- The Reds’ hiring of Terry Francona came together quickly, as Gordon Wittenmyer of the Cincinnati Enquirer reports that president of baseball operations Nick Krall first touched base with Francona via a phone conversation on September 26. Krall had gotten permission from the Guardians to speak with Francona (who was still with the team in a special assistant role), as Francona was atop the Reds’ list of nearly 100 possible managerial candidates but “with an asterisk,” depending on the longtime skipper’s health and whether he wanted to return after a year away from the sport. Krall and GM Brad Meador met with Francona in Tucson on October 2, and were impressed enough to call owner Bob Castellini to fly to Tucson the next day to finalize the contract. In other details on the managerial search, interim manager Freddie Benavides had put himself on the Reds’ short list with an excellent set of interviews, and Rangers associate manager Will Venable was also on the list of top targets. It appears as though Benavides might’ve been the only other candidate to actually interview, as Francona’s emergence precluded the Reds’ need to speak with Venable, or other rumored candidates as David Ross or Skip Schumaker.
Rangers Rumors
Young: Rangers Will Prioritize Pitching, Explore Reunions With Eovaldi, Heaney
The Rangers went from the top of the MLB mountain to missing the playoffs in the span of one season, due in no small part to an offense that sputtered throughout the season. Adolis Garcia and Jonah Heim were among the regulars who struggled at the plate, while Texas was plagued by injuries to Corey Seager, Josh Jung and Evan Carter, among others. As Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News points out, the Rangers floundered against four-seam fastballs in particular.
Be that as it may, president of baseball operations Chris Young’s end-of-season press conference struck an optimistic tone regarding the in-house hitters the Rangers currently possess. “The biggest remedy, in my opinion, is improving the guys we currently have,” Young said (via Grant). The recently extended Rangers baseball ops leader called internal improvements to the lineup a “heavy priority” heading into next season.
With regard to outside additions, those will come more on the pitching side of the roster. MLB.com’s Kennedi Landri writes that Young specifically mentioned that he’d like to retain impending free agents Nathan Eovaldi and Andrew Heaney. Eovaldi triggered a $20MM player option this season when he reached a combined 300 innings between 2023-24, but he’s widely expected to decline that in favor of a return to the market (barring a hypothetical extension from his current club). Heaney exercised a player option following the 2023 season and returned to make 31 solid starts in this year’s rotation.
“As far as Evo and Andrew go, those are priorities for us,” said Young. “We love those guys. They helped us win a World Series. We would love to bring those guys back, and we’re going to explore every way we can to make that happen.”
Entering the 2025 season, Texas won’t be short on rotation options. Jacob deGrom should be the Opening Day starter now that he’s recovered from Tommy John surgery, though counting on him for a full slate of 30-plus starts doesn’t feel realistic when he hasn’t reached that total since 2019. He’ll be joined by Jon Gray, Tyler Mahle (also in his first full season post-Tommy John) and some combination of Dane Dunning, Cody Bradford, Kumar Rocker and Jack Leiter. With deGrom and Mahle both facing workload concerns and the bulk of the team’s other options yet to pitch a full season in a big league rotation, it’s understandable that the Rangers feel it not just prudent but pivotal to fortify the starting staff.
Reunions with Eovaldi and/or Heaney won’t come cheaply, however. Eovaldi’s two-year, $34MM deal proved to be a bargain, even as incentives ballooned his guarantee to a total of $38.5MM over his two years. He signed that deal coming off an injury-shortened year with the Red Sox, who’d issued him a qualifying offer and thus tied him to draft pick compensation. Now healthy and unencumbered by the weight of a QO, he should be able to top that $34MM guarantee even though he’s two years older than during his last trip to the open market.
Heaney, similarly, was coming off a season of just 72 2/3 innings with the Dodgers. He hasn’t looked as dominant in Texas as he did during that abbreviated run with L.A., but he just gave the Rangers a combined 307 1/3 innings of 4.22 ERA ball with more promising strikeout and walk rates of 23.2% and 7.6%, respectively. He could find another two-year deal in the market, and it’s possible that would come with a larger guarantee than the $25MM term on his last pact.
The extent to which Texas will be able to spend in free agency is not yet clear. RosterResource pegs them with about $148MM worth of 2025 commitments, and that’s not including arbitration raises for Dunning, Heim, Sborz, Nathaniel Lowe and Leody Taveras — a group that MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projects for a combined $25.5MM. Add in a slate of league-minimum players, and Texas is looking at around $185MM in total projected salary for next year’s 26-man roster. That’s $40MM shy of where they opened the 2024 season, so there’s clearly some room to spend, but that $40MM could dry up quickly if the Rangers are intent not only on adding at least one starter, but also on replacing effectively their entire late-inning relief corps.
To say Texas is likely to be active in the bullpen market would be putting things mildly. Kirby Yates, David Robertson, Jose Leclerc and Jose Urena — their top four relievers by innings pitched — are all free agents. Deadline acquisition Andrew Chafin has a $6.5MM club option ($500K buyout) that is not a lock to be exercised. Robertson has a $7MM mutual option ($1.5MM buyout) and will very likely decline his end of it. Yates, Robertson, Leclerc, Chafin and Josh Sborz — who missed most of the season due to shoulder problems — were the team’s go-to options in high-leverage spots.
Young didn’t comment on what level of increase will or won’t be possible. He plans to meet with majority owner Ray Davis in the near future to outline a spending plan. While Young avoided any firm declarations on payroll, he spoke about uncertainty regarding the team’s endeavors to create a proprietary regional sports network and pledged to build a “very good roster with whatever resources we have.”
On the surface, that’s a far cry from his Aug. 2021 comments wherein he pledged to be “very active” in free agency — and then followed through with blockbuster signings of Seager and Marcus Semien. More context on the Rangers’ potential spending figures to come to light as the onset of free agency draws nearer, but given the team’s current financial obligations and needs up and down the pitching staff, it’s hardly a shock that Young is prioritizing arms and hoping to see a talented core of hitters rebound at the plate next season.
Diamond Sports Group Planning To Cut Ties With 11 MLB Clubs
Diamond Sports Group said in court today that it plans to broadcast just one MLB club next year, the Braves, per reporting from Evan Drellich of The Athletic. The company, which owns the Bally Sports Networks, also had deals with the Reds, Tigers, Royals, Angels, Marlins, Cardinals, Rays but plans on walking away from those. As Drellich notes, as part of the company’s ongoing Chapter 11 bankruptcy process, they can accept and reject contracts though the measures have to be approved by the court. The Brewers, Guardians, Twins and Rangers had one-year deals with Diamond for 2024. Those 11 clubs will now have to renegotiate new deals with Diamond or find other broadcasting arrangements.
Drellich provides some more specifics on X, noting that it’s more complicated than Diamond simply abandoning these 11 clubs, but that seems to be the company’s goal regardless. Alden González of ESPN adds some more details, noting that a confirmation hearing has been set for November 14 and 15 in Houston. The Marlins and Diamond have mutual interest in working out a new deal, per a report from Barry Jackson and Craig Mish of the Miami Herald. The Angels are working on a new deal with Diamond, per Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register.
Per Drellich, league representatives said they were “sandbagged” by the news. “We have no information about what is being done,” said Jim Bromley, lawyer for MLB. “We’ve had no opportunity to review and now we’re in front of the court and being asked to make our comments.”
The ongoing financial situation of Diamond Sports Group has been a significant part of baseball’s economic landscape for a long time and this could prove to be a major development as part of that narrative. Largely due to cord cutting, the regional sports network model has been gradually collapsing in recent history. In the 2022-23 offseason, reports emerged that Diamond was in rough shape financially and the company filed for bankruptcy before the 2023 MLB season began.
They dropped their contracts with the Padres and Diamondbacks during that 2023 campaign. It threatened to do the same with the Guardians, Twins and Rangers for 2024 but ultimately renegotiated lower fees with those clubs and continued those broadcasts through this year. Now it seems like the company is continuing down this path but with an even more aggressive severing of their existing ties to Major League Baseball.
This is bound to have short-term effects on clubs and players. These contracts have been sources of significant revenue for clubs, as MLBTR covered earlier this year. The 11 teams that Diamond plans to cut ties with were previously receiving between $33MM (Brewers) and $125MM (Angels) on an annual basis. Per reporting in April, the Padres were set to receive about $60MM in 2023 before their deal with Diamond collapsed. The league reportedly covered about 80% of those fees last year but didn’t plan to do so in 2024 and beyond.
Uncertainty around broadcast revenue seemingly played a major role in the 2023-24 offseason, which was disappointing for players. Teams like the Padres, Rangers, Twins and others were either cutting payroll or not increasing it as much as had previously been expected, with the TV situation often being used as justification. This appeared to play a role in various free agents not finding markets as strong as they had anticipated and many of them lingered unsigned into the early months of 2024 and/or signed for deals well below projections. It seems fair to expect that similar narratives could emerge in the coming winter.
Per González, a company source says that Diamond is still hoping to sign new deals with the 11 clubs being cut out today. However, that would presumably involve reduce fee payments, such as those received by the Guardians, Twins and Rangers this year. As mentioned up top, the Marlins and Angels seem to expect to continue their relationship with Diamond/Bally in 2025, though negotiating new deals may take some time.
In the long-term picture, MLB might be happy to be further cutting ties with Diamond. They have continually expressed skepticism about the company’s plans to stay afloat. Diamond has tried various methods of refinancing, including signing a streaming deal with Amazon, but the league hasn’t seemed convinced that any of the company’s plans would lead to long-term stability.
As mentioned, the league has already started selling some games to fans in direct-to-customer fashion. Commissioner Rob Manfred has aspirations of marketing a digital streaming package consisting of several MLB teams, which fans could watch without blackout restrictions. MLB.TV already exists and allows fans to watch most games, but the RSN deals lead to certain teams being blacked out in the areas covered by those deals.
Having less commitment with Diamond going forward will increase the viability of that streaming plan over the years to come. However, as mentioned, less TV revenue figures to have a sizeable impact on the short-term economics of the game. This will lead to ripple effects throughout the upcoming offseason and will likely be worrisome for certain players hitting the open market in the coming weeks. New deals could be negotiated between now and the 2025 season, which could put some money back on the table, though likely less than in previous years.
There is also the matter of the fan experience, as there were times in 2024 where the Braves were not available on TV to some customers during a dispute between Bally’s and Comcast. For fans of these 11 clubs today, they will have to keep an eye on the proceedings to determine if their favorite club will still be accessed in the ways they are accustomed to or if they will have to switch to some new broadcast model.
Rangers Allowed Andrew Heaney To Max Out Incentive Slate In Final Start
- Rangers lefty Andrew Heaney began his final start of the season Sunday at 156 innings, just four frames away from unlocking a $1.5MM bonus in his two-year deal. Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News writes that although he was hit hard through the first three innings of the game (seven runs allowed), Heaney was allowed to complete the fourth inning as a reward for the selflessness he’s shown in his two seasons with the club and for the value he’s provided as a teammate in the clubhouse. “[General manager Chris Young] said we are going to do the right things by people, by players and by fans,” Heaney tells Grant. “Chris and [manager] Bruce Bochy are baseball lifers and they understand what it means. I believed everything Chris told me when I signed here. It has been everything he presented and more.” The 33-year-old Heaney finished out the 2024 season with a 4.28 ERA in his 160 frames and logged an overall 4.22 ERA in 307 1/3 innings over his two years in Texas. He’s a free agent this winter.
Josh Sborz Seeking Answer To Recurring Shoulder Problems
- Recurring shoulder problems sent Josh Sborz to the injured list four different times this season, and limited the Rangers reliever to only 17 games and 16 1/3 innings. Sborz told Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News that he is going to consult Dr. Neal ElAttrache about the problem, and whether or not surgery could possibly be required. “For me, not having any understanding of it is what’s killing me the most,” Sborz said. “You get hurt, you want to understand it so you can mitigate the risk of it coming back. I’d like to get clarity, but the crappy thing about shoulders is there isn’t a lot of clarity.” Surgery and a lengthy recovery could turn Sborz into a non-tender candidate for the Rangers as he enters his second year of arbitration eligibility, which would be a tough outcome for a pitcher who was a key part of the Texas bullpen during the 2023 postseason. Sborz earned $1.025MM this season, and is due just a minimal raise because of all the time spent on the IL.
Latest On Josh Jung
- A CT scan on Josh Jung’s surgically-repaired right wrist revealed no structural damage, Rangers manager Bruce Bochy told reporters (including Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News). Jung missed most of the season after undergoing the surgery in early April, and was still bothered by some discomfort in his wrist after returning to the field in late July. The Rangers ended Jung’s season with an IL placement earlier this week, and Bochy said that the third baseman’s shutdown period will involve “complete rest for a couple of weeks and then we’ll test it and see where he’s at.” Jung hit only .248/.278/.367 in 169 plate appearances following his surgery.
Rangers Recall Marc Church For MLB Debut
The Rangers announced a few minor moves going into their final series of the season. Texas recalled relievers Marc Church and Daniel Robert from Triple-A Round Rock while activating Ezequiel Duran from the paternity list. The Rangers optioned Jack Leiter, Kumar Rocker and Sandro Fabian to open active roster spots.
That’s most notable for the 23-year-old Church. He joins Bruce Bochy’s bullpen for the first time and could get a chance to make his big league debut. Texas had added him to the 40-man roster last offseason to keep him out of the Rule 5 draft. He opened the season in Round Rock and missed a good portion of the year to a rotator cuff injury.
The injury has limited the former 19th-round pick to 22 1/3 innings. Church impressed in that relatively small sample, turning in a 3.22 earned run average with a near-26% strikeout rate and a solid 7.5% walk percentage. In July, Eric Longenhagen of FanGraphs ranked Church the #15 prospect in the Texas system. Longenhagen credited Church with a promising fastball/cutter combination but expressed concern about his strike-throwing consistency. The righty should be in the mix for a middle relief spot in camp next year.
Optioning Rocker and Leiter is essentially a procedural move. The former Vanderbilt teammates combined for all eight innings in yesterday’s loss to the A’s. Rocker tossed 73 pitches, while Leiter threw 48 pitches in relief. Neither was going to appear again this season. Texas will get a pair of fresh arms up to lengthen the bullpen and potentially offer Church his first work at the highest level.
Rangers Select Matt Duffy, Promote Dustin Harris
The Rangers made a handful of moves before tonight’s series opener in Oakland. Texas selected veteran infielder Matt Duffy onto the roster and recalled outfielder/infielder Dustin Harris for what’ll be his big league debut. The Rangers also activated reliever Josh Sborz from the 15-day injured list.
Texas placed third baseman Josh Jung on the 10-day IL, optioned lefty reliever Walter Pennington and put utilityman Ezequiel Duran on the paternity list. Tyler Mahle moved from the 15-day to the 60-day IL in a procedural move to open a 40-man roster spot for Duffy. Texas had already shut Mahle down on account of shoulder soreness.
The 33-year-old Duffy gets a brief opportunity to return to the majors. Duffy has been in Triple-A since signing a minor league deal in Spring Training. The veteran infielder hasn’t produced much offensively, turning in a .218/.296/.280 slash across 216 plate appearances in the Pacific Coast League. Texas was out of healthy infielders on the 40-man roster, though, so they’ll give Duffy a shot to play in the big leagues for a ninth season. He’ll back up Marcus Semien, Josh Smith and Jonathan Ornelas for the final six games of the year. Duffy will be a free agent at the start of the offseason and will be in line for another minor league contract somewhere.
Harris, 25, has a bit of third base experience himself. He has started 12 games there with Triple-A Round Rock this season. He’s primarily an outfielder, logging more than 900 frames between left and center field. The left-handed hitter carries a .272/.358/.391 slash with 10 longballs across 564 trips to the plate. That’s minimal power production for the hitter-friendly PCL, but Harris has stolen 35 bases and has strong plate discipline numbers over his minor league career.
Texas added Harris to their 40-man roster over the 2022-23 offseason. They’ve remained intrigued enough by his physical tools to keep him on the roster even while he was on optional assignment in the minors. Baseball America ranked Harris as the #11 prospect in the system on its midseason update. He could make his MLB debut against the organization that drafted him. Harris was an 11th-round pick by the A’s in 2019. Oakland traded him to the Rangers the following summer in a deadline deal for lefty Mike Minor.
Jung’s season comes to a close because of right wrist discomfort. The All-Star third baseman broke his wrist on a hit-by-pitch in the first week of the season. He underwent surgery that sidelined him until the end of July. Jung hasn’t played up to his 2023 level since returning and he’ll finish the year with a .264/.298/.421 slash in 46 games. Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News wrote this week that Jung will visit a specialist on Thursday to determine the source of his ongoing discomfort. He’ll hope for a mostly healthy offseason.
Max Scherzer Open To Returning To Rangers In 2025
- Speaking of injury-plagued seasons, Max Scherzer’s 2024 campaign officially ended when a hamstring strain sent him to the Rangers’ 15-day injured list yesterday. Limited to a career-low 43 1/3 innings in 2024, Scherzer has already stated that he wants to return for an 18th big league season, and he told MLB.com’s Kennedi Landry (X link) and other reporters today that he is open to returning to Texas. Jacob deGrom, Jon Gray, Tyler Mahle, Jack Leiter, Kumar Rocker, Dane Dunning, and Cody Bradford are all lined up as rotation locks or candidates for the Rangers next season, so on paper, there might not be room for a reunion with Scherzer even on a one-year deal. That said, there’s also enough uncertainty within that projected depth chart that Texas might want still seek out more arms, and a pitcher with Scherzer’s track record still has plenty of upside even at age 40.
Rangers Place Max Scherzer On 15-Day Injured List
The Rangers announced today that they’ve placed veteran right-hander Max Scherzer on the 15-day injured list due to a strained left hamstring. Right-hander Gerson Garabito was recalled to take Scherzer’s place on the active roster. Scherzer was scheduled to start tonight’s game against the Mariners, but that start will go to right-hander Dane Dunning instead.
The news brings to an end Scherzer’s 2024 season. In all, Scherzer managed just nine starts and 43 1/3 innings of work this year, the first time since his rookie year back in 2008 where he pitched less than 145 1/3 innings in a 162-game season. His results weren’t especially dominant even when healthy enough to take the mound, either. His 92.6mph average on his fastball was the lowest of his career, while a 22.6% strikeout rate, 3.95 ERA (100 ERA+), and a 4.18 FIP were all closer to pedestrian than elite. Since being acquired from the Mets in exchange for infield prospect Luisangel Acuna last summer, the veteran righty has pitched to a 3.57 ERA with a 3.79 FIP in 88 1/3 innings of work for Texas.
Those may turn out to be the only innings Scherzer pitches in a Rangers uniform. The future Hall of Famer’s contract in Texas runs only through the end of the current campaign, and he now appears ticketed for another trip through free agency. Scherzer celebrated his 40th birthday back in July and has dealt with a number of injury concerns this year ranging from offseason back surgery to nerve irritation in his throwing hand and triceps area on different occasions, but that hasn’t stopped the veteran from planning to continue pitching next year.
Even on the heels of the first injury-marred campaign of his career, Scherzer’s overall resume speaks for itself: the veteran boasts more than 3400 strikeouts in his career to go with eight career All-Star appearances, three Cy Young award wins, and three additional years wherein he was a finalist for the awards. The right-hander hasn’t posted an ERA north of 4.00 or a below-average ERA+ since 2011, and since then he sports a 2.95 ERA and 3.00 FIP, to say nothing of his career 3.78 ERA and 28.8% strikeout rate in the postseason and the two World Series rings he’s earned as a result of those 143 innings of work in the playoffs over the years. Still, at Scherzer’s age and coming off a platform season that raised plenty of questions about his ability to act as the workhorse starting pitcher he was throughout his 30s now that he’s entering his 40s, it’s not entirely clear what sort of market awaits the veteran ace in free agency.
Texas has exciting young arms like Kumar Rocker and Jack Leiter coming up from the farm system to join a 2025 rotation corps that includes Dunning, Jacob deGrom, Jon Gray, Cody Bradford, and Tyler Mahle, but a return to the Rangers certainly can’t be ruled out. After all, Scherzer is likely to be joined in heading for free agency by Nathan Eovaldi, Andrew Heaney, and Jose Urena. That quartet has combined to start 74 of the Rangers’ 154 games to this point in the season, or nearly half of the club’s contests. Given the combination of youth and lengthy injury histories at play in Texas’s current rotation group headed into next year, it would hardly be a surprise to see the club prioritize adding at least one arm to help carry the load of the departing starters.
Of course, a player with Scherzer’s storied resume could easily draw interest from plenty of other clubs in the league the league. The right-hander’s former teams in Detroit and D.C. are both seemingly ready to take the next step after lengthy rebuilding periods and could benefit from adding a veteran arm to their young rotations, and Scherzer’s hometown Cardinals appear likely to try and revamp their rotation mix behind staff ace Sonny Gray after their second-straight disappointing season. Given the ace’s talent when healthy and the fact that his age and recent injury history appear likely to limit him to a short-term deal, there’s countless teams that could reasonably be positioned to take a chance on the 40-year-old future Hall of Famer this winter.
