% strikeout rate and 5.7% walk rate. He got out to an atrocious start, allowing nine earned runs to the White Sox in his first outing, lasting just three and a third innings. His second start wasn’t much better, allowing three earned runs in four innings against the Astros. He had a 14.73 ERA after those two starts.

From there, he got in a nice groove. Over his next 11 starts, Paddack tossed 64 innings with a 2.25 ERA. His 19.2% strikeout rate in that time was still subpar, but he limited walks to a 6.4% clip. He got a little help from a .218 batting average on balls in play and 84% strand rate, so his 3.60 FIP and 4.28 SIERA were a bit skeptical of his ERA in that span. He then allowed eight earned runs in a start against the Astros last month. Since then, he has a 6.31 ERA in seven starts, though the most recent one was great. He allowed one run over six innings against the mighty Dodgers, striking out eight.

The results haven’t been outstanding but Paddack seemingly got a decent amount of interest. Jon Heyman of The New York Post says the Rays were involved while Bob Nightengale of USA Today reports that the Yankees pursued him as well.

That might be a reflection of the league-wide conditions. Very few teams are clearly out of contention in the expanded playoffs. Some of the clubs that are buried in the standings don’t have much to sell. It all adds up to a seller’s market. Paddack isn’t an ace but he’s been healthy and has decent control. He’s also affordable, making just $7.5MM this year while many other reliable vets are making double or almost triple that. There’s only $2.5MM of Paddack’s salary left to be paid out in the remainder of the season. That seems to be enough to get several teams on the phone.

For the Tigers, adding some starting depth is a sensible move. Alex Cobb has been on the IL all year due to hip issues and it’s unclear if he’ll be able to contribute anything. Jackson Jobe had Tommy John surgery. José Urquidy is still trying to return from last year’s Tommy John and hasn’t yet started a rehab assignment. Sawyer Gipson-Long and Ty Madden are also on the shelf.

The Detroit rotation currently consists of Tarik Skubal, Jack Flaherty and Casey Mize. Olson was the arguable #2 starter behind Skubal before his injury. They recently called up Troy Melton but he allowed six earned runs in his first big league start. Adding Paddack could perhaps allow the Tigers to send Melton back down to the minors. Paddack might not be in the club’s playoff rotation if the postseason started today, but he fills in some depth that has been lost to injuries and could step up if further injuries arise over the remainder of the season.

Dobnak’s inclusion is presumably about his contract. He signed an early-career extension with the Twins which hasn’t panned out. Since the end of the 2021 season, he has mostly been in the minors, with less than 15 big league innings on his ledger. In 60 2/3 Triple-A innings this year, he has a 7.12 ERA.

As part of that aforementioned extension, he is making a $3MM salary this year, leaving about $1MM left to be paid out. There’s also a $1MM buyout on a $6MM 2026 club option. Presumably, the Tigers are taking on the remaining $2MM commitment in exchange for a lighter prospect return than Paddack would have otherwise required.

Jimenez, 19, is an intriguing prospect but he’s a long-term play. He’s only 19 years old. The Tigers signed him out of Venezuela in the 2023 international signing period, giving him a $1.25MM bonus. A switch-hitter, he has appeared in 137 minor league games thus far, having slashed .255/.363/.413 for a 114 wRC+. Baseball America lists him as the #17 prospect in the Tigers’ system with a 50 grade on the 20-80 scale, but he’s characterized as an extreme risk. FanGraphs ranked him #28 in the system back in March, noting that his small stature and poor blocking skills are areas of concern.

For the Twins, this is likely the first of a few sell-side moves. They have fallen to 50-55, which puts them 5.5 games back of a playoff spot. FanGraphs only gives them an 11% chance of cracking the postseason. It was reported about a week ago that they were more seriously considering trades of rental players. Paddack is the first go, but Willi Castro, Harrison Bader, Danny Coulombe, Ty France and Christian Vázquez could follow. The larger question is if they will move interesting controllable pieces such as Jhoan Durán, Griffin Jax or Joe Ryan. All reports have suggested the asking prices on those three are high, so the Twins would have to be blown away for a trade to come together.

Dobnak’s inclusion in this deal perhaps suggests the Twins could look to cut costs in the coming days. They didn’t appear to have a huge budget to work with in the winter, limiting themselves to modest one-year deals for Bader, Coulombe and France. The franchise is actively for sale, with an ownership change expected in the coming months. Perhaps they will look to have other clubs absorb as much of the money owed to their impending free agents as possible, even though eating some of the money would lead to a greater prospect return. It’s possible the Pohlad family, which still owns the club for now, will look to save themselves a few million bucks in the coming days.

Time will tell on that. For now, the Twins have already saved a few million and added a young catching prospect to their system. The Tigers, meanwhile, have added some rotation depth as they hope to cruise to a division title. Despite a recent rough patch, they have an eight-game lead over the Guardians in the Central.

Ken Rosenthal and Dan Hayes of The Athletic first reported the Tigers were nearing an acquisition of Paddack for a prospect. Rosenthal was first to note a Paddack trade was in place. Robert Murray of FanSided reported the Twins were receiving Jimenez in return. ESPN’s Jeff Passan had Dobnak’s inclusion.

Photos courtesy of Jesse Johnson, Matt Krohn and Tom Vizer, Imagn Images

Kris Bubic To Miss Remainder Of 2025 Season With Rotator Cuff Strain

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Royals left-hander Kris Bubic will be out for the remainder of the 2025 season after suffering a rotator cuff strain in his most recent outing, reports Anne Rogers of MLB.com. The 27-year-old exited his start on Saturday in the third inning, later telling Rogers that “something’s not right.” He noted that he had been pitching through a stiff shoulder for “a good portion of the season,” but what he felt on Saturday was worse than stiffness. The team placed him on the 15-day IL on Sunday, and further testing evidently found the injury to be quite serious. Thankfully for the young hurler, he is not expected to need surgery (per Sam McDowell of The Kansas City Star) and hopes to have a normal offseason. The Royals have not yet transferred Bubic to the 60-day IL, but they will presumably do so as soon as they need to open up a spot on their 40-man roster.

Most evaluators saw Bubic as a back-end starter in his prospect days, and that’s pretty much who he was over his first three seasons, pitching to a 4.89 ERA in 67 games (57 starts) from 2020-22. He then missed most of 2023 and a good part of ’24 after undergoing Tommy John surgery. When he returned in the latter half of 2024, he looked like a brand-new pitcher. Working out of the bullpen, he produced a 2.67 ERA in 27 games, striking out 32.2% of the batters he faced while walking only 4.1%. His four-seam fastball and changeup, always the bread and butter of his arsenal, looked better than ever, while he turned his slider into a sweeper and enjoyed tremendous success with the new breaking pitch.

The Royals moved Bubic back into the rotation in 2025, and he didn’t miss a beat. While he wasn’t as overpowering as he had been out of the bullpen, he was every bit as successful. Through 20 starts, Bubic pitched to a 2.55 ERA in 116 1/3 innings of work. He was named to the AL All-Star team earlier this summer. While his underlying metrics (3.06 xERA, 3.74 SIERA) suggested he wasn’t likely to maintain a sub-3.00 ERA all season, there was no denying that Bubic was a breakout star. With Bubic, Seth Lugo, Michael Wacha, and Noah Cameron atop their rotation, the Royals looked like dark horse postseason contenders, even with Cole Ragans on the IL and arguably the least productive offense in the American League.

By trading for Adam Frazier and Randal Grichuk earlier this month, and by extending a potential trade chip in Lugo, the Royals signalled that they would be buying rather than selling ahead of this Thursday’s trade deadline. However, their chances of leapfrogging the four teams ahead of them for a Wild Card berth are significantly lower without Bubic. Kansas City is down to four healthy starting pitchers now, and one of them is 45-year-old Rich Hill. In addition to Ragans and Bubic, Michael Lorenzen and Alec Marsh are also on the IL. The Royals have averaged fewer runs per game than any other team in the AL, and it’s starting to look like they just won’t have enough healthy pitching to compensate for their pitiful offense.

Tigers To Place Reese Olson On 60-Day IL With Shoulder Strain

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The Tigers are placing right-hander Reese Olson on the 60-day injured list due to a shoulder strain. Jason Beck of MLB.com was among those to relay the news. That will open up a 40-man roster spot for Chris Paddack, who is reportedly being acquired from the Twins. Beck adds that outfielder Parker Meadows has been placed on the 10-day IL due to a quad strain. Infielder/outfielders Andy Ibáñez and Ryan Kreidler have been recalled to take the active roster spots of Olson and Meadows.

The news on Olson sheds more light on the club’s decision to acquire Paddack. Olson had started against the Blue Jays on Thursday and gone 5 2/3 innings. Per Cody Stavenhagen of The Athletic, Olson first felt discomfort on Saturday during a bullpen session.

That meant that, coming into today, the Detroit rotation was down to Tarik Skubal, Casey Mize and Jack Flaherty. They recently called up prospect Troy Melton, but he allowed six earned runs in his first big league start. Keider Montero was recently optioned to the minors.

Paddack isn’t an ace but he’s a strike-throwing veteran who lengthens the overall group. The Tigers also have Alex Cobb, Jackson Jobe, Ty Madden, Jose Urquidy and Sawyer Gipson-Long on the IL. Adding Olson to that pile seemingly prompted them to go out and add Paddack.

What’s still unclear is if Olson will be available for the postseason. Per Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press, the door is still open for that, though it depends on how things develop between now and then. Perhaps the Tigers will look to make another rotation addition in the coming days, depending on how things develop with Olson.

There’s also a bit of a position player shuffle today, with Meadows hitting the IL again. He missed the first couple of months of the season due to issues in the musculocutaneous nerve in his right arm. Since coming off the IL, he has hit just .200/.270/.296. Now his frustrating season continues with another injury setback, though it’s unclear how long he’ll be out.

Matt Vierling has also been playing some center field lately and could take over for Meadows, though he’s not having a great season either, currently sporting a .210/.306/.226 line. Javier Báez played some center earlier this year but has retaken the shortstop job more recently. If Báez were to go back out to the grass, Zach McKinstry could move from third to short, with guys like Ibáñez and Kreidler helping to fill in at the hot corner. Kreidler can also play a bit of center. Once Paddack reports to the team, the Tigers will need an active roster spot, so one of Ibáñez or Kreidler will probably be going right back down.

Photo courtesy of Kevin Sousa, Imagn Images

Cubs, Jed Hoyer Agree To Multi-Year Extension

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The Cubs have agreed to a multi-year contract extension with president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer. The team announced the move this afternoon. Cubs executive chairman Tom Ricketts praised his POBO in a press release: “Jed and his baseball operations staff have built a healthy player development organization and put an exciting, playoff-contending team on the field. We are looking forward to the rest of the season and to working with Jed for years to come.”

Hoyer’s previous contract, which he signed when he took over from Theo Epstein as Chicago’s chief baseball decision maker after the 2020 season, would have expired at the end of the 2025 campaign. The Cubs underperformed in each of Hoyer’s first four seasons at the helm, failing to make the playoffs from 2021-24. Another disappointing season this year and he very well could have been out of a job. Yet, many of his offseason moves have worked wonders, with additions such as Kyle Tucker, Matthew Boyd, Carson Kelly, Caleb Thielbar, and Ryan Pressly complementing a strong core that Hoyer put together over the past handful of years.

So, the Cubs enter play on Monday tied with the Brewers for the best record in the National League (62-43). Their +116 run differential is the best in baseball, and FanGraphs puts their odds of making the playoffs at 96.6%. It’s not hard to understand why the Cubs waited to extend Hoyer until it was clear he had built a strong contender, but neither is it hard to understand why they didn’t want to wait any longer to get a deal done. This team is primed to be a major buyer this week, and evidently, they didn’t want to go into such a pivotal trade deadline season with a lame duck executive in the driver’s seat. As ESPN’s Jesse Rogers put it, the Cubs came into the season “looking for a reason” to retain Hoyer. The team’s strong performance over the first four months proved to be that reason.

Hoyer began his front office career with the Red Sox in 2002. He served as an assistant general manager under Epstein from 2005-09 and briefly served as a co-GM when Epstein stepped away during the 2005-06 offseason. Following the 2009 season, Hoyer left Boston to become the Padres’ GM, a role he held for two years before he left to take the GM job in Chicago, where he reunited with Epstein. From 2012-20, Epstein ran the Cubs front office with Hoyer as his second-in-command. Together, they helped the Cubs win a World Series championship in 2016, the club’s first since 1908. When Epstein resigned after the 2020 campaign, Hoyer took his place as president of baseball operations. Since then, he has acquired players like Pete Crow-Armstrong, Michael Busch, Dansby Swanson, Shota Imanaga, Seiya Suzuki, and Daniel Palencia, as well as Tucker, Boyd, Kelly, Thielbar, and Pressly, all of whom have been instrumental to the team’s success this season.

While it’s unclear how long Hoyer’s new extension will keep him in Chicago, he now has at least a couple more years to continue to build upon the core he’s assembled. With the trade deadline fast approaching on Thursday, it’s safe to expect him to start right away.

Sahadev Sharma of The Athletic was the first to report that Hoyer had signed a multi-year extension with the Cubs. Image in article courtesy of Kamil Krzaczynski of Imagn Images.

Royals Sign Seth Lugo To Extension

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2:50pm: MLB.com’s Anne Rogers reports that the 2028 option will automatically vest at $20MM if Lugo pitches a combined 335 innings in 2026-27 or totals 190 innings in 2027.  If he falls shy of those totals, the Royals can still pick up a $17MM club option (or a $3MM buyout).  All told, the deal can max out at $63MM from 2026-28.

12:05pm: Seth Lugo has gone from a potential trade candidate to rotation cornerstone, as the Royals announced Monday that he’s signed a two-year extension covering the 2026-27 seasons with a club/vesting option for the 2028 campaign.  The new deal reportedly guarantees him a total of $46MM from 2026-27.  The money breaks down as a $3MM signing bonus for Lugo, $20MM salaries in both 2026 and 2027, and then a $17MM club option for 2028 with a $3MM buyout.  Should Lugo hit the vesting thresholds, that 2028 option will lock in another $20MM salary.  Lugo is represented by the Ballengee Group.

Lugo had the ability to opt out of the final season of his previous three-year, $45MM contract, but instead of facing an opt-out decision this winter, the right-hander will be staying put in Kansas City.  There wasn’t much doubt that Lugo (who turns 36 in November) was going to decline his player option and leave his final $15MM on the table in search of a larger and lengthier guarantee in free agency.

With the Royals also struggling to stay in the playoff race, there was some speculation that K.C. could look to move the veteran prior to Thursday’s deadline.  However, the most recent reporting suggested that not only did the Royals want to keep Lugo beyond July 31, but the club wanted to work out a new contract to convince Lugo to forego his opt-out clause.

Assuming the extension talks indeed cross the finish line, Lugo will join Cole Ragans and Michael Wacha as Royals starters under contract through at least the 2027 season, depending on the specifics of Lugo’s new deal.  Wacha’s three-year, $51MM deal signed last November also came under the specter of a player option, as Wacha had the ability to opt out of his $16MM salary for the 2025 season and test the market.  Ragans inked a three-year, $13.25MM extension last February that was more about cost certainty than team control, as the deal only covers the southpaw through his second arbitration-eligible year — Kansas City still has arb control on Ragan through the 2028 campaign.

Between this trio, breakout rookie Noah Cameron, and the Royals’ remaining year of arbitration control on Kris Bubic, Kansas City’s 2026 rotation may already be set.  This doesn’t include such injured pitchers as Kyle Wright and Alec Marsh, so K.C. has a good deal of pitching depth in place as the club tries to figure out the greater issue of its lack of offense.

Lugo’s career-opening seven-year stint with the Mets saw the righty begin as a starter, before moving into more of a part-time starter/swingman role and then finally as a full-time reliever in 2021-22.  Heading into free agency following the 2022 campaign, Lugo was looking to make a return to the rotation, and landed a two-year, $15MM free agent deal with the Padres that included a player option on the 2024 season.  After a solid year in San Diego, Lugo declined that option and returned to free agency to find his three-year commitment with Kansas City.

Over two-plus seasons since his return to starting pitching, Lugo’s ERA has dropped from 3.57 in 2023 to 3.00 in 2024 and to 2.95 this year.  His SIERAs have remained almost identical in that span, averaging out to a 3.98 number that is probably a fairer reflection of his production than his 3.17 ERA over 466 innings since Opening Day 2023.  Despite allowing a lot of hard contact and posting subpar strikeout rates, Lugo has consistently outperformed his peripherals by limiting walks (6.2BB% in the last three seasons) and an elite curveball spin rate, not to mention a fastball that also has plenty of spin despite its modest 91.6mph velocity.

Lugo has gotten a fair amount of batted-ball luck to support his numbers, yet as he is now in his third productive year as a starter, the veteran is clearly doing more than just relying on good fortune to retire batters.  He has also answered all questions about whether he was durable enough to hold up in a rotation by pitching 206 2/3 innings in 2024, which was a key reason why Lugo finished second in AL Cy Young Award voting.

It was enough for the Royals to commit an additional $31MM to Lugo on top of the $15MM they had already agreed to pay him through 2026.  It’s a significant chunk of change for pitcher’s age 36-37 seasons, yet obviously the Royals have loved what they’ve gotten from Lugo to date and believe he can keep it up deeper into his 30’s.  The $23MM in average annual value is a little eye-opening, though as MLBTR’s Contract Tracker tells us, 11 pitchers of age 30 or higher have topped that AAV in free agency over the last three offseasons.

It is also noteworthy than the idea of Kansas City signing a player to such a contract is no longer as surprising as it would’ve been even a few years ago.  Now that the Royals have moved out of a rebuild period, owner John Sherman has greenlit higher spending, most notably Bobby Witt Jr.’s long-term mega-contract.  The Royals’ playoff appearance in 2024 was evidence that the team’s roster-building is paying dividends, and while their 2025 record has disappointed, there is enough of a pitching core in place to suggest that even league-average hitting could get K.C. back to the postseason.  The club’s recent additions of Adam Frazier and Randal Grichuk suggest that the Royals haven’t given up on making a late run this year, even if bigger lineup upgrades will probably be saved for the winter.

ESPN’s Jeff Passan was the first to report that the two sides were closing in on an extension.  MLB.com’s Anne Rogers (multiple links) had the details about the two-year length of the deal and the financial breakdown, while the New York Post’s Jon Heyman was the first to report that Lugo would be receiving a guarantee in the ballpark of $46MM.

Photo courtesy of Jay Biggerstaff, Imagn Images

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