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With the Arizona Diamondbacks’ campaign now in the books, it’s time to look back at all the moves made by GM Mike Hazen over the course of the year, and see which ones worked out for Arizona, and which ones don’t. I’m going off the list of transactions here, which basically begins after the end of the last World Series. Oddly, it doesn’t include the re-signing of Zac Gallen, but I’d like to forget all about that as well…

The best

#1. Traded RHP Jack Martinez to the Cardinals, for Nolan Arenado and cash.

Arenado’s time with St. Louis had been a mixed bag. He had finished 3rd in MVP voting in 2022, but 2023-25 he had averaged barely two bWAR, while earning St. Louis between $20-27 million. They wanted out from under the remaining two years, so heavily discounted them for Arizona. We paid $5 million, and got a player worth 3.4 bWAR – his best season since 2022. Nolan hit 30 homers, had a 122 OPS+, and might be a nominee for his 11th Gold Glove. Meanwhile, his replacement in St. Louis, Nolan Gorman, was below replacement level. Arizona has Arenado for 2027 at a very reasonable $6 million, but even if he spontaneously combusted today, we’ve got our money’s worth.

#2. Signed Jonathan Loaisiga as a free agent.

The day before, the team inked relief pitcher Loaisiga to a minor-league contract with an invite to spring training, after the Yankees declined to exercise his $5 million option. The decision was described at the time as an “easy decision… New York simply can’t hold any sort of confidence in his durability moving forward.” But you wonder if they might think otherwise now. For Loaisiga made the roster out of spring, and was a key component in the renaissance of the Diamondbacks bullpen. He proved perfectly durable, pitching 67 times, posting a 2.42 ERA and 2.88 FIP across 67 innings, worth 1.7 bWAR. He’ll get guaranteed money this winter, and won’t be cheap.

#3. Signed Michael Soroka as a free agent.

As we headed towards Opening Day, it seemed that Soroka’s role would be a minor way. After the late signing of Zac Gallen, he was expected to start in the bullpen, and the anticipated return of Corbin Burnes looked set to push Michael further down the depth chart. But he ended up starting 21 games for the D-backs, and pitched very well in those. He has an ERA of 3.41 (a 121 ERA+), a FIP that was lower still (3.18), and trailed only Eduardo Rodriguez among Arizona pitchers by bWAR, at 2.2. Even with incentives which added an extra $1.35 million onto his base salary of $7.5 million, he still proved a very worthwhile investment by Hazen.

#4. Signed Taylor Clarke as a free agent.

Another essential Clarke in the Arizona bullpen was Clarke, whose 70.2 relief innings led all pitchers for Arizona. And that doesn’t include his two games as an opener. It was a return home for Taylor, who had been drafted by the D-backs back in 2015, and debuted with the team in 2019. He came back after four years in the Royals organization, and had a strong campaign, working to a 2.96 ERA, even if his final outing, against the Padres was probably not the one he’ll want remembered. He didn’t strike out many, but he walked even fewer. A sub-one WHIP for any reliever with that many innings is always a good thing.

#5. Traded Daniel Eagen, Brian Curley and Sandro Santana to the Cardinals for Lars Nootbaar.

There was a lot of disappointment at the trade deadline when this was the only significant move made by Hazen. But say what you like, Nootbaar did the job for which he was asked, with an OPS+ of 113 across 42 games. That job was to hit right-handed pitching, and at an OPS of .800, he had the highest numbers there among any of the dozen left-handed batters tried by Arizona – and mostly found wanting, the group collectively having an OPS of .664. In particular, the Noot was better than the D-backs Big 3: vs. RHP, Geraldo Perdomo was at .762, Corbin Carroll .727, and Ketel Marte only .688. Not bad for Nootbaar, though the prospect cost was higher than I’d like.

The bad

#5. Signed Max Kepler as a free agent.

This entry is a personal one. I mean, Kepler only played 41 games for Arizona: how bad could he be? Well, pretty damn bad, with a .565 OPS (58 OPS+), and so was swiftly cut. However, he should never have been signed to begin with, performance entirely aside. For the team inked Kepler while he was still serving an 80-game suspension, for a positive test in January for Epitrenbolone. He had shown no remorse and offered no explanation (not even the “ringworm” defense). But Arizona still opted to throw years of a laudable position. consciously avoiding unrepentant PED cheats out the window, for… -0.6 bWAR.

#4. Traded Jake McCarthy to the Rockies for Josh Grosz.

Was torn between including this, or the Blaze Alexander trade. But our utility infielders were good enough I didn’t really miss Blaze much. Obviously, Jake’s numbers were severely inflated by Coors: his OPS outside of Colorado was 159 points lower. But even that .727 road OPS would have been welcome on the D-backs, especially with him being a left-handed hitter (though McCarthy actually had reverse splits this season). If we still had Jake, we probably would not have needed either to sign Kepler, or trade for Nootbaar, and McCarthy’s outfield defense was likely superior to both. Add his 1.9 bWAR, take off Kepler, and it’s more than the gap by which we missed the playoffs.

#3. Signed Carlos Santana as a free agent.

A deal worth only $2 million probably doesn’t deserve as prominent a place. But it was symptomatic of the black hole which was first-base for the Diamondbacks. I’m not clear exactly what Hazen’s plan was for the position, but if it featured Santana – a 40-year-old coming off a 78 OPS+ season – it seemed poorly considered and doomed from the start. And lo, it was a complete disaster, particularly in the early going. In mid-June, 74 games into the season. Arizona’s first-basemen had a .561 OPS – no team had posted a figure that low since 1920. Things improved a little thereafter, but our 1B still finished at .636, dead-last in the majors, with Ildemaro Vargas getting most playing-time. Santana? 2-for-24 in eight games.

#2. Signed Merrill Kelly as a free agent.

Kelly wasn’t the worst starting pitcher on our books: you’ve probably already figured out who #1 here is. But unlike Gallen, he is also on the team’s books for 2027. We should perhaps have paid attention to the sharp fall-off late last year, after Merrill’s trade to Texas. His ERA for the Rangers was over a run higher than with the D-backs, and that trend continued into 2026. Merrill had an ERA of 4.94, a FIP of 5.32 and an overall value of just 0.3 bWAR. He cost Arizona $19 million this season, including the signing bonus, and will receive $21 million next year, CBA permitting. We can only hope for better. No, really. That’s all we can do: hope.

#1. Signed Zac Gallen as a free agent.

You are perhaps detecting a theme here. This feels like the infamous case where the D-backs beat catcher Jorge Fabregas in arbitration, and paid him what he wanted anyway. The team made Gallen a qualifying offer, he rejected it and entered free-agency. Then when none of the other 29 teams offered anything as good, we still gave it to him. We should have listened to the free-market, because Gallen was epically bad. His -1.7 bWAR was the lowest value posted by a starter for Arizona in over twenty years, since Russ Ortiz touched -1.8 in 2005. This will sting for a bit. Due to the deferrals in the deal – the only positive – he’ll get a check from the team for $4.675 million on July 1 of 2032, 2033, and 2034.

After their season ended with a loss to the Yankees in the AL Wild Card last week, Red Sox brass had a sit-down conversation with star slugger Willson Contreras.

“We actually had a great conversation, [manager Chad Tracy] and I, with Willson yesterday,” chief baseball officer Craig Breslow revealed in a press conference on Monday. “We met for over two hours and we talked about a whole host of things. Many of those things I will keep private just to protect, or preserve the relationship that we have, but it was incredibly constructive. Willson would be the right person to ask directly, but he spoke very, very highly of his time here.”

The conversation came on the heels of Contreras publicly stating his frustrations with Boston’s reliance on data to make decisions and doing a lip-zipping motion to demonstrate his feelings about Tracy pulling Sonny Gray early from their Game 2 season-ending loss.

Tracy has been widely criticized for his choice to pull both Payton Tolle and Gray early from their starts in the first and second Wild Card games, respectively. The Red Sox went on to get swept by the Yankees, outscored by a combined 18-2.

“Making decisions about data, about all the stuff we cannot do anything about it…At the end of the day, it’s not about data. It’s about executing the game plan,” Contreras said after Boston was eliminated last Wednesday.

Gray expressed his own frustration with Tracy’s decision to pull him after a mere 70 pitches.

“I think I’m the best pitcher in the American League going through the order a third time. I think that’s a fact,” Gray said after the game. “I would have liked to have been trusted in that moment.”

Tracy signed a three-year extension with the team before the conclusion of the season, removing his interim tag and keeping him with the club through the 2029 season.

There are several distinct and telling signs of a roster designed the way the Cincinnati Reds have put together theirs. The fabric of it, if you will.

Back in 2022, the front office decided to end the pursuit of playoff glory with the then-current iteration of players on the roster and instead invest in future runs. That meant cashing in on established players like Sonny Gray, Tyler Mahle, and Luis Castillo and instead turning their sights towards a future – one with younger players with more team control and fewer salary obligations.

That’s how teams dedicated to keeping their budget at a minimum work. They cash in on the players getting expensive and nearing free agency in order to collect younger, cheaper players with more years to grow into being big leaguers, with hopes the latter can form a new core on a much less imposing budget.

Here we are, though, with the Cincinnati Reds heading into the 2027 season with those then-future hopes of postseason glory still unrealized. However, the players they began assembling five years ago are now barreling into their own arbitration years, and the fabric of the roster is about to get more expensive in a new, different manner.

MLB Trade Rumors long ago created their own proprietary model for estimating the salaries of arbitration-eligible players, doing their best to unmask the otherwise nebulous process and reveal just what takes players from their league-minimum rates into their first big paychecks after they log the requisite amount of service time. And this winter, the Reds will have a full dozen players who’ll be going through that process (if not non-tendered), with nearly half their expected active roster expected to command a total of nearly $43 million.

That group is headlined by Elly De La Cruz, whom MLBTR estimates will command a salary of $7.9 million in his first trip through the arb process. The arbitration process leans heavily on straightforward production statistics like homers and steals, and obviously Elly – who just joined the 30-30 club for the first time – has logged those in spades. So, too, has Spencer Steer across his first four full years as a big leaguer, and he’s estimated to command a $5.7 million salary for 2027 that mirrors that of lefty Nick Lodolo behind Elly’s nearly $8 million mark.

Reds Arbitration Estimates

Tejay Antone – $1.5 million

Nick Lodolo – $5.7 million

Graham Ashcraft – $2.2 million

Tony Santillan – $2.5 million

Spencer Steer – $5.7 million

JJ Bleday – $4.8 million

Matt McLain – $4 million

Brandon Williamson – $1.3 million

Andrew Abbott – $4.5 million

Elly De La Cruz – $7.9 million

Oswaldo Cabrera – $1.1 million

Dane Myers – $1.5 million

All told, it’s a reflection of the larger problem facing the Reds. They have assembled a roster that’s aging into free agency and getting more expensive all while facing dwindling team control while having piled up not nearly enough wins for the expectations of the front office (or the fans). And now, the people pulling the strings get to decide if they want to pay the increased rates to keep this core around for another year or move on to younger, cheaper players (a la their 2022 strategy) in order to begin building towards some other far-off pipe dream.

In case you were sleeping under a rock, Drew Rasmussen gave the Yankees their worst performance in playoff history by nearly no-hitting them in Game 1 of the ALDS, including a (for them) record 23 swinging strikes, a feat all the more remarkable given that he didn’t pick up his tenth until the top of the fourth.

It was a dazzling outing, but here are my favorites from his night under the spotlight.

1. Top 1 – Ben Rice strikes out swinging.

This was the tone setter. After a cutter to what should have been Bronx star Ben Rice’s wheelhouse, Rasmussen fed two change ups that Rice whiffed on each time. Delicious.

2. Top 4 – Spencer Jones strikes out swinging.

Ok to show you this next pitch we need context, because the fourth inning is where Rasmussen settles in.

This video comes back late from the highlight grab by Simpson and nearly misses a ludicrous cutter. I can’t imagine what this must look like out of the hand for Spencer Jones, but it must have been houdini magic.

Seeing that, Rasmussen fed him another cutter in the zone to let him try and hit it — Jones couldn’t…

Rasmussen then follows it up with what might be my favorite pitch of the night, going up and in on Jones and completely blowing his mind. He sees another fastball, he knows he’s supposed to swing, and he doesn’t stand a chance, because this time it’s the four seam variety.

Brilliant.

3. Top 4 – George Lombard Jr. strikes out swinging

This is another sequence to be adored, in the following at bat. Rasmussen freezes Lombard with a cutter inside, fans him on a change low and away that Lombard did not stand a chance on, and then breaks out the four-seam again. This trick works on both hands.

It’s a bit textbook, but it’s also phenomenal pitch calling by Hicks.

4. Top 5 – Trent Grisham called out on strikes.

Grishamsaw three pitches this at bat and doesn’t take the bat off his shoulder, and if I’d been standing there I don’t know that I could have done more than wet myself. It was a change that drops in high and away, a cutter down and in, and then Rasmussen challenges Grisham with a sinker to make you think you need to hit the deck — but whips back into the zone. Yeesh.

5. Top 3 – Cody Bellinger strikes out swinging.

Ok, chronologically this should have been second, but I can’t help myself.

Why this one? It’s just so damn funny. The third inning is one of the few where Rasmussen struggled and he was feeding Bellinger above the zone, but the star outfielder couldn’t help himself and tried to get climb the ladder and hit this?? When he’d already whiffed outside the zone on a closer pitch??? What was he thinking?

The Tampa Bay Rays and New York Yankees are back at it tonight for the second game of the American League Division Series.

The two teams met up on Saturday for an epic pitcher’s duel. The Rays won thanks to a masterful performance from Drew Rasmussen, who came just four outs shy of throwing the 3rd no-hitter in MLB postseason history. Jonathan Aranda provided the lone run of the game as he launched a solo homerun off of Gerrit Cole. Meanwhile, the only hit the Yankees knocked on the night was off the bat of Austin Wells but thanks to a questionable baserunning decision and excellent Rays defense was thrown at third base to end the 8th inning. The ever dependable Bryan Baker set down the Yankees in order for a flawless 9th inning save to close out the Rays 1-0 victory.

Tonight, there could be another pitcher’s duel as the Yankee will send Cy Young favorite Cam Schlittler to the mound in hopes of evening up the series while the Rays will send out the AL Pitcher of the Month, Freddy Peralta, to try and notch another win closer to the ALCS.

It will be an extremely tough task for the Rays to mount any offense against Schlittler. Since making his Major League debut last July, the 25-year old right-handed pitcher has been the American League’s best pitcher. He finished the 2026 regular season with a 1.95 ERA | 2.56 FIP with a 31.4 K% and 6.4 BB% over 193.2 IP averaging roughly 6 IP per start. Since making his big league debut, Schlittler has accrued 7.5 fWAR which is 3rd among all pitchers while his 2.23 ERA is the lowest among all starters with at least 130 IP.

There isn’t a splits advantage to be found against Schlittler, who was equally dominant against both sides of the plate in 2026 with lefties faring slightly better but still only producing a .560 OPS (RHB had a .520 OPS). Lefties also struck significantly more (34.7%) compared to RHB (26.4%). Schlittler is nearly unhittable the first two times through the order but does wear down during the third trip through. It will be interesting to see how Aaroo Boone manages this if the two sides remain in a close late in the game.

For the Rays, Freddy Peralta has been excellent and everything they could have hoped for after acquiring him from the New York Mets at the trade deadline. The ace of the Brewers staff for several years, Milwaukee traded Peralta to the Mets this past offseason following a Cy Young caliber campaign. However, Peralta struggled mightily with the team from Queens during his brief tenure there in 2025 as he seemingly was unable to tap into all of the things that made him an ace in Milwaukee. That changed once the Rays acquired him at the trade deadline.

There were some growing pains over his first few outings, but the work was in motion and soon Peralta had rediscovered his fastball and developed a change-up to pair with it. This combined with an exceptional defense had led to a resurgence. Since the start of play on August 26th, Peralta has a 0.79 ERA | 2.78 FIP over 34 IP. That is the lowest mark in baseball over that time with his mound opponent, Cam Schlittler ranking 2nd with a 1.01 ERA.

The Rays offense was mostly quiet during game one as Gerrit Cole and the Yankees bullpen kept the lineup in check. They pitched around Junior Caminero and there were just a few opportunities to score on three walks and five hits.

The ceremonial first pitch tonight will be thrown by former Rays first baseman, Carlos Pena. The slugging first baseman still holds the single-season franchise record for most homeruns in a season and was an integral part of the team’s turnaround in 2008. After a year away in 2011, he returned in 2012 to one of the largest ovations in Tropicana Field history and promptly hit a grand slam in one of those magical baseball moments.

First pitch is slated for 8pm tonight on TBS.