Kevin Sousa-Imagn Images

Previous Outfield Reviews

• Marsee, Caglianone, Carpenter, & Crews
• Marte, Doyle, Stowers, & Butler
• Nimmo, Ward, Profar, Happ

I’m examining outfielders starting around 150 ADP. A few guys have moved, so a few went early in recent drafts. Read the rest of this entry »

Brett Davis-Imagn Images

Previous Outfield Reviews

• Marsee, Caglianone, Carpenter, & Crews
• Marte, Doyle, Stowers, & Butler

I’m working my way down the outfielders and first big tier drop. An 18 pick difference between Ward and Profar (there are others between Nimmo and Ward). I’m not sure what to make of it just yet. Read the rest of this entry »

Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images

Note: I didn’t get through all the notes around the GM meetings, so their are a few notes coming out a few weeks late.

Free Agents

• Tommy Pham dealt with plantar fasciitis last year.

As far as the stolen bases go, Pham is confident he can make up ground quickly — now that he addressed a foot issue that he said had been plaguing him.

Pham played last season with plantar fasciitis, he said, and the issue worsened as the season went on. So earlier in the offseason, Pham said, he handled the problem through stem cell therapy.

Read the rest of this entry »

Benny Sieu-Imagn Images

• Ryan Helsley would like to add a two-seamer or a changeup to his arsenal so he can be a starter.

Helsley is contemplating adding another pitch to his arsenal, possibly a two-seamer or a changeup, to help prevent that predictability next year. He currently has four pitches, though he rarely uses his curveball and cutter. In 2025, Helsley essentially utilized a two-pitch mix. He threw his slider 47 percent of the time, with his four-seamer next at 45 percent. He turned to his curveball just 6 percent of the time and threw his cutter only 13 times (1.3 percent).

Expanding his arsenal is something Helsley will need to do if he signs with a team that views him as a starter. Though other teams have inquired about the transition, the Tigers are the most serious suitors at this time. Helsley came up through the Cardinals’ system as a starting pitching prospect, and he did not throw in relief until debuting in the majors. However, Helsley has been a reliever for his entire MLB career. He is not opposed to starting but is more comfortable in a closer’s role.

Read the rest of this entry »

David Banks-Imagn Images

Free Agents

• Dustin May’s elbow feels great.

Free agent right-hander Dustin May says that he is “fully back to normal” and that his elbow feels great, according to Christopher Smith of MassLive. May went on the injured list on September 9 with right elbow neuritis and did not pitch for the rest of the regular season or during the Wild Card Series.

• Enrique Hernández needed elbow surgery after playing through the injury for most of last season.

Dodgers utilityman Kiké Hernández had surgery on Friday to repair a torn muscle in his elbow. The veteran announced the procedure in an Instagram post. Hernández said he suffered the injury in May and played through it the rest of the season, which led to the elbow tendon detaching from the bone.

Read the rest of this entry »

Steven Bisig-USA TODAY Sports

• Tatsuya Imai (link) and Munetaka Murakami (link) have officially been posted.

• Free agent Lucas Giolito is no longer injured.

Adding to Giolito’s frustration was the fact that after getting the diagnosis and beginning some rehab work, “within three days, my elbow felt 100 percent fine again,” the right-hander told WEEI.com’s Rob Bradford on the latest edition of the Baseball Isn’t Boring podcast (partial transcript here). With no UCL damage discovered and the inflammation subsided, Giolito planned to quickly start a throwing program with the intention of returning later in the playoffs, except Boston’s run was cut short early.

As the offseason and Giolito’s free agency now begins, he said that is now “fully healthy,” even though he understands the complications that bought on by his late flexor issue. He said he is “happy to prove that I’m fully healthy in any way possible” to any skeptical front offices, and that the injury is completely behind him.

“There’s no injury, or whatever injury there was is gone. It was a weird, freak thing that popped up at the worst possible time, not only for the Red Sox but for myself and in general,” Giolito said. “Just the worst possible time. It makes my free agency harder. It prevented me from pitching in the playoffs where I had been a part of the rotation pretty much the entire year. It was just a very, very tough one to swallow. I still don’t like thinking about it.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Paul Rutherford-Imagn Images

• Hiroto Saiki will NOT be posted after all.

RHP Hiroto Saiki is not expected to have his posting to MLB approved by the Hanshin Tigers following the team’s loss in the Japan Series.https://t.co/2yeooFhzSV

— Yakyu Cosmopolitan (@yakyucosmo) October 31, 2025

American League

Blue Jays

• Bo Bichette will not have offseason knee surgery.

Bo Bichette says he’s not anticipating needing off-season surgery on his knee.

— Ben Nicholson-Smith (@bnicholsonsmith) October 31, 2025

Guardians

Mariners

• Bryce Miller will not have surgery to remove a bone spur that bothered him last season.

Seattle right-hander Bryce Miller is not expected to need elbow surgery this offseason, reports Adam Jude of the Seattle Times. Miller had multiple stints on the injured list this past season due to elbow inflammation. He returned for the final six weeks of the regular season and made three starts in the playoffs. “I finished the year the best I felt all year — three good starts, I felt like,” Miller told Jude. “My body and my arm feel good, so just get better, get fully healthy and be ready to go from Day 1 next year.”

Miller was diagnosed with a bone spur in his elbow and received a PRP injection in early June. He relayed to Jude that he has an upcoming appointment to determine the next steps in treatment. Miller said the likely route is a gel cortisone injection early this offseason, and potentially another one at the start of spring training. “Now that we know how to deal with the bone spur, we can figure out what we need to do exactly with it and go from there,” Miller told Jude. He added that he’d be “surprised” if the appointment led to an invasive procedure.

Red Sox

• Jen McCaffrey of The Athletic thinks Connelly Early will be in the rotation before Payton Tolle.

That said, I think Early is a bit ahead of Tolle, both in development because he’s a year further along and in terms of his major league readiness. I could see a scenario where he’s the No. 5 starter on Opening Day, but of course, there are a lot of moving parts this winter. We’ve also seen that the rotation the team thinks it has at the start of spring inevitably gets shuffled because of a pitcher injury or setback in the spring.

Tigers

• Gleyber Torres had hernia surgery.

Torres’ representatives announced the successful surgery on social media Friday morning. He is expected to be healthy for the start of Spring Training in a few months.

• Top prospect, Max Anderson, is working on playing third base and hitting the ball in the air in the Arizona Fall League.

Anderson is seeking something similar. He made 21 appearances at the hot corner – a spot he had never appeared professionally – between Double-A Erie and Triple-A Toledo during the regular season, and he has made each of his first seven defensive starts there with Scottsdale.
…
Even beyond the raw statistics, there were things that Anderson would have to improve upon in his second full pro year – his 55.4 percent ground-ball rate at Double-A among them. He dropped that mark by more than 10 percent during his time with Erie in ‘25 (44.8 percent).

“As simple as it sounds, really just trying to hit the bottom of the ball,” said Anderson. “Nothing crazy, no swing changes or anything, just trying to get under it, as simple as it sounds – it’s almost more of a mentality than a swing change.”

White Sox

• Tim Elko just had knee surgery and expects to miss eight months.

1B Tim Elko
Injury: Torn ACL in right knee
Expected return: June-July 2026
Status: Elko underwent successful surgery to repair the torn ACL on Oct. 28, performed by Dr. Lyle Cain at the Andrews Sports Medicine and Orthopedic Center in Birmingham, Ala. His estimated recovery time is eight months, per the team.

National League

Diamondbacks

• Jordan Lawlar is getting center field reps.

Los azules en La Romana para esta noche… 😎👑#ElgLorioso 💙 pic.twitter.com/hx7IXHTV63

— Tigres del Licey (@TigresdelLicey) October 28, 2025

Padres

• The team plans on Luis Campusano contributing next season.

The majority of the Padres’ arbitration-eligible players are expected back in 2026. Luis Campusano, who made $1 million in ‘25, is an interesting case, but Preller, speaking during his end-of-season press conference, noted that Campusano would be part of the team’s plans this winter.

Reds

• There are no plans to move Elly De La Cruz to the outfield.

As for the common question of whether De La Cruz should be moved off shortstop to center field to get more production from him offensively, that’s not in the club’s plans.

“As of right now, no,” Krall said.

Rockies

• Kris Bryant’s back is all jacked up and getting worse.

Kris Bryant has played in only 170 games over his four seasons with the Rockies, and the 2025 campaign saw Bryant appear in just 10 games before his recurring back issues brought his season to an early close. Lumbar degenerative disc disease has left Bryant feeling pain while performing basically every baseball activity not related to swinging, and the former NL MVP told the Denver Post’s Patrick Saunders, and this discomfort has now extended to his day-to-day life.

“It’s exhausting for me waking up and hoping to feel [better],” Bryant said. “I can’t tell you the last time I woke up feeling I’m in a good spot….If you asked me two or three months ago, I would say [my back pain] was not affecting my everyday life. But now it is, which is really annoying to me because usually when you kind of just rest, it’s supposed to get better. So maybe I’m at a point where I should just do a bunch of stuff to see if that helps me.”

Syndication: Arizona Republic

Last season, Josh Naylor and Juan Soto defied all expectations and each stole at least 30 bases. In the previous three seasons combined, they stole just 25 or fewer bases. With such a major jump, I wanted to see how many bases players stole after such a major increase. The answer is way more than I would have guessed. Read the rest of this entry »

Syndication: The Enquirer

With no ADP yet, I’m going to start diving into some deeper outfielders. For the players, I used the last outfielders drafted in the first 11 rounds of the Too Early Meatball Draft. One caveat: I’m not going to feature anyone who is still playing (sorry, Andy Pages) or should be a free agent. I want as much information as possible on the player. There are plenty of outfielders to examine now and then later. Read the rest of this entry »

Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images

• Anthony Kay will return to the majors after pitching in Japan

Lefty Anthony Kay, the Mets' 2016 first-round pick, is expected to return to MLB after two years in Japan. He led NPB this year in groundball rate (57.8%) while setting Yokohama's single season ERA record (1.74) and pitching 155 innings. His fastball averaged 94.6 MPH.

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) October 22, 2025

Here are the MLB results for his comps. His 7.6 K/9 with a “high” 2.4 BB/9 limits his upside.

• And now Kazuma Okamoto will be posted at some point.

The Yomiuri Giants will allow Kazuma Okamoto to move to MLB via the posting system. https://t.co/BG3jqp7LHY

— Jason Coskrey (@JCoskrey) October 22, 2025

American League

Red Sox

• Kristian Campbell plans on “adding weight and gaining strength”.

Campbell is expected to head to Fort Myers, Fla. soon. The Red Sox are hosting their offseason training program there for minor leaguers, which began in early October and runs through mid November. Once there he’ll get back into baseball activities, but the main goals there will be on adding weight and gaining strength.

“A big focus for him this offseason, he lost some weight during the year, adding some of that weight back and it’ll be getting back the strength that allowed him to impact the baseball the way he could,” Abraham said. “That allowed him to have the range in both the infield and outfield and that will be a focus.”
…
But a lack of strength and mass likely led to Campbell’s dip in exit velocity and his ability to impact the ball. His ferocious swing and hard-hit rates had been his calling card. In the spring, he made it to the final four of a hitting tournament the team held for its minor leaguers. That hard-hit ability was part of the reason he was added to the team at the start of the season.

Here are his 2025 MLB avgEV per month and his AAA average.

Month: avgEV
Apr: 89.5
May: 89.0
Jun: 85.9
MiLB: 84.0

He suffered a rib injury May 1st, but his exit velocities stayed up in May, but everything else fell apart. He posted a .902 OPS in April and just a .355 OPS in May (.799 OPS in AAA).

Tigers

• According to his manager, Troy Melton will be a starter.

Melton will not have to handle another move next year. And as the Tigers revisit questions about their rotation for next season, Melton — who totaled 129 1/3 innings in the Minors, regular season and playoffs — is a potentially big part.

“He’s a starter,” Hinch said.

• The team expects to have some help from players in AA …

“I expect the players that posted dominant years in Double-A to factor into our big league team next year,” Harris said. “They’ve earned it. They posted incredible years as 20-year-olds, very young for the level. I expect their progress to continue, and I expect them to be in Detroit at some point next year.”

… and here are the players listed on options.

Kevin McGonigle, IF (Tigers No. 1, MLB No. 2)
…
Max Clark, CF (Tigers No. 2, MLB No. 8)
…
Max Anderson, IF (Tigers No. 9)
…
Josue Briceño, C/1B (Tigers No. 3, MLB No. 33)

Yankees

• Ben Rice started the 2025 season with a new batting stance and added weight.

So Rice spent last offseason teaching himself to begin with his right foot nearly at the edge of the batter’s box — or in an open stance. It made all the difference. With a new stance — and with approximately 10 pounds of added strength — Rice turned in a stellar second big-league season at the plate, hitting .255 with 26 home runs, 65 RBIs and an .836 OPS. His 131 OPS+ meant that he produced at a rate 31 percent better than the league-average hitter.

National League

Brewers

• William Contreras may have surgery on his finger and Caleb Durbin did have elbow surgery.

End of season injury news from the Brewers:

– William Contreras will see a hand specialist next week for a “potential correction” of his fractured left middle finger.

– Caleb Durbin will have arthroscopic elbow surgery on Oct. 30. Expected healthy in time for ‘26.

— Adam McCalvy (@AdamMcCalvy) October 23, 2025

• Sal Frelick will not have surgery on his bothersome knee.

Frelick battled knee soreness over the final months of the regular season. He missed a handful of games in early August, but never went to the IL. Offseason imaging on the knee came back clean, with the team describing the findings as “unremarkable.” Frelick is expected to have a normal offseason.

Cardinals

• There is a chance Lars Nootbaar misses the start of the season.

This morning during “Sports on a Sunday Morning” on @KMOXSports, #STLCards POBO Chaim Bloom told me that Opening Day is not off-the-table but not guaranteed for Lars Nootbaar following his heel surgery. They will not hurry the rehab process but if he does miss time at the start…

— Matt Pauley 🎙️ (@MattPauleyOnAir) October 26, 2025

Dodgers

• Tommy Edman might need offseason surgery on his ankle.

However, while Edman stated before Game Two that his ankle is “healthy,” he said that potential offseason surgery could be an option.

“Ankle’s feeling really good,” Edman said. “I haven’t really talked that through with Doc. I think the plan is just second base for now. Maybe that will be a conversation. I’m not really sure. But for now, just second base.”

Edman was unable to give a clear answer when asked if he would need surgery on his right ankle during the offseason.

Mets

• Francisco Lindor had minor surgery on his elbow.

Francisco Lindor underwent a right elbow operation after the completion of the 2025 regular season, the Mets announced Wednesday, but the shortstop is expected to make a full recovery before the start of Spring Training.

The surgery, a right elbow debridement, came two years after Lindor underwent a procedure to remove bone spurs from the same elbow.

• Christian Scott expects to be a “full participant in spring training” …

With the season over, however, Scott said the plan is to move on to a “de-load” period before ramping things back up in January. The Mets’ top pitching prospect in 2024, according to The Athletic’s Keith Law, Scott hopes to be a full participant in spring training.

“It’s going really smoothly,” Scott said over the phone from Port St. Lucie, Fla., which he has essentially called home since Jan. 4. “I haven’t really had any setbacks or had anything that’s really come up at all. I’ve looked back at the nine games I’ve pitched in the big leagues and I know what I’ve needed to work on to improve my game.

… with a new changeup and similar fastball velocity.

Notably, Scott has tinkered with his changeup, a pitch he hopes can help him against left-handed batters (Scott held right-handed batters to a .532 OPS, but lefties produced a .942 OPS against him). Previously, Scott utilized more of a split-finger grip with his changeup. Now, he is using more of a traditional grip, he said.

“The in-zone percentage just wasn’t good enough with the split-finger before I got hurt,” Scott said. “Just being able to have a pitch that’s in the zone a little bit more and also moves a little bit better, in theory, is going to help me get more outs against left-handed hitters.

During his bullpen sessions, Scott’s fastball velocity has checked in around 94 mph, his average speed in 2024. At times, he said, he has recently flashed 96 mph.

Phillies

• Zack Wheeler could be rotation ready by Opening Day.

Philadelphia Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said on Foul Territory on Thursday that right-hander Zack Wheeler (shoulder) could have a chance to be ready for Opening Day in 2026, and that they aren’t expecting Wheeler to have any setbacks during his recovery this offseason from thoracic outlet surgery. “We’re hopeful it’ll [his return] be on the front end, which would even get him ready for Opening Day, but right now he’s doing very good,” Dombrowski said.