Mining the News (10/13/25)

Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images

American League

Angels

• Logan O’Hoppe is going to be the team’s main catcher after struggling in 2025.

To this day, the Angels view O’Hoppe as their guy, said Angels GM Perry Minasian. When he comes into spring training next season, he won’t need to earn the job.

“Logan had a tough year, there’s no sugarcoating that,” Minasian said. “But yes, we believe Logan can catch. It’s a really tough position. To break in a young catcher takes time. I’m expecting a better Logan O’Hoppe.”

Guardians

• Bo Naylor made several in-season swing adjustments.

Naylor made several in-season mechanical adjustments to better engage his lower half at the plate, which included switching from a leg kick to a toe tap in August. He slashed .290/.324/.548 over 19 games in September.

• Chase DeLauter will not play in the Arizona Fall League.

Initially set to play in the Fall League for the third straight year, DeLauter is instead spending the offseason focusing on his body and his conditioning ahead of Spring Training — when he will be readying himself to make his (official) MLB debut.

• Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz will play winter ball.

Antonetti said the club has no choice but to move forward as if neither [Ortiz and Clase] will remain in the organization. Both are working out with a winter ball club, and the team has no say in whether they can or cannot pitch there, despite the injury risks for any active pitcher.

• Steven Kwan dealt with wrist soreness during the season.

Left fielder Steven Kwan, who dealt with nagging right wrist soreness throughout the season, is expected to recover with rest, not surgery.

• David Fry needed facial surgery.

The initial hope was David Fry would avoid surgery following the scary moment on Sept. 23 when he was struck in the face by a Tarik Skubal pitch. But he underwent a procedure in Cleveland on Tuesday for a deviated septum and a fractured nose.

Orioles

• Tyler O’Neill is going to get his experts and train.

O’Neill knows what he’s going to do in the offseason.

“I’m going to get in the gym,” he said. “I’m going to work really hard in there. I’m going to trust my training program, trust the experts around me. I’m gonna have a facility to myself and a batting cage to myself, just the way I like it, so I‘ll be able to get good work in throughout the months of the wintertime. It’ll be a good situation. I’m really looking forward to it. Coming into next year, a lot of motivation to want to produce and be more available.”

O’Neill said he’d consider changing his winter workout regimen.

“It’s more like adding onto the pile, per se, and then just finding a balance of not overworking on a daily basis with certain things,” he said. “I don’t really want to get into the specifics of that, but like I said, that’s why I have experts around me who I can rely on and put myself in a good position throughout the wintertime and come into spring training strong next year.”

Rangers

• Jake Burger needed wrist surgery.

Fenstermaker also announced that first baseman Jake Burger had successful wrist surgery at the end of the regular season. After 6-8 weeks of downtime, Burger is expected to progress normally through the rest of the offseason and be prepared for Spring Training.

Burger endured three IL stints this season, all for different injuries: June 21-July 2 with a left oblique strain, and July 16-Aug. 7 with a left quadriceps injury before Aug. 18-Sept. 1 with the wrist that he ultimately played through for the rest of the year.

• Cody Bradford should be healthy by Spring Training.

Bradford didn’t pitch in 2025 due to an elbow injury that arose in Spring Training and ultimately led to UCL surgery. Rehab is going well, and should be full-go by Spring Training, though the timeline is to be determined as he continues his recovery from there.

Red Sox

• Connor Wong had surgery on his hand.

Red Sox catcher Connor Wong went under the knife for a right hand carpal boss excision. The procedure, which the team described as “successful,” was performed earlier this morning by Dr. Matthew Leibman at Mass General Brigham Hospital. The Red Sox have not yet provided further details about the timeline for Wong’s recovery.

Tigers

• Gleyber Torres will have hernia surgery.

Following Friday’s 3-2 loss in Game 5 of the American League Division Series, Torres announced that he will undergo a procedure to repair a sports hernia on his right side. The Tigers second baseman said the issue has caused him significant pain for most of the second half of the season.

The typical recovery period for core surgery is around two months of rest and rehab.
…
“It was not really good. From the [start of the] second half, I was in a lot of pain,” Torres admitted shortly after the Tigers bowed out of the postseason following the 15-inning loss to the Mariners at T-Mobile Park. “[The trainers and medical staff did] a really good job keeping me playing. It’s not about numbers, it’s about playing every day, and we do whatever we do at the moment to keep playing every day.”

Yankees

• Aaron Judge might have surgery on his elbow.

Aaron Judge on his elbow: “We’ll definitely do some work on it and get it right.”

Does that mean surgery?

“I’m not a doctor. I don’t know.”

— Chris Kirschner (@ChrisKirschner) October 9, 2025

• Anthony Volpe might need shoulder surgery.

Anthony Volpe was asked if he anticipates needing shoulder surgery:

"I don't know. I anticipated playing another month and then reassessing then. So nothing's [decided] … we're going to figure it out."

— Bryan Hoch ⚾️ (@BryanHoch) October 9, 2025

• Spencer Jones is ready for the majors, but there is no spot for him on the team.

Yankees general manager Brian Cashman has said that if Jones were in another organization, he might have already been promoted.

“He’s earned his way to be up here, but there’s no spot to put him right now,” Cashman told MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM in September. “So let’s get through our winter, see what that looks like and get him into Spring Training. But he should take a bow; he has made his adjustments, he’s learned and grown and showed he’s capable of fighting through things.”

National League

Cardinals

• MLB.com’s John Denton thinks JJ Wetherholt will be the team’s starting second baseman to begin the season.

The Cards chose not to elevate Wetherholt — ranked as the No. 5 overall in baseball by MLB Pipeline — even though spending the final month of the season at the MLB level likely would have been beneficial to him.

Still, the club views him as an almost can’t-miss prospect because of the completeness of his arsenal as a hitter. He can spray the ball and drive it, he can hit at the top of the lineup or even in the middle, and he seems unfazed by velocity or spin.

The guess here: Wetherholt is the team’s starting second baseman and leadoff hitter on Opening Day.

Cubs

• Justin Steele expects to make an “early-season” return from surgery.

LHP Justin Steele
Injury: Left elbow
IL date: April 9 (transferred to 60-day IL on April 23)
Expected return: 2026
Status: Underwent season-ending surgery (left ulnar collateral ligament revision repair) on April 18. Steele is on target to begin throwing in October with an eye toward an early-season return in ’26.

Diamondbacks

• Jordan Lawlar will play center field in winter ball.

Lawlar will head to the Dominican Republic this month to play winter ball and will get a look there, not just at third base but in center field to see if that might be an option for him next year.

• Brandon Pfaadt implemented several changes in the season but still wants to improve his slider.

Pfaadt adjusted his arsenal this season by adding a cutter, lowering his four-seam/sweeper usage and increasing his use of changeups, curveballs and sinkers. The sinker-cutter combination allowed him to split the plate and find answers against both lefties and righties, something to build on as he won’t have to depend as much on the four-seamer.

A big deal, however, was that the sweeper was not nearly as effective as a putaway pitch for Pfaadt this season, as opponents hit .284 with a .370 wOBA (weighted on-base average) against it. Those numbers were .215 and .292 last year, respectively, plus the whiff rate dropped from 36% to 33%.

In general, Pfaadt did not draw enough swings and misses with his breaking balls.

“ I think the slider, that was kind of hit-or-miss all year,” Pfaadt said. “Tightening that up first will go a long way. That’s my best pitch …  Just wasn’t moving the right way and we had to resort to other stuff.”

Dodgers

• Roki Sasaki didn’t take the team’s advice for a while, but once he did, he was able to get his velocity back.

Sasaki applied the corrections. It took time, the Dodgers admit, for Sasaki to open up to outside input. The right-hander has brought his crew of confidants and advisors through every part of his acclimation to the majors. Being receptive to new ideas required trust.

“There’s been moments where he’s like, ‘No, I feel really convicted in this,’” pitching coach Mark Prior said in August when asked how Sasaki was taking feedback. “Obviously, that’s their decision. … I think ultimately we’ll find out once we start facing real hitters in real situations and then you find out really where that openness, where that line is, good and bad.”

“Any new player that you acquire, it takes a little while to build up trust,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman added. “We didn’t try to push it too early. We knew that he was a guy that was accustomed to doing things a certain way and we were going to embrace that.”

Sasaki threw a bullpen session with the changes in mind, notably bending his back leg at the start of his delivery. That locked everything else into its old place and forced Sasaki to be more athletic and less robotic in his delivery. The velocity jumped. His command improved. This was the Sasaki he knew, the version baseball executives fell in love with.

Here is Sasaki’s fastball velocity by month/postseason.

Time Frame: FBv (mph)
Apr: 96.4
May: 94.8
Sep: 99.2
Playoffs: 99.9

Giants

• Luis Matos and Marco Luciano are out of minor league options.

Do you see Luis Matos and/or Marco Luciano on the roster in 2026? — John A.

Both players will be out of options next spring. They’re on the team or potentially claimed on waivers. I don’t see either player as a roster fit as we sit here right now.

Mets

• Kodai Senga’s body changed after his hamstring injury and is not the same.

Regardless of what the team does this winter, Senga should be able to pitch his way back into the rotation if he’s performing well. But that’s a big “if” for a soon-to-be-33-year-old who said his body “changed” after his hamstring injury, adding: “After you come back from injury, you’re not the exact same as you were before.”

• Reed Garrett will need Tommy John surgery.

RHP Reed Garrett
Injury: Right elbow sprain
Expected return: 2027
Status: After getting a second opinion, Garrett underwent Tommy John surgery on October 8. He will likely be eligible for arbitration as a Super Two player this offseason, forcing the Mets to make a financial decision about his future.

Nationals

• Cade Cavalli will spend the offseason cleaning up his arsenal.

“I’m excited to go clean up this arsenal that I’ve been learning with this year,” Cavalli said. “… [I’m] ready to go organize it, refine it, make it better, and hopefully get better and help the club next year.”

Padres

• Joe Musgrove may throw some winter ball.

“We’ll have to re-map everything out, plan for Spring Training being my return,” Musgrove said. “There’s the possibility of throwing some winter ball in the offseason, just to see how it feels, get some live looks. But I don’t have a good idea.”

• Yu Darvish will need to continue to manage elbow inflammation.

Darvish, meanwhile, missed the first half of the 2025 season with right elbow inflammation, an injury he still has to manage.