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The Opener: DFA Limbo, Flaherty, Sugano, Team Debuts

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With baseball officially back for all 30 clubs, here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on as we head into the weekend:

1. Players in DFA Limbo:

In the run-up to Opening Day, a number of players — many of them out of minor league options — were designated for assignment to clear space for prospects or veteran non-roster players who won an Opening Day job in spring training. MLBTR’s Anthony Franco took a look yesterday at the 23 players who were DFA’d ahead of Opening Day, including a former consensus top-100 prospect in Oscar Colas.

The window during which players can remain in limbo following a DFA lasts one week, during which time clubs must either work out a trade involving the player or place him on waivers to be claimed by any interested club. Should they clear waivers, some players (i.e. those with three-plus years of service or a prior outright assignment) will be able to elect free agency and pursue an opportunity elsewhere on their own terms. Others will simply be assigned outright to the minor leagues and serve as non-roster depth for their current clubs.

2. Flaherty returns to Los Angeles:

The Tigers are in Los Angeles facing the Dodgers, and right-hander Jack Flaherty (3.17 ERA in 2024) is poised to take the mound today for Detroit. It’s a homecoming for the right-hander, who was traded from the Tigers to the Dodgers last summer and pitched well down the stretch before being part of their postseason rotation as they stormed to their second World Series championship in five years. In his first start of the season, he’ll now face many of those teammates with whom he celebrated a World Series win just a few months ago. On the bump opposite Flaherty for the Dodgers today is righty Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who pitched five innings of one-run ball against the Cubs in the Tokyo Series earlier this month to kick off his own regular season. The game is set to begin at 7:10pm local time in Los Angeles.

3. Sugano to make MLB debut, others to make team debuts:

On Sunday, the Orioles will wrap up a four-game set against the Blue Jays with right-hander Tomoyuki Sugano on the mound opposite veteran righty Chris Bassitt (4.16 ERA in 2024). Sugano, 35, is a veteran of 12 seasons in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. He’s been sensational in NPB play throughout his career, with a lifetime 2.43 ERA across more than 1800 innings of work with the Yomiuri Giants. Sugano enjoyed a vintage final season in NPB last year, posting a 1.67 ERA in 156 2/3 frames despite a strikeout rate of just 18.3%. Now that he’s in his mid-30s, Sugano will get the opportunity to test himself against MLB players for the first time, facing a lineup that features noted sluggers like Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Anthony Santander in a game scheduled for 1:37pm local time in Toronto.

Sugano is the only “rookie” scheduled to start a game this weekend, but we’ll get the first true glimpse at a number of players in their new environs. Among them are Max Fried with the Yankees, Charlie Morton with the Orioles, Nestor Cortes with the Brewers (in New York against his former Yankee teammates), Max Scherzer with the Blue Jays, Justin Verlander with the Giants, Jesus Luzardo with the Phillies and Walker Buehler with the Red Sox.

Julio Urías Suspended Through 2025 All-Star Break

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Major League Baseball has announced that free agent left-hander Julio Urías has been suspended through the 2025 All-Star break. He will be reinstated from the restricted list on July 17. “The Office of the Commissioner of Baseball has completed its investigation into allegations that free agent pitcher Julio Urías violated Major League Baseball’s Joint Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault and Child Abuse Policy,” commissioner Rob Manfred says in the league statement. “Having reviewed all of the available evidence, I have concluded that Mr. Urías violated our Policy and that discipline is appropriate.” Urías becomes the first player to receive a second suspension for a violation of this policy.

In September of 2023, Urías was arrested and charged with felony domestic violence charges. An alleged altercation occurred outside BMO Stadium in downtown Los Angeles following a Major League Soccer game between LAFC and Inter Miami. Law enforcement obtained civilian video of the incident, which appeared to show Urías in a physical altercation with a woman. He was booked and released on a $50K bond. A member of the Dodgers at that time, he was placed on administrative leave shortly thereafter. He became a free agent at the end of the 2023 season.

In December of that year, it was reported that law enforcement official had completed their investigation and turned their findings over to the L.A. County District Attorney’s office to determine whether charges would be filed. In January of 2024, it was reported that no felony charges would be filed, with the investigation forwarded to the L.A. City Attorney’s Office to determine whether misdemeanor charges are warranted.

In April, he was charged with five misdemeanors: spousal battery, two counts of domestic battery involving dating relationship, one count of false imprisonment and one count of assault. In May, he pleaded no contest to one domestic battery charge, with the other charges dropped as a condition of his plea. At that time, the L.A. City Attorney’s office said that Urias would be placed on 36 months of probation, complete 30 days of community service, complete a year-long domestic violence counseling program, pay a fee to a domestic violence fund, pay restitution to the victim and abide by a protective order, in addition to being forbidden from possessing any weapons.

As mentioned, Urías is the first player to best twice suspended for violations of the domestic violence policy. In 2019, he was arrested after after reportedly shoving a female companion to the ground. The Los Angeles City Attorney ultimately deferred prosecution in that matter, conditional on Urías completing a 52-week domestic violence counseling program, among other criteria. Under the joint domestic violence, sexual assault, and child abuse policy agreed to by Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association, the league can impose discipline even in the absence of charges and Urías ultimately received a 20-game suspension.

Photo courtesy Orlando Ramirez, Imagn Images.

Report: No Major League Offers For Verdugo This Offseason

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Alex Verdugo is one of the most prominent names still lingering on the free agent market, and it doesn’t sound as though he’s been close to coming off the board at any point. Brendan Kuty of The Athletic reports that Verdugo has yet to receive a formal major league offer from any team since becoming a free agent back in November. Kuty chatted with now-former teammates Aaron Judge, Anthony Volpe, Marcus Stroman and Trent Grisham about the situation, each of whom expressed surprise that Verdugo is unsigned and spoke highly of him as a teammate and member of the Yankees’ 2024 clubhouse.

Verdugo has drawn at least some interest from big league teams this winter — the Pirates, Angels and Astros among them. While Verdugo may not have received a formal written offer, Jon Heyman of the New York Post reported recently that Pittsburgh “floated” a number around $8MM in discussions with the outfielder before pivoting to sign Tommy Pham for a year and $4.05MM. It’s not clear whether Verdugo didn’t find that number appealing or whether the Bucs preferred to spread out their limited resources. They signed Pham and Andrew Heaney for a combined $9.3MM.

The Astros were known to be looking for left-handed-hitting outfield help, but the front office has spent the offseason facing payroll limitations. Owner Jim Crane was seemingly only willing to exceed the luxury tax for Alex Bregman and Bregman alone. Houston was only about $5-6MM shy of the tax threshold when Ben Gamel was signed to a one-year, $1.2MM deal that seemingly closed the door on any potential match with Verdugo.

Verdugo, 29 in May, is coming off the worst full season of his career. His lone year with the Yankees resulted in a .233/.291/.356 batting line that clocked in 17% worse than average, by measure of wRC+. That paltry end-of-season line comes despite a terrific start to his 2024 campaign. Through mid-May, Verdugo was batting .275/.362/.450 in 141 plate appearances. He fell into a deep slump shortly thereafter and never really managed to recover; over his final 480 trips to the plate, he mustered only a .221/.270/.330 output. The only qualified hitters with a lower wRC+ than Verdugo’s mark of 69 during that time (indicating he was 31% below par at the plate) were Maikel Garcia and Bryan De La Cruz.

Even with that rough year, however, it’s still a moderate surprise that Verdugo’s market has been so quiet. He’s more than a year shy of his 30th birthday, and from 2019-23 he was a solid regular, hitting a combined .283/.338/.432 with solid or better corner outfield defense. He averaged two to three wins above replacement per 162 games played during that stretch. He might not be an All-Star like some had envisioned during his yearslong run as one of the sport’s top 100 prospects, but Verdugo has generally been a serviceable regular outside of his rough 2024 campaign.

At this point, it seems he might need to wait for an injury to create an opportunity for him. While there are still several teams that could clearly use a corner outfield upgrade, most clubs in that situation have either spent the bulk of their offseason budgets (e.g. Royals) or shown little to no interest whatsoever in spending this winter (e.g. Marlins).

Submit Your Questions For This Week’s Episode Of The MLBTR Podcast

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On the MLB Trade Rumors podcast, we regularly answer questions from our readers and listeners. With the next episode set for Wednesday, we’re looking for MLBTR’s audience to submit their questions and we’ll pick a few to answer.

The 2025 Major League Baseball season is about to begin. If you have a question about a positional battle, a look ahead to the summer or anything else baseball-related, we’d love to hear from you! You can email your questions to mlbtrpod@gmail.com.

Also, if you want to hear your voice on the podcast, send us your question in audio form and we might play it. iPhone users can find instructions on how to do so here.

In the meantime, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Submit Your Questions For This Week’s Episode Of The MLBTR Podcast

By | at

On the MLB Trade Rumors podcast, we regularly answer questions from our readers and listeners. With the next episode set for Wednesday, we’re looking for MLBTR’s audience to submit their questions and we’ll pick a few to answer.

Regular season games are only about a week away, thanks to the Tokyo Series. Full Opening Day is just over two weeks away. If you have a question about a camp battle, a look ahead to the season or anything else baseball-related, we’d love to hear from you! You can email your questions to mlbtrpod@gmail.com.

Also, if you want to hear your voice on the podcast, send us your question in audio form and we might play it. iPhone users can find instructions on how to do so here.

In the meantime, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Kyle Gibson Intends To Continue Playing

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Kyle Gibson stands as the top unsigned starting pitcher following Jose Quintana’s one-year deal with Milwaukee. Jon Morosi of the MLB Network reports that the 37-year-old Gibson plans to pitch this year. The former All-Star has been throwing live batting practice to college hitters to ensure he’s not starting from scratch whenever he signs. Morosi indicates that Gibson has gotten up to 60 pitches in those sessions.

Opening Day is just over three weeks off. It’s reaching the point where teams could have concerns about a pitcher’s readiness for the start of the regular season if they’re not currently in camp. (Lance Lynn and Spencer Turnbull are among other free agent starters of note.) Though throwing batting practice to non-professional hitters isn’t a direct substitute for Spring Training, it should at least keep Gibson generally on track for whenever he puts pen to paper.

Gibson has been a back-of-the-rotation workhorse for most of his career. He has thrown nearly 1900 innings over a career spanning parts of 12 seasons. Gibson has started at least 29 games on nine occasions. He has nine seasons with 150+ innings, including three years with 190+ frames. The Missouri product tossed 169 2/3 innings over 30 starts for the Cardinals last season. He pitched to a 4.24 ERA with a slightly below-average 20.9% strikeout rate.

St. Louis declined a $12MM option in favor of a $1MM buyout. Gibson looked like a candidate for an eight-figure salary on a one-year deal early in the offseason. That’s tough to envision at this stage. The early robust rotation market has cooled. Quintana was limited to a $4.25MM guarantee. Andrew Heaney signed with Pittsburgh for $5.25MM a couple weeks ago. Gibson is probably looking at a similar price point.

There hasn’t been any kind of recent reporting on potential landing spots. The Cardinals initially expressed openness to bringing Gibson back at a lower price, but they probably expected to trade at least one starter in a move that would have offloaded salary. That hasn’t transpired. The Tigers were linked to Gibson early in the winter; they’ve subsequently added Alex Cobb and re-signed Jack Flaherty. MLBTR’s afternoon poll asked readers to predict Gibson’s landing spot. No team received even 10% of the vote. The Cardinals are narrowly ahead of the Mets as the poll’s plurality favorite.

Submit Your Questions For A Mailbag Episode Of The MLB Trade Rumors Podcast

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On the MLB Trade Rumors podcast, we regularly answer questions from our readers and listeners. With the major free agents all now off the board, there’s less big news to discuss, giving us more pod time to focus on digging through the mailbag.

If you have a question about a past transaction, a look ahead to the rest of the spring, the upcoming 2025 season or anything else baseball-related, we’d love to hear from you! You can email your questions to mlbtrpod@gmail.com.

Also, if you want to hear your voice on the podcast, send us your question in audio form and we might play it. iPhone users can find instructions on how to do so here.

In the meantime, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Commissioner’s Office Considering Petition To Remove Pete Rose From Ineligible List

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MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred is considering a petition filed by the family of Pete Rose to have Rose posthumously reinstated from the ineligible list, according to a report from Don Van Natta Jr. of ESPN. Rose passed away in September at the age of 83, and Van Natta notes that the petition was filed on January 8 following a conversation between Rose’s daughter Fawn, the family’s lawyer, and the commissioner’s office that took place on December 17.

The timing of the report is notable given that President Donald Trump commented on Rose late last night, suggesting that he would sign a posthumous pardon for Rose in the coming weeks. Qasim Nauman and Michael S. Schmidt of the New York Times were among those who reported on Mr. Trump’s comments this morning. Such a pardon would have no bearing on Rose’s status within the game of baseball, and Nauman and Schmidt note that it would instead focus on a five-month sentence Rose served in federal prison back in 1990 after filing false income tax returns.

Tax issues, of course, are not the reason that Rose is currently on baseball’s permanently ineligible list. MLB announced late in the 1989 season that an investigation had revealed Rose had placed bets on baseball, including games his team was participating in, during his time as manager of the Reds. Subsequent reporting in the decades following Rose’s placement on the ineligible list indicated that Rose also placed bets during his time as a player. Rose never admitted to those allegations, though he did acknowledge that he had bet on baseball as a manager in 2004.

Rose only bet on his team to win, and there’s no evidence that he made an attempt to fix any MLB game. Even so, that’s a violation of MLB’s biggest rule and grounds for a lifetime ban, leading the league to place Rose on the permanently ineligible list. Not long after Rose’s ban, in 1991, the Hall of Fame announced a policy stating that anyone who was suspended from MLB for life was ineligible for induction. As such, Rose has never been on a Hall of Fame ballot, though there’s little question that a lifetime .303/.375/.409 hitter with the most career hits in MLB history and 79.5 bWAR would be a slam-dunk candidate for induction if looking exclusively at his numbers on the field.

Ever since Rose’s suspension, the hit king’s worthiness for a Hall of Fame induction has been a divisive topic among fans of the game. An icon of the game with hitting records that could very well prove virtually unbreakable and a staple of Reds history with three World Series championships under his belt, Rose was among the very best players of his era. He remains a controversial figure, however, particularly in an era where the Hall’s voters made the controversial decision not to elect other titans of the game such as Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens to Cooperstown in light of their association with the league’s performance-enhancing drug scandal and baseball has had to reckon with the increased presence of sports betting not only within United States culture, but also as a partner of MLB and its clubs.

The possibility that Rose could be posthumously reinstated from the ineligible list is the latest development in that debate, and could theoretically open the door for Rose to be considered for entry into Cooperstown. Representatives of the Hall of Fame have previously stated that players who are on the permanently ineligible list will not be considered for induction even after death, suggesting that Rose’s passing will have no bearing on the Hall’s willingness to consider him. Van Natta notes, however, that Manfred reportedly views placement on the permanently ineligible list as a punishment that ends upon the player’s death for “all practical purposes.” Formally removing Rose from the ineligible list, then, could open the door for the Hall to reconsider its stance on Rose’s eligibility.

Notably, Manfred himself has made clear in the past that the Hall of Fame’s decisions regarding Rose or any other player do not fall under his purview. As relayed by Jeffrey Flanagan of MLB.com at the time, “It is not part of [MLB’s] authority or responsibility here to make any determination concerning Mr. Rose’s eligibility as a candidate for election to the National Baseball Hall of Fame… any debate over Mr. Rose’s eligibility for the Hall of Fame is one that must take place in a different forum.”

Submit Your Questions For A Mailbag Episode Of The MLB Trade Rumors Podcast

By | at

On the MLB Trade Rumors podcast, we regularly answer questions from our readers and listeners. With the major free agents all now off the board, there’s less big news to discuss, giving us more pod time to focus on digging through the mailbag.

If you have a question about a past transaction, a look ahead to the rest of the spring or anything else baseball-related, we’d love to hear from you! You can email your questions to mlbtrpod@gmail.com.

Also, if you want to hear your voice on the podcast, send us your question in audio form and we might play it. iPhone users can find instructions on how to do so here.

In the meantime, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Anthony Rizzo Hopes To Continue Playing Career

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Anthony Rizzo remains unsigned as Spring Training gets underway. The 35-year-old first baseman tells Ken Rosenthal and Brendan Kuty of The Athletic that he’s hopeful of finding a landing spot for the upcoming season. However, he suggested he’s been underwhelmed by the interest he’s received even relative to diminished expectations.

“Two years ago, I had kind of a weird year with the concussion,” Rizzo conceded to The Athletic. “Then last year, I was hurt twice. My power numbers dropped. I’m surprised, but not like crazy surprised just because I’m a realist in the game and you’re getting older. The fact that teams want you to play for basically league minimum. I’m like, you guys are crazy. You’re almost trying to ruin the market for the next guy.”

Rizzo nevertheless made clear that he wants to keep playing. “I’m going to train until the season starts and even well into the season and see what happens,” the three-time All-Star said. However, he acknowledged that the market hasn’t been kind to aging hitters. “I think I have a lot to give to the game still. But at the same time, if teams are not going to want to pay a few million dollars for veterans, I’ve seen it the last 10 years of my career. It’s what happens to the older guys. They kind of get squeezed,” Rizzo told Rosenthal and Kuty. “You’ve seen it happen more and more. I’m not naive to it. It could be it.”

As Rizzo acknowledged, his past couple seasons have been impacted by myriad health issues. Initially acquired by the Yankees at the 2021 trade deadline, he re-signed on a two-year, $40MM deal after the ’22 campaign. That deal didn’t work out in large part because of injuries. Rizzo had been out to a nice start to the ’23 season. He injured his head in a collision at first base with Fernando Tatis Jr. in late May. Rizzo’s production tanked thereafter until the Yankees put him on the injured list in early August with post-concussion syndrome that they traced back to that collision. That ended his season.

The 14-year big league veteran returned last season. He got out to a slow start, hitting .224/.289/.341 across 291 plate appearances into the middle of June. Another freak injury resulted in an extended absence. Rizzo collided with Boston pitcher Brennan Bernardino at first base while trying to beat out a grounder. He broke a bone in his right arm on the fall and was immediately shelved into September. Rizzo returned for a few weeks, but he suffered another tough break when Pittsburgh reliever Ryan Borucki hit him with a pitch. That broke two fingers on his right hand. Rizzo missed the Division Series but returned for the ALCS and World Series. He reached base at an excellent .421 clip, though he only recorded one extra-base hit (a double) in 38 playoff plate appearances.

New York bought out Rizzo for $6MM in lieu of a $17MM club option, an easy call after the past couple seasons. There haven’t been any teams publicly linked to him over the past few months. MLBTR’s Steve Adams identified a few speculative fits for Rizzo and some other unsigned hitters in a post for Front Office subscribers this afternoon.

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