Mining the News (2/4/26)

Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images

• MLBTradeRumors posted an article on the players most likely to start the season on the 60-day IL. Here are their notes on the four Yankees to make the list.

Yankees: Clarke Schmidt, Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodón, Anthony Volpe

Schmidt is the only lock of this group. He required UCL surgery in July of last year and should miss the first half of the 2026 season. Cole is recovering from Tommy John surgery performed in March of last year. His target is expected to be late May/early June, so he has a decent chance to hit the 60-day. However, given his importance to the club, the Yankees probably won’t put him there until it’s certain he won’t be back by the middle of May.

Rodón had surgery in October to remove loose bodies in his elbow. He’s expected to be back with the big league club in late April or early May, so he would only hit the 60-day IL if his timeline is pushed. Volpe required shoulder surgery in October. He’s not expected to be ready by Opening Day, but his timeline beyond that doesn’t seem concrete.

American League

Mariners

• The team expects Cole Young to contribute this season.

President of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto hinted strongly on Seattle Sports’ Mariners Hot Stove Show this weekend that another move could yet be in the offing, telling host Shannon Drayer:

“There’s one more move that’s in us, that we want to make, and we’ve been grinding hard for the last handful of days to see if we can bring it through, and hopefully we do. … Our lineup took a huge step forward last year. Obviously we’ll be short a couple of bats that were there with us in Toronto to finish the season, but we get a full year of Josh Naylor. We get the upswing of our players as they get more exposure, especially Cole Young, who I think is going to break out for us this year. And I do hope there’s one more player coming along for the ride that might not be in a Mariners uniform just yet.”

That Dipoto quote is from before the Brendan Donovan trade, so that is likely the “one more move” he was referencing.

• Top prospect Colt Emerson has been taking reps at second base, third base, and shortstop.

Emerson, who’s just 20 years old but climbed three Minor League affiliates last year, has been working out at second base, third base and shortstop this offseason.

Red Sox

• Romy Gonzalez will see quite a bit of time at second base.

“The roster has changed,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora recently told reporters. “Willson [Contreras] is going to play every day [at first base]. Romy is going to play second, but we’ll probably expand his role defensively. We’ll get him back to playing the outfield a little bit. We’ve got to get him at-bats. If you look at all of the metrics — all of the good numbers — he hit the ball hard. He was up there with the big boys. He keeps getting better, which is the most important thing.”

Gonzalez was indeed impressive in what was a breakout season. Not only did the 29-year-old infielder slash .305/.343/.483 with a 123 wRC+ over 341 plate appearances, he finished in the 99th percentile for hard-hit%, the 79th percentile for barrel%, and the 95th percentile for average exit velocity.

One concern going forward is the splits: Gonzalez logged a 162 wRC+ versus left-handed pitchers and a 95 wRC+ versus same-sided pitchers. Rather than a regular, he might best be utilized as a multi-positional lefty-killer. Based on Cora’s comments, as well as his slightly below average defensive metrics, that seems the most likely scenario.

While Gonzalez crushes lefties (career 137 wRC+), he’s acceptable (95 wRC+) against righties.

Royals

• Seth Lugo wants to throw his fastball more.

One of those things has been fastball command and using the pitch more after continually increasing his breaking-ball usage in recent years. Lugo spins the ball as well as anyone, and his manipulation of pitches has made him one of the most unique pitchers in the league. But he thinks all those breaking balls have allowed hitters to not worry about his fastball as much. Lugo threw fastballs 49.8 percent of the time in 2025, his lowest fastball usage since 2018 (48.9 percent) when he was mainly a reliever with the Mets.

“I think over the past couple of years, all the breaking balls that I like to throw, it kind of gave me a reality check — we’ve got to use your fastball,” Lugo said. “We’ve got to command the fastball. Get up when I need to. So that’s been my focus.”

White Sox

• Luisangel Acuña will play center field.

Acuña came over from the Mets in the Robert deal. He’s a .248/.299/.341 hitter in 233 MLB plate appearances but never had consistent playing time in New York. Acuña has primarily been a middle infielder in his career, but he’s also playing a good amount of center field in the Venezuelan Winter League. He has plus-plus speed that could be an asset in the outfield. Jon Heyman of The New York Post writes that Acuña is likely to get an opportunity to step directly into Robert’s role as Chicago’s primary center fielder.

• The team expects newly acquired David Sandlin to be part of the rotation.

“To get two arms like that that can help our Major League club this year, it just made a lot of sense and that’s why we went ahead and made the deal,” said Getz during a Sunday evening Zoom following this weekend’s SoxFest Live activities. “When it comes to David Sandlin, he’s a guy we believe has mid-rotation if not better type arsenal and stuff.

“He’s worked his way up to the upper Minors and he’s going to come into Spring Training and compete for a spot. Most importantly, he’s got a chance to really impact our starting rotation this year.”

Here are the stats on Sandlin’s pitches in AAA.

National League

Dodgers

• Blake Snell might not be ready by Opening Day.

Snell, for example, made just two starts last season before left shoulder inflammation forced him to the IL. He did not pitch again until August and has since admitted he was not 100 percent in the World Series. It’s plausible the Dodgers are especially careful with his workload to open the spring.

• Mookie Betts lost 2 mph of bat speed last year.

Betts has lost about 2 mph on his swing since Statcast began tracking bat speed in 2023, from 71.3 mph to 69 mph in ’25. Even at its highest, his bat speed only ranked in the 38th percentile among qualified players in ’23, a season in which he led all position players with 8.6 bWAR and finished second in NL MVP voting. He’s capable of being an elite hitter without elite bat speed, but other factors — like a career-low 35.8% hard-hit rate — could have compounded his issues at the plate in ’25.

Betts’ early-season illness could have contributed to those metrics, so coming into the new season in a healthy condition could feasibly go a long way toward a bounceback year. Another factor that should help him is that he should not need to allocate as much of his offseason work to his defense.

• River Ryan says his fastball is sitting 98 mph to 100 mph.

The good news for Ryan is that he appears to have retained his velocity on the other side of elbow surgery; in December, he told Dodgers Nation that he was sitting in the 98-100 mph range during his most recent live sessions. Ryan spent last season strengthening his shoulder, and thinks his fastball is in a “really, really good” spot.
…
Ryan isn’t done, either. He teased that he’s added a seventh pitch to his arsenal, another “strikeout option” that he can turn to when needed. Speculatively, because of his spin profile, that could be a sweeper, something to throw off the plate and away to righties.

Last time Ryan threw in the majors (2024), his fastball averaged 96 mph. He averaged 96 mph to 97 mph in two AAA stops. A near 3 mph bump in velocity, if true, would be huge.

• Dalton Rushing is making his swing, his swing … whatever that means.

Rushing also said his offseason work was built around making his swing his swing, not a version that depends on constant reps. “That was a big focus this offseason,” he explained, “just understanding that if you can kind of build your swing as your swing and you know what swing’s going to play, you don’t have to really worry that you’re going to be at the disadvantage not seeing pitches in three to four days.”

Giants

• The team says that the closer job is up for grabs.

[Ryan] Walker tells Susan Slusser of The San Francisco Chronicle that he’s hoping to win the job, though it seems like it’ll be an open competition in Spring Training. “As we sit here today, I think we’re hoping that Ryan Walker can get back to his 2024 form. But without discussing it with Tony in depth, I guess the way that I would see it now is that we’ll see who steps up,” Posey told reporters (including Slusser). “We’re not coming into this season necessarily with one guy that we say, ‘You are going to be the closer.’ There’s a chance that somebody takes the reins and does slot in to that closer role as we get into the season, but right now I wouldn’t say that there’s one person that we’re targeting for the ninth inning.”

Padres

• Fernando Tatis Jr. found a mechanical issue behind last season’s struggles.

Tatis also thinks he pinpointed his issues from last year that could spark a step forward.

“Mechanical [issues], more than anything else. But it’s actually more about trusting the process,” Tatis said. “I definitely feel like that’s behind us now though. This year is going to be really special.”

• Gavin Sheets is the team’s favorite for the first base job.

Stammen and Preller both stated that Gavin Sheets, who was a pleasant surprise in 2025 with a .746 OPS and 19 home runs, is the early favorite to land the first-base job. Preller, however, alluded to possibly finding a right-handed bat that could complement the left-hander against tougher lefty pitchers.