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Major League Baseball’s general managers meetings start on Monday and run though Thursday in Las Vegas, a chance at a large chunk of the baseball world to congregate in one area. While these meeting don’t usually lend themselves to spurring transactions.

The winter meetings is usually the place where deals happen or start happening, but those might not even happen this year, with a lockout expected just after the collective bargaining agreement expires on December 1 at 8:59 p.m. PT.

Tarik Skubal is the big prize on the free agent market, but will he sign somewhere in these next three weeks before the darkness comes?

Five years ago, a handful of large deals got done just under the wire before the lockout. Corey Seager signed for $325 million with the Texas Rangers, Max Scherzer set a pitcher record for average annual value with his three years, $130 million with the New York Mets, and Kevin Gausman signed for five years, $110 million with the Toronto Blue Jays, among other deals.

The Dodgers’ big deal at the time was retaining Chris Taylor for four years, $60 million. Not every transaction pays off.

In a relatively week market and Skubal the clear top target, the right-hander is sure to command a princely sum with his next contract. Kiley McDaniel last week at ESPN said he expected Skubal to sign for somewhere between $325-400 million, surpassing Yoshinobu Yamamoto for largest total pitching contract ever if not also setting a new high mark for average annual value.

Jeff Passan at ESPN last week said, “the expectation is he will sign before the Dec. 1 lockout.” Both Passan and McDaniel listed the Dodgers and Mets as the top suitors for Skubal’s services.

Signing deals before the lockout suggest at least some confidence that such a deal would still work under whatever the labor landscape is under the next collective bargaining agreement. The owners have been angling for a salary cap for months, including in last week’s proposal which pushed back a salary cap to 2028, giving teams time to adjust. For a team like the Dodgers with the highest payroll in the sport, adding Skubal would make it harder to eventually reduce payroll to get under a potential cap, if there is one. Then again, Skubal is probably good enough to take the risk anyway.

Scott Boras, who represents Skubal and who represented Scherzer five years ago, talked with Andy McCullough at The Athletic in October about the coming offseason:

“For many teams, I can make an argument it’s clearly best for them to sign players currently, before the (new) CBA, than it is after,” agent Scott Boras said. “Because they have more freedom to do what they’re going to do. They can react later. Now they can get the talent. They can get what they want.”

At the very least, it would at least be funny to see the handwringing across the sport if the Dodgers were to sign Skubal, even if, as we saw in October, nothing is guaranteed.

Today’s question: When will Tarik Skubal signs his next contract? Pick the date that the deal becomes official.

In what promises to be a uniquely challenging winter, the Atlanta Braves will once again be in the market for starting pitching. Whether Alex Anthopoulos chooses to address the need for innings via free agency or trade, the Braves simply cannot afford to let this box on their offseason shopping list go unchecked.

Before we get started, let me be clear: pitching is not this club’s only need. A large portion of blame for the Braves’ most recent October ouster should be placed at the feet of a largely unproductive lineup. That is a group with its own set of needs and questions to answer.

Where will the Braves rotation get its innings from in 2027?

While Atlanta routinely finds ways to cover innings in the regular season, the rotation was routinely undone by untimely injuries in each of its past five trips to the postseason. There is no way to prevent or even predict the injury issues, but recognizing the possibility is essential. Failing to add proven reinforcements has certainly contributed to this annual issue.

After mixing and matching their way through bullpen-heavy usage this October, the Braves’ rotation situation moving forward appears to have reached a tipping point due to the uncertainty about several of their internal options and the lack of proven veterans after ace Chris Sale.

Anthopoulos stated his desire to add a playoff-caliber starter last winter. That need is once again front and center as the club looks to build a World Series contender.

On the surface, it would be fair to say Atlanta got more than adequate production from its rotation in 2026. Braves starters finished sixth in Major League Baseball with a 3.76 ERA, ranked 11th in innings pitched with 839.1 IP, and produced a composite 10.7 fWAR, which ranked 16th in baseball – Sale (5.8 fWAR) accounted for more than half of that, however.

Of course, Atlanta seems to traverse each winter with an ever-present uncertainty about the names that will comprise their starting five. The current lack of clarity underscores their need for continuity, consistency, production and upside. All of the above in some order.

Atlanta has a bevy of rotation candidates but just as many questions surrounding where the innings will actually come from and just what the quality of those innings will be. We’ll delve into roughly a dozen names, but many, if not most, come with conditional concerns.

The Braves simply cannot count on several of the in-house options that have been unable to stay healthy and contribute.

The Veterans: Chris Sale, Bryce Elder, Grant Holmes

Everything good about the Braves rotation starts with Chris Sale. They’re just hoping it doesn’t end there. Sale has been everything Atlanta could have imagined and then some since coming over from the Boston Red Sox in a trade in the winter of 2023.

In three seasons in a Braves uniform, Sale has pitched to a 2.36 ERA – tops in MLB since 2024 – while posting a 15.9 fWAR in 76 starts. Only Tarik Skubal (18.0) and Cristopher Sanchez (17.4) boast a higher fWAR, with each throwing significantly more innings than Sale (466 IP), who missed a couple of months in 2025 after suffering a fractured ribcage while diving to make a play. Sale, who is MLB’s all-time leader among pitchers with at least 2,000 innings with 11.1 K/9 during his 17-year career, has been even better with Atlanta. His 11.39 K/9 trails only Garrett Crochet (11.82) and Dylan Cease (11.59) over the past three years.

Sale led the Braves with 162.2 IP last season and will enter his age-38 season in 2027. While he is showing no signs of slowing down, can Sale continue to produce at a Hall of Fame level as he continues a career that should lead him to Cooperstown? Atlanta certainly needs him to.

Beyond their ace left-hander, the Braves received 300.2 IP from the righty combo of Bryce Elder and Grant Holmes. Holmes (151.2) actually ended up finishing second on the team in innings, due in part to Elder’s late-season knee surgery. He finished with 149 IP as a result. The two provided a 3.77 ERA across 55 starts, but that came along with a 4.68 FIP and 7.0 K/9.  

Holmes chose to rehab the torn UCL that ended his 2025 season in July rather than undergo Tommy John surgery that would’ve sidelined him for up to 18 months and cost him the chance to pitch at all last year. It would appear that decision was a sound one, but will he continue to hold a spot in the rotation for another full season?

Elder has been a bit of a rollercoaster ride since debuting in 2022. At his best, he’s a capable starter who takes the ball every fifth day and keeps the rotation on track. Unfortunately, the results aren’t always there and his performance can swing wildly from effective to erratic. Over the past two seasons, Elder led all Atlanta pitchers with 305 innings but turned in a 4.72 ERA and 2.1 fWAR in 54 starts.

Atlanta expects Elder to be ready to pitch in Spring Training, so he will likely factor into the plans in some form or fashion. Despite having surgery in September to clean up some bone fragments that caused swelling in his right knee, Elder was hoping to pitch again in 2026 had the Braves continued to advance in the postseason. Whether or not he would have is unclear and ultimately a moot point.

When he’s operating at the back end of the rotation, Elder is a serviceable starter for the most part. Where the team and Elder seem to run into trouble is when he is forced into a larger role.

The Unknowns: Spencer Strider, Spencer Schwellenbach, Reynaldo Lopez

Easily the most frustrating aspect of Atlanta’s rotation issues is the fact that two All-Stars and a third pitcher who was well on his way to establishing himself as a front of the rotation arm are all facing significant questions about their futures.

Spencer Strider, now 28 years old, was supposed to be well into his prime years as a staff ace. After an incredible rookie season, Atlanta signed Strider to a six-year, $75 million contract extension that runs through 2028 and includes a club option for 2029. He rewarded the club by winning 20 games in 2023 and leading the major leagues with 281 strikeouts – a new Braves franchise record. Strider appeared poised to lead the rotation for the remainder of the decade.

All of that momentum came to a screeching halt in 2024 when he was forced to undergo elbow surgery in April to correct an issue with his previously replaced UCL. Strider made just two starts that season and then missed an entire year. He returned in April of 2025 but has been enigmatic at best. With his arsenal clearly not playing the same, Strider has struggled to regain his form and avoid various injuries that cost him even more time over the past two years.

Last season, Strider made just eight starts and pitched to a 5.31 ERA. He allowed nine home runs in just 39 innings while posting a career-worst 4.6 BB/9. Strider’s fastball has become more hittable over the past three seasons as velocity dipped, leading to a decrease in four-seamer usage and reliance on secondary pitches that have not made up the difference in whiff rate.

Strider made his final start on June 12 against the Mets at Citi Field. He was rocked for seven earned runs and three homers in just three innings of work. He was pulled from the game after his fastball velocity suddenly dropped into the high-80s. Strider was examined for both elbow and shoulder soreness but no structural problems were found. He was placed on the injured list but eventually resumed throwing bullpen sessions by season’s end according to Anthopoulos. 

After missing the final 3 1/2 months of 2026 with elbow inflammation, the questions surrounding Strider are louder than ever. What version of Strider will we see going forward? Can he finally get his career back on track? How much can the Braves bank on his contributions in 2027?

Those same questions surround the future of Spencer Schwellenbach. 

The talented right-hander quickly established himself as one of the best young pitchers in baseball during his 2024 rookie season and appeared to be taking his game to the next level in 2025. Over the course of 234 innings in his first two years, Schwellenbach posted a 3.23 ERA (3.27 FIP) and fanned 235 batters while issuing just 41 walks. 

Schwellenbach works with a six-pitch mix, one of the many impressive things about the way he carved up opposing lineups. With his four-seamer touching 100 mph as 2025 wore on, it truly appeared everything was coming together for Schwellenbach. Then a fractured elbow put him on the shelf for the remainder of that season and kept him off the mound again in 2026.

After rehabbing the fracture, Schwellenbach encountered issues with the elbow again in Spring Training. He underwent surgery to remove bone spurs in February and encountered more pain when he ramped up throwing later in the season. After a lost season, Schwellenbach ultimately had a screw surgically inserted in his previously fractured elbow. This is a procedure that very few pitchers have returned from. That places even longer odds that Schwellenbach can resume his promising career.

Alex Anthopoulos had the following to say when updating the status and expectations for Strider and Schwellenbach as the team makes its pitching plans this winter.

“I think from a planning standpoint, I don’t think it’d be responsible to sit here and say those guys are going to start 30 games and throw 180 innings. So, that’s something we’re definitely going to have to account for and talk about where we’re going to get our innings for next season,” Anthopoulos said.

“I remember telling Grant Holmes last offseason at the beginning, how he progressed was going to tell us what his potential role would be and how we would bank him and so on in terms of anything. So, if you sit here today, I don’t think you’re going to see us come in and say that we expect [Strider and Schwellenbach] to be locks in the rotation with Sale.”

Another arm that the Braves cannot count on is Reynaldo Lopez. He turns 33 years old in January and enters the final year of a re-worked contract and is due $8 million next season. 

Lopez underwent shoulder surgery after making just one start in 2025. Upon returning this year, he struggled to regain his velocity, often citing mechanical adjustments as the main culprit. While Lopez occasionally showed flashes of the pitcher who turned in a 1.99 ERA in 25 starts during his All-Star campaign in 2024, he did not enjoy that kind of success.

After just five starts last season, the Braves shifted Lopez to the bullpen for two months. He returned to the rotation in late June and finished with a 4.54 ERA in 79.1 IP. The fastball velocity that was once routinely in the high 90s dipped to a career-low 94.4 mph on average with opponents batting over .300 against the pitch for the first time in his 11-year career.

Could he start for Atlanta in 2027? Sure, he could be asked to do so. Whether or not he should start may be the better question. If Lopez moves back to a relief role, there is a chance he could provide more benefit to the pitching staff. A successful reliever for several years before signing with the Braves, Lopez expressed a desire to start again and Atlanta was open to the idea and rewarded with a fine season in 2024. Given the shoulder surgery, lost time and inconsistent results that followed, Lopez simply may not be able to recapture that magic.

We’ll have more to talk about in a follow-up piece to this article tomorrow, so stay tuned for that.

Let’s do some free agent polls!

These polls are less fun when the Ray Davis is acting like he’s broke, but hey, let’s do some anyway.

We are starting with Jazz Chisholm, Jr. Chris Young wants the Rangers to get younger and more athletic? In the free agent market, Chisholm is one of the best bets there. He’s a year removed from a 30/30 season, and had a career high 41 stolen bases in 50 attempts in 2026 despite an overall down offensive season. He’s played second base since being traded to the Yankees by the Marlins, also has graded out well there via OAA, but also has experience in center field. The Rangers could look at putting him back in center field, or could put him at second base with Ezequiel Duran playing center.

The Yankees did not make a qualifying offer to Chisholm, which is somewhat surprising, and perhaps indicative of a desire by the team to move on.

This is a weird free agent market, and the projections are all over the map with many players, Chisholm included. On the high end, Baseball America has Chisholm at 3 years/$110 million or 7 years/$185 million. Over at Fangraphs, both Ben Clemens and the median crowdsource has Chisholm at 4 years, $92 million. Kiley McDaniel, meanwhile, has Chisholm at 2 years, $46 million with an opt-out. MLB Trade Rumors has Chisholm at 2 years, $40 million with an opt-out.

I’m going to go with McDaniel’s projection for the purposes in this poll, in part because I think the higher end offers are unlikely to materialize, and in part because if they do materialize, I don’t see the Rangers paying him in the neighborhood of $100 million or more.

So we ask you…would you want the Rangers to sign Jazz Chisholm, Jr. to a two year, $46 million deal with an opt-out?

Cast your vote below…

If anyone forgot that Blake Burkhalter made an appearance for the Atlanta Braves this season, they likely would not be alone. What he did this season is the definition of the term “cup of coffee” in the majors, one of a handful of players in the Braves organization with the same experience in 2026.

How Acquired

Blake Burkhalter was drafted by the Braves in the same draft class as JR Ritchie (2022), in the second round, out of Auburn University. He has been in the Braves system ever since. The highest he reached in the prospect rankings in his time was 14th by Baseball America.

Somewhat interestingly and/or tellingly, the Braves did not protect Burkhalter by adding him to the 40-man roster ahead of last year’s Rule 5 Draft. This suggests that either they didn’t think highly of him, or figured other teams wouldn’t. They were right, in that no one bothered to claim Burkhalter, and also in that they had little interest in using him at the big league level.

What were the expectations?

There were virtually no expectations at the MLB level for Burkhalter, and any that existed probably took a hit when he was left unprotected. Beyond hovering around the 40 FV area, Burkhalter had a rough go of it after being promoted to Triple-A in 2025, with an FIP of 4.82 and an xFIP of 5.43 (and an xERA in that same area) while working mostly as a reliever.

The presumption was that he’d need to show something in the way of better peripherals before being a candidate for the big league roster.

2026 Results

It was a true cup of coffee for Burkhalter. The truest, really. He was promoted to the big leagues when rosters expanded on September 1, he pitched one inning, and then he was sent down the next day. The end.

That inning featured one hit, one walk, one strikeout, and one run charged to him. The Braves were already trailing 5-2, and the two baserunners, along with a wild pitch and two flyouts, led to a sixth Nationals run via sacrifice fly. He did at least end on a high note with his strikeout of Daylen Lile.

His bigger action was in the minors, where he dealt with some injury stuff and a variety of rehab assignments. Working as a pure reliever in Triple-A, he pitched 29 2/3 innings over 21 appearances, with a 2.43 ERA that was belied by a 3.35 FIP and 4.37 xFIP. He did strike out a bunch of guys (about 27 percent of batters faced), but his walk rate was about as close to being double digits (9.8 percent) as possible without actually tripping that concerning threshold.

What went right?

What went right is that Burkhalter can now say he was an MLB pitcher. He made his debut and it was not a terrible one, though it wasn’t great either. Beyond that, you can point to his ERA in the minors, where he again outpitched his peripherals substantially. Maybe he’s got some kind of unique ability to do so, but the Braves don’t seem to buy it.

What went wrong?

The flip side to the above is that the Braves don’t seem to really believe in him — his “shot” was all of one inning even when the Braves were playing garbage time games over the last week of the season, and the Braves definitely haven’t been swayed by the low ERAs combined with poor peripherals that he’s shown at Triple-A in 2025-2026.

He’s on the 40-man roster now, but it remains to be seen whether he survives a winter of cuts and adds.

2027 Outlook

There is a very real chance that we see Blake Burkhalter at the MLB level at some point during 2027 for the Braves unless he is traded. After all, he’s on the 40-man, and the Braves love their yo-yos. As to whether he gets a legitimate shot to validate his ERA-over-his-peripherals (or crash out if he can’t), that seems a lot less likely. Maybe with some extra development, he can become a guy whom the Braves are comfortable using as a reliever, but we’re not there yet. For the time being, he projects as yet another replacement level reliever, and the Braves, for whatever reason, love to make waiver claims for those guys rather than filling the roster fringe with promotions from within.

Back from our week away. Huatulco, Mexico, is a nice area. Not over-developed yet (they are working at it, though). The people in the resorts are largely Canadian (it is hard to fly there from the States, but WestJet has direct flights from many cities). Still, a big topic of conversation was the US election.

We mostly stayed at the resort, ate and drank too much. We did take an outing to a cemetery for the Day of the Dead. It is a really nice idea, a day (really a week) for people to think about, talk about, loved ones who have passed. People dress up and dress up the grave sites. I talked for a couple of minutes to a fellow whose young son was buried there, and he seemed happy to have the chance to talk about him. I want to borrow the idea to have a day here to talk about friends and family who are gone.

They have tennis courts, but I only played once. 32 degrees for a guy with extremely white skin, is too much for any sort of physical activity.

Anyway, I stayed nicely away from any Jays news, not that there was much. And, though I brought my computer, I only turned it on once, because my wife wanted to look up something.

• Of course I saw the Anthony Santander comments. My personal feeling is that if you are being paid more money than God, and you have had 34 hits over two seasons, don’t say anything that gets your employer paying lawyers to search through your contract to see if it can be voided for stupidity. I’m being paid far less than God, and I’m sure if I posted something as dumb as he did, SB would fire me (very rightfully) in ten seconds.
• If it were up to me, I’d likely release Anthony now and eat the money. But I’d imagine the team will see how spring training goes.
• I did see a comment saying we should bring in Shari Lewis law. Everyone has to wear a sock puppet and sing that annoying song on and on. That I’m all for.
• A question for the Jays is: Do they give the players any media training? Could they maybe do a better job of it?
• No Jays players won a Gold Glove (I figured Vlad would), but we won the Team Gold Glove, which, around midseason, I would have said had no chance. But looking at the numbers, it does seem earned. This is the third time the Jays have won this award.
• Lazaro Estrada was signed to a minor league deal. Also Adrian Pinto, Hedbert Perez, Josh Stephan, Geovanny Planchart and Alexis Hernandez have been signed to minor league deals.
• Jake Bloss has been given another option year. Sometimes players get an extra option year if they use all three in their first five seasons of professional ball.
• Tonight we learn who the Rookie of the Year is in each league. Tomorrow Manager of the Year.

While these report cards are about looking back on someone’s season, it doesn’t entirely seem right in Trea Turner’s case. There was no injury or excuse for why he had the worst season of his career but the format for how we do these report cards doesn’t seem right.

Here is one way to look at it: Trea Turner has seven more years on his contract, with an average annual value over $27 million. He will enter his age 33/34 season in 2027 and is coming off the worst season of his career. The Phillies are still going to treat him like he’s a star player. He will play shortstop in 2027, albeit on thin ince. He will probably bat at the top of the lineup for most, if not all, of 2027 unless multiple players perform much better than him.

So instead of purely discussing what went right or wrong in 2026, the goal will be to put it all into context for what 2027 could look like. Is this a pure outlier? Is he cooked? The answer is probably somewhere in the middle.

2026 stats: 157 games, .242/.297/.378, .675 OPS, 15 home runs, 58 RBIs, 21 SBs, 21.0% K%, 6.9% BB%, 83 wRC+, 1.1 fWAR

What went right

Not a lot of things went right for Trea Turner but the physical markers are not in a terrible spot. He still ranks in the 98th percentile for sprint speed and he probably stole as many bases as he could with an on-base percentage below .300 and their two best hitters right after him for most of the season.

His 90th percentile exit velocity is roughly similar to his past at 103.6 mph, although a tick lower than in 2025. His bat speed looked normal as well. So the general surface-level physical markers we can use are not indicating he is physically cooked, at least not yet, but it doesn’t entirely tell the full story for him at the plate.

What went wrong

Trea Turner went from being good at making contact against velocity to not being good at it. His whiff rate against pitches 95+ jumped three ticks. His whiff rate against secondary pitches jumped over two ticks and his zone contact rate dropped roughly two ticks.

This all happened with Turner’s pull fly ball rate not spiking so it wasn’t like he was trying to sell out for power either. This is not some easy fix for anyone involved and why we should be very skeptical on 2026 being a complete outlier. He just might not be as good at making contact anymore.

Defensively is where a lot of concerns about 2026 will apply to 2027, at least initially. Trea Turner is going to be their shortstop to start next season. He finished with -10 outs above average at the most critical defensive position in the sport. He shouldn’t play another inning there but there are other factors that are leading to their decision.

With that said, his 2025 shortstop should’ve made him in the running for a Gold Glove but that is more of the outlier than the norm. He was below average at the position in 2023 and 24 with the Phillies, with similar questions about moving off the position. The game might be a little too fast for him at the position.

Luckily, he is someone that still profiles as a solid second baseman whenever he makes the transition. The athleticism is still there and second base would play better for his arm and likely his mind. He would be far from the first defensively challenged shortstop to make a comfortable transition to second base. It also helps that he spent two months at second with the Dodgers in 2021 and looked very good there.

Final Grade: F

He was bad, very bad and he needed to be a star. They gave him chance after chance to right the ship and he never got there. There is no other justified grade if we are purely going off of 2026.

As for what 2026 means for 2027 and beyond, if you combine his 2025 and 2026 slash lines, you get a .271/.325/.416 with a 100 OPS+. Drop a few points because of recency bias and you get roughly realistic expectations for Turner in 2027. Is that good enough to justify what they’re paying him and the role he will play in their 2027 success? No, not even close but that’s a conversation for a different day.

As for the defense? He is not a shortstop and eventually he cannot play shortstop for them. It would be wise to make it work with him at second base as soon as possible but it doesn’t quite have to be opening day of 2026. He can flip there at any point.

With a bounce back as a baserunner, you’re probably looking at a slightly below league-average hitter, miscast as a shortstop while being a very good base runner.

You all have mastered the art of commenting but can you name a former baseball player faster than your fellow commenters? That’s the challenge with in-5, our daily trivia game, and today we’re announcing the debut of the game in the SB Nation app (in-5 is available on the web too, you’ve probably seen it at the top of the site).

The rules are simple. You get five clues to guess a player’s name. The fewer clues you need the better. Once you’ve played, drop your score in the comments of the game post and see how you stack up.

It’s a good opportunity to see if you can beat the commenter we all know you want to beat. Maybe you get it in the coveted first clue, maybe it takes four. But share your score in the comments, whatever it is.

How to play: In-5 is a daily trivia game. You get five clues to guess a player’s name. The clues go from broadest to most specific.

Play other teams and sports: We’ve got four broader sport games for MLB, NBA, NFL, MMA, and pro wrestling, and we have 25 team-specific games across pro baseball, basketball, and football.

To play the general MLB game, follow our “MLB” community on the SB Nation app.